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      Aid to Ukraine and Israel in doubt as House speaker says he won’t support deal

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      The prospects for the US Congress approving new aid to Ukraine as well as military assistance to Israel worsened on Friday after the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said he was unlikely to support a deal under negotiation in the Senate that is considered crucial to unlocking the funds.A bipartisan group of senators have for weeks been looking for an agreement to implement stricter immigration policies and curtail migrant arrivals at the southern border with Mexico, which have surged during Joe Biden’s presidency. Republicans have named passing that legislation as their price for approving aid to Ukraine, whose cause rightwing lawmakers have soured on as the war has dragged on and Donald Trump, who has been ambivalent about sending arms to Kyiv, draws closer to winning the Republican presidential nomination.While the precise details of the immigration bargain have yet to be released, Johnson told his Republican colleagues in a letter that “if rumors about the contents of the draft proposal are true, it would have been dead on arrival in the House anyway”.Underscoring his stridency on the topic, Johnson reiterated his demand that the Democratic-controlled Senate vote on the Secure the Border Act, a hardline proposal that would essentially resurrect Trump’s immigration policy by restarting construction of a wall on the border with Mexico and forcing asylum seekers to wait in that country while their claim is processed.He also announced the chamber would move ahead with its plan to impeach the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, whom Republicans have accused of mishandling border security.“When we return next week, by necessity, the House Homeland Security Committee will move forward with Articles of Impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas. A vote on the floor will be held as soon as possible thereafter,” Johnson wrote.The speaker’s demands cast into further doubt on Congress’s ability to find agreement on reforming the immigration system – which has for decades been one of the most intractable issues in Washington – as well support two countries the Biden administration considers national security priorities. The United States has been the top funder of Kyiv’s defense against the Russian invasion that began in February 2022, and after Hamas’s 7 October terror attack against Israel, Biden argued in an address from the Oval Office that the two country’s causes were linked, and asked Congress to approve aid to both, as well as funds for Taiwan and to further secure the border.Johnson responded by having House Republicans approve a bill that would fund aid to Israel alone and also cut the Internal Revenue Service’s budget, boosting the federal deficit. Democrats, who control the Senate, have rejected both that measure and the Secure the Border Act, leaving the bipartisan immigration reform negotiations as the last avenue remaining to win approval of Ukraine aid.Congresses and presidents since the days of George W Bush have tried and failed to reform the US’s system for admitting workers and immigrants. The long odds of the latest negotiations succeeding were underscored on Wednesday when Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, told his lawmakers that because Trump wanted to campaign on immigration reform, he doubted that the party would support any agreement that emerges from the talks.“We are in a quandary,” McConnell said, according to Punchbowl News. “The politics of this have changed.”Senators from both parties expressed outrage, with Chris Murphy, the main Democratic negotiator in the talks, saying: “I hope we don’t live in a world today in which one person inside the Republican party holds so much power that they could stop a bipartisan bill to try to give the president additional power at the border to make more sense of our immigration policy.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe following day, Politico reported that McConnell changed his tone, telling Republicans in a meeting that he still supported the talks. But the damage may well have been done.The GOP’s control of the House means that Republicans may have the votes to impeach Mayorkas, and, at some point, Biden, whom the party has also opened an inquiry against. But the Senate’s Democratic leaders are almost certain to reject the charges against the homeland security chief, who has used his appearances before Congress to describe the country’s immigration system as “broken” and urge reforms.On Friday, the top Democrat on the homeland security committee sent a letter to its Republican chair, Mark Green, objecting to the charges against Mayorkas, noting that the House hasn’t voted to approve the impeachment and that Green had reportedly promised donors months ago that he’d go after him.“Nothing about this sham impeachment has abided by House precedent, but all of it has been done to reach the predetermined outcome you promised your donors last year,” the committee’s ranking member, Bennie Thompson, wrote. More

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      US border policy deal within reach despite efforts by Trump to derail it, senators say

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      Congressional negotiators said a border deal was within reach on Thursday, despite efforts by Donald Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill to derail the talks.With the fate of US aid for Ukraine hanging in the balance, the outlook for border compromise had appeared grim following reports on Wednesday night that the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, was walking away from a compromise that he suggested could “undermine” Trump’s chances in a November general election against Joe Biden. But by Thursday afternoon, senators involved in the discussions were insisting that the opposite was true: an agreement was within reach and legislative text could be released in the coming days.Referring to Trump as the “nominee”, McConnell reported told Republicans in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday night that “politics on this have changed”, according to a report in Punchbowl News. With Trump as their likely standard bearer, he suggested that it would be unwise to move forward with a bipartisan immigration bill that could possibly neutralize one of Biden’s biggest vulnerabilities. “We don’t want to do anything to undermine him,” McConnell said, referring to Trump.“That’s like parallel universe shit,” Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican of North Carolina involved in the negotiations, fumed to reporters on Thursday. “That didn’t happen.”It would amount to a surprising about-face for McConnell, a strong supporter of sending aid to Ukraine and no friend of the former president, who has leveled racist broadsides against McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, and mercilessly disparaged the Republican leader as an “old crow”.Walking through the Capitol on Thursday, McConnell told Bloomberg News that the immigration talks were “ongoing”. Later he reportedly assured his confused conference that he was “fully onboard” with the negotiations, and brushed off reports that suggested otherwise.The proposal under discussion in Congress would have changed immigration policy to discourage migration. It would include major concessions from Democrats on immigration in exchange for Republican support on passing military assistance to Israel and Ukraine, a country whose cause the party’s far right has turned against.But the politics of a deal have only become more challenging as Trump consolidates support from Republican officials in what many view as his inevitable march toward the GOP nomination.On social media, Trump implored Mike Johnson, the arch-conservative House speaker, not to accept a deal “unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions and Millions of people”.Failure to strike a deal would have global implications, with the Pentagon warning that Ukrainian soldiers on the frontlines of its grinding war with Russia risk running out of ammunition. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has said the “future of the war in Ukraine” and the “security of our western democracy” depend on Congress reaching an agreement.Biden had requested tens of billions of dollars from Congress to send aid to Ukraine and Israel as well as to allies in the Asia Pacific region. But the funding package has been stalled for months in Congress amid Republican demands for dramatic changes to border policy.View image in fullscreenSenate Republicans who support the border talks said the party should seize the opportunity to address the record rise of people arriving at the US southern border, a situation both parties and the White House have described as a crisis.“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump,” the Utah senator Mitt Romney, a Republican who has pressed his party to approve military aid for Ukraine, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday. “And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling.”He continued: “The reality is that we have a crisis at the border, the American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border. And someone running for president ought to try and get the problem solved as opposed to saying: ‘Hey, save that problem. Don’t solve it. Let me take credit for solving it later.’”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEven in less contentious times, immigration remains one of the thorniest issues in American politics, and efforts to reform the nation’s outdated system have failed repeatedly. But as an unprecedented number of people fleeing violence, poverty and natural disasters seek refuge at the US-Mexico border, the issue has become top of mind for many Americans who overwhelmingly disapprove of the Biden administration’s handling of the matter.Trump has already made immigration a central issue of his campaign, outlining a draconian vision for his second term that includes mass raids, detentions camps and more funding to build his long-promised wall along the border with Mexico.Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have argued that a bipartisan deal would only serve to give Biden political cover without actually solving the problem. Others argue that the Senate plan was designed to force the hand of the Republican-controlled House, where the speaker is under pressure from the far-right flank of his party not to compromise on the issue.At a press conference earlier this week, the Texas senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, denounced the proposal, the details of which have not yet been released, as a “stinking pile of crap” that “represents Senate Republican leadership waging war on House Republicans”.Cruz alleged that the negotiators involved cared only about supporting Ukraine and not fixing the issues at the southern border.If a deal falls apart, Schumer and Biden will be forced to look for alternative legislative paths to approving aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. But with Republicans demanding border security measures in exchange for their votes, it remains far from certain that tying the aid to must-pass spending bills or bringing it to the floor as a standalone measure would garner the necessary 60 votes in the Senate.The world will likely know soon whether a deal is possible, the Connecticut senator Chris Murphy, one of the Democratic negotiators, told reporters on Thursday.“I think the Republican Congress is going to make a decision in the next 24 hours as to whether they actually want to get something done or whether they want to leave the border a mess for political reasons,” he said. More

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      Biden campaign calls for investigation of New Hampshire robocalls impersonating US president – as it happened

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      Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has called on New Hampshire authorities to investigate a spate of robocalls to voters in which a voice that sounds like the president encourages them not to participate in Tuesday’s primary.Biden’s name is not appearing on the primary ballot, since Democrats have decided to hold their first nominating contest in South Carolina next month. But some in the party are encouraging their voters to write in the president’s name, both as a show of support and to pressure the Democratic National Committee to give New Hampshire, which has historically been the second state to vote, a more prominent role in the nominating process.In a statement, Biden-Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said:
      This matter has already been referred to the New Hampshire Attorney General, and the campaign is actively discussing additional actions to take immediately. Spreading disinformation to suppress voting and deliberately undermine free and fair elections will not stand, and fighting back against any attempt to undermine our democracy will continue to be a top priority for this campaign.
      Nikki Haley made the most of the hours remaining before tomorrow’s primary in New Hampshire, crisscrossing the Granite state alongside governor Chris Sununu in a bid to lure votes away from Donald Trump. But polls continue to show the former president with a big lead, underscoring the difficulty Haley will have in overcoming his status as the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.Trump is expected in New Hampshire later today, after appearing this morning in a New York City courtroom for a hearing in author E Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against him, where he was set to testify. The session was unexpectedly adjourned after a juror felt ill, and one of Trump’s lawyers was exposed to Covid-19.Here’s what else happened today:
      Kamala Harris assailed Trump for his role in overturning Roe v Wade on the 51st anniversary of the supreme court decision that allowed abortion access nationwide.
      Nikki Haley has avoided talking much about abortion, even though she has signalled she would be fine with restricting the procedure federally. Some voters who support abortion rights are fine with that.
      Judge Judy delivered her verdict on the presidential race by stumping for Haley in New Hampshire.
      Elise Stefanik, who is seen as potential running mate for Trump, said the adjournment of his defamation trial was “blatant election interference”. In reality, it was requested by the former president’s legal team.
      Someone is making robocalls to New Hampshire voters that sound like Joe Biden and encourage them not to vote in Tuesday’s primary, prompting the president’s re-election campaign to call for an investigation.
      As she blitzes the state, Nikki Haley talks about keeping taxes low, the military strong and the border secure. One issue she does not mention: abortion.On the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade, Joe Biden and Democrats across the country are railing against Republicans, calling them “anti-abortion extremists” who would impose a federal ban on the procedure if they win back power this fall.Haley calls herself “pro-life” but has promised to seek consensus as president. In Iowa, where evangelical Christians dominate the caucuses, Haley signaled her willingness, if elected, to sign any restrictions that reached her desk.But in comparatively moderate New Hampshire, she has mostly shut down inquiries about what kind of federal limit she would support, insisting that any legislation is purely theoretical without 60 votes in the Senate – as she told one curious onlooker at a stop in Epping on Sunday.Across the state, several pro-choice independent voters said the risk of a Trump presidency worried them more than Haley’s views on abortion.“I’ve long ago accepted that I can’t agree with a candidate on everything,” said Carole Alfano, an independent who met Haley at the campaign stop in the town of Epping. “We’ll part ways on that.”Alfano backed Biden in 2020, but plans to support Haley in Tuesday’s primary.In Derry, Marie Mulroy is ecstatic about the prospect of a Haley nomination even though she believes abortion should remain legal.“We’ll agree to disagree on that,” she said.Can Nikki Haley pull a shock win in New Hampshire out of the bag?She’s the last candidate standing against Donald Trump, after Florida governor Ron DeSantis exited the race and endorsed the former president on Sunday. Host of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast Jonathan Freedland headed out on the campaign trail in the Granite state to find out the answer:Joe Biden’s re-election campaign marked Roe v Wade’s 51st anniversary by debuting an advertisement in which Texas obstetrician-gynecologist Austin Dennard discusses how she had to leave the state to get an abortion after finding out that her fetus would not survive.Who’s to blame? Donald Trump, as Dennard makes clear. Expect to see tons of this sort of messaging coming from the campaigns of the president and other Democrats over the coming months:On the 51st anniversary of the supreme court’s Roe v Wade decision, Kamala Harris attacked Donald Trump for his role in appointing justices who overturned the precedent and allowed states to ban abortion.The vice-president spoke during a visit today to Wisconsin, a battleground state that will be crucial to deciding the outcome of the November election. Democrats plan to campaign on restoring access to abortion, after the 2022 decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization that curtailed abortion access in many states.Harris did not hold back from assailing the former president, citing his comments that he was “proud” of his role in getting three justices confirmed to the court, all of whom voted to overturn Roe. Here’s what she had to say:Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has called on New Hampshire authorities to investigate a spate of robocalls to voters in which a voice that sounds like the president encourages them not to participate in Tuesday’s primary.Biden’s name is not appearing on the primary ballot, since Democrats have decided to hold their first nominating contest in South Carolina next month. But some in the party are encouraging their voters to write in the president’s name, both as a show of support and to pressure the Democratic National Committee to give New Hampshire, which has historically been the second state to vote, a more prominent role in the nominating process.In a statement, Biden-Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said:
      This matter has already been referred to the New Hampshire Attorney General, and the campaign is actively discussing additional actions to take immediately. Spreading disinformation to suppress voting and deliberately undermine free and fair elections will not stand, and fighting back against any attempt to undermine our democracy will continue to be a top priority for this campaign.
      David Scanlan, the New Hampshire secretary of state, predicted Republican voter participation in the primaries will reach 322,000, eclipsing 2016’s total, when Republicans set a record of 287,652 votes. In 2020, it was Democrats who saw record turnout for their competitive primary, with 300,368 votes cast.Before a deadline in October, as many as 4,000 registered Democrats changed their party affiliation to “undeclared,” suggesting some plan to vote in the Republican primary.A Monmouth University Poll-Washington Post poll released today found that the number of registered New Hampshire independents who plan to vote in the Republican primary increased from 52% in November to 63%.More than a third of these voters said they voted for Biden in 2020, suggesting there could be a “measurable influx of Democratic-leaning independents” who will participate in Tuesday’s primary.In a conversation on Friday, Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire GOP chairman and prominent Trump opponent, said he did not see evidence that Haley had “lit a spark” among these voters in the way that might foretell “some kind of surge coming her way.”“People turn out when they are inspired, or they’re pissed off,” said Cullen, who had seen Haley on the campaign trail four times. “What we’re seeing is that people are not inspired, and they’re apathetic. And that means that they don’t show up.”New Hampshire’s secretary of state David Scanlan is predicting record turnout in the Republican primary, while governor Chris Sununu is joking that he is cashing in all of his political capital to ensure balmy weather for voters headed to the polls on Tuesday.That would be a stark contrast from Iowa, where arctic temperatures were blamed for the low turnout last week. Recent polling has shown Trump with a double digit lead in the state. But New Hampshire has a record of unpredictability, thanks to the large number of voters who proudly belong to neither party. They are not a monolith, but analysts believe that the more of them who choose to vote in the Republican primary, the better for Haley.“The only big X factor I see: how big is turnout?” said Dante Scala, a professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of New Hampshire.According to Scala, Haley is attempting something novel in New Hampshire. Republican presidential candidates who have pulled off wins in New Hampshire – such as John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 – managed to appeal to the state’s independents while still pulling in a sizable chunk of the party faithful. (Independents, called “undeclared” voters in New Hampshire, can vote in either party’s primary.)This year, Trump has a lock on Republican base voters. To win, or even to come within striking distance of Trump, Scala said Haley will need to run up the score with these independent voters, some of whom could choose to vote in the sleepy Democratic primary or not at all if they feel the contest is a foregone conclusion.Scala said Haley’s test is whether she “inspired enough people to show up, who don’t normally show up, to get a turnout big enough that it swamps the Trump people and your mainstream Republican in New Hampshire.”Joe Biden spoke to UK prime minister Rishi Sunak on Monday about Gaza, Ukraine, and the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, White House spokesperson John Kirby said, AFP reported.From White House correspondent for AFP Danny Kemp:Judy Sheindlin, widely known as Judge Judy, told CNN on Monday that she would endorse Nikki Haley if she “were a frog”.During the interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Judge Judy was asked if the reason she endorsed Haley was because Haley is a woman.“No, I would support her if she were a frog,” said the ever-colorful Sheindlin.“She’s capable. She’s poised,” Sheindlin added.Sheindlin said that neither Trump nor Biden have the “intellectual gravitas” to be US president.According to Sheindlin, she has only endorsed one presidential candidate before –the former New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, during the 2020 presidential election.Sheindlin has campaigned for Haley ahead of the highly watched New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.Nikki Haley is making the most of the hours remaining before tomorrow’s primary in New Hampshire, crisscrossing the Granite state alongside governor Chris Sununu in a bid to lure votes away from Donald Trump. But polls continue to show the former president with a big lead, underscoring the difficulty Haley will have in overcoming his status as the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump is expected in New Hampshire later today, after appearing this morning in a New York City courtroom for a hearing in author E Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against him, where he was set to testify. The session was abruptly adjourned after a juror felt ill, and one of Trump’s lawyers was exposed to Covid-19.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Judge Judy delivered her verdict on the presidential race by stumping for Haley in New Hampshire.
      Elise Stefanik, who is seen as potential running mate for Trump, said the adjournment of his defamation trial was “blatant election interference”. In reality, it was requested by the former president’s legal team.
      Someone is reportedly making robocalls to New Hampshire voters that sound like Joe Biden and encourage them not to vote in Tuesday’s primary. Supporters of a campaign to write in his name – he is not appearing on the ballot, in line with Democratic National Committee rules – say the calls are meant to undermine them.
      Donald Trump is clearly smarting from the ongoing defamation lawsuit against him by author E Jean Carroll, and a jury’s verdict last year that he sexually abused her. As the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports, his campaign yesterday barred a NBC News reporter who had pressed his ally Elise Stefanik for her thoughts on the verdict:Donald Trump’s presidential campaign reportedly blocked an NBC News journalist from covering campaign events in New Hampshire on Sunday.Sunday’s exclusion of NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard came when he was set to serve as a pool reporter. Instead of having a pack of reporters follow a candidate everywhere, campaigns will often allow television, print, and radio news organizations to send a single pool reporter to travel with them – and those reporters in turn then send a readout to other news outlets.But on Sunday, Hillyard wrote in an email to the pool: “Your pooler was told that if he was the designated pooler by NBC News that the pool would be cut off for the day.”The email, which was subsequently published by several news organizations, added: “After affirming to the campaign that your pooler would attend the events, NBC News was informed at about 2.20pm that the pool would not be allowed to travel with Trump today.”Hillyard a day earlier had pressed New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik – said to be a potential Trump running mate – on whether she believed the ex-president had sexually assaulted E Jean Carroll.NBC News and Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, did not immediately return a request for comment.You don’t have to be Joe Biden for someone to make a robot of your likeness. As the Guardian’s Dan Milmo reports, Democratic congressman and presidential candidate Dean Phillips has his own AI impersonator:OpenAI has removed the account of the developer behind an artificial intelligence-powered bot impersonating the US presidential candidate Dean Phillips, saying it violated company policy.Phillips, who is challenging Joe Biden for the Democratic party candidacy, was impersonated by a ChatGPT-powered bot on the dean.bot site.The bot was backed by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Matt Krisiloff and Jed Somers, who have started a Super Pac – a body that funds and supports political candidates – named We Deserve Better, supporting Phillips.San Francisco-based OpenAI said it had removed a developer account that violated its policies on political campaigning and impersonation.“We recently removed a developer account that was knowingly violating our API usage policies which disallow political campaigning, or impersonating an individual without consent,” said the company.The Phillips bot, created by AI firm Delphi, is now disabled. Delphi has been contacted for comment.A factor working against Nikki Haley in her quest to win the New Hampshire Republican primary is Donald Trump’s resounding victory in last week’s Iowa caucus.His triumph in the first state to vote in the GOP’s nomination process confirmed his status as the frontrunner for the nomination. But election turnout was low in the Hawkeye state, a fact Haley was keen to remind voters of in New Hampshire:Nikki Haley is spending the final moments before New Hampshire’s make-or-break primary getting out the vote with the state’s popular Republican governor, Chris Sununu by her side.“This is it. Twenty-four hours to go,” Sununu told the crowd at a packed, dimly lit veteran’s hall in Franklin. “All the momentum is at Nikki Haley’s back.”He told the voters not to pay any mind to the polls – unless it’s the ones showing Haley trouncing Joe Biden in a general election – and reminded them of their fiercely guarded reputation as the state that delivers political upsets.“We always buck the trend in New Hampshire,” he said. “It’s going to start tomorrow.”Haley reminded voters of the stakes of tomorrow’s primary – not that they needed any reminding, since some say they’ve received upwards of 10 campaign mailers a day in recent weeks, in addition to the political ads flooding the airwaves.“Don’t complain about what happens in a general election if you don’t play in this primary tomorrow,” she charged. “It matters.” More

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      Biden signs measure to avert shutdown but Ukraine aid remains frozen

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      Joe Biden signed a measure to keep the US government funded on Friday but as Washington shivered under its second major snowfall in a week, the bill did not unfreeze funding for Ukraine.Hard-right House Republicans, led by the speaker, Mike Johnson, are ensuring the chances of more money and weapons for Kyiv in its fight with Moscow hinge on negotiations for immigration reform.On Wednesday, the president welcomed Johnson and other senior Republicans, as well as Democratic leaders, to the White House for talks.Though the meeting ended with the two sides still short of agreement on immigration and the southern border, Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, said he was optimistic a deal could be struck and aid to Ukraine thereby put back on the table.“Once Congress avoids a shutdown, it is my goal for the Senate to move forward to the national security supplemental as soon as possible,” Schumer said. “Our national security, our friends abroad, and the future of democracy demands nothing less.”Biden said a “vast majority” of members of Congress supported aid to Ukraine.“The question is whether a small minority are going to hold it up, which would be a disaster,” Biden added, speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday.Johnson, however, told reporters: “We understand that there’s concern about the safety, security and sovereignty of Ukraine. But the American people have those same concerns about our own domestic sovereignty and our safety and our security.”Many observers suggest Republicans do not want a deal on immigration and the southern border, instead using the issue, and the concept of more aid for Ukraine, as clubs with which to attack Biden in an election year.“The GOP is more interested in nursing grievances and stoking anger than actually solving problems,” Eugene Robinson, a Washington Post columnist, wrote. “That’s exactly what Donald Trump has trained them to do.”Robinson went on to quote the Texas congressman Troy Nehls, who this month told CNN: “Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating. I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man’s dismal approval ratings. I’m not going to do it. Why would I?”Amid such familiar dysfunction, one slightly dystopian possibility stood out: Democrats, senior party figures said, might provide the votes to keep Johnson as speaker – against a likely rebellion from his right – should he bring any Senate deal on immigration to the House floor, thereby putting Ukraine aid back on the table.“Our job is not to save Johnson but I think it would be a mighty pity, if he did the right thing … for us not to support him,” Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the House homeland security committee, told Politico. “Up to this point, he’s been a fairly honest broker.”In October, Democrats could have saved Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, from becoming the first speaker ever ejected by his own party – but chose not to.Whether stoked by Trumpist isolationism or by equally Trumpist authoritarianism, and therefore preference for Vladimir Putin and Moscow, resistance to aid for Ukraine remains strong among Republicans in Congress.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut the party is not united. On the presidential campaign trail, Trump’s closest challenger for the Republican nomination, the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley, told voters in New Hampshire on Thursday that though the US did not “need to put troops on the ground anywhere … what you do have to do is deter.“There’s a reason the Taiwanese want the US and the west to support Ukraine. Because they know if Ukraine wins, China won’t invade Taiwan.”Haley also linked Ukraine aid to helping Israel against Hamas – another issue awaiting discussion should immigration talks succeed.In the House, Michael McCaul, chair of the foreign affairs committee, tried a more emotive tactic, appealing to Republicans’ better angels – or at least to their foreign policy traditions.Johnson, McCaul told the Post, “is going to have to make a hard decision about what to do. If we abandon our Nato allies and surrender to Putin in Ukraine, it’s not going to make the world safer, it’s going to make the world more dangerous … [Ronald] Reagan would never have surrendered to the Soviet Union. Maybe that’s a shift in our party.”Most observers would suggest that it is, Republicans long having surrendered to Trump. In his own contribution to the debate over whether to do a deal on immigration and get back to supporting Ukraine, Trump struck a predictably harsh note, clearly meant to stiffen Johnson’s spine.“I do not think we should do a border deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION”, the former president wrote on his social media platform.“Also, I have no doubt that our wonderful speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, will only make a deal that is PERFECT ON THE BORDER.” More

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      Former Republican candidate Tim Scott to endorse Donald Trump ahead of New Hampshire primary, reports say – as it happened

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      South Carolina’s Republican senator Tim Scott will endorse Donald Trump, according to a new report from the Hill.On Friday, a source familiar with Scott said that the senator, who pulled out of the 2024 presidential race last fall, will endorse Trump on Friday evening.In separate report released by Vanity Fair on Friday, multiple sources said that Trump has been calling Scott in attempts to win his endorsement ahead of next month’s primary in South Carolina, which is also the home state of Trump’s opponent Nikki Haley, who was previously the state’s governor.The report of Scott’s endorsement of Trump comes as the ex-president prepares to rally in New Hampshire this weekend ahead of the state’s primary next week.Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      Anti-abortion activists gathered in Washington DC on Friday as part of the March for Life campaign. The rally comes ahead of the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade, which brought national reproductive rights to the country, and ahead of the two-year anniversary of the supreme court’s decision to strike it down.
      Donald Trump has renewed his mistrial request in E Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him. In a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing the case, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said that Carroll’s actions “severely prejudices the president Trump’s defense [sic] since he has been deprived of critical information relating to critical evidence which plaintiff has described to the jury”.
      In response to whether the White House would publicly support a testimony from the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, before the House Armed Services Committee over his recent hospitalization, White House spokesperson John Kirby said: “That’ll be a decision for the secretary of defense and he has to make that decision … I’m not going to get into personal and private discussions that the secretary has had with the president of the United States.”
      Joe Biden has signed a stopgap government funding bill. The bipartisan legislation narrowly avoided a government shutdown at the 11th hour.
      South Carolina’s Republican senator Tim Scott will endorse Donald Trump, according to a new report from the Hill. On Friday, a source familiar with Scott said that the senator, who pulled out of the 2024 presidential race last fall, will endorse Trump on Friday evening.
      Joe Biden has approved the debt cancellation for another 74,000 student loan borrowers across the country. The latest announcement brings the total number of people who have had their debt cancelled under the Biden administration to 3.7 million.
      Former 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang has endorsed the presidential bid of Minnesota’s Democratic representative Dean Phillips. Calling himself a former “campaign surrogate for Joe [Biden]” at a campaign event on Thursday, Yang said: “Dean Phillips is the only one with the courage, the character and conviction to go against the grain, to go against the legion of followers in Washington DC.”
      Donald Trump is trying to convince allies of Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis that the Republican race for a presidential nominee is over, according to a new report by Vanity Fair. As Trump continues to face mounting legal troubles, the ex-president is reported to have been pressuring Haley and DeSantis to drop out of the race.
      Maryland’s Democratic representative Jamie Raskin has pushed back against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal for a Palestinian state, writing in a statement on X:
      Ideological extremism is destroying prospects for peace. Most Americans will support a pragmatic peace strategy to free the hostages, provide aid to the population of Gaza, launch the two-state solution and put Hamas terror & right-wing fanaticism behind us.
      The Guardian’s Carter Sherman is at the March for Life rally in Washington DC where anti-abortion activists are protesting ahead of the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade.Here are some of her dispatches:Donald Trump has renewed his mistrial request in E Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him.In a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing the case, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said that Carroll’s actions “severely prejudices the president Trump’s defense [sic] since he has been deprived of critical information relating to critical evidence which plaintiff has described to the jury”.Earlier this week, Trump complained loudly in the Manhattan courthouse during Carroll’s testimony, making comments including “It is a witch-hunt” and “It really is a con job” to his lawyers.In turn, Kaplan threatened to remove Trump from the courtroom, to which Trump replied: “I would love it, I would love it.”While speaking at a briefing, White House spokesperson John Kirby answered a question on whether the White House would publicly support a testimony from defense secretary Lloyd Austin before the House Armed Services Committee over his recent hospitalization.Kirby said:
      That’ll be a decision for the secretary of defense and he has to make that decision … I’m not going to get into personal and private discussions that the secretary has had with the president of the United States. They have spoken as recently as late last week. As you have heard the president say himself, he has full trust and confidence in Secretary Austin and his leadership at the Pentagon and that will continue.
      In a letter to Austin on Thursday, Mike Rogers, a Republican representative from Alabama who chairs the committee, said that he is “alarmed” over Austin’s recent hospitalization.He added: “I expect your full honesty and cooperation in this matter. Anything shot of that is completely unacceptable.”Here is where the day stands:
      Joe Biden has signed a stopgap government funding bill. The bipartisan legislation narrowly avoided a government shutdown at the 11th hour.
      South Carolina’s Republican senator Tim Scott will endorse Donald Trump, according to a new report from the Hill. On Friday, a source familiar with Scott said that the senator, who pulled out of the 2024 presidential race last fall, will endorse Trump on Friday evening.
      Joe Biden has approved the debt cancellation for another 74,000 student loan borrowers across the country. The latest announcement brings the total number of people who have had their debt cancelled under the Biden administration to 3.7 million.
      Former 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang has endorsed the presidential bid of Minnesota’s Democratic representative Dean Phillips. Calling himself a former “campaign surrogate for Joe [Biden]” at a campaign event on Thursday, Yang said: “Dean Phillips is the only one with the courage, the character and conviction to go against the grain, to go against the legion of followers in Washington DC.”
      Donald Trump is trying to convince allies of Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis that the Republican race for a presidential nominee is over, according to a new report by Vanity Fair. As Trump continues to face mounting legal troubles, the ex-president is reported to have been pressuring Haley and DeSantis to drop out of the race.
      Anti-abortion activists are gathering in Washington DC today for the annual March for Life campaign.This time the event takes place ahead of the 51st anniversary, on Monday, of the supreme court’s ruling in Roe v Wade in 1973 that brought in the national right to an abortion in the US, and ahead of the two-year anniversary of the current, right-leaning supreme court striking down Roe in 2022.Joe Biden and Kamala Harris plan to highlight the depletion of reproductive rights, which is proving a vote-loser for Republicans, on the 2024 campaign trail next week, amid high Democratic party spending on related ads, Axios reports.The Guardian’s Carter Sherman is in the cold and snowy capital and will be sending a dispatch. Meanwhile, she’s on X/Twitter with vignettes.The move follows the House of Representatives passing the short-term spending bill late on Thursday, sending the legislation to the president’s desk with just two days left before government funding was to run out, in the latest nail-biter.The bipartisan legislation averted a government shutdown that would have begun at one minute past midnight tonight.The bill, which represents the third stopgap spending measure of this fiscal year, will extend government funding at current levels until 1 March for some government agencies and until 8 March for others.The House vote came hours after the Senate approved the bill in a vote of 77 to 18, following bipartisan negotiations that stretched into late Wednesday evening. The Senate majority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, praised the bill as a vital measure that would allow lawmakers more time to negotiate over full-year appropriations bills.“Avoiding a shutdown is very good news for the country, for our veterans, for parents and children, and for farmers and small businesses – all of whom would have felt the sting had the government shut down,” Schumer said in a floor speech. “And this is what the American people want to see: both sides working together and governing responsibly. No chaos. No spectacle. No shutdown.”You can read more on the passage of the legislation last night, from my colleague Joanie Greve, here.The Associated Press is also now reporting that Tim Scott of South Carolina is expected to endorse Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for president ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. It would be a blow to Scott’s fellow South Carolinian Nikki Haley, who was Trump’s pick for ambassador to the United Nations during his presidency.The New York Times was first to report the story today, noting it would “spur more talk” of Scott’s prospects as Trump’s vice-presidential pick.The AP news agency also further reports:
      A person familiar with Scott’s plans confirmed Friday to The Associated Press that Scott would travel from Florida to New Hampshire with the GOP front-runner.
      The person spoke on the condition of anonymity due to not being allowed to discuss the plans publicly.
      Scott launched his own bid to challenge Trump last May before shuttering his effort about six months later. Trump has been appearing on the campaign trail with several other former rivals who have endorsed him, including North Dakota governor Doug Burgum and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
      Scott’s endorsement was sought by the remaining major contenders in the Republican primary, particularly ahead of South Carolina’s February 24 primary, which has historically been influential in determining the eventual nominee.
      Haley appointed Scott to the Senate in 2012.
      South Carolina’s Republican senator Tim Scott will endorse Donald Trump, according to a new report from the Hill.On Friday, a source familiar with Scott said that the senator, who pulled out of the 2024 presidential race last fall, will endorse Trump on Friday evening.In separate report released by Vanity Fair on Friday, multiple sources said that Trump has been calling Scott in attempts to win his endorsement ahead of next month’s primary in South Carolina, which is also the home state of Trump’s opponent Nikki Haley, who was previously the state’s governor.The report of Scott’s endorsement of Trump comes as the ex-president prepares to rally in New Hampshire this weekend ahead of the state’s primary next week. More

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      US Senate passes stopgap bill to avert government shutdown

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      The Senate voted on Thursday to extend current federal spending and keep the government open, sending a short-term measure to the House that would avoid a shutdown and push off a final budget package until early March.The House is scheduled to vote on the measure and send it to Joe Biden later in the day.The stopgap bill, passed by the Senate on a 77-18 vote, comes after a bipartisan spending deal between the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, this month and a subsequent agreement to extend current spending so the two chambers have enough time to pass individual spending bills.The temporary measure will run to 1 March for some federal agencies whose approved funds were set to run out on Friday and extend the remainder of government operations to 8 March.Johnson has been under pressure from his right flank to scrap the budget agreement with Schumer, and the bill to keep the government running will need Democratic support to pass the Republican-majority House. Johnson has insisted he will stick with the deal as moderates in the party have urged him not to back out.It would be the third time Congress has extended current spending as House Republicans have bitterly disagreed over budget levels and some on the right have demanded steeper cuts. The former House speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted by his caucus in October after striking an agreement with Democrats to extend current spending the first time. Johnson has also come under criticism as he has wrestled with how to appease his members and avoid a government shutdown in an election year.“We just needed a little more time on the calendar to do it and now that’s where we are,” Johnson said on Tuesday about the decision to extend federal funding yet again. “We’re not going to get everything we want.”Most House Republicans have so far refrained from saying that Johnson’s job is in danger. But a revolt of even a handful of Republicans could endanger his position in the narrowly divided House.The Virginia representative Bob Good, one of eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, has been pushing Johnson to reconsider the deal with Schumer.“If your opponent in negotiation knows that you fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement more than they fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement, you will lose every time,” Good said this week.Other Republicans acknowledge Johnson is in a tough spot. “The speaker was dealt with the hand he was dealt,” said the Kentucky congressman Andy Barr. “We can only lose one vote on the majority side. I think it’s going to have to be bipartisan.”The short-term measure comes amid negotiations on a separate spending package that would provide wartime dollars to Ukraine and Israel and strengthen security at the US-Mexico border. Johnson is also under pressure from the right not to accept a deal that is any weaker than a House-passed border measure that has no Democratic support.Johnson, Schumer and other congressional leaders and committee heads visited the White House on Wednesday to discuss that spending legislation. Johnson used the meeting to push for stronger border security measures while Biden and Democrats detailed Ukraine’s security needs as it continues to fight Russia.Biden has requested a $110bn package for the wartime spending and border security. More

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      Republicans’ bid to hold Hunter Biden in contempt appears to be suspended

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      Efforts by House Republicans to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress appear to be in suspension following new discussions with his attorneys that could lead to the president’s son testifying in the near future.The development follows Biden’s surprise appearance at a congressional oversight committee meeting last week during which the Republicans complained he was refusing to make himself available in defiance of their subpoena for closed-door testimony.The panel, in parallel with the judiciary committee, voted to progress contempt resolutions to the full House anyway.Now both resolutions are on hold as both sides seek cooperation over a new date for him to testify in the Republican-led impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. It follows lawyers for Biden writing to the chairs of both committees, Republicans James Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio, stating their subpoenas were “legally invalid” because they predated December’s House vote authorizing the impeachment push, NBC News reported.Both chairs said they would issue new subpoenas, the network said, and were willing to recommend delaying the contempt vote if Biden “genuinely cooperated … and worked to set a date for a closed-door deposition”.Biden had previously insisted he would be willing to testify to the committees only in open session, but his attorneys have since said they would accept new subpoenas to give evidence in private.“If you issue a new proper subpoena, now that there is a duly authorized impeachment inquiry, Mr Biden will comply for a hearing or deposition,” his lead lawyer, Abbe Lowell, wrote to Comer and Jordan.“We will accept such a subpoena on Mr Biden’s behalf.”Lowell did not immediately respond to a request for further comment, NBC said, but an oversight committee spokesperson’s comments to the network on Tuesday suggest negotiations have advanced.“Following an exchange of letters between the parties on January 12 and January 14, staff for the committees and lawyers for Hunter Biden are working to schedule Hunter Biden’s appearance,” the spokesperson said.“Negotiations are ongoing this afternoon, and in conjunction with the disruption to member travel and canceling votes, the House rules committee isn’t considering the contempt resolution today to give the attorneys additional time to reach an agreement.”Republicans want Biden’s testimony as they look into unproven allegations of corruption involving his father, with Democrats accusing them of seeking it in private because they know there is no evidence that would implicate the president.“We are here today because the chairman has bizarrely decided to obstruct his own investigation and is now seeking to hold Hunter Biden in contempt after he accepted the chairman’s multiple public offers to come answer the committee’s questions under oath before the American people,” the Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin told last week’s oversight hearing.The meeting quickly descended into farce when Biden appeared in the company of his lawyers, and Democratic members pleaded with Comer to let him testify, to no avail.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLowell held a gaggle with reporters outside the committee room after Biden walked out just as the firebrand Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene was rising to speak.“Republican chairs … are commandeering an unprecedented resolution to hold somebody in contempt who has offered to publicly answer all their proper questions. The question there is, what are they afraid of?” he said.Democrats see the contempt moves against Biden, and the “baseless” impeachment inquiry against his father, as part of a wider effort to smear the president as he seeks re-election later this year.In a separate development reported by NBC, Hunter Biden’s Hollywood attorney, Kevin Morris, is scheduled to speak with members of the House oversight, judiciary and ways and means committees for “transcribed interviews” on Thursday.Biden pleaded not guilty to federal tax charges in Los Angeles last week, prosecutors alleging he engaged “in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4m in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019”.Morris has emerged as a key figure and “fixer” in Biden’s California troubles and appeared at his side in Congress last week.According to NBC, Morris began advising Biden in 2020 and arranged to pay about $2m outstanding tax obligations to the IRS during the following two years. More

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      Senate votes against Sanders resolution to force human rights scrutiny over Israel aid

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      US senators have defeated a measure, introduced by Bernie Sanders, that would have made military aid to Israel conditional on whether the Israeli government is violating human rights and international accords in its devastating war in Gaza.A majority of senators struck down the proposal on Tuesday evening, with 72 voting to kill the measure, and 11 supporting it. Although Sanders’ effort was easily defeated, it was a notable test that reflected growing unease among Democrats over US support for Israel.The measure was a first-of-its-kind tapping into a decades-old law that would require the US state department to, within 30 days, produce a report on whether the Israeli war effort in Gaza is violating human rights and international accords. If the administration failed to do so, US military aid to Israel, long assured without question, could be quickly halted.It is one of several that progressives have proposed to raise concerns over Israel’s attacks on Gaza, where the Palestinian death toll has surpassed 24,000 and Israel’s bombardment since Hamas launched attacks on it on 7 October has displaced most of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents.“We must ensure that US aid is being used in accordance with human rights and our own laws,” Sanders said in a speech before the vote urging support for the resolution, lamenting what he described as the Senate’s failure to consider any measure looking at the war’s effect on civilians.The White House had said it opposed the resolution. The US gives Israel $3.8bn in security assistance each year, ranging from fighter jets to powerful bombs that could destroy Hamas tunnels. Biden has asked Congress to approve an additional $14bn.The measure that Sanders proposed uses a mechanism in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which Congress to provide oversight of US military assistance, that must be used in accordance with international human rights agreements.The measure faced an uphill battle. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress oppose any conditions on aid to Israel, and Joe Biden has staunchly stood by Israel throughout its campaign in Gaza, leaving Sanders with an uphill battle. But by forcing senators to vote on the record about whether they were willing to condition aid to Israel, Sanders and others lawmakers sparked debate on the matter.The 11 senators who supported Sanders in the procedural vote were mostly Democrats from across the party’s spectrum.Some lawmakers have increasingly pushed to place conditions on aid to Israel, which has drawn international criticism for its offensive in Gaza.“To my mind, Israel has the absolute right to defend itself from Hamas’s barbaric terrorist attack on October 7, no question about that,” Sanders told the Associated Press in an interview ahead of the vote.“But what Israel does not have a right to do – using military assistance from the United States – does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people,” said Sanders. “And in my view, that’s what has been happening.”Amid anti-war protests across the US, progressive representatives including Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Barbara Lee and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called for a ceasefire. In a letter to the US president, many of these lawmakers stressed that thousands of children had been killed in the Israeli bombings.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSpeaking from the Republican side before the measure was introduced on Tuesday evening, South Carolina senator Lindsay Graham said that Hamas, the Islamist group, has “militarized” schools and hospitals in the territory by operating amongst them.Israel has blamed Hamas for using hospitals as cover for military purposes, but has not provided definitive proof backing its claims that Hamas kept a “command center” under Gaza’s main al-Shifa hospital, which the Israeli Defense Forces raided in November.Two thirds of Gaza’s hospitals have been closed amidst what Biden has characterized as “indiscriminate bombings”, during a time of acute need, where United Nations agencies are warning of famine and disease as Gaza is besieged by Israel.Despite the defeat, organizations that had supported Sanders’ effort saw it as something of a victory.“The status quo in the Senate for decades has been 100% support for Israel’s military, 100% of the time from 100% of the Senate,” said Andrew O’Neill, the legislative director of Indivisible, one of the groups that backed the measure. “The fact that Sanders introduced this bill was already historic. That ten colleagues joined him is frankly remarkable.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More