US Congress

Speaking at the White House, Joe Biden hailed the deals reached between the United Auto Workers and the three major Detroit automakers that are set to end a six-week strike at their factories.“They have reached a historic agreement,” the president said of automakers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis as well as the UAW, who president Shawn Fain he spoke to earlier today.“These record agreements reward auto workers who gave up much to keep the industry working and going during the financial crisis more than a decade ago. These agreements ensure the iconic Big Three can still lead the world in quality and innovation.”The UAW reached a tentative agreement with GM earlier today, the last of the three companies targeted in the strike.The agreements need to be ratified by union members, but Biden said the automakers and the UAW have agreed that workers can return to assembly lines before that happens.“I applaud the UAW and the leaders of the automobile companies for agreeing that all the workers on strike and all those who were walking the picket lines on behalf of the UAW brothers and sisters can go back to work immediately, even before the vote is taken.”A judge in Denver has started hearing arguments in a case brought by liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington aiming at removing Donald Trump from the ballot for inciting the January 6 insurrection. A lawyer for the former president argued the plaintiffs do not understand the meaning of the word “insurrection,” while the case could ultimately end up decided by the conservative-dominated US supreme court. Hearings in the Colorado case are expected to continue throughout the week, while a judge in Minnesota will begin considering a similar lawsuit on Thursday.Here’s what else happened today:
Joe Biden hailed agreements reached between the United Auto Workers and the Detroit automakers as “historic” in a speech at the White House.
Artificial intelligence developers face new rules under an executive order Biden signed today.
Trump remains at the top of the polls in Iowa, which isn’t really news. The most interesting tidbits of the survey may be Ron DeSantis’s remarkable favorability despite his overall floundering campaign, and Nikki Haley’s measurable jump in support.
Never Trumper Asa Hutchinson’s campaign may be falling apart after his manager and confidante resigned, CBS News reports. Hutchinson is polling at 1% support in Iowa.
New York House Republicans are optimistic they have votes to boot congressman George Santos, who has admitted to fabricating his resume and faces federal charges, out of office.
Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, urged Congress to approve aid to both Ukraine and Israel. House Republicans seem on board with the latter, but are growing increasingly wary of the former.
Joe Biden’s comments on the apparent conclusion of the United Auto Workers’ strike came at the start of an event where he signed an executive order that imposes rules on artificial intelligence development.Here’s more from the Associated Press on his administration’s new policy:
Before signing the order, Biden said AI is driving change at “warp speed” and carries tremendous potential as well as perils.
“AI is all around us,” Biden said. “To realize the promise of AI and avoid the risk, we need to govern this technology.”
The order is an initial step that is meant to ensure that AI is trustworthy and helpful, rather than deceitful and destructive. The order – which will likely need to be augmented by congressional action – seeks to steer how AI is developed so that companies can profit without putting public safety in jeopardy.
Using the Defense Production Act, the order requires leading AI developers to share safety test results and other information with the government. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is to create standards to ensure AI tools are safe and secure before public release.
The commerce department is to issue guidance to label and watermark AI-generated content to help differentiate between authentic interactions and those generated by software. The extensive order touches on matters of privacy, civil rights, consumer protections, scientific research and worker rights.
Here’s a clip of a Biden laugh line from his event this afternoon announcing the order:Here’s video of Joe Biden cheering the UAW’s new agreements with the Big Three automakers:Biden had gotten closer to the UAW’s strike than any president who came before him, by traveling to Michigan to address a picket line of striking workers.Speaking at the White House, Joe Biden hailed the deals reached between the United Auto Workers and the three major Detroit automakers that are set to end a six-week strike at their factories.“They have reached a historic agreement,” the president said of automakers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis as well as the UAW, who president Shawn Fain he spoke to earlier today.“These record agreements reward auto workers who gave up much to keep the industry working and going during the financial crisis more than a decade ago. These agreements ensure the iconic Big Three can still lead the world in quality and innovation.”The UAW reached a tentative agreement with GM earlier today, the last of the three companies targeted in the strike.The agreements need to be ratified by union members, but Biden said the automakers and the UAW have agreed that workers can return to assembly lines before that happens.“I applaud the UAW and the leaders of the automobile companies for agreeing that all the workers on strike and all those who were walking the picket lines on behalf of the UAW brothers and sisters can go back to work immediately, even before the vote is taken.”From the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly, here’s more on what we learned from the presidential poll of Iowa Republicans released this morning, which appeared to be very good for Donald Trump:Donald Trump maintained his huge lead in the crucial early voting state of Iowa in a major new poll by NBC News and the Des Moines Register but Nikki Haley is now emerging as his closest challenger.The former US president has a 27-point lead in Iowa three months before the first vote of the Republican primary as he attracted 43% support. But Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, climbed 10 points to 16%, sharing second place with Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor whose campaign has long been seen to be stalling.No other candidate scored significantly, even after second choices of supporters of Mike Pence, the former vice-president who suspended his campaign, were reapportioned.J Ann Selzer, the Iowa pollster who conducted the survey, said: “This is a good poll for Donald Trump. For all the things that happened between the last poll and now, he’s still the dominant player in the field and his standing has, in fact, improved from August.”Here’s the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe with more on the start of the legal effort today to keep Donald Trump off presidential ballots for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection:A multi-pronged effort to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 presidential ballot as an insurrectionist resumes in earnest, beginning with a court case in Colorado on Monday, the first of two states that will hear legal arguments this week.Those seeking to have the former president ruled ineligible are relying on a civil war-era provision of the 14th amendment to the US constitution that states no person can hold public office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”.They argue that Trump’s incitement of the deadly 6 January attack on the US Capitol, in which his supporters attempted to block Congress certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, perfectly encapsulates the clause that has yet to be seriously tested in a courtroom.New York House Republicans believe they are close to securing the two-thirds majority required to expel their fellow Republican George Santos who has pled not guilty to over a dozen fraud-related counts. “I think we’re getting two-thirds. There seems to be a good sentiment out there that enough is enough,” CNN reports Nick LaLota, who represents New York’s first district, saying.“People have seen over the last ten months what a fraud he is,” Anthony D’Espositio, who represents New York’s fourth district, said, echoing similar sentiments.Marcus Molinaro, the state’s representative of its 13th district, said, “I think at this time, it is absolutely inapropriate for him to serve… I think there’s significant support, certainly on both ends of the aisle. I understand hesitance but this is a clear case of an individual who used every lie and misdeed in order to obtain the very office he holds.”Here is more from the lawyer in Colorado arguing against the lawsuits attempting to prevent Donald Trump from appearing on the 2024 presidential ballot:Refering to Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021, he said:
“There’s substantial historical evidence that ‘engage’ does not mean mere incitement through words. It doesn’t mean that. And frankly, president Trump didn’t engage.
He didn’t carry a pitchfork to Capitol grounds. He didn’t lead a charge. He didn’t get into a fistfight with legislators. He didn’t goad president Biden into going out back and having a fight.
He gave a speech in which he asked people to peacefully and patriotically go to the Capitol to protest.”
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is urging the Senate to pass a supplemental foreign aid package to Ukraine and Israel.Speaking on Monday, McConnell said:
“Right now, our efforts are making a difference, both in Ukraine and here at home. But the Biden administration’s hesitation along the way has really in my view prolonged the bloodshed.
This is a moment for swift and decisive action to prevent further loss of life, and to impose real consequences on the tyrants who have terrorized the people of Ukraine and of Israel.
And right now, the Senate has a chance to produce supplemental assistance that will help us do exactly that.
A judge in Denver has started hearing arguments in a case brought by liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington aiming at removing Donald Trump from the ballot for inciting the January 6 insurrection. A lawyer for the former president argued the plaintiffs do not understand the meaning of the word “insurrection,” while the case could ultimately end up decided by the conservative-dominated supreme court. Hearings in the Colorado case are expected to continue through the week, while a judge in Minnesota will begin considering a similar lawsuit on Thursday.Here’s what else has happened today:
Joe Biden said an agreement to end the United Auto Workers’s strike against General Motors – and the six-week walkout against the Detroit automakers – was “great”.
Trump remains at the top of the polls in Iowa, which isn’t really news. The most interesting tidbits of the survey may be Ron DeSantis’s remarkable favorability despite his overall floundering campaign, and Nikki Haley’s measurable jump in support.
Never Trumper Asa Hutchinson’s campaign may be falling apart after his manager and confidante resigned, CBS News reports. Hutchinson is polling at 1% support in Iowa.
All the way back in July, the Guardian’s David Smith took a look at the prospects of the few Never Trumpers competing for the GOP’s presidential nomination, and concluded they were not good. Here’s more on the forces that derailed Mike Pence’s campaign and are hurting Asa Hutchinson’s: For Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas, there were boos and chants of “Trump! Trump!”. For Francis Suarez, mayor of Miami, there were jeers and cries of “Traitor!” And perhaps most tellingly, there was no Florida governor Ron DeSantis at all.The recent Turning Point USA conference brought thousands of young conservatives to Florida and there was no doubting the main attraction: former president Donald Trump, who made a glitzy entrance accompanied by giant stage sparklers. In a less than rigorous poll, 86% of attendees gave Trump as their first choice for president; DeSantis, who polled 19% last year, was down to 4%.Events and numbers like this are cause for sleepless nights among those Republican leaders and donors desperate to believe it would be different this time. The Never Trump forces bet heavily on DeSantis as the coming man and the premise that Trump’s campaign would collapse under the weight of myriad legal problems.But six months away from the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, none of it seems to be working. DeSantis’s campaign is flailing and leaving some with buyers’ remorse. Hutchinson and Chris Christie, outspoken Trump critics, are polling in single digits, sowing doubts about voters’ appetite for change. Never Trumpers have reason to fear that his march to the Republican nomination may already be unstoppable.“They’re experiencing a brutal wake-up call that the party is not interested in hearing critiques of Trump,” said Tim Miller, who was communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign. “The Trump challengers’ candidacies have been astonishingly poor and learned nothing from 2016. When the leading candidate gets indicted and all of his opponents besides Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson just echo his fake persecution complex talking points, it’s going to be hard to beat him.”Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson is among the few Republican presidential candidates who have openly attacked Donald Trump, and his campaign now appears to be collapsing.CBS News reports Hutchinson’s campaign manager and longtime confidante has resigned:Republicans who have gone against the former president have gotten nowhere in this presidential election cycle. Hutchinson polled at 1% in the NBC News survey released this morning, and over the weekend, Mike Pence, who was Trump’s vice-president and fell out with him over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, suspended his presidential campaign.Over the weekend, a federal judge reinstated a limited gag order on Donald Trump, intended to prevent him from making statements maligning those involved in his prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:Donald Trump was once again bound by the gag order in the federal criminal case charging him with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results, after a judge on Sunday reinstated restrictions prohibiting him from attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnesses.The US district judge Tanya Chutkan also denied the former US president’s request to suspend the gag order indefinitely while his lawyers appealed.Trump had been granted a reprieve when the judge temporarily lifted the gag order while she considered that request. Prosecutors argued last week that the order should be reimposed after Trump took advantage and posted a slew of inflammatory statements.The statements included Trump’s repeated attacks on the special counsel Jack Smith, whom he called “deranged”, and Trump’s comments about the testimony that his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had provided to the grand jury during the criminal investigation.Prosecutors argued that each of Trump’s statements were exactly the sort of comments that the order was designed to prevent, including intimidating or influencing witnesses who could wind up testifying against him at trial, and weighing on the substance of their testimony.“The defendant has capitalized on the court’s administrative stay to, among other prejudicial conduct, send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case,” prosecutors said in their brief. “Unless the court lifts the administrative stay, the defendant will not stop.” More

Amid all the jockeying in next year’s presidential race, frontrunner for the Republican nomination Donald Trump has been busy in a New York City courtroom, where a judge is presiding over his family’s civil fraud trial – and just ruled that his daughter can appear as a witness.Law360 reports that judge Arthur Engoron decided Ivanka Trump can be called to testify in the trial, where he is deciding what penalties to impose against the Trumps after finding they committed financial fraud:However, the soonest Ivanka could appear on the witness stand is next week, Engoron ruled:A New York City judge ruled that Ivanka Trump may appear on the witness stand in the civil fraud trial of her father Donald Trump and other family members as soon as next week. In Long Island, the Republican congressman and prolific liar George Santos pleaded guilty to a slate of new federal charges against him, and learned he would stand trial beginning on 9 September of next year. That’s about two months before the presidential election, and it appears Joe Biden will have a challenger for the Democratic nomination: Dean Phillips, a relatively inexperienced Minnesota congressman who declared his candidacy today.Here’s what else happened:
Biden was briefed on the manhunt for the perpetrator of a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine that killed 18 people on Wednesday.
A new Gallup poll shows the president’s approval rating slipping among Democrats, potentially due to his pro-Israel stance in its boiling conflict with Gaza.
Some of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election subversion case are being offered plea deals, while others are not.
Mike Johnson signaled he would be willing to continue the impeachment inquiry into Biden, in the Republican’s first interview since being elected House speaker.
Democrats hope an upcoming Wisconsin supreme court case could turn the balance of power in the crucial swing state back in their favor.
The mass shooting in Lewiston has prompted one of Maine’s two House representatives, Jared Golden, to reverse his opposition to an assault weapons ban, the Guardian’s Erum Salam reports. There could be political implications to this, as Golden is one of five Democrats nationwide whose districts voted for Republican Donald Trump in 2020:US house representative Jared Golden, of Maine’s second district, has made a stunning reversal of his opposition to efforts to ban assault rifles – in the wake of the mass shooting in a bowling alley and restaurant in Lewiston in the state on Wednesday night, which killed 18.In 2022, Golden was among the few Democrats to vote against a bill in Congress that would have banned the sale of assault weapons to the American public for the first time since 2004. Joe Biden has repeatedly sought such a ban and, on Thursday, a day after the worst such massacre in his state’s history, Golden joined the US president’s calls.The bill would have blocked the sale, manufacture, transfer, or possession of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition devices and Golden also voted against a bill that would have raised the age limit for purchasing a semiautomatic rifle and banned the sale of high-capacity magazines.Golden is now receiving praise from many of his constituents and colleagues for his change of position.The White House just announced that Joe Biden has received an update on the search for the gunman behind a mass shooting Lewiston, Maine on Wednesday that left 18 people dead.From their statement:
This afternoon the president was updated by his senior staff on the latest information about the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. He also spoke with FBI director Christopher Wray, who described the more than 200 FBI personnel who are in Maine to support the investigation – including the ongoing manhunt – and provide assistance to the victims. The president expressed appreciation for the courageous work of all the federal, state and local law enforcement personnel.
We have a live blog covering the latest on the manhunt, and you can read it here:In Wisconsin, a crucial swing state for any presidential candidate, the Guardian’s Alice Herman and Sam Levine report a supreme court decision could unravel gerrymandered maps that Republicans have used to their advantage for more than a decade, potentially boosting Democratic candidates:Lynn Carey, a retired nurse with a double lung transplant, has spent years trying to get Wisconsin lawmakers to improve healthcare. Carey organized voters in support of the Affordable Care Act back in 2009. Since its passage, she has pushed to get her Republican representatives in the state legislature to expand Medicaid coverage to its poorest residents.The idea has been overwhelmingly popular in Wisconsin: a 2019 poll showed 70% of voters in the state supported it. But Medicaid expansion hasn’t gone anywhere – even after Democrats won back Wisconsin’s governorship in 2018.Republicans still hold near-supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature, and have shown no sign of compromise on this issue or many others popular with most Wisconsinites. Their legislative majorities are virtually impenetrable, cemented by Republican-drawn district lines that have guaranteed Republicans control of the legislature even in years where Democrats received more votes statewide. “We don’t have competitive districts where people have to listen to their constituents,” Carey said.That could change soon.Differing opinions over the conflict between Israel and Hamas erupted in the House yesterday, when the rightwing lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a resolution to censure Rashida Tlaib.The progressive Democrat from Michigan is one of two Muslim lawmakers in the chamber, and has been calling for a ceasefire in the worsening conflict. Tlaib responded to Greene’s allegations of antisemitism by calling her Islamophobic in a statement:Later in the day, the Democratic congresswoman Becca Balint introduced a separate resolution to censure Greene for allegations of racism and dishonoring people who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks. Here’s her reading the proposal on the House floor:And the Republican Anthony D’Esposito also spoke to introduce a resolution expelling his fellow New Yorker George Santos from the chamber, citing his many lies and federal criminal charges:Thus, the first full day of work for the House since Kevin McCarthy’s removal as speaker and eventual replacement by the conservative Republican Mike Johnson ended with two censure resolutions and one expulsion petition pending before it. The chamber is in recess today.Speaking of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, the president has thrown his support firmly behind Israel in the wake of the 7 October terror attack and its threat to invade the Gaza Strip to defeat Hamas. As the Guardian’s Tom Perkins and Erum Salam report, it’s a stance that could have consequences for his ability to win electoral votes in Michigan, a swing state with a large Arab American population:Leading up to the 2020 election, Arab American organizers in south-east Michigan like Terry Ahwal worked to convince their community to go to the polls for Joe Biden. The message was simple: Donald Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric and policies such as the Middle East travel ban were a threat to Arab Americans. Voters mobilized to help push Biden over the top in this critical swing state.Several years on, amid Biden’s full-throated support of Israel in the current war and an unfolding humanitarian crisis that has claimed thousand of lives in Gaza, Ahwal feels deep regret: “I have to say “I’m sorry’ to my friends.’”Ahwal is among hundreds of thousands of Arab Americans in Michigan, many of whom are watching with horror as the US supports Israel as it carries out its bombing campaign. After the community backed Biden by a wide margin in November 2020, the feeling goes “beyond betrayal”, about a dozen Arab Americans in Michigan said.“This is a complete loss of humanity, it is the active support of a genocide, and I don’t think it gets any worse than that,” said Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian American activist and attorney. “I’ve gotten a few comments, ‘Well, the GOP is going to be worse,’ and my question is: ‘How can you get worse than active support of a genocide?’”Polls show that Americans have generally been supportive of Israel and its response to the 7 October attack, though Morning Consult data released this week also shows the number of people who sympathize equally with Israelis and Palestinians is on the rise. That poll also showed support for Biden’s response is growing.But Arab Americans who spoke with the Guardian said they did not know of anyone in their community who would vote for Biden in 2024. That could have profound consequences in a state in which Trump won by 10,000 votes in 2016, and a tight rematch is taking shape.Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, the Democratic congressman Dean Phillips launched his bid to oust Joe Biden atop the party’s presidential ticket next year.In remarks after he began his campaign, he eluded both to Biden’s dire poll numbers and his advanced age as reasons for running:Phillips also responded to a question about a reported 2019 campaign donation from Harlan Crow, the billionaire Republican donor who also lavished gifts on conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas:Now that all three of Donald Trump’s adult children are due to testify at the civil fraud trial of the family business, in addition to the former president himself, the scene is set for a great reunion in New York.Ivanka Trump has been relatively absent from mainstream media headlines since her father lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden and the clan packed their boxes and departed the White House, where Ivanka had acted as an aide to her father as president.She testified briefly but devastatingly to the congressional bipartisan committee investigating the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol encouraged by the then president.She admitted to the panel in July 2022 that she did not believe Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him because of widespread voting fraud. She hadn’t stood up and made statements to that effect when all the malarkey was going down with Trump’s failed legal campaign to reverse the result and then the deadly attack on the Capitol.She accepted that Biden had won after Trump’s former attorney general Bill Barr essentially told her he had, something Barr also told Donald Trump and had acknowledged publicly in 2020.So Ivanka, Donald Jr and Eric can now be expected on the witness stand in the trial of the Trump Organization. She stepped down from the family business empire in 2017. Ivanka had her own fashion business that was also based in New York before her father won the White House. That ended in 2018.Her lawyer told the court on Friday that she hadn’t personally done business in the Big Apple since 2017.Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner and their children live in Florida and have appeared to distance themselves from presidential politics.Ivanka Trump may appear on the witness stand in the civil fraud trial of her father Donald Trump and other family members as soon as next week, thanks to a judge’s ruling. Elsewhere in New York state, Republican congressman and liar George Santos pleaded guilty to a slate of new federal charges against him, and learned he would stand trial beginning on 9 September of next year. That’s about two months before the presidential election, and it appears Joe Biden will have a challenger for the Democratic nomination: Dean Phillips, a relatively inexperienced Minnesota congressman who declared his candidacy today.Here’s what else has happened:
A new Gallup poll shows Biden’s approval rating slipping among Democrats, potentially due to his pro-Israel stance in its boiling conflict with Gaza.
Some of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election subversion case are being offered plea deals, while others are not.
Mike Johnson signaled he would be willing to continue the impeachment inquiry into Biden in the Republican’s first interview since being elected House speaker.
Donald Trump’s legal troubles extend far and wide, including to Georgia, where the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports some of his co-defendants in his election meddling case are not being offered plea deals by prosecutors – while others are:Donald Trump’s top co-defendants charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia have not been offered plea deals since they were indicted, people close to the matter said on Wednesday, raising tensions among some in that group as they prepare to recalibrate their legal strategies.The co-defendants without offers include the former US president himself, former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and former Trump lawyers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, the people said – individuals who played leading roles in the alleged conspiracies.The lack of offers from the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, in contrast to those deals agreed with the other Trump election lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, has caused some of Trump’s top co-defendants to reconsider their legal strategy and weigh options such as seeking an expedited trial or trying to sever their cases.Trump and his original 19 co-defendants pleaded not guilty in August to charges that they violated the Rico statute in Georgia in trying to reverse his election defeat. But the pressure on Trump’s closest allies has increased in recent weeks after four co-defendants accepted plea agreements.Shifting back to Donald Trump and his family’s civil fraud trial in New York City, NBC News reports that it is unclear what Ivanka Trump may say on the witness stand, but prosecutors have waged a hard-fought campaign to get her to testify.Her lawyers could also still appeal the ruling that will see her take the stand after 1 November. Here’s more from NBC’s report:
Trump’s attorneys had challenged New York Attorney General Letitia James’ subpoena to Ivanka Trump, noting an appeals court had ruled earlier this year that she should be dropped as a defendant in the case over statute of limitations issues.
They contended the AG’s office was trying “to continue to harass and burden President Trump’s daughter long after” the appeals court “mandated she be dismissed from the case.”
They also argued that the AG waited too long to subpoena her, and argued the office doesn’t have jurisdiction over her because she no longer lives in the state.
The AG’s office countered that Ivanka Trump, a former White House official, still has information important to their case.
“While no longer a Defendant in this action, she indisputably has personal knowledge of facts relevant to the claims against the remaining individual and entity Defendants. But even beyond that, Ms. Trump remains financially and professionally intertwined with the Trump Organization and other Defendants and can be called as a person still under their control,” the AG contended in a court filing.
The office said it wanted to ask her questions about Trump’s former Washington, D.C. hotel, and noted she profited from the sale.
“Ms. Trump remains under the control of the Trump Organization, including through her ongoing and substantial business ties to the organization,” the AG argued, adding that she “does not seem to be averse to her involvement in the family business when it comes to owning and collecting proceeds from the OPO (hotel) sale, the Trump Organization purchasing insurance for her and her companies, managing her household staff and credit card bills, renting her apartment or even paying her legal fees in this action. It is only when she is tasked with answering for that involvement that she disclaims any connection.” More

Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, accused the former president of threatening his former chief of staff after he spoke to investigators, ABC News reports.Smith’s team cited posts Trump made on Truth Social after reports emerged that Mark Meadows, his chief of staff in the final months of his presidency, spoke to investigators about his attempts to stop Joe Biden’s election victory.Trump’s comments “send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case,” Smith’s team wrote in a Wednesday filing.Here’s more from ABC:
In a filing Wednesday night to the judge presiding over Trump’s federal election interference case in Washington, Smith’s team said Trump’s “harmful” post on Truth Social was trying to “send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case.”
Smith’s team argued to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan that the alleged threat is just one more example of why a limited gag order in the case is needed as soon as possible.
Chutkan had issued such a gag order early last week but then temporarily suspended it after the former president’s legal team appealed the judge’s order to a higher court.
…
In their filing Wednesday, Smith’s team argued that Trump is now trying to “use external influences to distort the trial in his favor,” and that “These actions, particularly when directed against witnesses and trial participants, pose a grave threat to the very notion of a fair trial based on the facts and the law.”
Trump has a “long and well-documented history of using his public platform to target disparaging and inflammatory comments at perceived adversaries,” and “When the defendant does so, harassment, threats, and intimidation foreseeably and predictably follow,” Smith’s team wrote.
Washington is adjusting to the new reality presented by Mike Johnson’s ascension to the speaker’s podium in the House of Representatives. The Louisiana lawmaker is a staunch but low-profile conservative who wants abortion banned, doubts the scientific consensus regarding climate change and has promoted Donald Trump’s baseless fraud claims over the 2020 election. But as much as they are likely to seize on those positions next year to argue Republicans are too extreme to govern, Democrats must first work with Johnson and his party on legislative business. In remarks on the Senate floor, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer urged the new speaker to embrace bipartisanship and avoid “the Maga road”.Here’s what else happened today:
Federal prosecutors accused Donald Trump of threatening Mark Meadows, his former White House chief of staff who spoke to them about the ex-president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Joe Biden and Johnson met at the White House to discuss the president’s request for more aid to Israel and Ukraine.
A federal judge ordered Georgia’s Republican-dominated legislature to draw new congressional maps with another majority Black district, potentially offering Democrats an opportunity to gain a seat in the US House.
The president cheered better-than-expected economic growth data that undercut forecasts of a looming US recession, and warned Republicans against sparking a government shutdown.
Patrick McHenry dished on what it was like to be acting speaker of the House for three weeks.
It’s still too soon to say what kind of speaker of the House Mike Johnson will be, but the Guardian’s Carter Sherman reports all signs point to him acting zealously in trying to roll back abortion access:The day after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June last year, Mike Johnson of Louisiana celebrated his home state’s new penalties for abortion providers. “The right to life has now been RESTORED!” the Republican crowed on X, formerly known as Twitter, on 25 June. “Perform an abortion and get imprisoned at hard labor for 1-10 yrs & fined $10K-$100K.”Opposition to abortion is virtually a job requirement for Republicans these days. But Johnson, the newly minted speaker of the House, is a committed abortion opponent even by the standards of his fellow conservative colleagues.Johnson ascended to the speakership after the sudden ouster of Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, and weeks of tumult in the House. A member of the House since 2016, Johnson is a loyal supporter of Donald Trump – to the point that he served on Trump’s legal defense team during Trump’s first impeachment – and a social conservative fueled by his evangelical Christian faith.And, at a time when many Republicans in Congress are trying to quietly ignore abortion, wary of the backlash from their constituents over proliferating abortion bans, Johnson has continued to champion an array of anti-abortion bills.At her briefing today, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Joe Biden had invited Mike Johnson to meet shortly after he won election as House speaker last night.She said the Louisiana Republican was with the president for “a bipartisan briefing with leadership and relevant committee chairs and ranking members on the president’s supplemental national security package”.In a primetime television address from the Oval Office last week, Biden called on Congress to approve billions of dollars in aid to Israel and Ukraine. While the former is a popular cause with both parties, a growing number of Republicans is against further funding Kyiv’s defense against the Russian invasion. Here’s more on that:We are learning more about Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the House who Joe Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre just said is currently attending a meeting at the White House. As the Guardian’s Robert Tait reports, he has a history of channeling taxpayer funding to conservative Christian causes:Mike Johnson, the newly-elected Republican speaker of the US House, won taxpayer funding for a Noah’s Ark amusement park while working as a lawyer, in a graphic illustration of his uncompromising rightwing Christian beliefs.Working for Freedom Guard, a non-profit proclaiming a commitment to defending religious liberty, Johnson was hired by Answers in Genesis, a creationist ministry, in 2015, after the state of Kentucky rescinded an offer of tourism tax incentives for the project in Williamstown, citing discrimination against non-Christian believers.The state retracted an offer of tax breaks after the then-governor, Steve Beshear, said the ministry reneged on a commitment to refrain from hiring based on religious belief.“It has become clear that they do intend to use religious beliefs as a litmus test for hiring decisions,” Beshear said.Johnson, who would win a seat in Congress from Louisiana in 2016, was among a team of attorneys engaged to press a federal lawsuit described by the Answers in Genesis president and chief executive, Ken Ham, as involving “freedom of religion, free exercise of religion, freedom of speech in this great nation of America”.Johnson accused the state of “viewpoint discrimination”, adding: “They have decided to exclude this organisation from a tax rebate programme that’s offered to all applications across the state.”Here’s more from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell on the news that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had spoken to special counsel Jack Smith as part of their investigation into Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election:Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows testified to a federal grand jury earlier this year about efforts by the former president to overturn the 2020 election results pursuant to a court order that granted him limited immunity, according to two people familiar with the matter.The immunity – which forces witnesses to testify on the promise that they will not be charged on their statements or information derived from their statements – came after a legal battle in March with special counsel prosecutors, who had subpoenaed Meadows.Trump’s lawyers attempted to block Meadows’ testimony partially on executive privilege grounds. However, the outgoing chief US district judge Beryl Howell ruled that executive privilege was inapplicable and compelled Meadows to appear before the grand jury in Washington, the people said.The precise details of what happened next are unclear, but prosecutors sought and received an order from the incoming chief judge James Boasberg granting limited-use immunity to Meadows to overcome his concerns about self-incrimination, the people familiar with the matter said.That Meadows testified pursuant to a court order suggests prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith were determined to learn what information he was afraid to share because of self-incrimination concerns – but it does not mean he became a cooperator.Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, accused the former president of threatening his former chief of staff after he spoke to investigators, ABC News reports.Smith’s team cited posts Trump made on Truth Social after reports emerged that Mark Meadows, his chief of staff in the final months of his presidency, spoke to investigators about his attempts to stop Joe Biden’s election victory.Trump’s comments “send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case,” Smith’s team wrote in a Wednesday filing.Here’s more from ABC:
In a filing Wednesday night to the judge presiding over Trump’s federal election interference case in Washington, Smith’s team said Trump’s “harmful” post on Truth Social was trying to “send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case.”
Smith’s team argued to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan that the alleged threat is just one more example of why a limited gag order in the case is needed as soon as possible.
Chutkan had issued such a gag order early last week but then temporarily suspended it after the former president’s legal team appealed the judge’s order to a higher court.
…
In their filing Wednesday, Smith’s team argued that Trump is now trying to “use external influences to distort the trial in his favor,” and that “These actions, particularly when directed against witnesses and trial participants, pose a grave threat to the very notion of a fair trial based on the facts and the law.”
Trump has a “long and well-documented history of using his public platform to target disparaging and inflammatory comments at perceived adversaries,” and “When the defendant does so, harassment, threats, and intimidation foreseeably and predictably follow,” Smith’s team wrote.
Sam Levine, our dedicated voting rights reporter, has more on the federal ruling today which says Georgia Republicans must redraw congressional and state legislative maps to give Black voters a fair shot at electing the candidate of their choice, a decision that could result in an additional Democratic seat in Congress.When Georgia Republicans drew the state’s 14 congressional districts last year, they placed the lines in such a way that they weakened the influence of Black voters in the west metro-Atlanta area, violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, US district judge Steve Jones ruled on Thursday.Jones gave Georgia lawmakers until 8 December to draw an additional majority-Black district in the west metro-Atlanta area, and said the court would draw a map if the legislature could not come up with a new plan by then.Georgia is likely to appeal the ruling and to try and drag out the redrawing process as long as possible. A lengthy legal dispute is to the state’s advantage because federal courts have been hesitant to intervene when elections are close.Republicans currently have a 9-5 advantage in Georgia’s congressional delegation. Since voting in the south of the US is often racially polarized, any district that gives Black voters a chance to elect the candidate of their choosing is likely to favor Democrats.Republicans also have a 102-78 advantage in the state House of Representatives, where Jones ordered the addition of five majority-Black seats. They also have 33-23 advantage in the state senate, where Jones ordered two additional majority-Black seats.Georgia gained an additional seat in Congress last year after significant population growth over the last decade. Almost all of that growth was due to a surging minority population in the state, Jones noted in a 516-page opinion, but the number of majority-Black congressional and legislative districts remained the same. Jones wrote:
“The court reiterates that Georgia has made great strides since 1965 towards equality in voting. However, the evidence before this court shows that Georgia has not reached the point where the political process has equal openness and equal opportunity for everyone.”
The ruling is the latest in a series from federal courts in recent months finding that Republicans, who dominate state legislatures in the south and control the redistricting process, discriminated against Black voters when they drew district lines.Judges have also ordered Republicans in Alabama and Louisiana to reconfigure their maps to add districts that give Black voters adequate power. There is also ongoing litigation in South Carolina and Florida claiming district lines illegally minimize the influence of Black voters.Our columnist Margaret Sullivan thinks the installation of the Republican Mike Johnson as House speaker bodes ill not just for Democrats – but perhaps for democracy, in the sense of the prospects of a more peaceful election next year than in 2020, when the Louisianan was at Donald Trump’s side as he attempted to cling onto power…The process was appalling, and the outcome even more so, as Republicans in the House of Representatives finally found someone they could more or less agree on.That agreement, though, may be more accurately described as simple exhaustion after three weeks of embarrassing misfires.And who is it they have managed to elect speaker of the US House, the person in line to lead the nation just after the president and vice-president?It’s Mike Johnson of Louisiana who, as one example of his profound unsuitability, brags that he doesn’t believe that human beings cause the climate crisis, though his home state has been ravaged by it. He is against abortion, voted against aid to Ukraine and stridently opposes LGBTQ+ rights.Perhaps most notably, Johnson had a leading role in trying to overturn he 2020 election.That means that the official second in line to the presidency “violated his oath to the constitution and tried to disenfranchise four states”, as the writer Marcy Wheeler neatly put it.Johnson certainly has his Trumpian bona fides in order. In 2020, he helped lead a legal effort to reverse the results of the election in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and he hawked Trump’s lies that the election had been rigged.Whatever his shortcomings, we know that Johnson excels at one thing: pleasing Donald Trump, the autocrat wannabe and Republican party leader who loves nothing more than a good yes man.Read on…Before the new Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, won election to Congress in 2016, he worked as an attorney for rightwing Christian groups. Here, Robert Tait reports on events in Kentucky in 2015, when Johnson successfully fought the corner of builders of a Noah’s Ark-themed amusement park, who were seeking government support despite the separation of church and state outlined in the US consitution…Mike Johnson, the newly-elected Republican speaker of the US House, won taxpayer funding for a Noah’s Ark amusement park while working as a lawyer, in a graphic illustration of his uncompromising rightwing Christian beliefs.Working for Freedom Guard, a nonprofit proclaiming a commitment to defending religious liberty, Johnson was hired by Answers in Genesis, a creationist ministry, in 2015, after the state of Kentucky rescinded an offer of tourism tax incentives for the project in Williamstown, citing discrimination against non-Christian believers.The state retracted an offer of tax breaks after the-then governor, Steve Beshear, said the ministry reneged on a commitment to refrain from hiring based on religious belief.“It has become clear that they do intend to use religious beliefs as a litmus test for hiring decisions,” Beshear said.Johnson, who would win a seat in Congress from Louisiana in 2016, was among a team of attorneys engaged to press a federal lawsuit described by the Answers in Genesis president and chief executive, Ken Ham, as involving “freedom of religion, free exercise of religion, freedom of speech in this great nation of America”.Here’s more on Johnson’s own beliefs and previous work…Washington is adjusting to the new reality presented by Mike Johnson’s ascension to the speaker’s podium in the House of Representatives. The Louisiana lawmaker is a staunch but low-profile conservative who wants abortion banned, doubts the scientific consensus regarding climate change and has promoted Donald Trump’s baseless fraud claims over the 2020 election. But as much as they are likely to seize on those positions next year to argue Republicans are too extreme to govern, Democrats also have to work with Johnson and his party on legislative business. In remarks on the Senate floor, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer urged the new speaker to embrace bipartisanship and avoid “the Maga road”.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Joe Biden cheered better-than-expected economic growth data that undercut forecasts of a looming US recession, and warned Republicans against sparking a government shutdown.
A federal judge ordered Georgia’s Republican-dominated legislature to draw new congressional maps with another majority Black district, potentially offering Democrats an opportunity to gain a seat in the US House.
Patrick McHenry dished on what it was like to be acting speaker of the House for three weeks.
Back in the House, Patrick McHenry, who was the acting speaker for three weeks during the Republican civil war over finding a replacement for Kevin McCarthy, shared some details of his brief term leading the chamber.The Associated Press reports that McHenry was given advance notice that McCarthy had named him as a temporary replacement before the then speaker was removed from office:McHenry also made a point of noting his continued ill feelings towards those who removed McCarthy:A federal judge has ordered Georgia’s Republican-dominated legislature to draw another majority-Black congressional district, arguing that the state’s current lines violate the Voting Rights Act.The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reports the legislature will have to convene for a special session to make a new map, which could present Democrats an opportunity to pick up another House seat from the state, since African American voters tend to support the party:Meanwhile, Democratic congressman Jamaal Bowman insisted he was not trying to disrupt Congress last month when he pulled a Capitol complex fire alarm amid fervent negotiations aimed at passing a government spending bill:The New York lawmaker is moving to resolve the issue today by entering a not guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge and paying a fine. Here’s more on that: More