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    ‘This victory is a mandate’: rightwing groups ready with policy proposals for new Trump administration

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    As Donald Trump prepares to move back into the White House, he’ll have a host of rightwing groups trying to influence his staffing choices and policy proposals, including the group behind Project 2025, despite Trump’s insistence they won’t be involved.Democrats repeatedly ran attacks on Trump over Project 2025, the conservative manifesto that its writers want to guide a second Trump administration. Trump tried to distance himself from it and from the group behind it, the Heritage Foundation, one of DC’s biggest thinktanks.The Heritage president, Kevin Roberts, congratulated Trump on his “hard-fought victory” that came despite the “sham” indictments and against a “relentless leftwing machine”.“The entire conservative movement stands united behind him as he prepares to secure our wide-open border, restore the rule of law, put parents back in charge of their children’s education, restore America to its proper place as a leader in manufacturing, put families and children first, and dismantle the deep state,” Roberts said.Other groups, namely the America First Policy Institute, have avoided the limelight that backfired on Project 2025 and instead worked behind the scenes to ally themselves with Trump and seek to influence his administration. Trump named Linda McMahon, the chair of the institute’s board, as a co-chair of his transition team, giving the America First Policy Institute a critical role.The institute, started in 2021 and stacked with Trump allies, said in a tweet that it “stands ready to support bold governance that puts Americans first”. It also shared a video clip with the former acting United States attorney general Matt Whitaker talking about deportations and sanctuary cities, key alignments with Trump’s policy goals.“This victory is a mandate to restore our nation to a place of safety, opportunity, and prosperity rooted in freedom,” the America First Policy Institute said. “Together, we’ll secure borders, strengthen the economy, & uphold the freedoms that define us – for a stronger future.”The institute has held trainings for people that could serve in the Trump White House and has a lengthy agenda published online, complete with plans for immigration, education, energy and elections. The New York Times recently reported that the group has “installed itself as the Trump campaign’s primary partner in making concrete plans to wield power again”.The heads of both the America First Policy Institute and the Heritage Foundation have roots in the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a state-based conservative thinktank. Brooke Rollins, CEO of the America First Policy Institute, ran the Texas foundation for 15 years, and Roberts was the foundation’s CEO before he was tapped by Heritage.Another organization, America First Legal, is headed by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller. It has been filing lawsuits that boost Trump and other conservatives on issues like election fraud, diversity programs, public records disputes and government overreach. Miller could return to the Trump administration, but it’s likely the group will remain an outside rightwing legal monitor to help the incoming president.What could Trump’s policies be?Project 2025’s sprawling “mandate for leadership” details in 900-plus pages how each government agency could be altered under a conservative president. The project includes a database of potential hires and a training program for those who could staff a Trump administration, though Trump’s team has said none of the people associated with Heritage’s staffing suggestions would be hired. That would be a feat, given the extensive reach the project had – it was signed on to by more than 100 conservative groups, and many of those who wrote chapters or otherwise contributed had played some kind of role in the previous Trump administration.The project’s biggest suggestion is to designate exponentially more federal government employees as political appointees rather than non-partisan civil servants. It also wants to downsize the government. Trump’s plan also involves downsizing the federal government, something he tried to start implementing near the end of his first term.The project suggests many ways to restrict immigration, both through beefed-up border security and through limiting legal immigration programs for groups like students and low-skilled workers. That’s another pillar for Trump, who made mass deportations a central theme of his campaign.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn education, the project wants to get rid of the Department of Education and increase the use of vouchers that use public money for private schools – both of which Trump has suggested as well. Conservatives have sought the dismantling of the department for decades, so far without success.Most chapters of Project 2025 mention discarding any programs that promote LGBTQ+ rights and diversity. Trump has railed against these ideals on the campaign trail, promising to root out trans women from sports and in schools.Abortion access is one area where Trump and the project could differ, though Trump’s plans for abortion have been muddled. The project wants to end federal approval of abortion pills, track abortion data and root out anything that is seen as promoting abortion as healthcare. It doesn’t call for a direct ban on the procedure, and Trump has said he wouldn’t approve of one either, but many of these policies would make access significantly more difficult.The America First Policy Institute suggests many of the same policies, though it wants to go further than Project 2025 with federal employees, the New York Times notes, by making most federal workers at-will employees who would not receive civil service protections.Other ideas the institute has pushed include, according to the Times, “halting federal funding for Planned Parenthood and for mandatory ultrasounds before abortions, including those carried out with medication. It seeks to make concealed weapons permits reciprocal in all 50 states, increase petroleum production, remove the United States from the Paris Agreement, impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients and establish legally only two genders.”A policy agenda pamphlet from the institute starts by discussing the Christian foundations of the US and imploring Christians to get involved in the government “before it’s too late”. The policy agenda for the pamphlet was written “through the lens of their biblical foundations and applications to provide Christians more information on the issues and solutions needed for the restoration of the nation”. More

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      Can ex-governor’s anti-Trump stance swing key Senate seat for Republicans?

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      At a conservative thinktank on 14th Street in Washington DC, awaiting Larry Hogan, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Maryland, one staffer turned to another. “It’s nice having something to vote for, for a change,” the staffer wryly said. Shortly after, the former governor arrived for his speech at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (Jinsa), part of his campaign to win in a state that hasn’t elected a Republican senator since 1980.When he left the executive mansion in Annapolis last year, Hogan told his friendly audience, he had governed for eight years as a popular moderate but had not been looking for another job – “And frankly, I didn’t yearn to be a part of the divisiveness and dysfunction in Washington,” he said.“But when I saw a bipartisan package to secure our border and to support Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan and other American allies fail because people were told [by Donald Trump] to vote against a critical [immigration] bill that they claimed to be for, it made me frustrated enough that I knew I had to step up and try to do something about the mess in Washington.”Washington is not Maryland but the Old Line State is just a few miles up 14th from Jinsa. There, Hogan faces the Prince George’s county executive, Angela Alsobrooks, for an open seat in November – a race in which the Democrat, who if she wins will be only the third Black woman ever elected to the US Senate, enjoys significant polling leads.The race has become potentially decisive in determining Senate control, and a test of anti-Trump sentiment on the right. Significant spending and endorsements are pouring in. Highly regarded as a local leader and “tough on crime” Democrat, Alsobrooks defeated a DC establishment candidate, the congressman David Trone, in her primary and is now piling on praise from party grandees. She recently released an ad featuring Barack Obama and secured support from the Washington Post.On Thursday night, the two candidates will meet for a high-stakes debate.In practical terms, it takes 51 votes – or 50 if your party holds the presidency – to control the Senate. Democrats currently hold it 51-49 but face tough contests to hold seats in Republican-leaning states such as Montana and Ohio. It means Maryland counts this year, and Hogan’s toughest challenge may lie in persuading enough Democratic voters they can trust him should Republicans retake the chamber with him as the 51st vote. In turn, Democrats know that if they cannot hold so deep blue a state as Maryland, they will in all likelihood lose control of the Senate.Hogan is therefore seeking to depict himself as an antidote to Trump – and his rival as too far left. At Jinsa, talking foreign policy, he criticized Trump but he also knocked Alsobrooks, including for “repeatedly demand[ing] that Israel enact an immediate and unilateral ceasefire, and [for calling] for cutting off critical military aid”.As popular as Hogan is – he stepped down as governor with a 77% approval rating – polling suggests that message is not landing. According to 538, since one tied poll in August, Alsobrooks’s lead has ranged from five to 17 points.Hogan begged to differ. “I think it’s a very close race,” he said. “I’ve always been an underdog in every one of my races.“There are people out there that we’ve still got to convince,” he added, “and we’ve got [then] 34 more days to do it, and I feel confident we’re going to win the race. It’s tough, though. I mean, we’re a very blue state, and we’re overcoming a huge deficit at the top of the ticket.”Trump has been called many things, but “huge deficit” may be a new one. Hogan has said he won’t vote for Trump (or Kamala Harris), but must nonetheless fend off persistent questions about the man who rules his party. One recent ad from Hogan’s campaign deplored the “horror” of January 6. And yet, as Republicans from Trump and the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, on down know, sometimes a candidate must be allowed away from the party line.In Maryland, Hogan is free to be Hogan. That’s to his advantage. To his disadvantage, Democrats from the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to Alsobrooks on down know Hogan has a bigger problem.View image in fullscreenIn June 2022, in the case Dobbs v Jackson, the US supreme court to which Trump appointed three hardliners removed the federal right to abortion. Two years on, Hogan insists he will not let his party go further.“[Alsobrooks’s campaign] want[s] to focus on making it a cookie-cutter Democratic talking points race but it’s not, because I have a different position than most Republicans,” he said at the Jinsa event. “And so, you know, I’ve promised to be a sponsor to codify Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that previously safeguarded abortion rights, so that nobody comes between a woman and her doctor in any state in America, and to sponsor a bill to protect IVF.”He also insisted that “most people are concerned about the economy. They’re concerned about affordability, inflation, they’re concerned about crime in their communities, and they’re concerned about securing the border and fixing [the] broken immigration system.”Among Democratic rejoinders: while a member of the executive committee of the Republican Governors Association, Hogan worked to elect allies in states that now have stringent abortion bans. In his own state, in 2022, he vetoed a bill to expand abortion access. The same year, he said Trump “nominated incredible justices to the supreme court”, a comment Democrats have brought back to haunt him. Hogan says he was not referring to Dobbs but Alsobrooks is happy to keep the spotlight on the issue. As she recently said: “I think my opponent’s record is very clear where abortion care is concerned.”Many Americans fear a national abortion ban, should Trump be president again. Hogan said he had been against that for decades “and I’ll be the one of the ones standing up, regardless of who the president is or who’s in control of Senate”. But he also said he would not support reform to the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 votes for most legislation, in order to codify Roe.“I think it’s a terrible idea, because it’s actually something that … my opponent and Donald Trump both agree on. They want to be able to jam things through on a 51-vote [majority]. ”Right now, [the Senate is] a deliberative body where we actually have to find bipartisan cooperation and common sense and kind of common ground for the common good. That’s what I did in Maryland with a 70% Democratic legislature. We got things done.”A few days after Hogan’s event at Jinsa, about 40 miles (65km) north-east in Baltimore, Democrats gathered at a canvassing hub. Once a wedding venue, the Majestic Hall of Events was surrounded by less-than-majestic auto shops and down-at-heel churches. Inside, Alsobrooks addressed a crowd organized by D4 Women in Action, linked to Delta Sigma Theta, one of the Divine Nine Black women’s sororities, to which Alsobrooks belongs.View image in fullscreenIn her speech, Alsobrooks spoke about her links to Baltimore and “the number one issue across our state, and the thing that people most desire to have: economic opportunity”. She also took shots at her opponent. “What did he do [as governor] when he had the opportunity to stand up for all of our families in Baltimore? He sent back $900m to the federal government.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThat was a reference to a 2015 decision to scrap a light rail project, a call that attracted lawsuits. But Alsobrooks also looked to the national stage, and the issue she wants foremost in voters’ minds.“This race is bigger than both of us,” Alsobrooks told the Guardian. “Bigger than Larry Hogan the person. It’s bigger than Angela the person. It’s about issues and about the future. It is about reproductive freedom.”Alsobrooks listed other policy priorities – “sensible gun legislation … economic opportunity” – as part of a platform “that really does favor hard-working people, middle-class families, and that is about preserving freedoms and democracy”. But protecting abortion rights was a theme to which she returned.At Jinsa, Hogan said Democrats were trying to turn a state race into a national contest. Alsobrooks embraced the charge: “The former governor thinks he’s running to go back to Annapolis. We’re actually running to go to Washington DC, and we would represent Marylanders there.”She added: “This [Republican Senate] caucus is led by people like Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Rick Scott, Mitch McConnell, and they … have really proclaimed war on the reproductive freedoms of women. They have very clear records, and [Hogan has] aligned himself with the party whose policies do not align with the average Marylander.”Much has been made of the warm relationship Hogan and Alsobrooks enjoyed when Hogan was governor. Asked about an unearthed Hogan comment – that Alsobrooks was a better Prince George’s county executive than his own father, the late congressman Lawrence Hogan – Alsobrooks said: “He has become, in a lot of ways, the kind of politician he says he despises, one who’s very disingenuous.“But I think that people see through it. Marylanders are very savvy and they have seen how he has changed … and I think they will see through the disingenuous nature of his campaign, and will again vote to keep Maryland Democratic.”Keeping Maryland Democratic will require turning out the vote. At the canvassing hub, one phone-banker wearily said: “Put in two shifts this morning.” A friend smiled back: “Only a hundred more to go.”The same Jinsa staffer who earlier had said it was “nice to have something to vote for” with Hogan also said that he hadn’t felt so good about a Senate race since 2006 – which was still a defeat – in which “getting more than 40% felt like a moral victory”.Back then, Ben Cardin, the Democrat retiring this year, beat Michael Steele, a Hogan-esque GOP moderate. Steele went on to chair the Republican National Committee, then became an MSNBC host and Never Trumper. Asked for his view of the current Maryland race, Steele was not as convinced of an Alsobrooks win as many other observers.“This race was not a competitive race until Larry got into it,” Steele said. “He is a popular two-term governor who left, I think, an important mark on how politics play out in Maryland for Republicans and made this very competitive out of the gate, largely because people had come to trust his style of governance.“It’s open, it’s compassionate, it’s concerned … I think a lot of people remember that.”Steele said Hogan had a good chance of attracting split-ticket voters – rare beasts, precious to any campaign, in this case prepared to back Harris for president but Hogan for Senate.It all added up to a warning for anyone expecting a comfortable Democratic win.“I think the latest polling has Alsobrooks up by 11,” Steele said. “I don’t believe that, largely because when I’m out in neighborhoods talking to people, and from everything I can piece together, this race is a lot tighter than the traditionalists who look at Maryland think it to be.”

      This article was amended on 11 October 2024. It originally stated that Larry Hogan chaired the Republican Governors Association. He was actually a member of its executive committee. More

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      Millions of US voters lack access to documents to prove citizenship

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      Nearly one in 10 eligible voters lack easy access to documents to prove their citizenship, according to a new survey, underscoring how Republican efforts to purportedly prevent non-citizens from voting could disenfranchise millions.If asked to quickly locate a passport, birth certificate or naturalization papers to produce proof of citizenship tomorrow, more than 21 million Americans – about 9% of eligible voters – would not be able to, according to the survey, conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice, VoteRiders, Public Wise, and the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement (CDCE) at the University of Maryland. Nearly 4 million American citizens – 2% in total – lack access to any form of proof in citizenship.The survey comes as Donald Trump and his allies have seized on fears about immigration to make the threat of non-citizen voting a major talking point ahead of November. Republicans have exaggerated the threat of non-citizen voting – which is already illegal and rare – and have pushed for federal legislation that would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.“We all know – intuitively – that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it’s not been something that is easily provable,” Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, said last month.Two states that have already tried measures to require documentary proof of citizenship, Kansas and Arizona, offer case studies in how such a restriction can disenfranchise voters. In Kansas, 30,000 people had their voter registration held up between 2013 and 2016 because of the law. In Arizona, a proof-of-citizenship requirement for state elections has negatively affected tribal voters and college students.Researchers also found racial disparities in who has access to citizenship documents. About 3% of voters of color do not have access to proof-of-citizenship documents, compared with 1% of white Americans. Americans of color were also more likely to not have easy access to the documents compared with their white counterparts.“Our estimates are probably conservative measures of impact,” the researchers wrote in a blogpost announcing their findings. “While it’s true that most Americans can access these documents, most of us don’t walk around town carrying our passport or birth certificate. If those documents were required for voter registration, most would not have them readily available to take advantage of opportunities they encounter at schools, churches or other community spaces where registration drives register many Americans to vote.”About 4% of independents, 2% of Democrats and 1% of Republicans lacked easy access to proof-of-citizenship documents, the survey found.In addition to citizenship, the survey also found that about 21 million Americans of voting age do not have a non-expired driver’s license, with non-white voters less likely to have one.About 30% of Black Americans between 18 and 29 did not have a driver’s license and 47% did not have one with a current name or address. About 5% of white Americans in the same age group did not have a driver’s license, and 42% did not have one with a current name or address.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Millions of eligible voters lack a current form of photo ID – and it’s not easy to get one,” said Lauren Kunis, the executive director of VoteRiders, which helps people get ID. “Getting an ID can mean needing to track down underlying proof-of-citizenship documents like a birth certificate, navigating bureaucracy and paperwork, or spending hours at an ID-issuing office that is hard to reach. For these reasons and many more, voter ID laws make it more complicated, costly and confusing to cast a ballot in America today.”The survey is consistent with a Brennan Center survey nearly two decades ago that found 7% of Americans do not have easy access to proof-of-citizenship documents.“The current protections against non-citizen voting are effective: ballots cast by non-citizens are vanishingly rare,” the researchers wrote. “Requiring proof of citizenship would solve nothing, but it would create major barriers to registration for eligible voters, especially those who already face disproportionate barriers to participation in our democracy. We should be making it easier, not harder, for these citizens to participate.” More

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      Trump plots capture of DoJ in renewed assault on US justice system

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      Donald Trump is planning an assault on the American justice system should he win re-election to the White House, in which he would seek to destroy the independence of the justice department and turn it into an attack machine for his Make American great again (Maga) movement.At the heart of his plans is the desire to impose his will on the individual prosecutorial decisions taken by the Department of Justice. The move, if successful, would end half a century of accepted practice that prevents presidents from politically interfering with specific cases.It would allow Trump in his second term to eradicate the federal prosecutions currently being pursued against him as well as against insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 whom he has championed as “hostages”. It would also free him to instigate legal investigations as acts of revenge against his perceived political enemies, including Joe Biden and family.“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump said last year.No evidence has been presented linking Biden to any crime, though his son Hunter Biden did go on trial on Monday accused of falsifying a firearms license application.Trump repeated the threat that he use the justice system to go after his opponents on Tuesday, telling Newsmax that the prosecutions against him had set a “terrible precedent” that he implied he would turn against Democrats should he win in November. “It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s gonna have to happen to them.”In his first White House term, Trump made clear that he aspired to total control of the DoJ. He failed in that attempt, largely because of the resistance of top justice officials.Trump’s determination to overcome the norm is now much more advanced than it was four years ago. His disdain for the fundamental building blocks of the justice system was on full display following his New York conviction last week on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up an affair with the adult actor Stormy Daniels.In comments widely echoed by senior Republicans, Trump denounced the trial as “rigged” – an echo of his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.“His message is that whenever anything comes out in a way that isn’t positive for me, it’s illegitimate,” said Rebecca Roiphe, a law professor at New York Law School. “If people start to believe that, then really, you don’t have any rule of law.”Independence and impartiality were baked into the justice department in the wake of Richard Nixon’s abuses in the 1970s Watergate scandal, ensuring that while presidents can appoint the attorney general who heads the DoJ, as well as set general law enforcement priorities, they cannot influence individual cases.View image in fullscreenThat norm has held steady for 50 years, but it remains vulnerable to attack. Roiphe co-authored a study into whether presidents can control the justice department, concluding that while DoJ independence has become a cornerstone of American democracy, it is not so secure that “it couldn’t be dismantled by a president who was firmly committed to doing so”.Trump allies have been busy in recent months in laying down legal arguments for why he should be permitted to wield absolute power over federal legal decisions. The most significant work has been done by Jeff Clark on behalf of the Center for Renewing America, the rightwing thinktank led by Russ Vought.Vought, Trump’s former budget director, is considered a contender for White House chief of staff in a second term. He is a central participant in Project 2025, a mammoth effort by a coalition of rightwing groups to prepare a blueprint for a renewed Trump presidency.In an article titled “The US Justice Department Is Not Independent”, Clark argues that the practice of avoiding direct contact between the White House and the attorney general that has pertained since the Carter administration must be swept away. “Under the constitutional system as it stands, DoJ independence does not exist,” he wrote.This quasi legal doctrine has been dubbed the “unitary executive theory”, signifying the sole power of the president over all federal government affairs.Clark was at the center of Trump’s most egregious attempt to seize control of DoJ decision-making during his first term. In January 2021, at the climax of the “stop the steal” campaign, Trump tried to make Clark acting attorney general in place of Jeffrey Rosen who was refusing to play along with his election denial conspiracy.Clark, a relatively unknown justice official, was only stopped after several senior DoJ officials threatened to resign.He has written the roadmap that would allow Trump to demand a halt to the federal prosecution for his role in January 6 in which Clark himself is an unnamed co-conspirator.As Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief White House strategist, put it on his War Room podcast, the DoJ would be purged and restructured to “get rid of lots of personnel”.A key early move would be choosing an attorney general open to the idea of the unitary executive theory. Problems with senate confirmation, which is designed as a check on presidential power, could be overcome at least in the short term by appointing an acting attorney general who can operate without congressional approval.Early moves on the part of the new attorney general would include dismissing the current special counsel Jack Smith. That in turn would pave the way for the termination of Smith’s two federal prosecutions against Trump – the January 6 case and the charges relating to Trump’s hoarding of confidential documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.The former president has also proposed forming a taskforce to review the cases of what he has called “every political prisoner who has been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration”. The trawl would likely be directed at pardoning January 6 rioters.Trump has indicated that he would deploy prosecutorial powers against Democratic foes, but he also has Republicans in his sights. The Washington Post reported that in private he has expressed a desire for revenge even against leading figures in his first administration who have since become critics. They include his former chief of staff John Kelly, former attorney general Bill Barr and ex-attorney Ty Cobb.Roiphe said that the structure of the criminal justice system, including grand juries and trial procedures, would stand in the way of any attempt to prosecute innocent people. But she warned of the possible corrosion of faith in the system that could ensue, with potentially dire long-term consequences.“That’s what happens in authoritarian states – there is a semblance of a legal system, but it becomes useless,” she said. “If that happens here it would be extremely troubling. We’re not there yet. But I do think a second term could cause significant damage that may or may not be permanent.” More

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      Merrick Garland hits back at Trump and Republicans: ‘I will not be intimidated’

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      US attorney general Merrick Garland has defended his stewardship of the justice department in a combative display on Capitol Hill that saw him accusing Republicans of attacking the rule of law while telling them he “will not be intimidated.”Testifying before the House judiciary committee, Garland accused GOP congressmen of engaging in conspiracy theories and peddling false narratives.“I will not be intimidated,” Garland told lawmakers. “And the justice department will not be intimidated. We will continue to do our jobs free from political influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.”Garland’s fiery speech pushed back hard on the claim that the prosecution of Donald Trump – in the hush-money case that last week resulted in the president being convicted of 34 felony charges – was “somehow controlled by the justice department”.He described Republican attacks on the justice department under his watch as “unprecedented and unfounded”, vowing not to allow them to influence his decision-making.Garland also upbraided Trump for claiming the FBI had been “authorized to shoot him” dead when they raided his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to retrieve classified documents in 2022.“This is dangerous,” Garland told the committee. “It raises the threats of violence against prosecutors and career agents. The allegation is false.”Garland, 71, is currently overseeing special prosecutor Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump, and a prosecution of Joe Biden’s son Hunter. He was summoned to testify amid Republican assertions that the justice department had been “weaponised” against the former president, a claim Trump has stoked.His appearance came as he faces the likelihood of being held in contempt of congress for declining to hand over audio recordings of an interview between another special prosecutor, Robert Hur. Hur was appointed by Garland to investigate Joe Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, an offence similar to some of those for which Trump is being investigated.Hur concluded that Biden had committed no crime but raised questions about Biden’s age and allegedly poor memory.Referring to Republican threats to hold him in contempt, Garland said: “I view contempt as a serious matter. But I will not jeopardize the ability of our prosecutors and agents to do their jobs effectively in future investigations.”A full transcript of Biden’s interview with Hur was made public. But the White House rejected Republican demands for the audio to be released, arguing that it served no useful purpose other than to enable the president’s opponents to splice the recording to make him appear confused, perhaps by emphasizing his stammer.Garland said releasing the audio could have the effect of deterring future witnesses from cooperating in justice department investigations if they thought their words might be made public.In his opening statement, he said the Republicans were “seeking contempt as a means of obtaining – for no legitimate purpose – sensitive law enforcement information that could harm the integrity of future investigations”.“This effort is only the most recent in a long line of attacks on the justice department’s work,” he added.The committee chairman, Jim Jordan – a rightwinger Republican from Ohio – set the tone for the hearing, saying: “Justice is no longer blind in America. Today it’s driven by politics. Example number one is President Trump.”Matt Gaetz, another hard-right Republican from Florida, accused Garland of dispatching a former justice department official, Matthew Colangelo, to Manhattan, where he now serves as assistant district attorney and helped prepare the case against Trump.Garland replied: “That is false. I did not dispatch Colangelo.” More

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      Biden pledges billions to rebuild cities ‘torn apart’ by highways decades ago

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      Joe Biden hailed the beginning of $3.3bn in infrastructure spending on US projects on Wednesday “to right historic wrongs” with efforts to reconnect city neighborhoods riven by interstate highways that plowed with particular impunity through many Black, brown, Asian American and Hispanic communities decades ago.The US president was in Milwaukee, where he traveled to announce new infrastructure investment and officially open his election campaign’s Wisconsin office in the vital swing state.Democratic party campaigns in Wisconsin are typically run from the state capital, Madison, whereas the Biden re-election campaign has picked Milwaukee, the more industrial and diverse city on Lake Michigan, where 40% of residents are Black. The Republicans will hold their convention in Milwaukee in July.Biden is striving to make an impact on the campaign trail in a number of swing states this week after his fiery State of the Union speech last week.He travels to Michigan on Thursday, part of the “blue wall”, along with Pennsylvania, where Biden was born and has made more campaign trips than any other state.Donald Trump flipped all three states to win the White House in 2016, but Biden took them back four years ago and almost certainly needs to hold them if he is to secure a second term.Biden and Trump unofficially clinched their parties’ respective nominations on Tuesday night after more primary wins, and expect to be officially anointed at their party conventions this summer.The rare presidential election rematch, the first since 1956, comes while Trump is due in court later this month for the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president, with more to come as he faces 91 criminal charges across four cases at federal and state levels.On Wednesday, the White House declared that $3.3bn in federal funding is being allocated in more than 40 states, originating from the Biden administration’s 2021 infrastructure legislation, to help areas “divided by transportation infrastructure decades ago and [that] have long been overlooked”.Biden announced a $36.6m federal grant on his Milwaukee visit to upgrade sidewalks and create cycle lanes, greater access to mass transit and more greenery in the South 6th Street area of Bronzeville, a historic majority African American neighborhood.Biden said the construction of interstate highways there led to the demolition of roughly 17,000 homes and 1,000 businesses, disproportionately impacting Black and poor neighborhoods in the 1960s, with a losses of prosperity and opportunities “that still reverberate today”.He pledged “to right historic wrongs and, in the process, deliver environmental justice to disadvantaged neighborhoods”.The US transportation department estimates that at least a million people and businesses in the US were displaced by decades of harmful urban renewal projects in the buildout of the federal highway system, a statement from the White House said.Biden said: “The story of Bronzeville here in Milwaukee is one we see all across the country. Our interstate highway system laid out in the 1950s was a groundbreaking connection of our nation, coast to coast … but instead of connecting communities, it divided them.”He added: “These highways actually tore them apart … along with redlining, they disconnected entire communities from opportunities, sometimes, in an effort to reinforce segregation.”Biden also took a jab directly at Trump’s conduct in dealing with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, when he was president.“My predecessor failed at the most basic duty any president owes the American people – the duty to care,” he said.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      US lawmakers present bill to fund government and avert shutdown

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      US congressional negotiators on Sunday revealed a bill to fund key parts of the government through the rest of the fiscal year that began in October, as lawmakers faced yet another threat of a partial shutdown if they fail to act by Friday.The legislation sets a discretionary spending level of $1.66tn for fiscal 2024, a spokesperson for Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said. It fills in the details of an agreement that Schumer and Republican House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson set in early January.Lawmakers last week passed the fourth stopgap measure since 1 October to keep the government funded, and set themselves two quick deadlines to act, with funding for a part of the government including the Department of Transportation and the Food and Drug Administration running out on 8 March and most other federal agencies partially shutting down on 22 March.The 1,050-page bill lays out in detail funding for six of the dozen segments of the government that Congress is charged with allocating money for, with the next six due by later in the month.The bill “maintains the aggressive investments Democrats secured for American families, American workers, and America’s national defense”, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.Johnson in a statement said “House Republicans secured key conservative policy victories, rejected left-wing proposals, and imposed sharp cuts to agencies and programs critical to the President Biden’s agenda.”While the top leaders of Congress have agreed on the deal, it still faces some challenges, notably opposition by hardline Republicans in the House, who have repeatedly called for sharp spending cuts and typically do not vote for spending bills.That hardline energy, which led to the ouster of Johnson’s predecessor Kevin McCarthy, has also gained steam in the traditionally more staid Senate, leading to top Republican Mitch McConnell’s decision last week to step down from his leadership role at the end of this year.House Republicans were touting the bill as a win, although with a deeply divided caucus they had little negotiating power. The bill includes a 10% cut in funding to the Environmental Protection Agency, 7% to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and 6% to the FBI.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSchumer meanwhile emphasized that the bill fully funds a health program for low-income families, “makes critical investments in our infrastructure, and strengthens programs that benefit services for our veterans”.The ongoing brinkmanship and the nation’s $34tn debt has unnerved credit agencies. Moody’s downgraded its financial outlook on the United States from “stable” to “negative” in November, citing large fiscal deficits and increasing political polarization, though Fitch on Friday affirmed a “stable” outlook.The House will have to vote on the bill first before the Senate can take up the package before Friday, Schumer said. The House is due to return to Washington on Tuesday. More

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      The Rebels review: AOC, Bernie, Warren and the fight against Trump

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      In 2017, mere months after Donald Trump settled into the White House, Joshua Green of Bloomberg News delivered Devil’s Bargain, a mordantly amusing but deadly serious take on the 45th president and his relationship with Steve Bannon, the far-right ideologue who became Trump’s chief strategist. With wit, insight and access, Green informed, entertained and horrified. More than six years later, both Trump and Bannon face criminal trials. Then again, the band may soon be back together – in the West Wing.Green is acutely aware of the economic and social cleavages that roil the US and divide Democrats ranged against the Republicans’ rightward turn. With his new book, The Rebels, he shifts his gaze to three notables of the Democratic left: two senators, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a congresswoman from New York. Once again, Green’s work is smart, sharp and smoothly written.Warren and Sanders failed in bids to become president. In 2020, his second such primary campaign, Sanders won early contests but saw his ambitions crash in South Carolina. That heavily African American primary electorate wasn’t all that keen on Brooklyn-bred progressivism, as Sanders offered.As for Warren, she failed to win a single contest and finished third in her home state, behind Sanders and Joe Biden. What worked for her in debates, congressional hearings and the faculty lounge did not resonate with voters. A highly contentious claim to be Native American raised damning questions too.Still, Warren’s critiques of the mortgage meltdown and resulting displacements provided intellectual heft for the populist left. Furthermore, unlike Biden she was intellectually brilliant and not beholden to Delaware and its credit card giants. Warren was a harsh critic of Wall Street too. The two billionaires in the 2020 race, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, regularly felt her sting. Ditto Tim Geithner, first treasury secretary to Barack Obama and another key character in Green’s book.Warren made an impact. Green writes: “Knowing [Trump’s] commitment to economic populism was merely rhetorical, Bannon fretted that Warren would lure away blue-collar voters with a program he described as ‘populist Democratic nationalism’.”In the House, Ocasio-Cortez, who at 34 is decades younger than Warren, Biden and Sanders, is the one member of the “Squad” of progressives who possesses the tools and dexterity to play politics nationally. She is emotionally grounded.At one 2019 hearing, the congresswoman widely known as AOC filleted Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook’s ties to Cambridge Analytica, the now-defunct data-harvesting and research firm owned by Bannon and the rightwing Mercer family. She also put the wood to Exxon over its early but non-disclosed knowledge about global heating and its effects.All three of Green’s subjects convey seriousness. Humor, less so. Nonetheless, the book offers a valuable recapitulation of the crack-up of the New Deal coalition, the impact of Ronald Reagan’s victories and the continued reverberations of the Great Recession of 2008.The Democrats hold the White House and the Senate but their future is unclear. Non-college graduates, regardless of race, find less to love in the historic home of working America. Green seizes on the havoc wrought by economic liberalization, financialism and expanded trade with China – factors that have driven a wedge between the Democrats and what was once their base.Convincingly, Green argues that neo-liberalism is in retrograde and that Biden is more a transitional figure than a harbinger of what comes next. Even so, Biden tacked left – instead of pivoting toward the center – as he faced Trump in 2020.In 2021, on inauguration day, Biden issued the Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. His White House intoned: “Advancing equity is not a one-year project – it is a generational commitment that will require sustained leadership and partnership with all communities.”Good luck with that. The controversial fall of Claudine Gay, the first Black president of Harvard, who came under sustained conservative fire over the Israel-Hamas war, student protest and allegations of plagiarism in her work, is just one recent illustration of how tough such terrain will remain.Green traces many Democratic dilemmas to 1980, when Reagan handily defeated an incumbent president, Jimmy Carter. Afterwards, Democratic mandarins concluded that the old-time religion of lunch-bucket liberalism needed to make room for market-based economics. Reagan’s embrace of tax cuts and reduced government resonated with the public. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama came to stand as heirs of that strategic decision. But it was about more than “it’s the economy, stupid”, as Clinton would learn on the job.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“You mean to tell me that the success of the program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of fucking bond traders?” Clinton told Robert Rubin, his treasury secretary, a former head of Goldman Sachs.James Carville, the guru of Clinton’s first victory, later said that were he to be born again, he wanted to be reincarnated as the most powerful thing in the world: the bond market.Green homes in on the close relationships that existed between the Obama administration and Wall Street. In 2008, for all the then Illinois senator’s talk of hope and change, he was the financial sector’s choice for president over John McCain. Green quotes Geithner’s pitch to Obama for the treasury slot, and describes how Geithner beat out Larry Summers, Rubin’s successor, to secure the job.Green also examines how in saving the financial system despite its players’ unadulterated greed and stupidity, Geithner helped incubate resentments that haunt the US today.“In a crisis, you have to choose,” Geithner said. “Are you going to solve the problem, or are you going to teach people a lesson?”In 2016, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton, voters did the latter. Ten months from now, they may do so again.
      The Rebels: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Struggle for a New American Politics is published in the US by Penguin Random House More

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      It’s the democracy, stupid … and other issues set to shape the 2024 US election

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      Whether or not the 2024 US presidential election presents the expected Joe Biden v Donald Trump rematch, much will be at stake.From the future of reproductive rights to the chances of meaningful action on climate change, from the strength of US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia to the fate of democracy in America itself, existential issues are set to come to the fore.Economy“It’s the economy, stupid.” So said the Democratic strategist James Carville, in 1992, as an adviser to Bill Clinton. Most Americans thought stewardship of the economy should change: Clinton beat an incumbent president, George HW Bush.More than 30 years later, under Joe Biden, the post-Covid recovery seems on track. Unemployment is low, the Dow at all-time highs. That should bode well for Biden but the key question is whether enough Americans think the economy is strong, or think it is working for them in particular. It seems many do not. Cost-of-living concerns dominate public polling, inflation remains high. Republican threats to social security and Medicare might offset such worries – hence Biden (and indeed Donald Trump) seizing on any hint that a Republican candidate (see, Nikki Haley) might pose a threat to such programmes.EqualityRon DeSantis made attacks on LGBTQ+ rights a hallmark of his attempt to “Make America Florida”. The hardline governor’s tanking campaign suggests how well that has gone down but Republican efforts to demonise all forms of so-called “woke” ideology should not be discounted. There have been tangible results: anti-trans legislation, book bans and restrictions on LGBTQ+ issues in education, the end of race-based affirmative action in university admissions thanks to the conservative-packed supreme court.Continuing struggles on Capitol Hill over immigration, and Republicans’ usual focus on crime in major cities, show traditional race-inflected battles will play their customary role on the campaign trail, particularly as Trump uses extremist “blood and soil” rhetoric in front of eager crowds. On the Democratic side, meanwhile, a distinctly worrying sign: Black and Hispanic support for Biden is no longer such a sure thing.AbortionHigh-ranking Democrats are clear: the party will focus on Republican attacks on abortion rights, from the Dobbs v Jackson supreme court ruling that struck down Roe v Wade last year to the forthcoming mifepristone case, draconian bans in Republican states and candidates’ support for such bans.For Democrats, it makes tactical sense: the threat to women’s reproductive rights is a rare issue on which the party polls very strongly and has clearly fuelled a series of electoral wins, even in conservative states, since Dobbs was handed down.Trump, however, clearly also recognises the potency of the issue – while trying to dodge responsibility for appointing three justices who voted to strike down Roe. Haley and DeSantis have tried to duck questions about their records and plans on abortion. Whoever the Republican candidate is, they can expect relentless attacks.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionForeign policyThe Israel-Gaza war presents a fiendish proposition for Biden: how to satisfy or merely mollify both the Israel lobby and large sections of his own party, particularly the left and the young more sympathetic to the Palestinians.Proliferating protests against Israel’s pounding of Gaza and the West Bank show the danger of coming unglued from the base. A recent Capitol Hill hearing, meanwhile, saw Republicans claim a political victory with the resignation of the president of the University of Pennsylvania over alleged antisemitism amid student protests for Palestinian rights.Elsewhere, Biden continues to lead a global coalition in support of Ukraine in its fight against Russia but further US funding is held up by Republicans seeking draconian immigration reform, some keen to abandon Kyiv altogether. Throw in the lasting effects of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan (teed up by Trump but fumbled by Biden), questions about what the US should do should China attack Taiwan, and the threat Trump poses to US membership of Nato, and heavy fire on foreign policy is guaranteed throughout election year.DemocracyIf Biden is happy to be seen as a protector of democracy abroad, he is increasingly keen to stress the threat to democracy at home. After all, his most likely opponent refused to accept the result of the 2020 election, incited the deadly attack on Congress of 6 January 2021, has been linked to plans to slash the federal government in a second term, and has even said he wants to be a “dictator” on day one.Trump will no doubt maintain the lie that his 2020 defeat was the result of electoral fraud as various criminal cases proceed towards trial, 17 of 91 state and federal charges concerning election subversion. For Biden, the issue has been profitable at the polls. DeSantis and Haley, though, must dance around the subject, seeking not to alienate Trump supporters. The New York Times sums up their responses, dispiritingly, thus: DeSantis “has signed restrictions on voting rights in Florida, and long avoided questions about 2020”; Haley “said Biden’s victory was legitimate, but has played up the risk of voter fraud more broadly”.ClimateIf Trump threatens US democracy, the climate crisis threatens the US itself. From forest fires to hurricanes and catastrophic floods, it is clear climate change is real. Public polling reflects this: 70% of Americans – strikingly, including 50% of Republicans – want meaningful action. But that isn’t reflected in Republican campaigning. Trump says he doesn’t believe human activity contributes to climate change, nor that climate change is making extreme weather worse, and is opposed to efforts to boost clean energy. Haley does believe humans are causing climate change and making weather worse, but worked for Trump as UN ambassador when the US pulled out of the Paris climate deal and opposes clean energy incentives. DeSantis is closer to Trump – and wants to end regulation of emissions.Biden’s record on climate may be criticised by campaigners but his record in office places him firmly against such Republican views. More