Subterms
In the vital swing state of Michigan, growing fractures among the Democratic base could spell trouble for Joe Biden in the November election. As party loyalists canvas in the run up to a primary vote, a protest movement against the president’s support for the war in Gaza gains momentum. Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone visit the state. More
With a rematch set between Joe Biden and Donald Trump after both candidates crossed the delegate threshold needed to clinch their parties’ presidential nominations, suspense around the next wave of Tuesday primaries shifts to a handful of key down-ballot races.Five states – Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio – will hold their presidential nominating contests on Tuesday. Trump and Biden are expected to sail to victory, growing their delegate counts in a march toward this summer’s conventions, where they will officially secure their parties’ nomination.Trump’s last Republican challenger, his former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, ended her presidential campaign after being routed on Super Tuesday, while the Democratic congressman Dean Phillips dropped his long-shot challenge to Biden after failing to win a single delegate, including in his home state of Minnesota.In Florida, the state Democratic party decided support for Biden was strong enough and cancelled its presidential primary. Republicans in the one-time swing state can vote for Trump, though his vanquished rivals, including the governor, Ron DeSantis, will still appear on the ballot. The result may reveal clues about the enduring strength of the anti-Trump vote within the Republican party.Further down the ballot there could be some surprises in store on Tuesday.OhioOhio Republicans will choose their nominee in one of the most highly anticipated Senate races of the cycle. The heated three-way battle to take on the Democratic incumbent, Senator Sherrod Brown, features Republicans Frank LaRose, Matt Dolan and the Trump-backed Bernie Moreno. The final days have become increasingly bitter.Trump held a rally for Moreno in Ohio this weekend, a day after the candidate, who has taken virulently anti-LGBTQ+ positions, was the subject of reporting by the Associated Press that his work email had been used to create an account on an adult website seeking “men for 1-on-1 sex” in 2008. Moreno’s team has condemned the report, and his lawyer told the AP that the account was created by a former intern as “part of a juvenile prank”.During his speech, Trump defended Moreno, used dehumanizing language to describe immigrants and warned darkly that if he loses “you’re going to have another election”.Ohio, once a perennial swing state, is now soundly Republican and backed Trump in 2016 and 2020.Meanwhile, voters in eastern Ohio will choose their party’s nominee to represent them in a June special election to serve the remaining term of the seat vacated by Congressman Bill Johnson, a Republican who retired earlier this year to become a college president.The leading Republican candidates will be on the ballot twice: once for the special election and again to represent their party in the November general election contest for this Republican-leaning seat.In another closely watched primary, Republicans are vying for the nomination to challenge the longtime Democratic congresswoman Marcy Kaptur. State representative Derek Merrin has secured the backing of the party and his former Republican rival, the scandal-plagued JR Majewski, who bowed out of the race after disparaging athletes at the Special Olympics.IllinoisIn Illinois, the incumbent congressman Danny Davis is in the fight of his political life as he seeks to fend off a progressive challenge. But the 82-year-old, 14-term congressman, backed by the state’s governor, JB Pritzker and the Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson, is also contending with calls for a generational change in leadership that echoes the concerns Democrats have with Biden.CaliforniaMeanwhile, California will hold a special election to replace the Republican Kevin McCarthy, who resigned from Congress last year after his historic removal as speaker of the House.McCarthy’s departure left Republicans with one less vote in the House, where their grip on the majority is already razor thin. The race for the seat, a rare conservative stronghold in the otherwise liberal state, will feature Republicans Vince Fong, a state assemblymember and McCarthy’s chosen successor, and the Tulare county sheriff, Mike Boudreaux.While Fong, who won Trump’s endorsement, is favored to win the election to serve the rest of McCarthy’s unexpired term, it is possible he could be forced to a May runoff if no candidate secures a majority of the vote. The Republicans will face each other in the November general election for a new congressional term.Elsewhere in the west, Biden will visit Arizona on election day, touching down in Phoenix after a stop in Nevada and before departing for events in Texas. Biden narrowly won Arizona in 2020 but polls show him trailing Trump amid deep dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy and border security.As part of the Democratic effort to protest Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, organizers with the “Vote Ceasefire AZ” campaign are urging supporters to cast a ballot for the president’s nominal challenger, the self-help guru Marianne Williamson who recently “unsuspended” her presidential campaign. Williamson, who is one of several candidates to appear on Arizona’s Democratic primary ballot, has called for a ceasefire in Gaza and has advocated a “peace” department as part of her platform.For observers closely tracking the strength of the “uncommitted” campaign, the result may be hard to parse. Uunlike in Michigan and Minnesota, there are few options on Tuesday for Democrats upset with the president’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war to register their discontent at the ballot box.Florida, for example, isn’t holding a Democratic primary. And Williamson won’t appear on the ballot in Ohio, where ceasefire activists there are urging supporters to “Leave It Blank”. More
Donald Trump has been unable to post a bond covering the full amount of his $454m New York civil fraud judgment against him, his lawyers said in a court filing.The filing on Monday states that obtaining a bond has proven to be “a practical impossibility”, adding that “diligent” efforts made to secure a bond have included “approaching about 30 surety companies through 4 separate brokers” and “countless hours negotiating with one of the largest insurance companies in the world.”These efforts have proven that “obtaining an appeal bond in the full amount” of the judgment “is not possible under the circumstances presented,” the filing states.With interest, Trump owes $456.8m. In all, he and co-defendants including his company and top executives owe $467.3m, according to AP. To obtain a bond, they would be required to post collateral worth $557m, Trump’s lawyers said.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, told Joe Biden that he will send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss a potential military operation in Rafah in southern Gaza, the White House said. Biden and Netanyahu spoke by phone on Monday in their first known interaction in more than a month, in which the US president questioned the Israeli leader about establishing a “coherent and sustainable strategy’ to defeat Hamas.
Donald Trump’s lawyers told a New York appellate court that it’s impossible for him to post a bond covering the full amount of his $454m civil fraud judgment while he appeals.
Trump’s claim to be immune from criminal prosecution for acts committed in office is rejected by 70% of American voters, and 48% of Republicans, according to a new poll.
Trump is expected to enlist Paul Manafort, his former 2016 presidential campaign manager who he pardoned, to help with the Republican national convention, according to multiple reports.
The supreme court heard oral arguments Monday in a case that could upend the federal government’s relationship with social media companies and with lies online. Plaintiffs in Murthy v Missouri argue that White House requests to take down coronavirus misinformation on Twitter and Facebook constitute illegal censorship in violation the first amendment.
Congress is once again running up on yet another critical government funding deadline, with a dispute over border security funding threatening to force a shutdown of vast swaths of the federal government.
Gavin Newsom, the Californian governor, has postponed his State of the State address while his signature mental health and homelessness initiative Prop 1 remains too close to call.
The father of Laken Riley has objected to how he says his daughter’s death is “being used politically” ahead of the upcoming presidential and congressional elections.
Geoff Duncan, the former Georgia lieutenant governor, said he is withdrawing his name from consideration for a third-party 2024 presidential ticket with the centrist group No Labels.
Mike Johnson, the House speaker, asked fractious fellow Republicans to “cool it” and stop fighting each other during primary elections as he seeks to maintain some sort of control over a caucus at the mercy of the far right.
The supreme court rejected an appeal from Couy Griffin, a former New Mexico county commissioner who was removed from office over his role in the January 6 insurrection.
The son of the late supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called a decision to give Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch an award named for his mother a “desecration” of her memory.
Barack Obama has held talks with Rishi Sunak as the former US president paid a “courtesy visit” to Downing Street during a trip to London.The pair are understood to have discussed a range of subjects during an hour-long meeting, including one of the prime minister’s favourite topics, artificial intelligence.Obama, who served two terms in the White House from 2009 to 2017 before he was succeeded by Donald Trump, was in London as part of work with his Obama Foundation, which oversees a scholarship programme and other initiatives.The prime minister’s official spokesperson said Obama had made “an informal courtesy drop-in as part of his trip to London”. He added:
I think President Obama’s team made contact and obviously the prime minister was very happy to meet with him and discuss the work of the Obama Foundation.
The two held what were understood to be largely one-to-one discussions in the prime minister’s study. Obama briefly paused at the door of No 10 to wave to the cameras but no photos were released from what Downing Street said was a private meeting.A conservative social media influencer has been charged with storming the US Capitol and passing a stolen table out of a broken window, allowing other rioters to use it as a weapon against police, according to an AP report.Isabella Maria DeLuca, 24, was arrested last Friday in Irvine, California, on misdemeanor charges, including theft of government property, disorderly conduct and entering a restricted area.During the January 6 riot, DeLuca posted to social media, writing “Fight back or let politicians steal and election? Fight back!”Videos captured her entering a suite of conference rooms inside the Capitol through a broken window. She passed a table out of the window and then climbed back outside through the same window. A table that another rioter threw at police resembled the one that DeLuca passed out the window, according to court records unsealed on Monday.More than 1,300 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related crimes. More than 800 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds getting a term of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years.The supreme court heard oral arguments Monday in a case that could upend the federal government’s relationship with social media companies and with lies online.Plaintiffs in Murthy v Missouri argue that White House requests to take down coronavirus misinformation on Twitter and Facebook constitute illegal censorship in violation the first amendment.The arguments began with Brian Fletcher, the principal deputy solicitor general of the justice department, making an argument that none of the government’s communications crossed the line from persuasion into coercion. He also pushed back against descriptions of events in lower court rulings, stating that they were misleading or included quotations taken out of context. Fletcher said:
When the government persuades a private party not to distribute or promote someone else’s speech, that’s not censorship, that’s persuading a private party to do something that they’re lawfully entitled to do.
The justices, most prominently conservatives Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, questioned Fletcher on where exactly the line is between threatening companies and persuading them. Fletcher defended the government’s actions as part of its broader ability to try and reduce public harm. Fletcher said:
The government can encourage parents to monitor their children’s cell phone usage or internet companies to watch out for child pornography on their platforms, even if the fourth amendment would prevent the government from doing that directly.
Joe Biden’s phone conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “businesslike”, the White House’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.During the call, the president warned Netanyahu that an Israeli military operation in Rafah would deepen anarchy in Gaza, Sullivan told reporters.Biden also questioned Netanyahu over a lack of a “coherent and sustainable strategy’ to defeat Hamas, “rather than Israel go smashing into Rafah,” he said.The two leaders agreed teams from each side would meet in Washington to discuss a prospective Rafah operation, Sullivan said. This meeting could take place this week or next, he said, adding that no Rafah operation would proceed before the talks.Donald Trump is expected to enlist Paul Manafort, his former 2016 presidential campaign manager who he pardoned, as a campaign adviser later this year, according to multiple reports.Manafort has been in discussions for several months with Trump’s team to help with the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, although his potential role at the party’s convention has not been decided, the Washington Post reported.Manafort was sentenced to more than seven years in prison as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation into Trump’s associates. Trump pardoned him in the final weeks of his presidency.Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has told Joe Biden that he will send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss a potential military operation in Rafah in southern Gaza, the White House said.White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters:
We’ve arrived at a point where each side has been making clear to the other its perspective.
Biden and Netanyahu spoke by phone earlier on Monday, their first known interaction in more than a month as the rift deepens between the two leaders over the war in Gaza.The son of the late US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called a decision to give Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch an award named for his mother a “desecration” of her memory.Discussing protests made to the Dwight D Opperman Foundation, which gives the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership award, James Ginsburg told CNN:
I don’t want to speak to what our other plans might be if the foundation doesn’t see the wisdom of desisting and ending this desecration of my mother’s memory. But I will say that we will continue to fight this.
The second woman appointed to the US supreme court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent 27 years as a justice, becoming a hero to American liberals. She died aged 87 in September 2020 and was replaced by Amy Coney Barrett, the third conservative justice installed by Donald Trump.Ginsburg helped establish the award colloquially known as the RBG, saying it would honour “women who have strived to make the world a better place for generations that follow their own, women who exemplify human qualities of empathy and humility, and who care about the dignity and well being of all who dwell on planet Earth”.Previous recipients have included Barbra Streisand and Queen Elizabeth II. Last week, the Dwight D Opperman Foundation announced a five-strong list it said was chosen from “a slate of dozens of diverse nominees” but which included just one woman.Former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan said he is withdrawing his name from consideration for a third-party 2024 presidential ticket with the centrist group No Labels.“After careful deliberation, I have withdrawn my name from consideration for the No Labels presidential ticket,” Duncan said in a statement on Monday.
It was an honor to be approached, and I am grateful to all those who are engaged in good-faith efforts to offer Americans a better choice than the Trump vs. Biden re-match.
No Labels has been struggling to field a so-called “unity ticket” to provide voters with an alternative to Donald Trump and Joe BidenDuncan becomes the latest lawmaker to turn down No Labels, a list that includes Republican former presidential candidate Nikki Haley, Republican former Maryland governor Larry Hogan, and Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema.California’s governor Gavin Newsom has postponed his State of the State address while his signature mental health and homelessness initiative Prop 1 remains too close to call.With more than 95% of votes counted, the statewide ballot measure that would restructure mental health funding in the state is slightly ahead – but still too close to call. The measure, which has faltered despite no funded opposition, is a key piece of the governor’s plan to address both the mental health and homelessness crises. It would redirect some of the state’s mental health funds toward housing and residential treatment facilities for severe mental health and substance use disorders, and raise billions via a bond.Fiscal conservatives have balked at the measure’s borrowing costs – but Prop 1 was also criticized by local officials, because it would defund community-based programs, and disability rights advocates, who object to its funding of locked-door psychiatric institutions and involuntary treatment.Still, while healthcare companies, and unions backing the state’s prison guards and construction workers, have funded a $14.3m campaign to sell the measure to voters, opponents had only raised $1,000. The “no” campaign conceded last week, but there’s still a chance the measure could fail.The governor was banking on Prop 1 to fund broader plans to combat homelessness, which include the Care court program, which will empower families, providers and outreach workers to ask state courts to compel people with certain severe mental disorders into treatment programs, and SB43, which expands the group of people who can be placed in involuntary psychiatric holds or forced to undergo medical treatment.Ahead of the election on 6 March, Newsom had been confident – telling the LA Times, “I think it’s going to win overwhelmingly.”Now, the governor’s federal PAC, Campaign for Democracy, is seeking volunteers to help Democrats who have had their ballots rejected, for reasons such as forgetting to include a signature, to help them correct issues and have votes counted.Donald Trump’s failure to secure a bond to cover a $454m judgment in his New York civil fraud case means he is inching closer to the possibility of having his properties seized, Reuters reports.The former president must either pay the sum out of his own pocket or post a bond to stave off the state’s seizure while he appeals the judgment against him last month for misstating property values to dupe lenders and insurers.Trump’s lawyers said on Monday that they’d approached 30 companies without success to make the bond.A bonding company would be on the hook for any payout if Trump loses his appeal and proves unable to pay.He must post cash or a bond within 30 days of the judge’s formal entry of the order on February 23 or risk the state seizing some of the Trump Organization’s assets to ensure New York attorney general Letitia James, who brought the civil case, can collect. Thirty days end on March 25.In a court filing, Trump’s lawyers urged a mid-level state appeals court to delay enforcement of the judgment, arguing the amount was excessive. It was unclear when the court, known as the appellate division, would rule.The Guardian adds that last month James said she will seize Trump’s assets if he doesn’t pay.US vice president Kamala Harris kicked off an event at the White House a little earlier to mark women’s history month.She was accompanied by Jill Biden and a dude who loves to describe himself as “Jill Biden’s husband”, as well as a dude who’s the Veep’s husband, and Maria Shriver, who is founder of the nonprofit organization the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement as well as the former first lady of California and a member of the Kennedy clan.Harris said that she’s visited 20 countries in her current position and firmly believes that the strength of a democracy is measured by how a nation values the women of its population, especially in the economy.She reminded those gathered, to huge cheers, that her scientist mother was in a tiny minority as a woman graduating in her day in such a discipline and yet her daughter is now the first female vice president of the US.Harris said that in the US, women carry around two thirds of student debt. She ran through a list of what the Biden administration is doing for women. But her key role in this election is to persuade voters to reelect the Biden-Harris team as the only path to protecting reproductive rights. She has been out on the trail railing against the conservative-leaning Supreme Court, which tilted far to the right under Donald Trump, overturning in the national right to abortion afforded under Roe v Wade and the ongoing hard right assault from many angles on reproductive choice.“In states across our nation we are witnessing a full on attack against hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights, including the right of women to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do,” she said at the White House a little earlier today.Reactions are bubbling up to the news that Donald Trump has been unable to obtain a bond to secure the $464m New York civil fraud judgment against him.Film producer and political commentator Keith Boykin metaphorically shakes his head at Republicans being prepared to nominate Trump for a second term when he can’t pay his fines.Actor Rob Reiner is even plainer.Various other reactions from the commentariat include “sad”, the “king of debt” may need to hold a fire sale, and a pic of Trump sweating.
Donald Trump’s lawyers told a New York appellate court that it’s impossible for him to post a bond covering the full amount of his $454m civil fraud judgment while he appeals.
Trump’s claim to be immune from criminal prosecution for acts committed in office is rejected by 70% of American voters, and 48% of Republicans, according to a new poll.
The supreme court is hearing arguments in Murthy v Missouri, a case with the potential to radically redefine how the US government interacts with social media companies.
Congress is once again running up on yet another critical government funding deadline, with a dispute over border security funding threatening to force a shutdown of vast swaths of the federal government.
The father of Laken Riley has objected to how he says his daughter’s death is “being used politically” ahead of the upcoming presidential and congressional elections.
Mike Johnson, the House speaker, asked fractious fellow Republicans to “cool it” and stop fighting each other during primary elections as he seeks to maintain some sort of control over a caucus at the mercy of the far right.
The supreme court rejected an appeal from Couy Griffin, a former New Mexico county commissioner who was removed from office over his role in the January 6 insurrection.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, accused the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, of treating his country like a “banana republic” after Schumer publicly broke with Netanyahu over his handling of the war and called for new elections in Israel.
The father of Laken Riley, whom authorities suspect was murdered by an undocumented migrant in February, has objected to how he says his daughter’s death is “being used politically” ahead of the upcoming presidential and congressional elections.Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was beaten to death on the University of Georgia’s campus on 22 February. Republicans have claimed Riley’s slaying represents a failure of the Joe Biden White House’s border policies and have used the killing to push legislation which would make it easier for law enforcement to detain unauthorized migrants accused of theft.Jason Riley, Laken’s father, told NBC’s Today show:
I’d rather her not be such a political – how you say – it started a storm in our country … It’s incited a lot of people.
Jason Riley said that since his daughter was killed, “there’s people on both sides that have lashed out at [his and Laken’s mother’s] families”.Investigators have charged José Ibarra with Riley’s murder. The 26-year-old, who is originally from Venezuela, had previously been charged with two crimes in New York before being released, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement said, although officials in the state told the Associated Press they had no record of Ibarra being previously arrested.“I think it’s being used politically to get those votes,” Jason Riley said of his daughter’s death.
It makes me angry. I feel like, you know, they’re just using my daughter’s name for that. And she was much better than that, and she should be raised up for the person that she is. She was an angel.
Donald Trump is facing “insurmountable difficulties” in obtaining a bond to satisfy the $454m civil fraud judgment, his lawyers said in a court filing on Monday.In the filing, the former president’s lawyers wrote that Trump had “devoted a substantial amount of time, money, and effort” toward obtaining a bond but has “faced what have proven to be insurmountable difficulties in obtaining an appeal bond for the full $464 million.”Trump himself was ordered to pay $454m and with interest, owes $456.8m, according to AP. In all, he and co-defendants including his company and top executives owe $467.3m.They said Trump has approached 30 underwriters to back the bond, which is due by the end of this month, but that “very few bonding companies will consider a bond of anything approaching” the amount.The supreme court has rejected an appeal from a former New Mexico county commissioner who was removed from office over his role in the January 6 insurrection.Couy Griffin, a cowboy pastor and commissioner in Otero county in southern New Mexico, was kicked out of office in 2022 after he was sentenced to 14 days in jail and a $3,000 (£2,604) fine for misdemeanor trespassing during the Capitol attack. Griffin is the only elected official thus far to be banned from office in connection with the Capitol attack.The 14th amendment to the US constitution bars anyone who has participated in an insurrection from holding elected office.Though the supreme court ruled this month that states do not have the power to bar Donald Trump or other candidates for federal offices from the ballot, the justices said different rules apply to state and local candidates.House speaker Mike Johnson asked fractious fellow Republicans to “cool it” and stop fighting each other in displays of “member-on-member action” during primary elections as he seeks to maintain some sort of control over a caucus at the mercy of the far right, controlling the chamber by a mere two votes.“I’ve asked them all to cool it,” Johnson told CNN in remarks published Sunday.
I am vehemently opposed to member-on-member action in primaries because it’s not productive. And it causes division for obvious reasons, and we should not be engaging in that. So I’m telling everyone who’s doing that to knock it off. And both sides, they’ll say, ‘Well, we didn’t start it, they started it.’
Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, the far-right Trumpist firebrand pursuing such fights, effectively told the same outlet: “They started it.”“I would love nothing more than to just go after Democrats,” said Gaetz, who was last year the prime mover behind the historic ejection of Johnson’s predecessor as speaker, Kevin McCarthy, and who is now going after two more Republicans, Tony Gonzales of Texas and Mike Bost of Illinois.“If Republicans are going to dress up like Democrats in drag, I’m going to go after them too,” Gaetz said.
Because at the end of the day, we’re not judged by how many Republicans we have in Congress. We’re judged on whether or not we save the country.
Gonzales is under attack over a vote for gun safety reform, after the Uvalde elementary school massacre; over his positions on immigration reform; and for voting in favour of same-sex marriage. More
Donald Trump has renewed calls for Liz Cheney – his most prominent Republican critic – to be jailed for her role in investigating his actions during the January 6 Capitol attack launched by his supporters in 2021, a move that is bound to raise further fears that the former president could persecute his political opponents if given another White House term.In posts on Sunday on his Truth Social platform, Trump said other members of the congressional committee that investigated the Capitol attack – and concluded he had plotted to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat to Joe Biden – should be imprisoned.Those statements followed Trump’s previous comments that he would act like a “dictator” on the first day of a second presidency if given one by voters.Cheney, who served as vice-chair of the January 6 committee and was one of two Republicans on the panel, lost her seat in the House of Representatives to a Trump-backed challenger, Harriet Hageman, in 2022. She responded later on Sunday, saying her fellow Republican Trump was “afraid of the truth”.Trump has been charged with four felonies in relation to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. The US supreme court is considering Trump’s claim that he has absolute immunity from prosecution in the case because he served as president from 2017 to 2021.Trump is also facing charges of 2020 election interference in Georgia, retention of government secrets after he left the Oval Office and hush-money payments that were illicitly covered up.On Sunday, Trump wrote that Cheney should “go to jail along with the rest” of the select January 6 House committee, which he sought to insult in his post on Truth Social by calling it the “unselect committee”.Trump founded Truth after he was temporarily banned from Twitter – now known as X – in the wake of the January 6 insurrection.In a separate Truth Social post, Trump linked to an article written by Kash Patel, a White House staffer in Trump’s administration. In the article, published on the rightwing website the Federalist, Patel claimed that Cheney and the committee “suppressed evidence” which “completely exonerates Trump” from charges that he had a hand in the January 6 insurrection.Patel, who was chief of staff in the defense department under Trump, said in December that if the former president was re-elected, his administration would “come after the people in the media” who had reported on Trump’s attempts to remain in power.Trump wrote: “She [Cheney] should be prosecuted for what she has done to our country! She illegally destroyed the evidence. Unreal!!!”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe suggestions that Cheney and others should be targeted for their role in the January 6 investigation came after House Republicans released a report that they claim contradicts the testimony that Trump tried to grab the wheel of his presidential limousine on January 6 in his excitement to join his supporters attacking the Capitol.Cheney was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the attack, which has been linked to nine deaths and sought to prevent the congressional certification of Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.After a series of retirements and Trump-backed primary challenges, only two of those Republicans remain in office.Cheney’s father, former US vice-president Dick Cheney, released a video in 2022 urging Republicans to reject Trump.“He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election, and he lost big,” Dick Cheney, who served as George W Bush’s vice-president, said in the video. More
Joe Biden tore into Donald Trump’s mental stability at a dinner in Washington DC on Saturday – just as the former president was making verbal gaffes at a campaign rally in Ohio as well as predicting a “bloodbath” if he met defeat in November’s election.Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, confused the crowd at an appearance in Vandalia by insisting that Biden had beaten “Barack Hussein Obama” in elections nationally that never took place.Freewheeling during a speech in which his teleprompters were seemingly disabled by high winds, Trump – a frequent critic of the 81-year-old Biden’s age and mental acuity – struggled to pronounce the words “bite” and “largest”. And he left the crowd scratching their heads over the reference to Obama, whom Biden served as vice-president from 2009 to 2017 before taking the Oval Office from Trump in 2020.“You know what’s interesting? Joe Biden won against Barack Hussein Obama. Has anyone ever heard of him? Every swing state, Biden beat Obama but in every other state, he got killed,” Trump said.Biden joked about Trump’s mental fitness at Saturday night’s Gridiron club dinner, a traditional “roast” attended by politicians and journalists dating to the 1880s.“One candidate is too old and mentally unfit to be president. The other one is me,” the president said.“Don’t tell him. He thinks he’s running against Barack Obama, that’s what he said,” Biden added, referring to several previous occasions when the 77-year-old Trump has confused the incumbent and presumptive 2024 opponent with his Democratic predecessor.Trump’s Ohio address, ostensibly in support of Bernie Moreno, his preferred candidate in the state’s Republican Senate primary Tuesday, also saw the former president returning to darker, more apocalyptic themes.The US, Trump insisted during comments about the auto workers and the car industry, was headed for “a bloodbath” if he was rejected again at the polls in favor of Biden.“Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath. That’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” he said, without clarifying what he meant.Later, he added: “I don’t think you’re going to have another election in this country, if we don’t win this election… certainly not an election that’s meaningful.”His comments prompted a statement from Biden’s re-election campaign that said “this is who Donald Trump is”.A Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said: “He wants another January 6, but the American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence, and his thirst for revenge.”Two Republicans who have been critical of Trump, however, came to his defense. Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday: “You could also look at the definition of bloodbath and it could be an economic disaster. And so if he’s speaking about the auto industry, in particular in Ohio, then you can take it a little bit more context.”Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice-president who this week refused to endorse his candidacy, made a similar argument. “[He] was clearly talking about the impact of imports devastating the American automotive industry,” Pence said on CBS’s Face the Nation.Also during his speech, repeating unsubstantiated claims that foreign countries were “emptying” their prisons and mental institutions into the US, Trump took a familiar swipe at immigrants, calling some of them “animals”.“I don’t know if you call them people. They’re not people, in my opinion,” he said. “But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”Moreno, a Colombian immigrant who made a fortune from his car dealerships, joined in the nationalistic rhetoric, demanding that anybody who comes to the US learned to speak English.“We don’t need to vote in five different languages. We learn the language,” he said. “It means you assimilate. You become part of America – America doesn’t become part of you.”At other times during an often wild 90-minute address, Trump tossed out personal insults at political opponents. He called Biden “stupid” several times; made a vulgar reference to the first name of Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor in his criminal case for trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat; called Democratic California governor Gavin Newsom “new-scum”; and attacked the personal appearance of JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, the New York Times reported.He also attempted to blame the installation of the troublesome teleprompters on Biden, and he urged the event organizers not to pay the contractors.Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former US House speaker, condemned Trump’s comments during a Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union.“You wouldn’t even allow him in your house, much less then the White House,” she said.“We just have to win this election, because he’s even predicting a bloodbath. What does that mean, he’s going to exact a bloodbath? There’s something wrong here. How respectful I am of the American people and their goodness, but how much more do they have to see from him to understand that this isn’t what our country is about?”Biden echoed the warnings during the non-comedic section of his address to the Gridiron dinner, attended by more than 650 guests, continuing to refuse to use Trump’s name, and calling him only “my predecessor”.“We live in an unprecedented moment in democracy,” Biden said. “An unprecedented moment for history. Democracy and freedom are literally under attack. [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s on the march in Europe. My predecessor bows down to him and says to him, ‘do whatever the hell you want.’“Freedom is under assault. The freedom to vote, the freedom to choose and so much more. The lies about the 2020 election, the plot to overturn it, to embrace the January 6 insurrection, pose the greatest threat to our democracy since the civil war.“We live in an unprecedented moment of democracy, an unprecedented moment in history. Democracy and freedom are literally under attack.” More
Two days after saying he would not endorse a second Donald Trump presidency, former vice-president Mike Pence on Sunday declared his esteem for fellow Republicans who plan to vote for his former boss anyway – and he declined to rule out eventually following suit.Pence reiterated on CBS’s Face the Nation that he “cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump” in November’s election for a number of policy-related decisions that he insisted were not personal between him and the former president whose supporters chanted for Pence to be hanged publicly as they attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.Yet Pence also told Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, “I respect the right of Republican voters who have made it clear who they’re for, who they want to be our standard bearer” as Trump has dominated the GOP’s presidential preference primaries in various states to lock up the party’s nomination to challenge Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.He twice ignored Brennan when she asked Pence: “Would you vote for [Trump]?” And he explicitly said he did not want to suggest prominent Republicans such as Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and US House speaker Mike Johnson were walking away from their conservative principles by endorsing Trump, whose stance on abortion is less rightwing than that of his former vice-president.Trump “and I [just] have different styles”, Pence said as Brennan pressed him to elaborate on his disposition toward the man whom he served as vice-president after the 2016 election. “We’re different men. … And as I said before, it’s not personal.”Pence’s exchange with Brennan came after he confirmed to Fox News on Friday that he would refuse to lend his endorsement to Trump, though he also said he would not vote for Biden.Some pundits pointed to the statements as a potentially powerful if symbolic stand against the former president – at least until Pence clearly delineated their limits on Sunday.Friday’s remarks from Pence marked a reversal because last April he had promised to endorse Trump even if the former president was convicted in connection with any of the four criminal indictments pending against him for subversion of his 2020 defeat by Biden, retention of government secrets and hush-money payments.During his appearances on Fox News and CBS, Pence said he could not vouch for a second Trump presidency in small part because of the January 6 attack – though he avoided mentioning how Trump reportedly told aides that he agreed with his supporters who chanted for Pence to be hanged after refusing to block Congress’ certification of BIden’s electoral victory.Pence also alluded to the national debt – which ballooned during Trump’s presidency – and abortion rights. Trump has claimed credit for appointing three rightwingers to the US supreme court whose conservative majority eliminated federal abortion rights in 2022. But Trump has also warned that Republicans who support extreme state-level abortion bans have suffered a series of defeats against Democrats at the ballot box, a position that Pence on Sunday characterized as uncommitted to the “sanctity of life”.Furthermore, Pence criticized how Trump recently expressed his opposition to TikTok’s China-based parent company being forced by the US government to sell the platform.“The reason why I won’t endorse Donald Trump this year is because I see him departing from the mainstream conservative agenda that has defined the Republican party … and still has the best hope for the future of the country,” Pence said.Pence – Indiana’s former governor – at one point sought the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. But the ex-congressman polled poorly and suspended his campaign in October, months before the first votes in the party’s primary were cast in the Iowa caucuses. More
The US election primary season is effectively over. Conventional wisdom holds that the two major candidates will now pivot towards the centre ground in search of moderate voters. But Donald Trump has never been one for conventional wisdom.Detention camps, mass deportations, capital punishment for drug smugglers, tariffs on imported goods, a purge of the justice department and potential withdrawal from Nato – the Trump policy agenda is radical by any standard including his own, pushing the boundaries set during his first presidential run eight years ago.“In 2016 he was still, in his own mind at least, positioning himself to be beloved by everybody,” said Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist. “That’s why ‘Drain the swamp’ was a more populist, appealing message to all sides of the aisle because everyone on some level felt like Washington’s broken, Washington’s left us behind.“Now you flash-forward to 2024 and we’re getting a much darker version of Donald Trump, one who seems to be driven by imaginary grievances from the 2020 election. There’s nothing unifying about that message in any way; it’s incredibly self-centred. This is a campaign for vengeance. In a lot of ways he is Ahab and Moby Dick is the United States of America.”Eight years ago Trump, seeking to become the first US president with no prior political or military experience, was running with a clean slate. If anything, there was a suspicion that his background as a thrice-married New York celebrity implied some ideological fluidity and latent liberal instincts.But he announced his candidacy in June 2015 by promising to build a wall on the southern border, using xenophobic language to portray Mexicans as “criminals” and “rapists” and promising to “make America great again”.During the campaign he described international trade deals as “a disaster” and called for increased tariffs on imports. He promised sweeping tax cuts and vowed to repeal Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and environmental regulations, describing climate change as “a total hoax”.Trump pledged to nominate supreme court justices opposed to abortion and, in one TV interview, suggested that women who have abortions should be punished. With backing from the National Rifle Association, he opposed gun safety reforms.Overseas, the Republican candidate deployed the slogan “America first”, questioning the Nato alliance while calling for improved relations with Russia. He vowed to destroy the Islamic State and called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”.Trump did implement his first attempt at a Muslim ban almost immediately after taking the Oval Office in January 2017, prompting protests, airport chaos and a long legal battle in the courts. The supreme court ruled in June 2018 that the third iteration of the law could go into full effect, meaning considerable restrictions on Muslim travellers entering the country.Trump failed to overturn the Affordable Care Act, but his presidency was hugely consequential in other ways. His $1.5tn tax cut added to the national debt and, research has shown, helped billionaires more than the working class. The US pulled out of the Paris climate agreement. Trump reshaped the federal judiciary and appointed three supreme court justices who would be instrumental in ending the constitutional right to abortion.He botched the response to a coronavirus pandemic that has now left more than a million Americans dead, initially underplaying the threat and later suggesting that patients might inject bleach as a cure. In the summer of 2020, Trump is said to have wanted the US military to shoot peaceful protesters in Washington during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations.In the aftermath of his 2020 election defeat, and dozens of criminal charges against him, Trump’s extremism has broadened and deepened as he heads into an electoral rematch with Joe Biden. He won the Republican primaries with ease, prompting commentators to warn of “collective amnesia” and “the banality of chaos” as many voters seemingly become numb to his demagoguery.However, an AP VoteCast poll found six in 10 moderate Republicans in New Hampshire and South Carolina were concerned that Trump was too extreme to win a general election.View image in fullscreenFor example, he now argues that presidents should have total immunity and openly threatens the guardrails of American democracy. “I only want to be a dictator for one day,” he told supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire, earlier this year.He has said he would try to strip tens of thousands of career employees of their civil service protections as he seeks to “totally obliterate the deep state”. Given his rage at the FBI and federal prosecutors pursuing criminal cases against him, Trump may target people linked to those prosecutions for retribution.His signature issue, border security, is once again taking centre stage with record levels of migrants caught crossing into the US. In response, he has pledged to launch the biggest deportation effort in American history. This would involve far-reaching roundups and detention camps to hold people while they await removal, the New York Times reported. He has also refused to rule out reinstating a Muslim travel ban and a hugely controversial family separation policy.Trump further wants to build more of the border wall – his first administration built 450 miles (724km) of barriers across the 1,954-mile (3,144km) border, but much of that replaced existing structures. He also wants to end automatic citizenship for children born in the US to immigrants living in the country illegally, an idea he flirted with as president.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFormer Republican congressman Joe Walsh said: “He’s even uglier in his language now. He’s even more cruel in his approach. He’s gotten much more extreme, which you would think means, oh my God, how stupid politically, because he needs people in the middle. But it is big issue and Democrats have never understood how important immigration and the border are and so Trump feels as if he can demagogue it in even more of an extreme fashion.”Trump has called for the death penalty for drug smugglers and those who traffic women and children. In a broader anti-crime push, he says he will require local law enforcement agencies to use divisive policing measures including stop-and-frisk. Last year, he told a rally in Anaheim, California: “Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store.”Under the mantra “Drill, baby, drill”, Trump says that he would increase oil drilling on public lands and offer tax breaks to oil, gas and coal producers. He would again exit the Paris climate accords, end wind subsidies and eliminate environmental regulations.Trump has suggested that he is open to making cuts to the social security and Medicare welfare programmes. But one area in which he has hinted at moderation is abortion, publicly acknowledging that the national ban favoured by some Republicans would be electoral kryptonite, although it was reported last month that he privately expressed support for a 16-week limit with exceptions.Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said: “His campaign has been smart to float the 16-week ban because I think most Americans fall somewhere between 16 and 20 weeks as something they can live with. If he basically says the federal government will not try to do a six-week ban, we’re not going to come after a foetal heartbeat bill – so if you live in a swing state like Michigan that has codified abortion, I’m not coming after you – that is strategically a smart position. But it would be considered a modification to the centre on abortion by Trump.”On foreign policy, Trump claims that even before he is inaugurated, he will have settled the war between Russia and Ukraine. Last week, after visiting the former president at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Hungary’s autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said Trump promised him that he will end Russia’s war with Ukraine by not giving “a single penny” in aid.The Republican nominee also says he will continue to “fundamentally re-evaluate” Nato’s purpose and mission. At one recent rally, he said he would “encourage” Vladimir Putin’s Russia to attack Nato allies who do not pay their bills. And he says he will institute a system of tariffs of perhaps 10% on most foreign goods.Sometimes it can all seem like campaign bluster unlikely to survive the scrutiny of advisers, Congress or the courts. But whereas Trump’s 2016 win took everyone by surprise, perhaps including him, resulting in a first term marred by infighting and hastily written executive orders, this time there are allies who consider a second term is possible, or even probable, and are ready to hit the ground running.Trump’s campaign and groups such as the Heritage Foundation and America First Policy Institute thinktanks are assembling Project 2025 policy books with detailed plans. Groups of conservative lawyers are sizing up what orders Trump might issue on a second presidency’s first day. With lessons learned, his administration could be even more ruthless and efficient.Lanhee Chen, a fellow in American public policy studies at the Hoover Institution thinktank in Stanford, California, said: “Some of the general framing and themes around what it is he wants to do are relatively consistent. What is different this time around is that there’s more of an architecture and infrastructure supporting a lot of these policy proposals.“If you look at the ecosystem of organisations that’s involved in helping him think through what a second term agenda would look like, it’s much more robust in 2024 than it was in 2016. So I don’t necessarily subscribe to the view that the substance is all that different or somehow more extreme. It’s just there’s a lot more people who are thinking about it. Some of them are authorised; some of them are probably not authorised.”Critics of Trump warn that, while Trump himself has few core beliefs, he would effectively become a vehicle for extremists to push a far-right agenda wildly out of step with the majority of Americans. Reed Galen, a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said: “He is an empty vessel for these other people around him who do have very specific policy ideas, most of them rooted in straight authoritarianism or some noxious mix of authoritarianism and Christian dominionism.“He doesn’t care. For all of it, it’s a means to an end. If I win do these people help me or do they hurt me? Do they give me more control? Do they give me less control? Do they give me more access to making sure I’m never going to go to jail, that I can persecute and prosecute my political enemies, that I can make life harder for the media?”Galen added: “In many ways, he is the leader of the torchlight parade but he’s being taken arm in arm and pushed from behind by a bunch of very noxious individuals with what I would call fundamentally anti-democratic and un-American ideology.” More
On a glorious spring day in Phoenix, in an atrium beneath the majestic cupola of the old state capitol, the secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, is celebrating Arizona’s 112th birthday.He solemnly recites President William Howard Taft’s proclamation welcoming Arizona as the 48th state of the union. Speeches fete the state’s breathtaking landscapes, from the mighty Grand Canyon to the sprawling deserts of Yuma and lush green forests of Coconino. Then, a cake iced with the state seal is cut into 112 pieces and devoured in the sun-dappled Rose Garden.There is only one discordant note on this otherwise joyous day: who is that person standing silently and alert behind Fontes? Why is Arizona’s chief election administrator, responsible for the smooth operation of November’s presidential election, in need of a bodyguard?“It’s very sad,” Fontes said. “It’s a sad state of affairs that in a civil society, in one of the most advanced civilizations that anybody could have imagined, we have to worry about physical violence.”These are troubled times in Arizona. Until 2020, election officials were the largely anonymous folk who did the important yet unseen work of making democracy run smoothly.“Nobody knew who we were, what we did,” Fontes said ruefully. “It’s a little bit different now.”All changed with Donald Trump’s unprecedented refusal to accept defeat in the 2020 election. His conspiracy to subvert the election has had an explosive impact in Arizona, a battleground state that has become arguably ground zero for election denial in America.In 2020, the Republican-controlled state legislature sponsored a widely discredited “audit” of votes in Maricopa county, the largest constituency, which contain Phoenix. Republican leaders put themselves forward as fake electors in a possibly criminal attempt to flip Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona to Trump’s.Two years later, in the midterms, armed vigilantes dressed in tactical gear stalked drop boxes in a vain hunt for “mules” stuffing fraudulent ballots into them. Amid the furore, election officials found themselves assailed by online harassment and death threats.No longer faceless bureaucrats, they had become public enemy No 1.With the likely presidential rematch between Trump and Biden just eight months away, Fontes, as the top elections administrator, is facing a formidable challenge. He is preparing for it like the marine veteran that he is.The secretary of state is staging tabletop exercises in which officials wargame how to react to worst-case scenarios. What would they do if a fire broke out at the ballot-printing warehouse, or if a cargo train spilled its toxic load on to the facility storing voting equipment?“Tiger teams” have been assembled to be quickly dispatched across the state to fix software or other voting problems. To anticipate bad actors using artificial intelligence to create malicious deepfakes of candidates, his office has done its own AI manipulations, making videos in which individuals speak fluently in languages they do not know such as German and Mandarin. “They were very, very believable,” Fontes noted.Specialists from the Department of Homeland Security have been deployed to advise counties on physical and cyber security. Active-shooter drills have been rehearsed at polling stations.As the Washington Post reported, kits containing tourniquets to staunch bleeding, hammers for breaking glass windows and door-blocking devices have been distributed to county election offices. “These are not things we would ever want to train anybody on,” Fontes said. “But given the environment … ”With all this under way, Fontes insists he’s ready for anything. “We will prepare as best we can for any contingencies,” he said. “And then we have no choice but to march forward, hopefully.”View image in fullscreenA single statistic underlines the looming danger hanging over the 2024 presidential contest. More than half – 53% – of Arizonans are currently represented in the state legislature by Republicans with a proven track record of election denial.That arresting figure comes from the election threat index, a database compiled by the voting rights organization Public Wise. The directory is designed as an accountability tool, tracking local and state officials who spread misinformation and participate in legislation undermining democracy.“This is a race to the bottom,” said Reginald Bolding, a Public Wise adviser and former Democratic minority leader in the Arizona house. “We are seeing the Republican party reward whoever’s most extreme about elections.”All the big names in Arizona’s flourishing market in election denial remain active traders. Kari Lake, the Phoenix TV anchor who reinvented herself as a Trump acolyte, continues to deny her idol’s 2020 presidential defeat as well as her own failure in Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial race; she is now running for a US Senate seat.Mark Finchem, the former state legislator and member of the Oath Keepers militia who was present at the US Capitol insurrection on 6 January 2021, is attempting to return to the Arizona legislature in a state senate seat. He has founded an election-denial outfit, the Election Fairness Institute, and, as the monitoring group Media Matters has revealed, continues to brag about uncovering “phantom voters” while offering zero evidence.View image in fullscreenAbe Hamadeh last month lodged yet another lawsuit claiming that Arizona’s attorney general post had been stolen from him after he lost the midterm race. Now he is vying for a congressional seat.For seasoned political observers, the midterms were like a controlled experiment that proved that election denial is unpopular among most Arizonans. Prominent deniers lost all statewide elections in 2022 – Lake to Katie Hobbs in the governor’s race, Finchem to Fontes for secretary of state, and Hamadeh to Democrat Kris Mayes for attorney general.“It was the perfect case study,” said Mike Noble, a pollster based in Arizona. “All the election deniers standing in statewide races lost, while everything else down-ticket went to the Republicans.”Opinion polls tell the same story. A whopping 70% of Republicans nationally are still wedded to Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Yet such fondness for conspiracy theories does not translate to the general population.Republicans form 34% of Arizona’s electorate. But 30% identify as Democrats and another 35% are unaffiliated independents – voting blocs that are much less susceptible to the stolen election lie.Strangely, blanket statewide defeats do not appear to have dampened the Republican embrace of Trump’s deceit. “The rhetoric hasn’t stopped, terrible as it is for them,” Noble said.If anything, the debate around stolen elections has intensified. “New political careers have been created out of it. A whole industry and infrastructure now exists to make sure that it perpetuates itself,” said Stephen Richer, the Republican recorder of Maricopa county tasked with maintaining the voter files of 2.6 million citizens.Mayes, the state attorney general who is being sued – again – by Hamadeh two years after she beat him, is stark about the enduring strength of election denial. She was a Republican until 2019 when, dismayed by the direction in which Trump was dragging the party, she defected to the Democrats.“The Republican party in Arizona has been taken over by a faction that wants to undermine our democracy by sowing seeds of doubt about our election system,” she said. “As a former Republican, I find that horrendous, and nothing short of heartbreaking.”View image in fullscreenOf the first 13 cases prosecuted by the election threats taskforce, the unit set up within the US justice department in 2021 to protect election officials from the attacks unleashed by Trump, by far the largest number – five – relate to Arizona.Two of those involved death threats against Fontes’s office, including a bomb threat. A third was a threatened lynching directed at Clint Hickman, a Republican on the Maricopa county board of supervisors.The final two prosecutions both involved menaces against Richer. In one of the attacks, a Missouri man left a voicemail in which he warned the recorder to stop criticizing the state senate’s “audit” or “your ass will never make it to your next little board meeting”.In an interview, Richer was hesitant to discuss the bombardment he and his family have suffered from fellow Republicans. But he did say this: “The fracturing of my party saddens me. There are people who I consider to be part of my tribe, part of my team, who now view me as a bona fide enemy.”Even moderate Republicans who have long been forced out of the legislature are exposed to the aggravation. Rusty Bowers, the former speaker of the Arizona house who was ousted in 2022 for refusing to illegally overturn Biden’s win, has been out of office for 13 months but was still subjected on the day after Christmas to swatting – a fake prank anonymous call that brought police cars screeching to his house and officers scouring the premises.Bowers has a take on why he is still attracting Maga wrath all these months later: “Fear brings people tighter together, justifying mistreatment even of your own. It all becomes magnified. You know, we’re falling apart.”Arizona is suffering one of the severest brain drains of electoral knowhow in the country. Of its 15 counties, 12 have lost a top election administrator since the last presidential cycle, prised out by a constant barrage of bile.Most of those quitting are women, a reflection of the predominance of female election officials and the often sexually charged nature of the threats.Of the five members of the Maricopa county board of supervisors, two have announced they are not standing for re-election. Hickman, recipient of the lynching threat, said recently that “it’s gotten worse and worse … I thought I was looking way too much in the rearview mirror”.View image in fullscreenThe second departing supervisor is Bill Gates. In January, the attorney general secured a sentence of three years’ probation for a man who accused Gates of being a “corrupt Democrat” and threatened to poison him to death “multiple times”.In fact, Gates has been a loyal Republican since he was a teenager – he set up a Republican club in his high school when he was 16. “I’m a true child of the Reagan revolution,” he said in an interview.Gates had to evacuate his family from their home twice after being advised by the local sheriff they were in imminent danger. The low point came one Christmas when he posted a photo of his family on social media. A Trump supporter responded that his daughter should be raped.As the pressure reached a boiling point, Gates was diagnosed with PTSD. Since then he has worked hard to stabilize himself through therapy, but he struggles.It’s not just the death threats. Like Richer, he feels wounded that the attacks are coming from his own people.“It’s my team that’s going after me,” he said. “Four of us supervisors are Republicans in Maricopa. We stood up for democracy, we stood up for elections that are safe and secure, and we’ve been called Rinos, traitors, Marxist communists on a daily basis.”Gates said that there were several factors behind his decision, at this point, to leave public office once the presidential election is done. One of the largest is the trauma of these past four years.He said he would leave the supervisor job with a heavy heart, as he regards it as the most important work of his professional life. He will also depart with foreboding.“Democracy is teetering,” he said.What does he mean?“It is extremely difficult to win a Republican primary if you defend our election system. If that’s not teetering, I don’t know what is.”Kris Mayes is on the frontline of efforts to hold together Arizona’s teetering democracy. As the state’s top prosecutor, she is painfully aware that the eyes of the world were on Arizona in 2020 and 2022, and will be again in 2024.“Every election cycle, we seem to face a test,” she said, speaking in her office in downtown Phoenix. “I think we’re going to pass it, but it’s dangerous.”Mayes has aggressively prosecuted those who allegedly violate election laws. Last year she secured felony indictments for two Republican supervisors in Cochise county in the south of the state who were refusing to certify 2022 election results.View image in fullscreenIn Mohave county, a deeply conservative community in the north-west, she intervened in a fierce dispute over hand counts. Republican supervisors were pressing for hand counts only, calling for the scrapping of vote-counting machines – a move that Mayes pointed out in a letter would be unlawful and could attract serious legal consequences.She told the Guardian that her motive was deterrence. “We want to send a message that we will not put up with violations of the law, whether that’s sending a death threat to an election official or creating chaos in the election system,” she said.Despite the attorney general’s efforts, those in the thick of the gathering election storm are on edge. Security has been increased at the Runbeck Elections Services factory where ballots are printed.CEO Jeff Ellington said the aim was to protect staff and reassure voters that the process is watertight. Public tours of the factory have been stepped up. Extra cameras have been installed, and the facility has been reinforced against cybersecurity attacks. All trucks transporting ballots around the state and beyond are monitored with GPS.Most tellingly, armed guards are stationed at the facility around the clock.Ellington admits to being worried that the volatile events of 2020 and 2022 will repeat themselves. “People are very amped up. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. We’re just not a trusting nation right now,” he said.Assuaging such fears is one of the attorney general’s top priorities. “My focus is making sure we protect our elections, and our officials, against threats of violence,” Mayes said.One of her biggest pending decisions is whether to charge the 11 Republican “fake electors” who gathered on 14 December 2020 to cast “alternative” electoral college votes for Trump, even though by then his defeat had been confirmed. A “very serious investigation” is under way, she said, promising that it would be completed.But she was coy about whether she would follow Georgia, Michigan and Nevada in pressing charges against the fake electors. “We’re spending the time we need to see that justice is done,” was her careful choice of words.The attorney general’s decision will be of some interest to Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern, leading Republicans in the state senate. They were among the 11 fake electors, and Kern went on to appear at the attack at the US Capitol on January 6.The two senators are also key members of the Freedom Caucus, the alliance of far-right Republican lawmakers that dominates the legislature. Since the advent of Trump, the Arizona Republican party has moved relentlessly to the right, with the Freedom Caucus accumulating power while moderate Republicans have been driven out.The Freedom Caucus is umbilically linked to Turning Point Action, the political arm of Turning Point USA, which is based in Phoenix. The group, under the leadership of the pro-Trump activist Charlie Kirk, has catalyzed the party’s rightward march.Before he entered the legislature, Hoffman was head of communications for Turning Point USA. The group’s chief operating officer, Tyler Bowyer, is a close ally of Hoffman’s and represents Arizona on the Republican National Committee.“Turning Point is now a national advocacy group for culture warriors,” said Chuck Coughlin, a Phoenix-based political consultant and CEO of Highground Inc. “They’ve taken over the Arizona Republican party.”According to Public Wise, 12 of the 16 Republicans in the Arizona senate have participated in election denialism or other acts that undermine confidence in democracy. Of the 32 Republican state lawmakers listed on the election threats index, almost half have introduced anti-democratic legislation and 84% have voted for it.Recent bills proposed by far-right lawmakers include:
House bill (HB) 2472, which would make it easier to challenge election results in court, removing legal hurdles that led to Lake and Hamadeh’s lawsuits being dismissed for lack of evidence;
Senate bill (SB) 1471 and HB2722, which would promote hand counts of all ballots, a key demand of election deniers who claim without proof that vote-counting equipment is rigged; and
(HB)2415, which would strip Arizonans from the early voter list whenever they fail to vote.
None of these bills have hope of being enacted, given the veto power of Hobbs, the Democratic governor. Last year she vetoed a record 143 bills, dismissing them with such tart remarks as “the 2020 election is settled” and “it’s time to move on”.Of all the recent moves from Republican lawmakers, the most striking has been SCR1014, a senate constitutional resolution introduced in January by Kern. It rehashes a highly dubious judicial doctrine championed by Trump’s lawyer John Eastman in the buildup to the January 6 insurrection.The “independent state legislature theory” claims that the US constitution gives state legislatures – as opposed to individual voters – the power to choose who becomes the next president. “The Legislature, and no other official, shall appoint presidential electors in accordance with the US Constitution,” Kern’s resolution bluntly states.SCR1014 has no chance of becoming law – it would require a majority of Arizonans to back the idea in a ballot initiative, which in effect would be asking the state’s 4 million registered voters to disenfranchise themselves. But the resolution does lay down a road map of the Freedom Caucus’s intentions.The Guardian invited Kern to explain his resolution, but he did not respond.Sonny Borrelli, the majority leader of the Arizona senate and a fellow Freedom Caucus member, was willing to talk.In his senate office, he began by reaffirming his conviction that Arizona’s 2020 result, which put Biden ahead by 10,457 votes, was unreliable. “I believe that it was an uncertifiable election, so whether Trump won or Biden won, we just don’t know,” he said.View image in fullscreenHe ran through several allegations of fraud, all of which have been thoroughly investigated and debunked. They included “video footage of people stuffing ballots” into drop boxes (the core of the discredited film 2000 Mules by the conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza) and “22,000 dead voters’ signatures”.Last year Borrelli sponsored SB1074, which would require all vote-counting equipment to be made exclusively out of US-manufactured parts. Hobbs vetoed that bill too, pointing out that no such machines existed.Borrelli then went on a grand tour of Arizona counties, instructing election supervisors that they had to conform to a non-binding resolution banning electronic voting machines. “We need to go back to hand-count paper ballots,” he told the Guardian. “Anything is hackable, so why take that chance?”November’s presidential contest will not be hand-counted in Arizona. The elections director of Maricopa county has estimated that it would take an additional 25,000 temporary workers to carry out a hand count of the presidential election, working nine-hour shifts for 25 straight days – a monumental feat that would set the county back some $71m.Borrelli is confident that despite failing to secure hand counts, his side is ready for November.“People throughout the state are stepping up. There will be a lot more volunteers at the polls, and they will be more aware. They are going to be watching better.”View image in fullscreenWhat if the presidential contest erupts in a fiery dispute, as it did in Arizona in 2020? Could he conceive of Kern’s resolution being rolled out and the legislature wresting control?“I believe our US constitution grants us the authority,” Borrelli said. “We have plenary authority over the presidential election, meaning we can choose the electors – the constitution says so.”But wouldn’t that be overturning the will of the Arizonan people?“How could you overturn the will of the people,” he said, “if the people didn’t actually get what they were supposed to be getting?”The drive west to Borrelli’s constituency traverses moonscapes of dry cactus deserts, cracked rocky outcrops and windswept mesa. The politics of the 30th district are, like the scenery, unforgiving, rugged and proud.First stop is Kingman, a scraggy town of 32,000 on Route 66. A bikers’ shop on the side of the highway sells Trump memorabilia and other Maga delights.There are T-shirts imprinted with Trump’s scowling mugshot taken when he was charged with illegally trying to overturn the election in Georgia, above the caption: “Nuff said.” Confederate flags fly from the roof stamped with the motto “Heritage not hate”.Maggie Passaro, 69, is a Kingman resident who at a public meeting of the Mohave county supervisors board in November became so distraught over hand counts that she almost burst into tears.She tells her life story over coffee in the Route 66 diner. She inherited from her father strong anti-government leanings. “Little one, don’t ever trust the government, they all lie and cheat,” he would tell her.As an adult, Passaro worked variously as a bartender, dancer, artist and caregiver to her ailing mom. She flirted with the Tea Party and with the birther movement that claimed falsely that Barack Obama was not American, but her true engagement with politics only came with Trump.After her mother died, she became so detached from public life that she didn’t vote in 2016. On 20 January 2017, she was listening to a local radio station and was astonished to hear Trump’s inauguration speech – she hadn’t even realized he had won the presidency.With Trump in the White House, she started burrowing down into online rabbit holes, following Cathy O’Brien and other conspiracy theorists. Her news source became the podcast of Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon and the misinformation website of Dan Bongino.A warm and affable woman, Passaro admitted freely that she tends to obsess over things. She watches online videos for days on end. “I won’t sleep until I’ve seen them all,” she said.One such obsession is the alleged stealing from Trump of the 2020 election using rigged vote-counting machines. Passaro talked with animation about PCAPS – so called “packet captures” that Trump associates like the My Pillow founder, Mike Lindell, claim are proof that China controlled the machines.By last fall, Passaro had become so incensed that when she heard that Mohave county supervisors were holding a public meeting to discuss hand counts, she vowed to be there. That’s when she almost wept: when she heard someone say that hand counts were too slow and expensive to adopt in Mohave county.“I thought:‘Oh, you stupid ass!’” Passaro said, her eyes welling up again. “How much value do you put on your freedom? What’s your life worth? It’s priceless, you can’t put a value on it! You cannot have a life without freedom!”Why was that moment so overwhelming for her?“I do get very, very emotional,” she said.Why?“I’m afraid we’re losing our country.”About an hour’s drive farther west is Lake Havasu City, a dusty desert city on the banks of the Colorado River. This is home to Ron Gould, the Mohave county supervisor who has spearheaded the push to scrap machines and move to hand counts.When the Guardian asked Gould to give his take on why hand counts are so important, he offered a different analysis. He wasn’t touting PCAPs or Chinese hacking.He even admitted that hand counts weren’t necessary in a place like Mohave. “Machines aren’t the big problem, it’s not really an issue in my county,” he said.The paradox is that the loudest, most passionate expressions of election denial are being made in staunch conservative parts of the state where the results of ballots are never in dispute. Trump trounced Biden in Mohave county by 75% to 24% – a margin that nobody would challenge.View image in fullscreenSo why is Gould so fired up? At the public meeting in which Passaro teared up, he told the crowd that he was willing to go to jail if it meant his county could hand-count the ballot. He also recently sued Mayes over the attorney general’s letter warning of criminal charges if the supervisors switched to manual counting.Gould explained his suit in personal terms: “I’m tired of them threatening me, that’s really what my lawsuit is about.”But he cast his compulsion for hand counts in much more portentous terms. It was all about democracy, he said: “I’m concerned that people are losing faith in elections. I’m concerned that people will decide not to vote because they think it’s rigged, and then you lose the democratic process. If going to a hand count takes care of it, that’s why I back it.”Gould is seeking to alleviate his constituents’ growing doubts about democracy by sowing doubts about democracy. Wouldn’t it be easier than moving to costly and cumbersome hand counts simply to tell his constituents that voting machines work?“They’re hearing that from everybody, and that doesn’t make them believe it’s true. So if hand counts are what they want, I’m going to give them what they want,” he said.Where does he think this could end?“In a revolution, actually,” he said. “People are ginned up. They feel disenfranchised, disgusted, that they have no control over their lives or the political direction of their country. If they can’t solve it at the ballot box, then they’re going to do it in other ways.” More
