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      Trump return to White House would be perilous for democracy, conservative lawyers say – as it happened

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      We’re closing the US politics blog now, thanks for joining us today. Here’s what we covered:
      The Wisconsin supreme court appeared poised to strike down gerrymandered Republican-drawn state legislative maps that have maintained the party’s domination for decades. In a hearing Tuesday, the panel’s new liberal majority appeared sympathetic to arguments from lawyers for Democratic governor Tony Evers and others that the majority of districts breached strict rules.
      Two senior aides to Ron DeSantis’s cratering campaign for the Republican presidential nomination almost got into a fist fight during a heated argument, it was reported. The altercation came last week as the Florida governor’s Never Back Down political action committee discussed how to counter a rise in popularity of rival Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor.
      Donald Trump appealed a ruling in which a Colorado judge said he could not be disqualified from the presidential ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, even though he engaged in insurrection by inciting the deadly January 6 attack.
      Joe Biden called on Congress to pass his $106bn supplementary budget request that he said includes funding to “step up” the fight against a flow of deadly fentanyl entering the US. The president, speaking at the White House before leaving for a Thanksgiving break in Massachusetts, said the fentanyl crisis was hurting families in every state and curbing it was “something every American needs to get behind”.
      A trio of prominent conservative lawyers said in a scathing New York Times oped that a second term in office for former president Donald Trump would imperil democracy. George Conway, J Michael Luttig and Barbara Comstock, who have formed a new group to “speak out against Trump’s falsehoods”, say Trump has surrounded himself with “grifters, frauds and con men willing to subvert the Constitution” and that “our country is in a constitutional emergency, if not a constitutional crisis”.
      A reminder that you can follow the latest developments in the Israel-Hamas war, including the reported imminent deal for the release of some of the hostages held in Gaza, in the Guardian’s liveblog here.Two senior team members of Ron DeSantis’s flailing presidential campaign almost came to blows during a meeting last week to discuss how to counter Nikki Haley’s rise in the polls, NBC News is reporting.According to the network, Jeff Roe, chief consultant for DeSantis’s Never Back Down political action committee, got into “a heated argument” with longtime DeSantis associate and PAC board member Scott Wagner, the two being stopped just short of a physical altercation.“You have a stick up your ass, Scott,” Roe allegedly fumed at Wagner during the meeting in Tallahassee last Tuesday.“Why don’t you come over here and get it?” Wagner responded, rising from his chair, according to NBC. Wagner was “quickly restrained by two fellow board members”, the network’s report said, adding its information came from sources in the room.Florida governor DeSantis, once seen as a viable rival to runaway leader Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has been tanking in numerous opinion polls, even in his own state.He appears to be an an opposite trajectory to former South Carolina governor Haley, whose “surging poll numbers and newfound affection from megadonors pose an existential threat to the Florida governor’s campaign,” NBC said.DeSantis campaign insiders have indicated that the candidate and his wife Casey DeSantis, a former television news presenter who has assumed an increasingly prominent role in his political career, are growing unhappy at the performance of the Never Back Down PAC leadership.Both DeSantis and Haley, however, still trail Trump by a substantial margin.The unseemly scenes in DeSantis’s campaign meeting mirror those of last week’s Senate labor committee meeting when Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin rose from his seat and challenged a Teamsters union official to a fight.We’ve been bringing you updates for much of the day from Wisconsin’s supreme court, where arguments have tilted back and forth over the state’s gerrymandered legislative maps.According to the Guardian’s Sam Levine, and Alice Herman in the courtroom in Madison, the panel’s liberal majority appears poised to strike down the existing Republican-drawn maps and end the party’s stranglehold on both legislative chambers of government.But it’s unclear what that would mean for a redraw of the maps, or if special elections would be needed to fill legislative seats next year.Here’s our latest report on today’s developments, and a look at what might come next:A newly-elected Florida Republican state congressman has filed legislation that would effectively ban any LGBTQ group in the state from receiving taxpayer funding.A House bill by Ryan Chamberlin would bar any non-profit from using “sexual orientation or gender identity” as a factor in any application for state contracts or grants, Florida Politics reports.The proposal was immediately criticized by Democrats, who see the bill as an extension of the Republican-dominated legislature’s well-documented assault on LGBTQ+ rights, including the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill and other restrictions championed by hard right governor Ron DeSantis.The bill is “bigoted, unnecessary and highly unconstitutional”, Democratic state representative Anna Eskamani said on X, adding that groups such as Equality Florida would essentially be banned from existing.Chamberlin captured his central Florida seat in May with 79% of a special election vote, promising at the time: “There’s work to be done. I’m excited to help with that.”Missouri’s supreme court won’t hear an appeal by Republican secretary of state Jay Ashcroft over the wording of ballot question on access to abortion, a win for advocates attempting to enshrine protections for the procedure.A state appeals court ruled last month that wording asking voters if they were in favor of “dangerous and unregulated abortions until live birth” was politically partisan.On Tuesday, the state supreme court declined to hear Ashcroft’s appeal of that ruling. Missouri’s Republican controlled legislature banned abortion except in cases of medical emergency after the US supreme court last year overturned the Roe v Wade ruling and ended 50 years of federal protections.In all seven states where abortion has been on the ballot since, voters have either supported protecting abortion rights or rejected attempts to erode them.Here’s our state-by-state guide to where abortion laws stand:A judge in Atlanta is hearing arguments on a request to revoke the bond of Harrison Floyd, one of former president Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia case related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis filed a motion last week telling superior court judge Scott McAfee that Floyd attempted to intimidate and contact likely witnesses and his co-defendants in violation of the terms of his release, the Associated Press reports.Floyd’s attorneys wrote in a court filing that Willis’ allegations are without merit and that the motion is a “retaliatory measure” against their client. Floyd “neither threatened or intimidated anyone and certainly did not communicate with a witness or co-defendant directly or indirectly,” they wrote.Willis was in court Tuesday to present the prosecution’s case. She planned to call three witnesses, including Gabriel Sterling, a top election official in Georgia who strenuously defended the legitimacy of the state’s 2020 vote count against Trump’s false claims that the election was fraudulent.The charges against Floyd relate to allegations of harassment toward Ruby Freeman, a Fulton county election worker who had been falsely accused of election fraud by Trump and his supporters. Floyd took part in a 4 January 2021 conversation in which Freeman was told she “needed protection” and was pressured to lie and say she had participated in election fraud, the indictment says.Four of the original 19 defendants agreed plea deals that include a promise to testify in any trials in the case. Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.No trial date has been set, but Willis last week asked McAfee to set it for August next year, and warned the case could stretch into 2025.Donald Trump appealed a ruling in which a Colorado judge said he could not be disqualified from the presidential ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, even though he engaged in insurrection by inciting the deadly January 6 attack.The former president took issue with the finding that he participated in insurrection in connection with the attack on the Capitol staged by his supporters.“The district court ruled that section three [of the 14th amendment] did not apply to the presidency, because that position is not an ‘officer of the United States’,” lawyers for Trump said in a court filing, responding to the ruling last week.“The district court nonetheless applied section three to President Trump, finding that he ‘engaged’ in an ‘insurrection’. Should these findings be vacated because the district court self-admittedly lacked jurisdiction to apply section three to President Trump?”The group that filed the suit on behalf of six state petitioners, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), also lodged an appeal.It argued: “Section three of the 14th amendment, passed after the civil war, excludes from federal or state office those who engaged in insurrection against the constitution after previously taking an oath to support it.“Because the district court found that Trump engaged in insurrection after taking the presidential oath of office, it should have concluded that he is disqualified from office and ordered the secretary of state to exclude him from the Colorado presidential primary ballot.”Read Martin Pengelly’s full story here:John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, is scathing about Donald Trump’s efforts to persuade an appeals court that he should not have a gag order in his federal election interference case because he is running for president.Dean has weighed in on what appears to be a court leaning towards, narrowing the gag order that bans Trump from making inflammatory statements and social media posts attacking prosecutors, potential witnesses and court staff.Dean posted on X/Twitter, saying: “Donald Trump has turned the rule of law in the United States upside down, and it is stunning that federal circuit court judges are buying into his remarkable con!” He said the hearing yesterday in Washington, DC, “bordered on pure farce.”Dean, who ultimately helped bring down Nixon despite being involved in the-then president’s cover-up of corrupt and illegal presidential conduct known as Watergate, must be experiencing deja vu right now. He told the Guardian’s David Smith in June 2022, of now-GOP frontrunner Trump: “I was never worried about the country and the government during Watergate but from the day Trump was nominated, I had a knot in my stomach…he just discovered late in his presidency the enormous powers he does have as president…he knows he can hurt his enemies and help his friends.”On X last night his new post on Trump concluded: “For heaven sakes, hold this man responsible for his aberrant and bullying behavior before he further destroys our country. Enough is enough is enough!”Joe Biden says negotiators are “very close” to securing the release of potentially dozens of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.The US president was speaking at the White House and said: “We’re now very close, very close – we can bring some of these hostages home very soon, but don’t want to get into the details of things.”He added: “Nothing is done until it’s done and when we have more to say we will, but things are looking good at the moment.”We are closely covering all the news in the Israel-Gaza crisis via our global live blog and you can find the details here.It’s lunchtime on a quiet day so far in US politics, and time for a recap of what we’ve looked at so far:
      Joe Biden has called on Congress to pass his $106bn supplementary budget request that he said includes funding to “step up” the fight against a flow of deadly fentanyl entering the US. The president, speaking at the White House before leaving for a Thanksgiving break in Massachusetts, said the fentanyl crisis was hurting families in every state and curbing it was “something every American needs to get behind”.
      Wisconsin’s supreme court justices have been grilling attorneys for both the respondents and plaintiffs in a much-watched gerrymandering case that could end in a complete redraw of the state’s legislative districts. Lawyers for Democratic governor Tony Evers say the current maps favoring Republicans breach a law that says they must be “contiguous”; a conservative justice says the plaintiffs want to upend 50 years of precedent.
      A trio of prominent conservative lawyers said in a scathing New York Times oped that a second term in office for former president Donald Trump would imperil democracy. George Conway, J Michael Luttig and Barbara Comstock say Trump has surrounded himself with “grifters, frauds and con men willing to subvert the Constitution” and that “our country is in a constitutional emergency, if not a constitutional crisis”.
      Back in Wisconsin’s supreme court, lawyers for Republicans defending gerrymandered state legislative maps are getting a grilling from the judges, as the Guardian’s Alice Herman reports from the courtroom:An attorney representing the Republican-controlled state legislature, the respondent in the redistricting case, argued that petitioners asking for legislative districts to be redrawn before the 2024 elections have not allotted sufficient time to redraw the maps, and disputed their definition of “contiguous districts”.Taylor Meehan argued that the existence of districts with literal water-bound islands invalidate the plaintiffs’ argument that the legislative maps should avoid non-contiguous districts and said that the court should adopt a looser definition of “contiguous”.“You’re telling us to use one definition because it will help your argument and I’m pretty sure the rule is we’re supposed to look at the definition to figure out what the law is,” said justice Jill Karofsky, who, along with bench colleague Ann Bradley, repeatedly questioned Dallet’s definition of “contiguity.”Meehan questioned the right of plaintiffs in non-contiguous districts across the state to bring forward the case, comparing their complaint to an Illinois voter challenging Wisconsin maps.“I don’t see how a petitioner who lives in Beloit” can ask for a statewide redraw, Meehan said.Joe Biden has called on Congress to join him to “step up the fight” against the flow of fentanyl coming into the US.The president was speaking at the White House in his final official engagement before he and first lady Jill Biden head to Nantucket later for their Thanksgiving break.Before a cabinet meeting that’s now gone into private session, Biden said he was heartbroken for families who will have an empty seat at their Thanksgiving table because they had lost a loved one to the drug:
      Fentanyl is likely the number one killer of Americans at this point. It’s an issue that’s hurting families in every state across the nation. Curbing this crisis is something that every American needs to get behind, Democrat and Republican.
      How can we accelerate our efforts and make sure that we’re delivering real results? Congress also has to step up in this fight. It can start by passing my supplemental budget request for national security, including significant resources to help stop the flow of fentanyl in our country, as well as funds to strengthen and support services for people struggling with fentanyl impacts.
      I also urge Congress to permanently make fentanyl and related substances Schedule One drugs. Too many people are dying.
      Biden prefaced his remarks with an update on progress towards a deal to free hostages held in Gaza by Hamas since the 7 October attacks on Israel. He said an agreement was “very close”.You can follow that and other developments in the Israel-Hamas war in our dedicated blog here:Here’s more from Alice Herman covering the gerrymandering case in Wisconsin’s supreme court:Anthony Russomanno, an attorney representing Wisconsin’s Democratic governor Tony Evers, argued that the state’s legislative maps, and the process for drawing them, violates the separation of powers – privileging the legislature, which is responsible for drafting the maps, over the executive branch.Tamara Packard, representing five Democratic lawmakers, also argued the mapmaking process violated the separation of powers.Conservative justices hammered Russomanno and Packard with questions of propriety regarding the timing of the litigation, and justice Rebecca Bradley accused attorneys of attempting to illegally overhaul the makeup of the state legislature.“You are ultimately asking that this court unseat every assemblyman that was elected last year,” said Bradley, comparing the plaintiffs’ request to implement a new map before the 2024 elections, and hold early special elections for representatives not up for election in 2024, to Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.Packard said her clients, Democratic lawmakers who would face special elections if the court were to side with the plaintiffs, were “ready, willing, and able” to face re-election and that other legislators should be willing as wellA conservative judge on Wisconsin’s supreme court questioned the timing of a lawsuit challenging the state’s legislative districts as oral arguments got under way Tuesday in a much-watched case over gerrymandering.The Guardian’s Alice Herman, who is in the courtroom, reports that Mark Gaber, an attorney representing Campaign Legal Center, laid out one of the plaintiff’s central arguments: that non-contiguous districts in the state are unconstitutional.Almost immediately, conservative judge Rebecca Bradley interrupted Gaber to question the plaintiffs’ timing in bringing the case forward.“Where were your clients two years ago?” she asked, pointing to the fact that the ideological sway of the court flipped when Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal judge, was elected this year. “You’re seeking to overturn 50 years of precedent.”Gaber disputedthe case was brought in a partisan manner, arguing that the state constitution requires contiguous districts – a non-partisan requirement. The argument that 75 of the state’s 132 districts are non-contiguous is at the heart of the plaintiffs’ case against the gerrymandered maps.House speaker Mike Johnson took a trip to visit Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday night, CNN is reporting, a pilgrimage similar to the one that exposed predecessor Kevin McCarthy to criticism.“Maga Mike”, as some have branded the Louisiana Republican for his unswerving loyalty to the former president, has endorsed Trump’s campaign for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, so a “kiss the ring” visit to Mar-a-Lago was not entirely unexpected.It is not known what the pair discussed, CNN says. But the trip has echoes of former speaker and then minority leader McCarthy’s “groveling” visit to see Trump in January 2021, days after condemning him for sparking the deadly 6 January Capitol riot.With his endorsement of Trump, Johnson, who voted against certifying the 2020 election results, has gone even further than McCarthy did in backing the twice-impeached ex-president, who is currently facing dozens of charges in multiple cases against him around the country.“I’m all in for President Trump,” Johnson told CNBC, adding he was “one of the closest allies that President Trump had in Congress”.The Guardian’s Sam Levine and Alice Herman are following oral arguments this morning at the Wisconsin supreme court, where the seven justices will adjudicate one of the most closely-watched gerrymandering cases this year.The case is a challenge to the maps for Wisconsin’s state legislature, which are so heavily distorted in favor of Republicans that it is all but impossible for Democrats to win a majority.Republicans took over the legislature in 2010, and drew maps that have cemented their majority ever since. Democrats won statewide elections in the state in 2018, 2020, and 2022, but Republicans have never had fewer than 60 seats in the state assembly. State senate districts must be comprised of three assembly districts in Wisconsin, so any gerrymandering in the assembly carries over to the senate.The challengers want the court to strike down the maps and order new elections in all 132 of the state’s legislative districts in 2024.They note that 75 of Wisconsin’s 132 legislative districts are non-contiguous, a clear violation of a state constitutional requirement that says all districts need to be contiguous. The districts, Republicans argue, are contiguous because even with “islands” they still keep municipalities whole.The challengers also argue that the process by which the supreme court picked the current maps violated the separation of powers because the panel chose one the Democratic governor had vetoed.Oral arguments have just begun. We’ll bring you updates as we get them.Read more here:“Grifters, frauds and con men willing to subvert the Constitution and long-established constitutional principles for the whims of political expediency.”That’s how a group of prominent conservative lawyers sees the legal team Donald Trump has surrounded himself with as the former president plots a return to the White House next year.Warning of an unprecedented threat to democracy from a Trump second term, and the worsening of a “legal emergency” set in motion by his unprecedented efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, they have founded a group called the Society for the Rule of Law Institute, which they say is needed “to bring sanity back to conservative lawyering and jurisprudence”.A trio of lawyers form the new group’s board. They are George Conway, ex-husband to Trump’s former senior adviser Kellyanne Conway; J Michael Luttig, formerly a US appeals court judge; and Republican former Virginia congresswoman Barbara Comstock.They set out their case Tuesday in a hard-hitting editorial in the New York Times:
      American democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law are the righteous causes of our times, and the nation’s legal profession is obligated to support them. But with the acquiescence of the larger conservative legal movement, these pillars of our system of governance are increasingly in peril. The dangers will only grow should Donald Trump be returned to the White House next November.
      Recent reporting about plans for a second Trump presidency are frightening. He would stock his administration with partisan loyalists committed to fast-tracking his agenda and sidestepping – if not circumventing altogether – existing laws and long-established legal norms.
      They cite Trump’s already publicized plans to appoint public officials investigate and exact retribution against his political opponents; remove federal public servants at will; and invoke special powers to seize control of First Amendment-protected activities, criminal justice, elections, immigration and more.The “guest essay” continues with praise for the few lawyers in the first Trump administration who stood up to his excesses, and a warning that legal checks and balances would be largely absent from his second:
      Alarming is the growing crowd of grifters, frauds and con men willing to subvert the Constitution and long-established constitutional principles for the whims of political expediency.
      The actions of these conservative Republican lawyers are increasingly becoming the new normal. Any legal movement that could foment such a constitutional abdication and attract a sufficient number of lawyers willing to advocate its unlawful causes is ripe for a major reckoning.
      Our country is in a constitutional emergency, if not a constitutional crisis.
      Good morning US politics blog readers! A group of prominent conservative lawyers is warning that democracy would be placed in unprecedented peril if Donald Trump returns to the White House next year, and that legal checks and balances on his conduct would be largely absent if he wins a second term.The dire predictions come in a hard-hitting opinion piece Tuesday in the New York Times.Trump, the former president and runaway leader for the Republican 2024 nomination, has surrounded himself with “growing crowd of grifters, frauds and con men willing to subvert the Constitution and long-established constitutional principles for the whims of political expediency,” they say, creating an unprecedented “legal emergency” worsened by their support of his unsuccessful efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.The authors, who include George Conway, ex-husband to Trump’s former senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, have formed an attorneys’ group called the Society for the Rule of Law Institute, which they say is needed “to bring sanity back to conservative lawyering and jurisprudence”.We’ll have a closer look at that coming up.Here’s what else we’re watching today on a quiet pre-Thanksgiving Tuesday in Washington DC:
      Joe Biden will host a White House meeting over efforts to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US this morning, before he and first lady Jill Biden head for their Thanksgiving break in Nantucket.
      There’s no action in Congress, but an election in Utah’s 2nd congressional district Tuesday will restore the House to its full complement of 435 members since Democrat David Cicilline of Rhode Island resigned in May. Republican Celeste Maloy is expected to handily beat Democratic state senator Kathleen Riebe.
      Wisconsin’s supreme court will hear oral argument in a high-stakes lawsuit seeking to strike down the maps for the state’s legislature. The result could bring an end to what may be the most gerrymandered districts in the US. Read more about that here. More

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      in US Politics

      Appeals court strikes significant blow against Voting Rights Act – as it happened

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      A federal appeals court has issued a decision striking down a core element of the Voting Rights Act, further undermining protections for voters of color in the US, saying only the federal government – not private citizens or civil rights groups – is allowed to sue under a crucial section of the landmark civil rights law.The 8th circuit today upheld a lower court’s ruling that says private individuals can’t bring lawsuits under the law, meaning only the federal government can sue under the Voting Rights Act’s section 2 protections for people of color. That also means that civil rights groups wouldn’t be allowed to sue either.There appears to be a strong prospect that even the right-leaning US supreme court will not uphold this when, as is likely, it is appealed to the highest level. But as currently ruled the decision would be a massive blow to voting rights and racial equality.The civil rights law was implemented to increase minority representation in US national leadership.And:That’s a wrap for today’s politics live blog.Here’s what happened today:
      A federal appeals court has issued a decision striking down a core element of the Voting Rights Act, further undermining protections for voters of color in the US. The court ruled that only the federal government – not private citizens or civil rights groups – is allowed to sue under a crucial section of the landmark civil rights law.
      Lawyers representing Donald Trump and federal prosecutors clashed on Monday in federal court about the scope of a gag order placed on the former president. A gag order last month prevents him from attacking witnesses, prosecutors, or others associated with the election interference case.
      Judges at the hearing on Trump’s gag order appeared skeptical about complaints regarding the gag order’s prophylactic nature, but were sympathetic to claims made by Trump’s defense team.
      At one point during the hearing, a judge raised the hypothetical point that it wouldn’t be fair if Trump “has to speak Miss Manners while everyone else is throwing targets at him”, Forbes reported.
      Judges on the three-person panel also criticized another hypothetical situation where Trump would not be allowed to call a potential witness a “liar” if they said things that were untrue.
      Thank you for reading; stay tuned for the Guardian’s politics live blog tomorrow.US representative Tony Cárdenas of California will not seek re-election in 2024 after almost three decades of service, the Los Angeles Times first reported.A staffer confirmed to the Times that Cárdenas would not be running for office, the first time in 28 years that he has not appeared on a ballot, the Hill reported.“I’m just at the age where I have enough energy and experience to maybe do something [different] and have another chapter of a career where I don’t have to go to Washington DC, 32 weeks out of the year,” Cárdenas told the Times.Cárdenas has focused much of his political career in the House on lowering drug prices, developing immigration policy, and combatting climate change, his office told the Times.Cárdenas’ seat will likely remain in the Democrat’s control, but it may be a crowded race.Here’s more information on the hearing around the scope of Trump’s gag order, from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell:
      On Monday, at the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, the three-judge panel repeatedly suggested they found untenable Trump’s position that there could be no ‘prophylactic’ provision to ensure Trump was restricted from prejudicing the case until after it had already taken place.
      Trump’s lawyer John Sauer argued that prosecutors had not met their evidentiary obligations – that Trump’s statements directly led to threats to witnesses, for instance – to get a gag order. The legal standard, Sauer said, should be proof of an ‘imminent threat’.
      But the panel interjected that there was a clear pattern with Trump stretching back to the post-2020 election period that when he named and assailed individuals, they invariably received death threats or other harassment from his supporters.
      The pattern has included the trial judge Chutkan, who received a death threat the very next day after Trump’s indictment when he posted ‘If you go after me, I’m coming after you’ on his Truth Social platform, even if Trump had not directly directed his ire at her.
      ‘Why does the district court have to wait and see, and wait for the threats to come, rather than taking reasonable action in advance?’ the circuit judge Brad Garcia pressed Sauer.
      The Trump lawyer responded that posts from three years ago did not meet the standard required for a gag order, as he argued the supreme court has held that a ‘heckler’s veto’ – gagging a defendant merely because of fears about how a third party might act – was not permissible rationale.
      Read more here:Here’s more info on polling that shows a majority of Democrats believe Israel’s actions are “too much”:
      According to polling from Reuters/Ispos, the majority of Americans believe that Israel should call a ceasefire. About 68% of respondents said they agreed that ‘Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate’.
      A majority of Democratic voters also believe that Israel’s overwhelming response to the 7 October Hamas attack, in which the Islamist extremists killed more than 1,200 people in southern Israel and took hostages back to Gaza, is ‘too much’, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
      And 56% of Democrats have said that Israel’s military operations in Gaza have been too much, which is 21 points higher than a similar survey last month.
      People of color in the US as well as those under the age of 45 also believe that Israel’s response has been disproportionate, pointing to generational and racial splits around support for Israel.
      Meanwhile, 52% of Republicans viewed Israel’s response as ‘about right’, an increase from last month’s poll when more Republicans then viewed Israel’s reaction as ‘too little’.
      Overall, the majority of respondents say they are more sympathetic to Israelis than Palestinians.
      Read more information here and about US demonstrations in support of Palestine, from the Guardian.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre addressed a question about poll numbers showing that a growing number of American people don’t support Joe Biden’s handling of the conflict in Gaza.“We’re not gonna govern by poll numbers. We’re gonna focus on delivering for the American people … on what the American people expect him to do,” Jean-Pierre said, emphasizing Biden’s gains for the economy.Jean-Pierre added that she would not be going “point by point” on each poll.The White House briefing is happening now, with spokesperson John Kirby discussing the situation in Gaza with reporters.Kirby has said that he does not have an update regarding a potential deal to get hostages from Hamas.Kirby did not elaborate if the potential deal would focus on women and children, but added, “we’re closer now than we’ve been before” when it comes to a deal to guarantee the hostages’ safety.More quotes are coming out of this morning’s hearing on the scope of Donald Trump’s gag order, demonstrating that the judges were not entirely unsympathetic to the arguments of the former president’s defense team.At one point, a judge raised the hypothetical point that it wouldn’t be fair if Trump “has to speak Miss Manners while everyone else is throwing targets at him”, Forbes reported.Judges also criticized another hypothetical situation where Trump would not be allowed to call a potential witness a “liar” if they said things that were untrue.When the supreme court gutted the requirement for states with a history of racial bias to pre-clear changes to their voting laws with the federal government – in its 2013 landmark ruling in Shelby county v Holder that drastically weakened the Voting Rights Act – it expected that the capacity for individuals to sue was the safety net needed.That’s one element drawing expert ire today. Here’s Steve Vladeck:Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center is clearly furious at the appeals court’s ruling today:Some background from the Guardian:The decision from the 8th circuit court of appeal, which is based in St Louis, Missouri, and was ruling on a lower court redistricting case out of Arkansas, is drawing furious reaction from defenders of a fundamental element of the Voting Rights Act.Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is chiefly designed to prohibit voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of a person’s race and is one of the law’s last remaining powerful provision after years of attacks from the right.(The US supreme court, in a 5-4 opinion authored by chief justice John Roberts in 2013, gutted a key provision of the law that required states with a history of voting discrimination to get voting changes pre-cleared by the federal government before they went into effect.)Most challenges under section 2 are brought by private individuals or civil rights or voting rights advocacy and campaign groups, not the US government.A federal appeals court has issued a decision striking down a core element of the Voting Rights Act, further undermining protections for voters of color in the US, saying only the federal government – not private citizens or civil rights groups – is allowed to sue under a crucial section of the landmark civil rights law.The 8th circuit today upheld a lower court’s ruling that says private individuals can’t bring lawsuits under the law, meaning only the federal government can sue under the Voting Rights Act’s section 2 protections for people of color. That also means that civil rights groups wouldn’t be allowed to sue either.There appears to be a strong prospect that even the right-leaning US supreme court will not uphold this when, as is likely, it is appealed to the highest level. But as currently ruled the decision would be a massive blow to voting rights and racial equality.The civil rights law was implemented to increase minority representation in US national leadership.And:Joe Biden joked about his birthday and age while conducting the annual pardon of Thanksgiving turkeys.Biden, who turned 81 today, joked that he was only turning 60 while pardoning the poultry, the Hill reported.“I just want you to know it’s difficult turning 60, difficult,” Biden said.Biden also added that it was the 76th anniversary of the pardoning tradition in the White House, joking that he was “too young” to make the tradition up.Judges at the hearing on Donald Trump’s gag order appeared skeptical about complaints regarding the gag order’s prophylactic nature, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports.The hearing on the scope of the former president’s gag order in the election interference case is now over.After over two hours of arguments, judges are not expected to make a decision on the order today.The three-judge panel seemed unconvinced about legal complaints coming from Trump’s defense team, but also believed that the original gag order was “insufficiently narrow”. More

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      in US Politics

      Can a socialist ex-marine fill Joe Manchin’s seat in West Virginia?

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      To launch his campaign for US Senate, Zach Shrewsbury chose the site of one of America’s most famous hangings.Charles Town, West Virginia, was where state authorities executed the abolitionist John Brown after he led an attack on a federal armory a few miles down the road in Harpers Ferry, a pivotal moment in the lead-up to the civil war. One hundred and sixty four years later, Shrewsbury – who decided against attempting to get a permit for the event at the site of the insurrection, which is now a national park – stood on the courthouse grounds where Brown’s hanging took place to announce that he would be the only “real Democrat” running to represent West Virginia in the Senate next year.“We need leaders that are cut from the working-class cloth. We need representation that will go toe to toe with corporate parasites and their bought politicians. We need a leader who will not waver in the face of these powers that keep the boot on our neck,” Shrewsbury said to applause from the small group of supporters gathered behind him.“So, as John Brown said, ‘These men are all talk. What we need is action.’ I’m taking action right now to stand up to these bought bureaucrats.”The remarks were a swipe at Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator who for the past 13 years had managed to represent what has become one of the most Republican states in the nation. In recent years he has used his power as a swing vote in Congress to stop several of Joe Biden’s legislative priorities – attracting the ire of progressives and prompting Shrewsbury to mount a primary challenge.A few weeks after Shrewsbury began campaigning, he was showing a friend around an abandoned mining town when his phone rang with news: Manchin had decided not to seek re-election, leaving Shrewsbury as the only Democrat in the race.By all indications, Shrewsbury, a 32-year-old Marine Corps veteran and community organizer, faces a difficult, if not impossible, road to victory. West Virginia gave Donald Trump his second-biggest margin of support of any state in the nation three years ago, and Manchin is the last Democrat holding a statewide office. Political analysts do not expect voters to elect the Democratic candidate – whoever that turns out to be – and predict Manchin will be replaced by either Governor Jim Justice or Congressman Alex Mooney, the two leading Republicans in the Senate race.Shrewsbury’s message to them is: not so fast.“People were really sold on the fact that Joe Manchin could be the only Democrat that could win in West Virginia, and I very much disagree,” Shrewsbury told the Guardian a week after the senator made his announcement.Also a former governor, Manchin is considered the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, and when the party took the majority by a single vote in the chamber in 2021, Manchin stopped the Biden administration from passing policies that would have made permanent a program to reduce child poverty, and more forcefully fight climate change.Sitting in a conference room at the Fayette county Democratic party’s headquarters in Oak Hill, where visitors pass a lobby displaying an American flag, a pride flag, and a stack of Narcan, the opioid-overdose reversal medication, Shrewsbury outlined his plans to run a campaign distinctly to the left of Manchin’s policies – and one he believes can win.“People want someone who’s genuine. They don’t want a politician. They want someone who actually looks like them. I mean, hell, you can’t get much more West Virginia than this,” said Shrewsbury, fond of wearing flannel shirts and hunting caps.Among his priorities are creating universal healthcare and childcare programs, and reducing the role of incarceration in fighting the opioid epidemic ravaging West Virginia.“Everyone here just is thankful for the scraps or crumbs that we get from whoever we elect. And that’s who we keep electing – whoever can keep the little crumbs coming along. I’m trying to say there is a better way,” Shrewsbury said.He also doesn’t shy away from identifying as a socialist, arguing the term may be less politically damaging than it appears – West Virginia Democrats voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary, and the independent senator, he argues, is popular even with the state’s Republicans.“If caring about working-class people, caring about people having bodily autonomy, water rights, workers’ rights, makes you a socialist, then call me whatever you want. Doesn’t bother me,” Shrewsbury said.Raised on a farm by a Republican family in rural Monroe county, Shrewsbury dropped out of college after a semester and joined the marines. In the years that followed, he guarded the perimeter at the US base in Guantánamo Bay, and was deployed to Japan, Malaysia and South Korea before eventually moving to Seattle and then returning to West Virginia, where he realized how bereft his home state was of the prosperity he saw elsewhere in the country and overseas.“Why can’t my home be as economically profitable as the rest?” Shrewsbury recalls thinking. “It woke me up in the Marine Corps a little bit, and once I got back home, I really just kind of put the nail in the coffin there for what I was gonna be for work. I want to help people.”He turned to community organizing, seeing it as a way to help a state with the fourth-highest poverty rate in the nation, which is struggling to transition from the declining coal and logging industries that have historically undergirded its economy.“I know Zach’s a long shot. It’s like David against three Goliaths,” said Pam Garrison, a fellow community organizer. “Zach is able to be hardline when he needs to be. I’ve seen him being forceful and steadfast in his principles and what things are. And then I’ve seen the compassionate and empathy side of Zach too, And that’s what makes a good politician.”Since 2020, Shrewsbury has helped towns dig out from flooding, door-knocked in the narrow Appalachian valleys – known as hollers – to find out what residents were looking for from the state legislature, and talked to mayors and city councils about the opportunities presented by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which incentivizes consumer usage of renewable energy, including home solar panels.Though Manchin played a key role in authoring the IRA, he also nixed the expanded child tax credit, which has been credited with cutting the child poverty rate by half in 2021, the sole year it was in effect. Shrewsbury was outraged by reports that later emerged of the senator privately expressing worries that people would use the program’s money to buy drugs, and jumped into the race.Despite the state’s conservative leanings, Sam Workman, the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs at West Virginia University, believed Manchin may have had a path to victory had he decided to run. But he said the same cannot be said for Shrewsbury or any other Democrat.“It’s kind of a fall-on-your-sword moment,” Workman said. “Politics is like sports: you should never say never, but I do not see the Democrats winning the Senate seat, no matter who runs.”Shrewsbury may be alone in the Democratic primary at the moment, but he expects other candidates to enter. Since launching his campaign, he has not heard from the state Democratic party, nor the national party’s senate campaign arm.“I’m not exactly what the party wants, because I speak my mind. You know, I’m not going to toe the party line,” he said. “I wish the party would get back in more touch with the workers. But like I said, I have the message that many people aren’t saying.” More

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      Thirteen Republicans support resolution to expel George Santos from Congress – as it happened

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      It is 4pm in Washington DC. Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      The House speaker, Mike Johnson, has pledged that he is going to make “all the January 6th tapes available to all Americans.” “Today, I am keeping my promise to the American people and making all the January 6th tapes available to ALL Americans,” he tweeted on Friday.
      Rosalynn Carter, the 96-year-old former first lady, is in hospice care at home in Plains, Georgia. A statement released by her office on Friday afternoon said: “She and President Carter are spending time with each other and their family. The Carter family continues to ask for privacy and remains grateful for the outpouring of love and support.”
      The Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has criticized San Francisco over its street cleanup for the Apec summit and Joe Biden’s bilateral meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping earlier this week. “Xi Jinping’s coming to town, and what do they do? They get the poop off the sidewalk, they … clear the homeless, they stop the drugs, they stop the crime,” said DeSantis.
      Thirteen Republicans have supported a resolution to expel George Santos from the House of Representatives. Meanwhile, Santos, who has been charged with fraud, said: “The one thing I never knew was that the process in Congress was dirty. I will continue to fight for what I believe in and I will never back down.”
      Democrats in New Hampshire still see Joe Biden as the party’s best shot to hold the White House, according to a new poll from CNN. Although Biden’s name will not appear on the state’s primary ballots, 65% of New Hampshire Democrats said they will write in Biden’s name, while 10% said they will vote for Minnesota’s Democratic representative Dean Phillips.
      The White House has condemned a tweet from Elon Musk that endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish communities “push hatred against whites”. “We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans,” the White House said.
      Following the suspension of Donald Trump’s gag order in his ongoing New York fraud trial, Trump’s team resumed its attacks against the trial’s presiding judge Arthur Engoron’s law clerk, Allison Greenfield. Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, went after Greenfield on X, denouncing her as a “Democrat operative and hack”.
      Donald Trump himself has also gone after Allison Greenfield following the gag order’s suspension. In a post on Truth Social, Trump denounced Greenfield as “politically biased and out of control”.
      That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.House speaker Mike Johnson has pledged that he is going to make “all the January 6th tapes available to all Americans”.
      “Today, I am keeping my promise to the American people and making all the January 6th tapes available to ALL Americans,” he tweeted on Friday.
      Rosalynn Carter, the 96-year-old former first lady, is in hospice care at home in Plains, Georgia. A statement released by her office on Friday afternoon said:
      “Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has entered hospice care at home. She and President Carter are spending time with each other and their family. The Carter family continues to ask for privacy and remains grateful for the outpouring of love and support.”
      Several pro-ceasefire demonstrators were arrested at Fox News’s headquarters in New York City as Gaza protests spread.The Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo reports:More protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza were under way in the US on Friday morning, with police breaking up crowds and arresting demonstrators in various locations.Such demonstrations come as recent polling shows that US public support for Israel is dropping, while the Hamas authorities in Gaza reported on Friday that more than 12,000 Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians and mostly women and children, had now been killed since Israel declared war on Hamas in October.New York police on Friday arrested pro-Palestine supporters who occupied the headquarters of News Corp, the media company that owns the Fox News channel and the Wall Street Journal and New York Post newspapers, according to clips posted on social media.Dozens of demonstrators gathered in the News Corp lobby, chanting, “Shame” and “Fox News … you can’t hide. Your lies cover up genocide.”For the further details, click here:Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has criticized San Francisco over its street cleanup for the Apec summit and Joe Biden’s bilateral meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping earlier this week.
      “I look to see what’s going on in San Francisco the last couple of days. The city is in squalor, there’s poop on the streets, there’s people using drugs, people getting mugged …
      But then Xi Jinping’s coming to town, and what do they do? They get the poop off the sidewalk, they … clear the homeless, they stop the drugs, they stop the crime,” said DeSantis.
      Joe Biden has issued high praise towards Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador during their meeting amid Apec in San Francisco.Speaking to Obrador in English, Biden said:
      “We had dinner last night. I told you, you sat next to my wife. You were so captivating, I was worried she liked you more than she likes me now.”
      George Santos has announced a press conference on 30 November at 8am.In a tweet on Friday, Santos, who has been charged with fraud and is facing expulsion by several of his Republican colleagues, wrote:
      My year from Hell. Running for office was never a dream or goal, but when the opportunity to do so came I felt the time to serve my country was now. Looking back today I know one thing, politics is indeed dirty, dirty from the very bottom up.
      Consultants, operatives, the opposition, the party and more … the one thing I never knew was that the process in Congress was dirty. I will continue to fight for what I believe in and I will never back down. What the ‘ethics committee’ did today was not part of due process, what they did was poison a the jury pool on my on going investigation with the DoJ. This was a dirty biased act and one that tramples all over my rights.
      Press conference November 30th at 8am on The Capitol steps, I encourage ALL members of the press to attend.
      Meanwhile, Representative George Santos has not made a public statement about his fellow party members calling for his expulsion.Instead, the New York congressman published a post on X about the need for Congress to “grow a spine” and ban Tik Tok.Tik Tok has faced backlash in recent days from Jewish public figures over antisemitism on the app.Here is an updated list of Republicans who support the resolution to expel Santos, from CNN:Iowa representative Randy Feenstra publically said he will support a resolution to expel George Santos, another Republican joining the call for Santos’s removal.In a post to X, formally known as Twitter, Feenstra said that he will support the resolution in light of Santos’ “illegal and unethical behavior” if Santos does not “do the right thing and resign”.“Rep. George Santos has proven that his ethics do not align with what we expect from our leaders,” Feenstra said in a statement on X.Democrats in New Hampshire still see Joe Biden as the party’s best shot to hold the White House, according to a new poll from CNN.Although Biden’s name will not appear on the state’s primary ballots, 65% of New Hampshire Democrats said they will write in Biden’s name, while 10% said they will vote for Minnesota’s Democratic representative Dean Phillips. Nine per cent said they will vote for author Marianne Williamson.CNN also reports, “Among adults in New Hampshire, Biden’s job approval rating (44% approve to 55% disapprove) and favorability (34% favorable, 53% unfavorable) remain in negative territory, and about two-thirds see the country as heading off on the wrong track.”Moreover, only 42% approve of Biden’s handling of the economy while 40% approve of his handling of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.The trial surrounding Donald Trump’s classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort is running about four months behind schedule.The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:The US district judge Aileen Cannon put off setting a deadline for Trump to submit a notice about what classified information he intends to use at trial – currently set for May – until after a hearing next year that almost certainly precludes the pre-trial process from finishing in time.Trump was indicted this summer with violating the Espionage Act when he illegally retained classified documents after he left office and conspiring to obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago club, including defying a grand jury subpoena.But the fact that Trump was charged with retaining national defense information means his case will be tried under the complex rules laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa, which governs how those documents can be used in court.At issue is the fact that the seven-stage Cipa process is sequential, meaning each previous section has to be completed before the case can proceed to the next section. A delay halfway through the process invariably has the net effect of delaying the entire schedule leading to trial.For the full story, click here:Donald Trump said that he wanted to go to the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection claiming that he would have been “very well recieved.”According to new audio released from an interview between Donald Trump and political journalist and author Jonathan Karl two months after the insurrection, Trump said:
      I was going to [go up to the Capitol] and then Secret Service said you can’t … I wanted to go back. I was thinking about going back during the problem to stop the problem, doing it myself. Secret Service didn’t like that idea too much … I would have been very well received. More

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      George Santos: the four strands of the Republican congressman’s web of lies

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      George Santos’s extensive lies and financial improprieties have started to catch up to the New York representative, with criminal charges in New York and a newly released House ethics committee report.The congressman built a campaign on a fake résumé, made-up personal stories and a host of complex financial transactions that benefited his personal bank account, the report and other reporting show. His falsehoods ranged from serious to mundane and, at times, bizarre.“Representative Santos’ congressional campaigns were built around his backstory as a successful man of means: a grandson of Holocaust survivors and graduate from Baruch College with a Master’s in Business Administration from New York University, who went on to work at Citi Group and Goldman Sachs, owned multiple properties, and was the beneficiary of a family trust worth millions of dollars left by his mother, who passed years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a result of long-term health effects related to being at one of the towers,” the House ethics report says.“No part of that backstory has been found to be true.”Financial irregularitiesThe House ethics report concluded that Santos used campaign funds and his position to enrich himself. He allegedly claimed to have loaned his campaign money, despite not having done so, then paid himself back. His financial disclosure forms were not accurate, and, the report said, one was “filled with falsehoods designed to make him appear wealthier than he was and furthered the fictional persona he had concocted by falsely reporting more than half a million dollars in loans to the FEC”.He also used campaign funds for personal purposes. Some examples in the House report: purchases at Ferragamo and Hermès, hotel stays in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, ATM withdrawals, paying his personal rent and personal credit card bills, spa services like Botox and “smaller purchases” at OnlyFans, an adult content service.His campaign filed a list of false donors as another way to “artificially inflate” his required financial reports, the House investigation claims. The New York indictment further alleges Santos defrauded donors and charged their credit cards without authorization.The New York criminal charges include allegations that Santos improperly received unemployment insurance despite being employed at a $120,000-per-year job. He received more than $24,000 in unemployment benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic, the charges state.Ironically, Santos touted his financial acumen when running for office, claiming he had an “extensive background in money management/growth” and was “good at it”. This background would help the House during budgeting and serve his constituents well, he said.If they’d known about his inaccurate and false financial statements, the House ethics group said, “his constituents may have had cause to question whether he was actually ‘good at’ money management and growth, or balancing costs and budgets – or, indeed, whether he had any experience in finance at all”.Personal historyThe New York Times first detailed lengthy fictions Santos told about himself, his education and his work experience, finding that his résumé was beyond embellished and outright false. He didn’t receive degrees from the schools he claimed he had. He hadn’t worked jobs he included in his work history.He also claimed to be a landlord who owned 13 properties, though no records of any property ownership have been found for him.His background has also come into question. He claimed his grandparents were Jewish and fled Europe because of persecution during the second world war, but genealogical research by Forward contradicted his story.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSantos also said his mother was at the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks, but records show she was not in the US at that time.Stolen election claimsWhile claiming the 2020 election was stolen isn’t rare for congressional Republicans, Santos also boosted election denialism. In a speech on 5 January 2021, Santos claimed his election was stolen, as was Trump’s. He said he had been ahead in the vote count for days until the results changed, which happened because more ballots were counted.“They did to me what they did to Donald J Trump, they stole my election,” Santos said. He then asked the crowd: “Who here is ready to overturn the election for Donald J Trump?”Dog-related storiesA few stories about pets also plague Santos. He claimed to run a charity that rescued more than 2,500 animals, though the group wasn’t registered as a non-profit and it appears Santos’s claims related to its work were greatly exaggerated.In a strange side story, Santos was also charged with writing bad checks to dog breeders with “puppies” in the memo line, though he had the charge dismissed and his record expunged because he claimed someone stole his checkbook and wrote the checks in his name.In a separate fraud case in Brazil, Santos admitted he stole a man’s checkbook and made purchases with it.Yet another dog-related story claims Santos raised thousands of dollars in a GoFundMe to help a veteran who was homeless take care of his pit bull, then pocketed the money instead of helping the dog. More

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      George Santos will not seek re-election after House details ‘pervasive’ fraud

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      The New York Republican congressman, fabulist and criminal defendant George Santos said he would not seek re-election next year, after the US House ethics committee issued a report detailing “grave and pervasive campaign finance violations and fraudulent activity” and recommended action against him.“I will NOT be seeking re-election for a second term in 2024 as my family deserves better than to be under the gun from the press all the time,” Santos said, calling the report “biased” and “a disgusting politicised smear”.But after the report detailed his conduct, moves for a new expulsion resolution began.“Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,” the committee said.“He blatantly stole from his campaign. He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit.“He reported fictitious loans to his political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign – and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported ‘repayments’ of those fictitious loans.“He used his connections to high-value donors and other political campaigns to obtain additional funds for himself through fraudulent or otherwise questionable business dealings. And he sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience.”Santos, 35, was elected last year, as Republicans retook the House in part thanks to a strong performance in New York. But as his résumé unraveled amid increasingly picaresque reports about his life before entering Congress, including questions about his actual name, he admitted “embellishing” his record.Allegations of criminal behaviour emerged. Santos has now pleaded not guilty to 23 federal criminal charges, including laundering funds and defrauding donors.He has survived attempts to expel him from the House, including from members of his own party. Most recently, 31 Democrats voted against making him only the sixth member ever expelled, saying he should not be thrown out without being convicted. Three congressmen were expelled in 1861, for supporting the Confederacy in the civil war. Two have been expelled after being criminally convicted, the last in 2002.Republican leaders, beholden to a narrow majority, had said they would wait for the ethics report.On Thursday, the New York Democrat Dan Goldman said: “More than 10 months after Congressman [Ritchie] Torres and I filed a complaint … the committee has … concluded that George Santos defrauded his donors, filed false Federal Election Commission reports, and repeatedly broke the law in order to fraudulently win his election last November.”Promising to “file a motion to expel Santos from Congress once and for all” after the Thanksgiving break, Goldman said Republicans “no longer have any fictional excuse to protect Santos in order to preserve their narrow majority”.Mike Lawler, a New York Republican who has tried to expel Santos, said Santos should “end this farce and resign immediately. If he refuses, he must be removed from Congress. His conduct is not only unbecoming and embarrassing, it is criminal. He is unfit to serve and should resign today”.Mike Johnson, the new Republican speaker, has said Santos deserves due process. Speaking to Fox News last month, he also said Republicans had “no margin for error”.But according to the Washington Post, citing an anonymous source, Michael Guest of Mississippi, the Republican committee chair, planned to file a motion to expel Santos on Friday, setting up a possible vote after the Thanksgiving holiday next week.Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said she “intend[ed] to vote yes on any privileged expulsion resolution … as the work of the committee is now complete, and I am no longer obligated to maintain neutrality”.Santos said: “If there was a single ounce of ETHICS in the ‘ethics committee’, they would have not released this biased report. The committee went to extraordinary lengths to smear myself and my legal team about me not being forthcoming (my legal bills suggest otherwise).“It is a disgusting politicised smear that shows the depths of how low our federal government has sunk. Everyone who participated in this grave miscarriage of justice should all be ashamed of themselves.”Somewhat optimistically, he called for a constitutional convention to formalise action against Joe Biden for supposed crimes. More contritely, Santos said he was “humbled yet again and reminded that I am human and I have flaws”.The report was accompanied by extensive appendices including evidence of apparent malpractice. Santos was shown to have spent donor money on vacations, luxury goods, Botox treatment and the website OnlyFans.One exhibit showed a suggestion by a staffer to place a microphone under a table bearing donuts for reporters, an offering that made headlines earlier this year.The committee said Santos had not cooperated, “continues to flout his statutory financial disclosure obligations and has failed to correct countless errors and omissions in his past [financial disclosure] statements, despite being repeatedly reminded … of his requirement to do so.“The [committee] also found that, despite his attempts to blame others for much of the misconduct, Representative Santos was a knowing and active participant in the wrongdoing. Particularly troubling was Representative Santos’ lack of candour during the investigation itself.”The committee said it would refer its findings to federal prosecutors. Members of Congress, it said, should take any action “appropriate and necessary … to fulfill the House’s constitutional mandate to police the conduct of its members”.Outside Congress, Brett Edkins, of the pressure group Stand Up America, said: “This report has one clear conclusion: Santos is wholly unfit to hold office.“If George Santos had any shame or remorse over deceiving hard-working New Yorkers and his colleagues in Congress, he would resign immediately. Instead, he continues to use every possible lie and excuse to cling to power … since he refuses to step down, House Republicans should grow a backbone and expel him.” More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene claims Democrats failed to defend House from Capitol rioters

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      In a new book, the extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene claims no Democrats stayed in the House chamber on January 6 to help defend it against rioters sent by Donald Trump to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election win – a claim one Democrat who did stay labeled “patently false”.Greene’s book, MTG, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Describing January 6, Greene writes: “Several of the Republican congressmen said, ‘We’re going to stay right here and defend the House chamber.’ As they began barricading the door with furniture, I noticed not one Democrat was willing to stay to defend the chamber.”But that version of events sits in stark contrast to others prominently including that of Jason Crow of Colorado, a Democratic congressman and former US army ranger who worked to help fellow representatives before being, by his own description, the last politician to leave.Speaking to the Denver Post after the riot, Crow said: “They evacuated the folks on the floor but those of us in the gallery actually got trapped for like 20 minutes as the rioters stormed the stairwells and the doors.“So, Capitol police actually locked the doors of the chamber and started piling furniture up on the doors to barricade them, while holding their guns out.“I got into ranger mode a little bit. Most of the members didn’t know how to use the emergency masks, so I was helping them get their emergency masks out of the bags and helped instruct a bunch of folks on how to put it on and how to use it. I wasn’t going to leave the House floor until every member was gone, so I waited until we were able to get everybody out.”On Wednesday, Crow told the Guardian: “Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t exist in the same reality as the rest of us. For those of us who were there on January 6 and actually defended the chamber from violent insurrectionists, her view is patently false. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”Other Democrats have described how they tried to help.In an oral history of January 6 by Business Insider, Raúl Grijalva, of Arizona, said: “You also saw members doing their part to facilitate our evacuation – Seth Moulton [of Massachusetts, a marines veteran], Ruben Gallego, and four or five others … who assumed a role of helping us to get out of there and working with the Capitol police to make sure that we were all safe.”Gallego, also of Arizona and a former marine, told the same site: “Eventually what I did was I jumped up on a table and started giving instructions to people about how to open up the gas mask. We start seeing the doors being barricaded with furniture. We start hearing the noise of people – the insurrectionists – pounding on doors. Especially in the gallery.”Greene’s book pursues her familiar conspiracy theory-laced invective, taking shots at targets including Democrats, the media and Lauren Boebert, another Republican extremist with whom Greene has fallen out.Discussing January 6, three days after her swearing-in, Greene claims to have worked “tirelessly” on objections to key state results but to have been “utterly shocked” when rioters breached the Capitol.Some Republicans, she says “carried concealed weapons and were ready to be good guys with guns, defending themselves and others if need be” – despite guns being banned in the House chamber. Greene says she tried to stay close to Clay Higgins of Louisiana, a former law enforcement officer who was “one of the armed Republican members of Congress exercising his second amendment rights that day”.Describing instructions to put on hoods against possible exposure to teargas, Greene says she did not do so as she would not have been able to clearly hear or see.“Many of the Democrats obligingly put theirs on and some were lying on the floor, hysterical,” she writes, describing a chamber “in complete and utter disarray”.Pictures of the House on January 6 show Crow comforting Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, a Republican lying on the gallery floor. Other pictures show Republicans including Troy Nehls of Texas and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma helping to barricade doors.According to the House January 6 committee, evacuation happened in stages. Democratic leaders including the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, were removed at the same time as Mike Pence, the vice-president. Kevin McCarthy, then Republican minority leader, soon followed. Evacuation of the rest of the House began at 2.38pm, members escaping as a rioter, Ashli Babbitt, was fatally shot by police.“Members in the House gallery were evacuated after the members on the House floor,” the report says. “Congressional members in the gallery had to wait to be evacuated because rioters were still roaming the hallways right outside the chamber.“At 2.49pm, as members were trying to evacuate the House gallery, the [Capitol police] … cleared the hallways with long rifles so that the members could be escorted to safety … surveillance footage shows several rioters lying on the ground, with long rifles pointed at them, as members evacuate. By 3pm, the area had been cleared and members were evacuated … to a secure location.”Greene claims rioters have since been mistreated. But she is not finished. A noted fitness enthusiast, she chooses to mock another Democrat, Jerry Nadler of New York, then the 73-year-old chair of the House judiciary committee.“I saw that it was a problem that so many of our representatives were older and physically unable to run,” Greene writes. “How do you get them to safety when they cannot move quickly because of age, physical ailments or lack of physical fitness?“Oh, and many were hysterical, with the plastic bags over their heads in fear of teargas and the little electric fans running so they couldn’t hear, either. Just imagine Jerry Nadler trying to run for safety!” More

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      Searching for the perfect republic: Eric Foner on the 14th amendment – and if it might stop Trump

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      The 14th amendment was passed in 1868, to settle important matters arising from the civil war, including how we define equality before the law. Ever since, it has served as the foundation for one landmark supreme court decision after another, from Brown v Board of Education (1954), which banned segregation in public schools, to Obergefell v Hodges (2015), which legalized gay marriage.In recent times, a little-known feature has come into sharp focus. Six days after the January 6 Capitol attack, Eric Foner, a historian of the US civil war and the Reconstruction era, argued that section 3 of the amendment forbids an “officer of the United States” from holding office if he or she has sworn an oath to the constitution, then participated in an “insurrection or rebellion”.That could mean Donald Trump is ineligible to hold public office.The matter is now before the states. In September, New Hampshire’s secretary of state refused to intervene. On 8 November, Minnesota’s supreme court rejected an attempt to prevent Trump from running. On 14 November, a judge in Michigan dismissed a lawsuit that tried to exclude Trump. But other states will be reckoning with the issue in the weeks ahead, including Colorado.To better understand the origin of the 14th amendment, and its ongoing relevance to 2024, Foner sat down with Ted Widmer, another civil war historian. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.Ted Widmer: The 14th amendment has been in the news a lot lately. Can you remind us why this particular amendment holds so much sway?Eric Foner: The 14th amendment is the most important amendment added to the constitution since the Bill of Rights in 1791. It’s an attempt by the victorious north, the Republican party in the aftermath of the civil war, to put its understanding of that war into the constitution.It is also the longest amendment. They tried to deal with everything that was on the political agenda in 1865, 1866. It deals with many specific issues, such as ensuring that southern enslavers are not going to get monetary compensation. Or that – and this is in the news today – that if you take an oath of allegiance to the constitution, and then you engage in insurrection, you are barred from holding political office in the United States.On the other hand, the 14th amendment also contains the first section, which is a series of principles arising from the end of slavery, beginning with birthright citizenship, that all persons born in the US are automatically citizens of the US. Although there’s an exclusion of Native Americans, who are still at that point considered citizens of their tribal nation, not the US. Also in the first section, “equal protection of the law”, that no state can deny to any person, not just citizens, the equal protections of the law – this was a fundamental change in American politics and society.Can you elaborate?No state gave Black people full equality before the law before the Reconstruction era and the 14th amendment. What equal protection actually means in practice is certainly open to debate. And it has been debated ever since 1868, when the amendment was ratified. There are key supreme court decisions over the last century – whether it’s outlawing racial segregation, establishing the right to terminate a pregnancy, “one man, one vote”, and many others – [that] have rested on the 14th amendment. My basic point is this: to borrow a modern phrase, I think the 14th amendment should be seen as a form of “regime change”. It’s an attempt to change the regime in the United States. It’s not a minor little change in the political system. It’s to change a pro-slavery regime, which is what we had before the civil war, to one based on equality, regardless of race. A fundamental change.This is what the civil war has accomplished. It has destroyed slavery, and it has created a new political system, which views all persons in the US as entitled to some modicum of equality.What is the immediate context of the passage of the 14th amendment? What were they trying to address?Well, the immediate context was what we call the Reconstruction era, the period immediately after the civil war, when the country was trying to come to terms with the consequences of the war, the most important of which were the destruction of slavery and the unity of the nation. As I mentioned, there were specific issues, which really have very little bearing on our political life today, although they keep popping up. For example, part of the 14th amendment says the government has to pay its debt: if it borrows money, selling bonds, it has to pay them off when they become due. This lay there pretty much unremarked for a long time. But lately with the debates over the debt ceiling, it’s back in the news again.But the fundamental issue was: what was going to be the status of the 4 million former slaves, who were now free citizens? Were they going to enjoy equality, were they going to have the right to vote, which was critical in a democracy? Were they going to be able to hold public office? What about economic equality, would they enjoy anything like that? The 14th amendment tries to deal with that in various ways. There are five sections, all of them relate back and forth to each other.Even though Abraham Lincoln was no longer alive, does it reflect his thinking?A constitutional amendment is the only legislative measure in which the president has no role whatsoever. The president cannot veto a constitutional amendment the way he can veto a piece of normal legislation. In fact, when the 13th amendment was passed, irrevocably abolishing slavery in the US, Lincoln worked to get it ratified, and he signed a copy of it as a symbol of his support. He got a handwritten copy of the 13th amendment, approved by Congress, and he signed it, whereupon Congress said, “You can’t sign this, President Lincoln, because the president has no role in the passage of the amendment. You’re trampling on our powers.”Didn’t know that.Yeah, they got annoyed when he signed it. Signing it didn’t make it legal or illegal. It becomes part of the constitution when it’s ratified by Congress and by a sufficient number of states.But the point is, Lincoln was a mainstream Republican. He was a great man, a brilliant writer and speaker, but he was also a party man. And the 14th amendment was approved by almost every Republican in Congress. There is no question Lincoln would have approved it. Also, Lincoln did not get into big fights with Congress the way some presidents have. So I think the basic principle, equality before the law, Lincoln had come to approve that during the civil war. He didn’t really hold that view before the civil war. But there’s no question in my mind that if Lincoln had not been assassinated, and was still president, he would have happily urged Congress to support the 14th amendment.Is birthright citizenship a uniquely American concept?Well, that is another complex and important issue and something that is back on the political agenda today. Is it uniquely American? No, it’s not. There are other countries that also automatically make you a citizen.But the point of birthright citizenship is it’s very important in the constitution to have this. It’s basically a statement that anybody can be a citizen. We are not a country based on a single religion, we are not a country based on a single political outlook, we are not a country with an official sort of set of doctrines that you have to adhere to. We’re not a country with an ethnic identity. A person of German ancestry born in Russia could automatically be a citizen of Germany, just by that ethnic identity. But the child of a guest worker, born in Germany, is not automatically a citizen of Germany.So birthright citizenship is an important consequence of the civil war. And of course, it had been deeply debated before then. Just before the civil war, in 1857, the supreme court in the Dred Scott decision ruled that no Black person could be a citizen. There were half a million free Black people. They were born in the US, most of them, and they could never be a citizen.The first section of the 14th amendment abrogates the Dred Scott decision, and creates a national standard for who is a citizen. The original constitution mentioned citizens, but it didn’t say who exactly they are, or what are the qualifications for being a citizen. So this clears up an ambiguity of the constitution and establishes a basic principle, equality, as fundamental to American life.Does that mean between Dred Scott in 1857 and the 14th amendment in 1868 that African Americans, even if they had liberated themselves and fought in the union army, were not citizens?Well, the Republican party and Lincoln had repudiated the Dred Scott decision on paper. Even as early as 1862, the attorney general, Edward Bates, issued a ruling saying Dred Scott was wrong.But what you said is true, it’s the 14th amendment that creates Black citizenship as a constitutional principle. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 established it in national law. By then 200,000 Black men had fought in the civil war. They were almost universally considered to be citizens. If you would fight and die for the nation, they’re not going to say after the war, “You can’t be a citizen.”Dred Scott destroyed the reputation of the supreme court in the north. During the secession crisis, nobody said, “Let’s let the supreme court decide this.”Unlike the Declaration of Independence, or the constitution, whose signers are well known, the 14th amendment is more anonymous. Who were the principal authors?It was written by the joint committee on Reconstruction, a 15-member body set up by Congress to figure out what laws and constitutional amendments were necessary to enforce the verdict of the civil war.My book The Second Founding begins by saying exactly what your question says. People have heard of James Madison, “father of the constitution”. They have heard of Alexander Hamilton, for reasons we know nowadays. These are people who were critical in writing the constitution.But who remembers John Bingham, the congressman from Ohio, who was more responsible than anyone else for the first section of the 14th amendment, about the federal government having the power to prevent states from denying Americans equality? We don’t remember Thaddeus Stevens, the great radical Republican from Pennsylvania who was the floor leader in the House, who did more than anyone else to get the 14th amendment ratified. We don’t remember James Howard, from Michigan, who got it through the Senate. In other words, the 14th amendment is not seen as fundamental to our constitutional system, whereas, of course, the original constitution is.So what I say in my book is, we’ve got to think of these people as like the founding fathers. This was a refounding of the nation, and the people who were critical in that deserve to be remembered.Were there parts that could have been written more clearly?The writing was in two modes. One was very clear. If you loaned money to the Confederacy, it’s never going to be repaid. That’s a highly specific point. But the language of the first section of the 14th amendment is much more ambiguous or general. Equal protection of the law. All citizens are entitled to due process of law. People cannot be denied life, liberty and property without due process of law.The language might have been clearer. But John Bingham wanted it to be ambiguous. What issues relating to the political equality of race relations would get on to the national agenda in the next 10, 50 or 100 years? He wanted to have a general set of principles which could be applied when necessary, and in fact, the fifth section, the final section of the 14th amendment, specifically states, “Congress shall have the power to enforce” this amendment. What does it mean to enforce the equal protection of the law? Well, that’s for the courts and the Congress and others to decide. So the language could have been clearer, but I’m not sure it would have been better if it were clearer. They wanted it to be ambiguous to leave room for future action.In other words, they thought this was not the end of Reconstruction. This was just one step toward creating what Thaddeus Stevens called “the perfect republic”, which they wanted to build on the ashes of slavery.Love that phrase.That’s Stevens’ speech, before the House. You know, the 14th amendment was a compromise. There were radical Republicans, conservative Republicans, moderate Republicans. And they hammered out a series of compromises. But Stevens, who was a real radical, also knew when you had to compromise. In his final speech before Congress, before the 14th amendment was ratified, he said, “Yeah, I had always hoped that when we could get out from under the power of slavery, we could create this perfect republic that the founders tried to, but failed to, because they allowed slavery.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut that dream has vanished, he said. The perfect republic is never really achieved, in any human endeavor. So, yeah, that’s what they were trying to do. Erase the mistakes of the founders, when it came to slavery, and remake the republic.Could the 14th amendment have passed if Congress had not taken a strong stand against seating southerners?The passage of the 14th amendment is interesting. Immediately after the civil war, Congress said, “We’re not letting the southern states back in quite yet.” They cannot vote on whether to ratify the three Reconstruction amendments. So the vote in Congress was only among northerners. If the south had had all the congressmen it normally did, the 14th amendment would never have been ratified. You need a two-thirds vote in Congress, and three-quarters of the states. It’s a very high bar to amend the constitution.But another aspect of this is, could it have passed the states? When the 14th amendment is first passed by Congress, President Andrew Johnson’s plan of Reconstruction is still in effect. Johnson had set up all-white racist governments in the south. They were still in power. And they all voted not to ratify the 14th amendment, every one of the southern states except Tennessee. They did not want Congress establishing this principle of equality for Black Americans.Congress got so infuriated that in 1867, they abolished those governments. They said, “We are going to give Black men the right to vote.” They hadn’t done that at the beginning of Reconstruction. They’re going to set up new state governments in the south, and those governments are going to ratify the 14th amendment. They ordered them to ratify it. And the way they guaranteed it was to allow Black men to vote. New governments were set up, biracial governments. For the first time in American history, Black and white men were sitting in legislatures, voting on laws, holding public office. This was a radical change in American democracy. And with those new governments, in which Black people for the first time had a voice, the southern states ratified the 14th amendment. So how the 14th amendment was ratified is irregular compared to most other amendments.Why was section 3 added?Section 3 is one part of the amendment that has been almost completely ignored until the last couple of years. It doesn’t apply to all southern whites, or even most of them, but to anyone who held an office before the civil war, who took an oath of allegiance to the constitution. That would mean people who served in the military or held some kind of public office. Even a postmaster has to take an oath to the constitution. The purpose was to eliminate the old ruling class of the south from public office. It was to create a space where new governments could come into being which would approve of the principles of the 14th amendment. They did not deny the right to vote to ex-Confederate leaders. But they did deny the right to hold office.It was almost never enforced. There are only a few examples of this amendment being enforced during Reconstruction. A couple of local officials were disqualified from office because they had held an office before the civil war then served in the Confederate army. In other words, they gave aid to insurrection after having pledged allegiance to the constitution. I think there were a couple in Tennessee. But basically, Congress gave an amnesty after a few years to just about everybody that this covered.And in the first world war, a socialist member of Congress, Victor Berger, was convicted under the Espionage Act. If you criticized the American participation, you could be put in jail. Congress expelled him under the third clause of the 14th amendment. In other words, he pledged allegiance to the constitution and was now convicted of what they called espionage. It wasn’t actually spying, it was really just opposing the war. But then the supreme court overturned the conviction and Congress let him back in.In the last year or two, this has become a major issue in relation to Donald Trump. Depending on how you analyze it, Trump took an oath to support the constitution – obviously, when he was sworn in as president – but gave aid to insurrection. If you consider the events of 6 January 2021 an insurrection. He tried to overturn a governmental process, tried to prevent the legitimate election of a president.There have been lawsuits in a number of states to keep Trump off the ballot in 2024. Thus far, none has succeeded. Some are pending. A couple of cases have come up about lesser officials who took part in the events of January 6. And in fact, a guy in New Mexico, a county commissioner, was ordered out of office by a court on the grounds that he was barred by the third section of the 14th amendment.A congressman in North Carolina, Madison Cawthorn, faced claims that he could not serve. It became moot because he lost his primary. But there was a court that did say that it was a legitimate question whether he could serve if elected, because he had been there taking part in the events of January 6.So it’s on the agenda now. But there is no jurisprudence really related to section 3. Nobody knows what the supreme court would say. Some people say you would need a judicial ruling. How do you know that a guy participated? It’s like you’re convicting him without a trial. But on the other hand, others say, no, this is just a qualification for office. This is not a criminal trial.Being barred from office is not a criminal punishment. It’s one of the qualifications for office. For example, let’s say somebody was elected president who was under the age of 35. The constitution says you have to be 35. Let’s say Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected president. Not likely, but she’s a well-known figure in politics. Well, she couldn’t serve because she’s under 35. And a court or somebody would just have to say, “I’m sorry, you don’t meet the qualifications here.” I am not a law professor. Neither I nor anyone else knows what the courts would decide. But in actuality the 14th amendment says it’s Congress that enforces the 14th amendment, not the supreme court. They didn’t want the court involved because of Dred Scott.The final section of the amendment says, “Congress shall have the power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation.” Would Congress have to declare somebody having participated in insurrection? I don’t know. But this was brought up including by me about two years ago, in the op-ed, in the Washington Post, after the insurrection of January 6.There was an effort to impeach President Trump, but it didn’t succeed. But I pointed out you don’t need impeachment, which requires a two-thirds vote to convict in the Senate. If you really want to keep Trump out of office because of his actions on January 6, you could do it through the third section of the 14th amendment.Certainly, regarding a president, there is no precedent. But the third section has never been repealed. So there it is.Did the 1872 Amnesty Act supersede section 3?That’s been brought up. The 14th amendment also says Congress can eliminate this punishment or disability by a two-thirds vote. In 1872, in the run-up to the presidential election of that year, Congress did pass a general Amnesty Act, which saved almost all prominent Confederates.Now, some people say that eliminated section 3, and therefore it can’t be enforced. But that’s not the case. You can let people off from one punishment, but it didn’t say this section is no longer applicable. It said that a whole lot of people would no longer be punished as part of an effort to bring about sectional reconciliation. The Amnesty Act doesn’t necessarily repeal a previous measure unless it says the previous measure is automatically repealed.How has section 3 been interpreted since Reconstruction?It has barely been interpreted. There have been only a handful of cases. There’s almost no jurisprudence related to it, which is one of the reasons Congress has been reluctant to enforce it. Joe Biden has said he doesn’t really want to get into this. It would guarantee a prolonged legal battle if you tried to enforce section 3 against Trump. Enforcing it against the county commissioner in New Mexico probably didn’t raise a lot of animosity. But it has happened. So there is a bit of jurisprudence, but not enough that a court could easily say, “Here’s the precedent, this is what we’ve done in the past.”Is the president “an officer of the United States”?Again, because there’s no jurisprudence, it hasn’t been decided. A couple of prominent conservative law professors wrote an article saying section 3 is on the books and can be enforced. Then they changed their mind. And they said the president is not an officer of the United States. So it does apply to all sorts of other offices. But not the president.This has never been exactly determined, but it certainly seems the normal understanding of the term “officer” is someone holding office. The president certainly holds office. When the constitution was ratified, there was no president. The previous constitution, the Articles of Confederation, didn’t have a president. There was no executive officer. It was only the Congress. So it’s unclear. They added the president as someone who could execute the laws. But I don’t see how you can eliminate the president or exclude the president from this language. If you take the whole of section 3, I think it’s pretty clear that they are trying to keep out of office anybody who committed the acts that section 3 describes. But again, it’s complicated.Did the events of January 6 constitute “an insurrection or rebellion against the constitution”?They certainly tried to a halt a constitutional procedure, the counting of the electoral votes. One of the more bizarre parts of our constitution, actually, but nonetheless, it’s there.What is your definition of insurrection or rebellion? You know, this gets into a question we actually haven’t talked about, which is very important in relation to the 14th amendment, which is the notion that you can clearly ascertain the original meaning, or the original intention of a law or a constitutional provision or something like that, and that the constitution should be interpreted according to the original meaning of the people who wrote the provision, or the original intention.This notion that you can ascertain, clearly, the original intention is absolutely absurd. No important document in history has one intention, or one meaning. Particularly the 14th amendment, it was written with compromises, with 8-7 votes in the joint committee. It was ratified by hundreds of members of state legislatures. Who can tell us exactly what the intention is? It is a legitimate historical question to ask, what were they trying to accomplish? But that’s a little different than saying what was their intention, at least in the legal realm.Yes, historians are always trying to figure out, why did they write and ratify the 14th amendment? In a way, that’s an intention question.But to answer that question, unfortunately, justices have a way of going purely to debates in Congress. They do not look at the general historical context. The meaning of the 14th amendment was debated and argued and fought out at all levels of society.One of my favorite quotations from this period comes from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the great advocate of women’s rights. She said, during Reconstruction, I’m paraphrasing, “The basic principles of our government were debated at every level of society, in Congress, in the pulpits, in schools, at every fireside.” I love that. In other words, even in their homes, people are debating the issues around the 14th amendment. There is no one single intent that you can locate in that gigantic discussion about constitutional issues, which accompanied the ratification of the 14th amendment. So I think, as most historians would say, it’s a pointless test to try to identify one single intention.Wouldn’t the legal challenges take longer than the election itself?Yes, the legal challenges would take a long time, and it would be weird if Trump is elected next fall, then a year into his term of office he’s evicted because he doesn’t meet the qualifications. We saw how Trump reacted to actually losing an election. But now, if he won and then was kicked out of office, that would certainly be a red flag in front of a bull.
      Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton professor emeritus of history at Columbia University, is a Pulitzer prize-winning author whose most recent book is The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
      Ted Widmer is a distinguished lecturer at the Macaulay Honors College, City University of New York, and a former special assistant to President Bill Clinton. His most recent book is Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington More