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      ‘Totally baseless’: Trump denounced for Nikki Haley ‘birther’ lie

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      A leading professor of US constitutional law condemned Donald Trump for “playing the race card” by propagating the “totally baseless” claim that Nikki Haley, his surging rival for the Republican presidential nomination, is not qualified because her parents were not US citizens when she was born.“The birther claims against Nikki Haley are totally baseless as a legal and constitutional matter,” Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, told NBC.“I can’t imagine what Trump hopes to gain by those claims unless it’s to play the race card against the former governor and UN ambassador as a woman of colour – and to draw on the wellsprings of anti-immigrant prejudice by reminding everyone that Haley’s parents weren’t citizens when she was born in the USA.”The term “birther” was coined to describe racist conspiracy theories about Barack Obama, the first Black US president, which Trump seized on as he established a presence on the political far right.In 2016, as he ran for president himself, Trump also attempted to raise doubts about Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who was then his chief rival.Obama’s father was Kenyan and his mother American. He was born in Hawaii. Cruz’s father was Cuban and his mother American. He was born in Canada and moved to Texas when young.The 14th amendment to the US constitution – the same text under which Colorado and Maine now seek to remove Trump from the ballot for inciting an insurrection – says “all persons born or naturalised in the United States” are citizens. It was introduced after the civil war, conferring citizenship on people once enslaved. The constitution requires that a presidential candidate must be a resident for 14 years, at least 35 years old, and a “natural-born citizen”.As described in Haley’s autobiography, her parents “were born in the Punjab region of India”. Haley was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, in 1972, a US citizen at birth. Her father became a US citizen in 1978, her mother in 2003. Haley was governor of her home state from 2011 to 2017, then ambassador to the United Nations when Trump was president.In the race for the Republican nomination, Haley has surged in polling. She has done particularly well in New Hampshire, cutting Trump’s lead to single digits. Trump still dominates in Iowa, the first state to vote next week.On Tuesday, Trump re-posted to his Truth Social platform a post from the Gateway Pundit, a far-right site, which cited Paul Ingrassia, a New York Young Republican and “constitutional scholar”, as saying Haley was disqualified.In his own post, Ingrassia cited “great investigative work by Laura Loomer, who uncovered that neither one of Haley’s parents were US citizens when she was born in 1972”. Loomer, a far-right, Islamophobic, white-supremacist Florida activist who has run unsuccessfully for Congress, is an ardent Trump supporter.Experts agree Haley is qualified to be president, simply because she was born on US soil. Campaigning on a virulently anti-immigrant platform, Trump has promised to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented migrants.His post about Haley was condemned across the US media – and the political spectrum.Charles Gasparino, a Fox Business correspondent, said: “The problem with Donald is that he goes disgustingly low and not just against real enemies.”John Avlon, a CNN political analyst, said: “Trump’s lies are cut and paste: now he’s going birther on Nikki Haley – after trying the same attack on Obama, Harris and Cruz.”Kamala Harris, the first woman and woman of colour to be vice-president, was born in Oakland, California, in 1964, to parents from India and Jamaica. Trump sought to cast doubt on her eligibility for office during the 2020 election. More

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      Trump warns of ‘bedlam’ if criminal cases bar him from White House

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      There will be “bedlam” in the US if criminal cases deny Donald Trump a White House return, said the former president who incited the deadly January 6 attack on Congress but who is the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination this year.“I think they feel this is the way they’re going to try and win, and that’s not the way it goes,” Trump told reporters, referring to Joe Biden and Democrats, after a court hearing in Washington DC on Tuesday.“It’ll be bedlam in the country. It’s a very bad thing. It’s a very bad precedent. As we said, it’s the opening of a Pandora’s box.”Trump claims he is a victim of political persecution.Prosecutors say he committed 91 criminal offenses, regarding federal election subversion (four charges); state election subversion (13, in Georgia); retention of classified information (40, federal) and hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star who claimed an affair (34, in New York).Trump also faces civil trials over his business affairs and a defamation case arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.Arising from his incitement of the attack on Congress on 6 January 2021 – an attempt to overturn his defeat by Biden now linked to nine deaths and more than 1,200 arrests – Trump also faces attempts to remove him from the ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, introduced after the civil war to stop insurrectionists running for office.Trump has appealed removal in Maine in that state. An appeal against his removal in Colorado will be argued at the US supreme court.On Tuesday, Trump chose to attend an appeals hearing in his federal election subversion case, listening as his lawyers argued he enjoys immunity for anything done while president.One judge asked if a president would be immune to prosecution if he ordered Seal Team 6, an elite special forces unit, “to assassinate a political rival”.For Trump, D John Sauer, a former Missouri solicitor general, said a president “would have to be impeached and convicted” before being prosecuted for any such action.Trump was impeached (for a second time) for inciting the Capitol attack. Republicans in the Senate ensured he was acquitted.Representing Jack Smith, the special counsel, James Pearce said Trump’s lawyers were proposing “an extraordinarily frightening future”.Speaking to reporters, Trump referred to speeches by Biden around the January 6 anniversary, saying of the charges against him: “When they talk about threat to democracy, that’s your real threat to democracy.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionClaiming he did “nothing wrong, absolutely nothing”, he nonetheless repeated his claim: “If it’s during the time [in office], you have absolute immunity.”A reporter asked: “You just used the word ‘bedlam’. Will you tell your supporters now, ‘No matter what, no violence’?”Trump walked away.Polling shows a criminal conviction may reduce Republican support for Trump. The trial in the federal election subversion case is due to begin on 4 March, in the middle of the GOP primary. As in other cases, Trump’s appeal is widely seen as an attempt to delay proceedings.His prediction of “bedlam” stoked widespread alarm.Maya Wiley, chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, alluded to Republican endorsements of Trump when she said his “warnings” were “heard by too many as calls to action. Every Republican should come forward and repeat these simple and unequivocal words: ‘Political violence is never acceptable … it has no place in the democracy. None.’ This isn’t a game.”Tim O’Brien of Bloomberg News, a longtime Trump-watcher, recapped remarks in court and added just one word: “Fascism”. More

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      ‘Better be scared’: threats of political violence foretell tense election year

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      The judge overseeing the election interference case against Donald Trump in Washington DC had her home visited by police after a fake emergency call, and attempts were made to do the same to the prosecutor Jack Smith.The Maine secretary of state was “swatted”, too, after she ruled that the former president could not appear on the ballot there because of the 14th amendment. The Colorado judges who ruled similarly have faced threats, leading to increased security.There was also a round of bomb threats to state capitols, sent to secretaries of state and legislative offices, that were believed to be a hoax but led to evacuations around the country this month. Those hoaxes came after letters containing fentanyl were sent to elections office in a handful of states in November.A recent wave of threats against elections officials and judges foretells a tense presidential election year that’s likely to see ongoing threats of political violence that could turn physical, as the future of US democracy hangs in the balance.“It does seem sort of like it’s a message starting off the year, saying, ‘OK we are in 2024, and this is not going to be easy. Elections are not going to go smoothly, and you better be scared,’” said Lilliana Mason, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies political violence.The wave comes after several years of sustained threats to and harassment of elections officials, who have seen high turnover in their field as a result. It’s now part of the job to face an onslaught of harassing messages when running an election in the US.While these recent threats haven’t carried physical violence, they aren’t innocent. They disrupt and intimidate the people involved – and they cause chaos, making it difficult for elections officials to do their jobs. Women and people of color are more often the targets of these threats, Mason said, which could drive people out of the jobs, potentially changing the profile of who runs elections.A threat against a building, such as the bomb threats, takes hours to investigate and evacuate to ensure people are safe. Threats like doxing, or posting personal information online, or swatting someone’s home take even longer to unwind, requiring more security, staying in another location and scrubbing online information. It’s not always clear, either, whether a threat is simply designed to sow chaos or will lead to violence.“Today, it could be warnings. Tomorrow, there could be an actual bomb that goes off or there could be an assassination attempt with a rifle,” said Robert Pape, a University of Chicago professor who directs the Chicago Project on Security and Threats.Beyond the effects on those targeted, violence and intimidation are destabilizing and distract people from thinking more soberly about the country and its future, Mason said.“They focus our energy on who is mad at who and dividing us against each other, rather than focusing on the wellbeing of the nation as a whole,” she said.Shenna Bellows, the Democratic secretary of state in Maine, had her home swatted – with state troopers searching her house summoned by a call about a fake break-in – after her decision on the 14th amendment question that would result in Trump being left off the ballot in the state. Her personal cellphone number and home address were posted online. She knew that her decision would bring strong reactions, but not to this extent.“The ensuing threatening communications, the doxing, the swatting of my home are unacceptable,” she said. “We should be able to agree to disagree on issues that are extraordinarily important and even controversial with respect and civility. We should be able to disagree without threats of violence.”Pape, who has conducted surveys showing increasing support for political violence in the US, said the recent wave of threats shows exactly what he was concerned about.They show that the country is a “tinderbox”, where people increasingly support violence to achieve their political goals as they lose faith in democracy, he said. Pape also pointed out the threats have come in waves since the January 6 insurrection and could increase this year, especially if Trump’s supporters believe he will not win at the ballot box. The increased support for violence gives the people doing threats a “mantle of legitimacy”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“These volatile individuals are often encouraged to take the next step toward actual violence by a perception they’re doing it in a community’s interest,” he said.Trump and his allies have not sought to tamp down their rhetoric or condemn the threats made by supporters, but such a condemnation could make a difference, Mason and Pape both said.Strong bipartisan statements against political violence and threats have a tangible effect, Pape said. Given the reaction politicians often get when standing against their party, particularly Trump, some Republicans have privately said they fear for their safety and their families and have shied away from speaking out against him.“One thing that we found to be pretty effective at reducing regular people’s approval of political violence is just to have their leaders tell them that it’s not OK. It’s pretty simple. And the problem is that Trump is not doing that,” Mason said. “The tragedy is that we have very easy ways to reduce violent tendencies in the electorate, but those ways tend to be based on leadership playing a responsible role.”The incredibly high stakes of the 2024 election, where both sides see an existential battle for the country’s future, are not typical of a normal election.“It’s not supposed to feel that way. If it’s existential, then the bedrock of democracy – which is loser’s consent – is harder to agree to,” Mason said.Bellows, the Maine secretary of state, said she also received messages of support alongside the threats and harassment. One former GOP legislator reached out and asked if she needed a place to stay or firearms, she said. Even people who disagreed with her decision supported her ability to make it and she said it’s the responsibility of public officials to tone down the rhetoric.“Our democracy depends on open and free expression and debate. We need to stand up against hate and threats of violence.” More

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      Trump’s electoral and judicial calendars collide – but it does him little harm

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      Four candidates were on the campaign trail, meeting and greeting voters in frigid Iowa. A fifth was sitting in a courtroom in rainy Washington, trying to fend off a criminal case that might land him in jail.But in the upside-down, topsy-turvy world of American politics, it is Donald Trump – not Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson or Vivek Ramaswamy – who is expected to win the first Republican presidential nominating contest in a landslide next week.This is not despite but because of a host of legal woes that would have long buried a normal candidate in a normal time have become a feature, not a bug, of his 2024 presidential run. “Unprecedented” is the most overused word of the Trump era but this week really is, well, unprecedented as the collision of his electoral and judicial calendars gets real.On Tuesday he was in court as his lawyers tried to convince the three judges that a federal criminal case charging him with election subversion should be dismissed before it goes to trial. On Wednesday, Trump will sit for a Fox News town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, counterprogramming a CNN debate in the same city between DeSantis and Haley. On Thursday, expect to see Trump in New York for the closing arguments in a civil fraud trial. And on Saturday, he returns to Iowa for campaign rallies.The former president is picking and choosing when and where he shows up. In every case, the decision is calculated to maximise his chances of winning back the White House – and staying out of prison.He was not obliged to attend Tuesday’s proceedings at the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit. In driving rain, few protesters bothered to show up outside the courtroom and there were no TV cameras allowed inside. Trump sat there with no opportunity to speak as lawyers jousted over claims that he is immune from criminal charges for trying to overturn the 2020 election.Trump’s lawyer, D John Sauer, told a three-judge panel that prosecuting former presidents “would open a Pandora’s box from which that nation may never recover”. He argued that presidents must first be impeached and removed from office by Congress before they can be prosecuted. Judge Florence Pan reacted sceptically, asking Sauer: “You’re saying a president could sell pardons, could sell military secrets, could tell Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival?”Trump will probably lose this argument. But the real point of his rare return to Washington came after the hearing, when he spoke to reporters at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, formerly the Trump International hotel, calling it “a very momentous day” and insisting that he “did nothing wrong”.If the case is allowed to proceed, Trump claimed, that would potentially leave Biden open to prosecution once he left office. “When they talk about a threat to democracy, that’s your real threat to democracy,” he said. The remarks were transmitted live to the base on the conservative Fox News channel, guaranteeing more exposure than a typical rally.Meanwhile Trump’s fundraising campaign had kicked into gear. Before the hearing, he released a video in which he said he might prosecute Biden if he defeats him in the presidential election. “If I don’t get immunity then crooked Joe Biden doesn’t get immunity. Joe would be ripe for indictment,” he said.The campaign dates and court dates are now like two liquids mixed and impossible to separate. The trial in the federal election interference case is due to start on 4 March, one day before Super Tuesday, when 15 states will hold primaries or caucuses.The convergence has helped Trump break another American tradition. For half a century, Iowa has been a test of retail politics as diners, farms, hotel ballrooms, school gyms and a state fair play an outsized role in deciding who will become the most powerful person on the planet. The candidate with a winning smile and tireless handshake had a decent chance of working their way to the White House.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut data collected by the Des Moines Register newspaper shows that, between 1 January 2023 and 4 January 2024, Trump held only 24 events in 19 counties, far fewer than DeSantis (99 events in 57 counties), Haley (51 events in 30 counties) and Ramaswamy (239 events in 94 counties).Yet a recent poll put Trump 34 percentage points clear of DeSantis in Iowa. His campaign surrogates such as Ben Carson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kristi Noem often draw bigger crowds in the state than actual candidates.There are several reasons for Trump’s dominance but court appearances like Tuesday’s have not done him any harm. Any time his fortunes seemed in danger of flagging, for example after Republicans’ midterms flop, the justice department inadvertently gave him political rocket fuel. He played victim and martyr of a politicised system and Republicans – even his opponents – rallied around him.That will not necessarily work against Biden in November. A CBS News poll found that 64% of Americans do not think Trump should be immune from prosecution for actions he took as president, whereas just 34% believe he should be. Other surveys suggest that a criminal conviction – he is facing 91 criminal charges in Atlanta, Miami, New York and Washington – could deal him a big blow among moderates and independents.Two Republican candidates have been vocal in making that case. Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor and federal prosecutor, and Asa Hutchinson, an ex-governor of Arkansas, have warned that Trump will be convicted and is unfit for office.Last month a Reuters/ Ipsos poll put Trump’s support among Republicans at 61%. Christie? He was at 2%. And Hutchinson? He was at 1%. More

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      in US Politics

      Field of bad dreams: Biden rival makes quip after no one turns up to 2024 event

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      Contemplating a New Hampshire campaign event to which not one voter showed up, the Minnesota congressman and Democratic presidential hopeful Dean Phillips told reporters on Tuesday: “Sometimes, if you build it, they don’t come.”He was alluding to a famous line from Field of Dreams, a 1989 film in which an Iowa farmer played by Kevin Costner builds a baseball field, thereby attracting the ghosts of famous players.Phillips is widely held to have a ghost of a chance of succeeding in his quest to deny a sitting president, Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nomination. Nonetheless, the 54-year-old centrist, who is self-funding his campaign, insists Biden is too old at 81 to mount a meaningful fight against Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee.In Manchester, New Hampshire, on Tuesday, Phillips parked his “Government Repair Truck” – a tested campaign prop – outside a Hilton hotel, planning to talk to voters while handing out Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, a staple for New Englanders, notably including Ben Affleck.Unfortunately, reports of sparsely or non-attended campaign events are a staple of presidential primary campaigns.According to NBC News, no one showed up to chat with Phillips in part because the temperature was below freezing, thereby sending drivers to an underground parking garage from which they could enter the hotel.Phillips “ended up pouring coffee for the staffers who were there”, NBC said, adding that the candidate made his Field of Dreams quip to reporters.Biden is not on the ballot in New Hampshire, thanks to a dispute between the state and national Democrats who reconfigured their primary to start in South Carolina.The focus of the Republican race will switch to New Hampshire next week, after Monday’s Iowa caucuses. Trump leads in the north-eastern state, though the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has eaten into his advantage.Elsewhere on Tuesday, Reuters published an interview in which Phillips once again rejected the contention that he risks damaging Biden and thereby boosting Trump.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe also declined to rule out a third-party run for president, notionally on a ticket with Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman whose opposition to Trump cost her a seat in the House.“I wouldn’t say that’s even discussed right now,” Phillips said. “But I never say never.“I mean, this is about preservation of democracy. We are certainly different, politically. But we do have the same principle. And that is protecting the constitution, ensuring our systems of governance work and restoring some degree of sensibility and common sense to Washington. So I want to help her do that. And I think she wants to help me.” More

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      The US election looms. Arab Americans feel stuck between a rock and a hard place | Moustafa Bayoumi

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      We have a chaotic and unpredictable election year ahead. That would normally elicit anxiety, but mostly I’m feeling hopeless. The election is less than a year away, and Joe Biden’s approval rating has sunk to its lowest level yet, clocking in at a paltry 38%, according to a recent Washington Post average of 17 different polls. Biden’s unblinking support for Israel and unwillingness to demand a ceasefire has made dear Uncle Joe appear to many as just another callous politician, numb to Palestinian suffering.And that’s had a staggering effect on the key coalitions Biden will need to win a second term. If you move in Arab American or Muslim American circles, as I do, support for Biden’s re-election is rapidly crumbling: the Arab American Institute found that only 17% of Arab Americans say they will vote for Biden in 2024, down from 59% who did in 2020. Muslim Americans recently began an #AbandonBiden campaign, focusing on the sizable Muslim American communities in swing states such as Michigan, Arizona and Georgia.As Axios notes, Biden won Michigan in 2020 by 154,000 votes, but there are at least 278,000 Arab Americans in Michigan. Biden took Arizona, a state with an Arab American population of 60,000, by only 10,500 votes. In Georgia, Biden prevailed with a margin of 11,800 voters, in a state that has an Arab American population of 57,000.While it is true that not all Arab Americans are eligible voters (some may not be citizens, some may be too young), it’s also true that the 2024 election is expected to be won on razor-thin margins. Every vote, including every Arab American and every Muslim American vote, matters. Disaffection with Biden isn’t limited to Arab and Muslim Americans, either. The president also has a young voter problem: according to NBC News, a November poll by Lake Research Partners, a Democratic polling firm, found that only 61% of voters under 30 would support Biden if the election were held today, and 56% gave him a “poor” rating on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.So we are faced with a dilemma: on the one hand, there’s a Democratic establishment that seems to believe disgruntled voters will choose Biden out of “a lesser of two evils” thinking. But that line of thinking is not just insulting to these voters. It is also so politically cynical – and explicitly harmful to Palestinians – that it’s hard to believe Biden holds himself to any values besides ruthless political calculation.On the other hand, we have the presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump, who promises not only to revive his abominable Muslim ban but also to implement “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history”. Trump has also described people coming across the US’s southern border as “poisoning the blood of our country”, and told Sean Hannity that he would be a dictator, but only on “day one” of his presidency.I’m feeling nauseous. Why have our political choices sunk to supporting unconscionable violence or electing cartoonish fascism? Adding to my nausea is a feeling of paralysis that I haven’t been able to overcome for the last two months, a sense of profound helplessness in the face of such horror.I know I’m not alone. I recognize the same feeling in so many people around me. We go to work. We shop for groceries. We meet up socially for dinner or to attend cultural events, but there’s no joy in any of this. Instead, there’s sadness and dread and shock hanging over everything. There are images we can’t unsee. There is anger we don’t know how to direct. And there’s shame that we aren’t doing enough to stop the slaughter.The times when I’ve felt a tinge of hope emerge have been on the marches I’ve attended to stop Israel’s bombing of Gaza. All women-led (from what I can tell) and with marchers of all ages, ethnicities and identities, the marches are testaments to the collective need to do something. Perhaps for that very reason, they’ve also been much maligned by the powerful.Back in October, the erstwhile UK home secretary, Suella Braverman, suggested waving a Palestinian flag at a march could constitute a criminal offense. Governments in France and Germany have sought to ban the keffiyeh – the checkered scarf associated with the Palestinian struggle – from schools and protests. And the US Congress wants to put words in your mouth when you chant: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”I have never felt particularly close to any politician but, at this moment in history, I’ve also never been more convinced that they all live together in a large, gilded mansion, behind a fortified wall, and located in some alternate universe, even though their purpose is to be among us and represent us and our interests. (Polling continues to indicate that a large majority of Americans want the US government to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to prioritize diplomacy, yet the White House refuses to do so.)Maybe the problem is not that our politicians are failing, but that our politics are failing. We need a new kind of politics, globally – one that is not beholden to billionaires, that is not mesmerized by power. One that is instead justly accountable to everyone it reaches.Come to think of it, buying an authentic keffiyeh has become nearly impossible, since they’re currently in such high demand. Everyone the world over now knows the slogan “from the river to the sea”. Global news outlets are writing explainers on how the watermelon became a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.Why does this matter? The search for a durable solution for how Israelis and Palestinians will live together used to revolve around self-determination for two peoples. More and more, it centers on justice and equality for everyone. Perhaps that’s one reason why the Palestinian cause is drawing more attention from so many corners around the world. Everyone should be able to identify with the need for justice and equality, both locally and globally.Maybe that’s what makes Palestinian liberation so frightening to the political classes. Maybe that’s the hope for 2024.
      Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist More

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      in US Politics

      Biden assails Trump for trying to turn election ‘loss into a lie’

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      From the pulpit of a Black church that was the site of a racist massacre in 2015, Joe Biden cast this year’s presidential election as a battle for truth over lies told by those who seek to “whitewash” the worst chapters of American history – from the deadly assault on the US Capitol to the civil war.“This is a time of choosing,” Biden implored Americans during a visit to Mother Emanuel AME church, where nine Black worshippers were murdered by a white supremacist gunman who they had welcomed into their Bible study. Without mentioning Donald Trump by name, Biden assailed his predecessor and likely 2024 Republican opponent as a “loser” who sought to overthrow the will of the 81 million Americans who voted for the Democratic president.“In their world, these Americans, including you, don’t count,” Biden told supporters. “But that’s not the real world. That’s not democracy. That’s not America.”Biden’s remarks were briefly interrupted by protesters angry with the president’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza. “Ceasefire now,” they shouted from the pews. Their calls were drowned out by chanting from the president’s supporters: “Four more years.”“I understand their passion,” the president said. He then told them: “I’ve been quietly working with the Israeli government to get them to reduce and significantly get out of Gaza.”The protest was a stark reminder of the challenges the 81-year-old president faces as he runs for re-election. Growing dissatisfaction with his handling of the war in Gaza has hurt Biden’s standing among key Democratic constituencies, as widespread unease with the economy and concerns about his age drive negative perceptions of his job performance and his re-election prospects.The Charleston speech came days after Biden delivered a scathing condemnation of Trump in a 31-minute address near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in which he excoriated the former president for fomenting the January 6 insurrection. Taken together, the speeches lay out what the president believes are the stakes of the 2024 election: American democracy itself.Biden is sharpening his campaign rhetoric as the electoral coalition he carried to defeat Trump in 2020 shows signs of fraying. Polling indicates an erosion of support among Black voters, a critical voting bloc for the party.The president was introduced by the South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn, a Democrat and prominent Black leader whose 2020 endorsement helped resurrect Biden’s flailing campaign and secured Biden’s primary victory in the state. Biden said it was the support of Black voters in South Carolina and Clyburn especially that allowed him to stand before them as president.“I owe you,” he said.Biden noted the record-low levels of Black unemployment since he took office, and touted the appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to the supreme court, as well as legislation that lowered the cost of prescription drugs and made 19 June, Juneteenth, a federal holiday. He praised Vice-President Kamala Harris’s efforts to secure votings rights, though legislation has stalled in the narrowly divided Senate.“Slavery was the cause of the civil war,” he declared to loud applause from the audience. Weeks earlier, the Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, who initially failed to cite slavery as a cause of the civil war when asked by a voter in New Hampshire.Biden made no mention of the incident, but he connected efforts to rewrite the history of the civil war as a patriotic fight for “states’ rights” to the efforts to overturn the 2020 election and undermine democratic institutions.“We’re living in an era of a second Lost Cause,” he said. “There’s some in this country trying to turn a loss into a lie – a lie which if allowed to live will once again bring terrible damage to this country.”In a statement before Biden’s speech, Haley’s campaign accused Biden of “politicized racial speech” and noted that it was Haley who removed the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds after the Charleston massacre as the governor of South Carolina.The visit to South Carolina comes ahead of the 3 February Democratic presidential primary in the state, which launches the party’s nominating contest. At Biden’s urging, the Democratic National Committee put South Carolina first on the Democratic primary calendar as a reflection of how important Black voters are to the party.Biden faces only a nominal challenge for his party’s nomination.Biden spoke emotionally about the Charleston shooting, calling white supremacy a “poison” that “throughout our history has ripped this nation apart”. At Mother Emanuel, Biden said: “The word of God was pierced by bullets of hate, propelled not just by gunpowder, but by poison.”Biden recalled attending a memorial service in Charleston in the days after the attack. He said he came to grieve with the community, but he too found healing in those very pews. Weeks before, Biden had buried his eldest son, Beau Biden.“We prayed together,” Biden said, his voice stricken with emotion. “We grieved together. We found hope together.” More

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      Republican Elise Stefanik declines to commit to certifying 2024 election votes

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      Leading US House Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik on Sunday declined to commit to certifying the results of the 2024 White House race no matter the outcome, three years and a day after a mob of Donald Trump supporters staged the January 6 Capitol attack while refusing to recognize that he had lost the presidency to Joe Biden.Stefanik – a New York representative who serves as the House’s Republican conference chairwoman – was asked by Kristen Welker of NBC’s Meet the Press whether she would “vote to certify the results of the 2024 election, no matter what they show”.The congresswoman replied: “We will see if this is a legal and valid election.”Stefanik went on to criticize the Colorado legal ruling that removed Trump from the state’s ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution – which bars insurrectionists from taking office – and urged the federal supreme court to unanimously overturn that decision to let voters determine the former president’s electoral fate.Welker said: “Just to be very clear, I don’t hear you committed to certifying the election results. Will you only commit to certifying the results if former president Trump wins?”Stefanik said: “No, it means if they are constitutional,” before expressing her claim that the 2020 presidential race “was not a fair election” despite multiple legal reviews solicited by Trump and his allies confirming that it was.She also delivered a tirade about how the true threat to democracy was “attempting to remove … Trump from the ballot because Joe Biden knows he can’t win”.The notable exchange between Welker and Stefanik, the fourth-highest ranking Republican in the House, came after the latter woman played a prominent role in the recent ouster of the presidents of two Ivy League universities.Stefanik quizzed Elizabeth Magill and Claudine Gay – respectively, the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard – about whether theoretical calls by students for the genocide of Jews would constitute harassment under the schools’ code of conduct. Footage of the hearing quickly went viral.Magill resigned in December. Gay, who was also targeted by allegations of academic plagiarism, stepped down on 3 January.Asked about the presidents’ resignations Sunday, Stefanik reiterated an oft-invoked conservative pledge to “look at DEI” – or diversity, equity and inclusion programs that are central to some universities’ operations.Stefanik’s interview with Welker occurred one day after the three-year anniversary of the January 6 2021 attack that Trump supporters aimed at Congress as legislators certified his defeat by Biden during the presidential election weeks earlier.Nine deaths have been linked to the Capitol assault, including law enforcement suicides. More than 1,200 people have been charged with taking part in the riot, and more than 900 have either pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial.Stefanik on Sunday became irate at Welker when the host broadcast prior remarks from the congresswoman in which she denounced the Capitol attack as “absolutely unacceptable” and “anti-American”. In those earlier comments, she also advocated for Capitol attackers to be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe congresswoman accused Welker of being a “typical … biased media” member and then made it a point to describe those prosecuted in connection with the Capitol attack as “hostages”.“I have concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages,” Stefanik said. “And I believe that we’re seeing the weaponization of the federal government … against conservatives.”Stefanik endorsed Trump’s attempts to seek a second presidency in November 2022, before he had even formally announced his campaign.The former president faces 91 pending criminal charges for trying to subvert the results of the 2020 election, illegally retaining government secrets after he left the White House and giving hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who has alleged having a sexual encounter with Trump during an earlier time in his marriage to Melania Trump.Trump has also confronted civil litigation over his business practices and a rape allegation which a judge deemed to be “substantially true”.Nonetheless, Trump maintains a substantial lead in the contest for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Stefanik said on Sunday: “I am proud to support President Trump.” More