US politics

Subterms

    Latest story

    125 Shares

    Stormy Daniels takes the stand in Trump trial – podcast

    by

    It was the moment Donald Trump was dreading. The former president could only sit and watch as the adult film actor Stormy Daniels told her version of events from an alleged sexual encounter they had in 2006. Prosecutors say that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen shuttled a $130,000 hush-money payment to Daniels less than two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, to keep her from talking to anyone about her alleged encounter with Trump.
    So how bad was Daniels’ testimony for the presumptive GOP candidate? Jonathan Freedland and the political commentator Molly Jong-Fast discuss an extraordinary day in a Manhattan courtroom

    How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares15 Views

      in US Politics

      Republican candidate loses US House primary in victory for pro-Israel lobbyists

      by

      Republican John Hostettler has lost his House primary in Indiana, delivering a victory to pro-Israel groups who sought to block the former congressman from returning to Washington. The groups attacked Hostettler as insufficiently supportive of Israel at a time when criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has hit new highs because of the war in Gaza.When the Associated Press called the eighth district primary race at 7.49pm ET, less than an hour after the last polls closed in Indiana, Mark Messmer led his opponents with 40% of the vote. Messmer, the Indiana state senate majority leader, will advance to the general election in November, which he is heavily favored to win because of the district’s Republican leanings. The victor will replace Republican congressman Larry Bucshon, who announced his retirement earlier this year.The primary concludes a contentious race in which pro-Israel groups poured millions of dollars into the district to attack Hostettler, who served in the House from 1995 to 2007. The groups specifically criticized Hostettler’s past voting record on Israel and some comments he made that were deemed antisemitic.In a book that he self-published in 2008 after leaving Congress, Hostettler blamed some of George W Bush’s advisers “with Jewish backgrounds” for pushing the country into the war in Iraq, arguing they were distracted by their interest in protecting Israel.Those comments, combined with Hostettler’s vote opposing a resolution expressing solidarity with Israel in 2000, after the start of the second intifada, outraged groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and United Democracy Project (UDP), a Super Pac affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, UDP spent $1.2m opposing Hostettler while the RJC Victory Fund invested $950,000 in supporting Messmer.One UDP ad attacked Hostettler as “one of the most anti-Israel politicians in America”, citing his vote against the resolution in 2000. The CEO of RJC, Matt Brooks, previously lambasted Hostettler for having “consistently opposed vital aid to Israel [and] trafficked antisemitic conspiracy theories”.But the groups’ interest in a Republican primary is a notable departure from their other recent forays into congressional races. So far this election cycle, UDP has largely used its massive war chest to target progressive candidates in Democratic primaries. UDP spent $4.6m opposing the Democratic candidate Dave Min, who ultimately advanced to the general election, and the group has also dedicated $2.4m to supporting Democrat Sarah Elfreth in Maryland, which will hold its primaries next week.Aipac and its affiliates reportedly plan to spend $100m across this election cycle, so UDP may still get involved in other Republican congressional primaries. However, the groups will likely remain largely focused on Democrats, as Republican lawmakers and voters have generally indicated higher levels of support for Israel since the start of the war in Gaza.A Guardian review of the statements of members of Congress after the start of the war found that every Republican in Congress was supportive of Israel. Even as criticism of Israel’s airstrike campaign in Gaza has mounted, one Gallup poll conducted in March found that 64% of Republicans approve of Israel’s military actions, compared with 18% of Democrats and 29% of independents who said the same.Other polls have shown that most Americans support calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, and hopes for a pause in the war did briefly rise this week. Hamas leaders on Monday announced they would accept a ceasefire deal, but Israel soon dashed hopes of peace by launching an operation to take control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. More

    • 225 Shares14 Views

      in US Politics

      Joe Biden says ‘we must give hate no safe harbor’ in speech condemning antisemitism – as it happened

      by

      We’re closing our US politics blog now, but you can continue to follow coverage of Donald Trump’s hush-money trial in New York in our live blog here.Here’s what we followed today:
      Joe Biden spoke at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Day of Remembrance ceremony, honoring Second War War victims of the Nazis, condemning the Hamas attacks of 7 October, and denouncing violence during pro-Palestinian demonstrations on US college campuses. “We have an obligation to learn the lessons of history … to not surrender our future to the horrors of the past. We must give hate no safe harbor against anyone,” he said.
      New York supreme court justice Daniel Doyle blocked an abortion rights amendment from appearing on the November ballot, a significant setback for Democrats hoping to use the abortion access debate to galvanize voters.
      Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed a threat to his position from rebel Republican congress members Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, insisting at a press conference: “I intend to lead this conference in the future.” Johnson is meeting the duo again this lunchtime as they decide whether to advance a vote for his removal after he colluded with Democrats to pass a Ukraine funding bill.
      Texas Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar faced pressure to resign from the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) group. Cuellar and his wife Imelda were indicted last week for bribery over their connections with Azerbaijan. “While [he] deserves a fair trial and the presumption of innocence, the serious charges … make it inappropriate for him to remain in office,” Crew president Noah Bookbinder said.
      Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, pushed back on a reporter’s suggestions the Biden administration wasn’t fully forthcoming about its knowledge of ceasefire talks in Gaza. Israel, according to Axios, was upset the US apparently knew about a proposal by Egypt, but hadn’t briefed Israel. Jean-Pierre insisted at her daily press briefing that no administration official was involved in secret discussion or deceit.
      Jean-Pierre was also asked about the behavior captured on video of counter-protesters at a pro-Palestinian rally at the University of Mississippi last week.One white student was accused of making monkey noises at a Black protester, and has been suspended by his Ole Miss fraternity.The behavior was “undignified and racist”, Jean-Pierre said. “The actions in the video are beneath any American.”The White House press conference has just wrapped up, a little later than advertised. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, has been pushing back on some reporters’ suggestions that the Biden administration hasn’t been fully forthcoming about its involvement in, or knowledge of, ceasefire talks over the war in Gaza.Hamas agreed to an Egyptian ceasefire proposal on Monday that would have seen the release of hostages it still holds from the 7 October attack. But Israel, according to an Axios report on Monday, was upset the US apparently knew about the proposal by Egypt, but hadn’t briefed Israel on it. And Israel says the terms Hamas accepted weren’t those it had agreed to.Jean-Pierre insisted no administration official was involved in any secret discussions, or had any intent to deceive. But she didn’t directly address Israel’s reported frustration.“There are talks happening in Cairo, and that’s incredibly important,” she said. “Our assessment is the two sides should be able to come to a deal, or at least close the gaps to get to a deal.”They may officially be two days late, but White House staff laid on an official Cinco de Mayo celebration this morning for Mexico’s independence day.First lady Jill Biden addressed a large gathering of Mexican-Americans:
      “[We] pay tribute to a long line of Mexican-Americans who have added their own threads to our rich American tapestry with bravery and vision. Writers whose poems trace the contours of our sorrows and joys. Activists whose movements for justice achieved hard-won progress. Trailblazers in every career and calling who have led us toward a more perfect union.
      And as we recognize the Mexican-Americans who have so profoundly shaped this country, and are continuing to shape it, we also remember that the first step to progress is dreaming – creating those images in our own heads, even if the odds are against us, reaching for the stars, even if we may miss, sculpting the world we see when we close our eyes and imagine.
      Here’s the video of Joe Biden’s address to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Day of Remembrance ceremony earlier.“Never again simply translated for me means: Never forget. Never forgetting means we must keep telling the story, we must keep teaching the truth,” Biden said as he addressed a bipartisan memorial held at the US Capitol’s Emancipation Hall.“The truth is we’re at risk of people not knowing the truth.”Biden spoke seven months to the day after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing 1,200 by Israeli tallies, in what Biden has called the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.“This hatred [of Jews] continues to lie deep in the hearts of too many people in the world and requires our continued vigilance and outspokenness,” the president said.A furore over the killing of a puppy by South Dakota Republican governor Kristi Noem, a story first reported by the Guardian, shows no sign of abating, as my colleague Martin Pengelly reports:Asked if a story about killing a dog and a goat as well as a false claim to have met Kim Jong-un could have been put in her book by an editor acting as “a liberal plant”, the South Dakota governor and Republican vice-presidential hopeful Kristi Noem seemed to realise such a claim would be too outlandish even for her.“The buck always stops with me,” Noem told Newsmax. “I take my own full responsibility. I wrote this book.”No Going Back was published in the US on Tuesday. But for more than a week it has been at the centre of a political firestorm fueled by a Guardian report of its startling story of how Noem says she shot dead Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer she deemed “untrainable”, and an unnamed goat Noem said menaced her children.Noem has defended the story as an example of how she is willing to do unpleasant things in life and politics.But the resulting revulsion has seemingly ended any hope of Noem being named running mate to Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee in November.Noem’s claim to have met Kim, the North Korean dictator, unravelled amid reporting by the Dakota Scout. Noem’s publisher, Center Street, said it would remove the passage from future editions.Amid a media tour in which Noem was challenged on CBS about an apparent threat to kill Joe Biden’s dog, the governor sought friendlier turf at Newsmax. Eric Bolling, a former Fox News host, duly attempted to give her a way to climb off her hurtling train of bad PR.Bolling said: “You don’t write the whole book at once, you write a chapter or two, you send it to the editors and they edit. They read it, they add, they subtract.“And here’s my question: the editor, was she possibly a plant? A liberal plant? Because I’m not sure either one of these stories, this dog story, the North Korea story, seems like the Kristi Noem I know.”Read the full story:It’s been a relatively quiet day so far in US politics. Here’s where things stand:
      Joe Biden spoke at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Day of Remembrance ceremony, honoring Second War War victims of the Nazis, condemning the Hamas attacks of 7 October, and denouncing violence during pro-Palestinian demonstrations on US college campuses. “We have an obligation to learn the lessons of history … to not surrender our future to the horrors of the past. We must give hate no safe harbor against anyone,” he said.
      New York supreme court justice Daniel Doyle blocked an abortion rights amendment from appearing on the November ballot, a significant setback for Democrats hoping to use the abortion access debate to galvanize voters.
      Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed a threat to his position from rebel Republican congress members Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, insisting at a press conference: “I intend to lead this conference in the future.” Johnson is meeting the duo again this lunchtime as they decide whether to advance a vote for his removal after he colluded with Democrats to pass a Ukraine funding bill.
      There’s more to come, including the daily media briefing from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.Reuters says Joe Biden will next Tuesday meet with chief executives of Citigroup, United Airlines, Marriott International and other corporations across a range of industries at the White House.Citing an administration official, the agency says the purpose of the meeting is “the national and global economy”.Polling for November’s election indicates Biden is weaker on the economy in voters’ minds, and the meeting is an opportunity to try to gather some momentum with less than six months remaining.A New York judge on Tuesday blocked an abortion rights amendment from appearing on the November ballot, the Associated Press reports, a significant setback for Democrats hoping to use the abortion access debate to galvanize voters.State supreme court justice Daniel Doyle ruled state lawmakers failed to follow procedural rules regarding constitutional amendments, and incorrectly approved the amendment before getting a written opinion on its language from the attorney general.The lawsuit was filed by Republican state assemblywoman Marjorie Byrnes.Abortion rights amendments have passed in every state they have appeared, including Republican-controlled states, since the US supreme court ended almost 50 years of federal abortion protections in 2022.Similar amendments are on the ballot elsewhere this November, including Florida, where a six-week abortion ban took effect last week. An effort by Florida’s Republican attorney general Ashley Moody, similar to the New York lawsuit, to strip the amendment was rejected by the state’s supreme court last month.The New York state attorney general’s office did not immediately comment.We bring news of a presidential election event unlikely to ever happen: a head-to-head debate between Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr.Kennedy’s campaign put out a statement Tuesday morning challenging Trump to a debate at the Libertarian convention in Washington DC from 24 to 26 May.In an accompanying open letter posted to X, Kennedy claims that polls have both himself and Trump “crushing” Joe Biden in November (spoiler: they don’t), so it makes sense for the two to debate at an event they’re both scheduled to speak at anyway:
      It’s perfect neutral territory for you and me to have a debate where you can defend your record for your wavering supporters. You yourself have said you’re not afraid to debate me as long as my poll numbers are decent. Well, they are.
      So let’s meet at the Libertarian convention and show the American public that at least two of the major candidates aren’t afraid to debate each other. I asked the convention organizers and they are game for us to use our time there to bring the American people the debate they deserve!
      The Commission on Presidential Debates has announced three debates for this year, the first scheduled to take place on 16 September in San Marcos, Texas. Participants have yet to be announced.Joe Biden also addressed recent pro-Palestinian protests on numerous US colleges and campuses, which turned violent in several cities and led to more than 2,000 arrests:
      I understand people have strong beliefs and deep convictions about the world. In America we respect and protect the fundamental right to free speech, to debate, and disagree, to protest peacefully and make our voices heard.
      I understand. That’s America. But there is no place on any campus in America, or any place in America, for antisemitism, or hate speech, or threats of violence of any kind.
      Whether against Jews or anyone else, violent attacks, destroying property, is not peaceful protest. It’s against the law. And we’re not a lawless country. We’re a civil society. We uphold the rule of law. And no one should have to hide or be brave just to be themselves.
      Biden acknowledged recent friction between his administration and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the course of the war in Gaza, and Israel’s military push into Rafah. But he said his support for Jewish people in the US was unshakable:
      To the Jewish community, I want you to know I see your fear, your hurt and your pain. Let me reassure you as your president, you’re not alone. You belong. You always have and you always will.
      And my commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad, even when we disagree.
      He said his administration was “working around the clock” to free hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza:
      We will not rest until we bring them all home. More

    • 113 Shares25 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden warns against ‘surge of antisemitism’ at Holocaust event

      by

      Joe Biden warned against a “ferocious surge of antisemitism in America” at a Holocaust event Tuesday, as student protests against Israel’s military strikes on Gaza and the resulting humanitarian crisis continued to roil campuses across the US.Addressing a bipartisan Holocaust remembrance event at the US Capitol, the president reasserted his “ironclad” commitment to the “security of Israel and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state … even when we disagree”. Hatred towards Jews didn’t end with the Holocaust, he said – it was “brought to life on October 7 2023” when Hamas unleashed its attack on Israel killing 1,200 people.“Now here we are not 75 years later, but just seven-and-a-half months later, people are already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror … I have not forgotten, and we will not forget.”Biden’s forceful evocation of the shadows of the Holocaust and the scourge of antisemitism was made at a volatile moment when Israel’s retaliatory military operation in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, and brought 2.3 million people to the edge of starvation. Demonstrations against the war and calls for a ceasefire has led to turmoil at scores of US universities and colleges – and opened fissures within Biden’s Democratic party that could imperil his re-election hopes in November.The president, who has generally avoided commenting on the campus protests since they erupted at Columbia University in New York three weeks earlier, acknowledged that his remembrance speech fell “on difficult times”. He also said that he understood that “people have strong beliefs and deep convictions”, adding that the US respected free speech.But he went on to decry antisemitic posters and “slogans calling for the annihilation of Israel” on college campuses. “Jewish students [have been] blocked, harassed, attacked while walking to class,” Biden said.He concluded that there is “no place on any campus in America or any place in America for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.“Violent attacks destroying property is not peaceful protest – it’s against the law,” he said.Student protesters strongly pushed back at the implication that hatred motivated the pro-Palestinian encampments. A group of more than 750 Jewish students from 140 campuses issued a joint letter on Tuesday calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and rejecting Biden’s equation of the protests with antisemitism.“As Jewish students, we wholeheartedly reject the claim that these encampments are antisemitic and that they are an inherent threat to Jewish student safety,” the letter said.Hours before the president delivered his speech, police in riot gear cleared a protest encampment at the University of Chicago. The action began at about 4.30am in the Quad where hundreds of students had been living in tents for more than a week.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe encampment was completely dismantled within about three hours, but about 400 protesters later reassembled outside the university’s administrative building. They chanted “Free, free, Palestine”, and they staged a standoff with police.In a statement, the university’s president, Paul Alivisatos, said that protesters had been given a chance to voluntarily dismantle the encampment, and he stressed there had been no arrests. But he said negotiations with encampment representatives had broken down because of the “intractable and inflexible aspects of their demands”.At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, protesters regained access to the encampment there after police had removed them and erected fencing around the area on Monday. Dozens of protesters remained at the site, the Associated Press reported, as they continued to press demands that MIT breaks its research ties to the Israeli military.Tensions are rising on campuses as institutions approach their traditional graduation ceremonies, with many school governments attempting to clear the encampments to make way for the celebrations. On Monday, Columbia University announced that it was cancelling its campus-wide commencement ceremony, following the example of the University of Southern California.At Harvard university, the interim president Alan Garber threatened those participating in the pro-Palestinian encampment with “involuntary leave”. He said such a move could jeopardize the students’ access to housing, campus buildings and exams. More

    • 225 Shares28 Views

      in US Politics

      Could you get by on a measly $43,000 a month? It seems Rudy Giuliani can’t | Arwa Mahdawi

      by

      ‘Bankruptcy” is a surprisingly amorphous term. For poor people, it means not having any money. For corporations and the super-wealthy it means a nifty legal strategy that can shield their riches from lawsuits. And for Rudy Giuliani, the disgraced former mayor of New York City and personal attorney of Donald Trump, it means being forced to try to subsist on a measly $43,000 (£34,200) a month.Half a million dollars in spending money a year might seem a princely sum to the common man, but “Sir” Rudy (recipient of an honorary knighthood) is anything but. We’re talking about a gentleman with elevated tastes here: a bon vivant who, during a legal battle with his estranged third wife, was accused of spending $7,000 on fountain pens and $12,000 on cigars over a five-month period. In that same timeframe, his ex-wife’s lawyer claimed he spent $286,000 on his alleged lover, $165,000 on personal travel and $447,938 “for his own enjoyment”. That’s a lot of enjoyment.Giuliani’s spendthrift ways are now facing legal roadblocks. In December, a judge ordered the 79-year-old to pay $148m in damages to two election workers he had baselessly accused of rigging votes in the 2020 US election. Almost immediately, Giuliani – who owes creditors $152m in total – filed for bankruptcy. Because he is a responsible citizen, Giuliani prepared a strict budget and told a federal bankruptcy court in January that he would spend no more than $43,000 a month. This was supposed to cover necessities and not include frivolities such as entertainment.Alas, budgeting doesn’t seem to come naturally to Giuliani, who ended up frittering away almost $120,000 in January alone (more than double the median US annual salary). It is not entirely clear where all this money went but, according to the New York Times, the information Giuliani provided to creditors’ lawyers listed “60 transactions on Amazon, multiple entertainment subscriptions, various Apple services… Uber rides and payment of some of his business partner’s personal credit card bill”. He hasn’t submitted detailed information about his finances since, so it’s unclear if this level of spending has continued. Still, someone needs to change that man’s Amazon password, stat.By now, it seems clear that Giuliani, whose fall from grace has been dizzying, needs quite a bit of help. And, you know what? I am happy to give it to him. I may not be a financial adviser, but I am a geriatric millennial who came into the working world during the 2008 recession – which means I have heard a lot of budgeting tips over the years. Don’t eat avocado toast if you ever want to buy a house, don’t get takeaway coffee, live on foraged beans and pond water, never leave the house. No doubt you’ve seen all these tips too – there’s always a helpful multimillionaire doling out advice to us plebs on how to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Kirstie Allsopp, the daughter of landed gentry, for example, has insinuated the affordable housing crisis is overblown, and anyone can buy a house if they just cut out Netflix and gym memberships. More recently, the CEO of Kellogg’s suggested that families who were having a hard time making ends meet might consider eating cereal for dinner.Giuliani can certainly try swapping out his lobster bisque dinners for Rice Krispies, but I’m not sure it’ll make a dent in the $152m he owes. It might be more effective, I reckon, if he takes a break from marrying and divorcing. This appears to be an extremely expensive habit of his: thrice-wedded Giuliani has spent millions on acrimonious divorce proceedings. (Fun related fact: Giuliani’s first wife was his second cousin and, after 14 years, they annulled the marriage because they hadn’t got the correct dispensations for cousin-marrying.) Another top financial tip is to avoid being charged with multiple crimes: lawyers are very expensive.If he can’t save his way out of financial ruin, Giuliani can do what conservatives like him are always telling the rest of us to do: work harder. He faces being disbarred, so lawyering probably isn’t an option. But the man can always go back to selling personalised videos at $375 a pop on Cameo. He has clearly got a knack for it: last year, a video of him reciting “I’m a little teapot” went viral. Now if he’s just a little teapot 405,333 more times, he should be out of hot water. More

    • 188 Shares23 Views

      in US Politics

      New York governor said Black kids in the Bronx do not know the word ‘computer’

      by

      The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, has rapidly backtracked on remarks she made on Monday after she came under a blizzard of criticism for saying that Black children in the Bronx did not know the word “computer”.Hochul had intended her appearance at the Milken Institute Global Conference in California on Monday to showcase Empire AI, the $400m consortium she is leading to create an artificial intelligence computing center in upstate New York. Instead, she dug herself into a hole with an utterance she quickly regretted.“Right now we have, you know, young Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word ‘computer’ is,” she said. For good measure, she added: “They don’t know, they don’t know these things.”The backlash was swift and piercing. Amanda Septimo, a member of the New York state assembly representing the south Bronx, called Hochul’s remarks “harmful, deeply misinformed and genuinely appalling”. She said on X that “repeating harmful stereotypes about one of our most underserved communities only perpetuates systems of abuse”.Fellow assembly member and Bronxite Karines Reyes said she was deeply disturbed by the remarks and exhorted Hochul to “do better”. “Our children are bright, brilliant, extremely capable, and more than deserving of any opportunities that are extended to other kids,” she said.Few public figures were prepared to offer the governor support. They included the speaker of the state assembly, Carl Heastie, who said her words were “inartful and hurtful” but not reflective of “where her heart is”.The civil rights leader Al Sharpton also gave her the benefit of the doubt, saying that she was trying to make a “good point” that “a lot of our community is robbed of using social media because we are racially excluded from access”.By Monday evening, Hochul had apologized. “I misspoke and I regret it,” she said.In a statement to media, she said, “Of course Black children in the Bronx know what computers are – the problem is that they too often lack access to the technology needed to get on track to high-paying jobs in emerging industries like AI.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThis is not the first time this year that Hochul has found herself with her foot in her mouth. In February she envisaged what would happen if Canada attacked a US city, as a metaphor for the Israeli military operation in Gaza in response to the 7 October Hamas attacks.“If Canada someday ever attacked Buffalo, I’m sorry, my friends, there would be no Canada the next day,” she said. That apology for a “poor choice of words” was made swiftly, too. More

    • 125 Shares24 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump’s scattershot attacks on justice system are causing real damage

      by

      Donald Trump’s verbal assaults on judges, prosecutors, witnesses, jurors and the broader US justice system, are undermining the rule of law and American democracy while fueling threats and potential violence against individuals involved with the legal cases against him and egging on his extremist allies, former federal prosecutors and judges say.In his campaign to win the presidency again, and in the midst of various criminal and civil trials, Trump has launched multiple attacks on the American legal system on his Truth Social platform to counter the 88 federal and state criminal charges he faces.Trump, the all but certain Republican presidential nominee for 2024, has accelerated glorifying the insurgents who attacked the Capitol on 6 January 2021. He has called them “patriots” and “hostages”, while promising that if he wins, he will free those convicted of crimes as one of his “first acts” in office.Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the electoral system. He has refused to say he will accept the results of the 2024 elections, a ploy similar to what he did in 2020 before falsely claiming the election was rigged – a claim he still maintains.“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results,” Trump told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”Darkly, Trump has also warned that if he loses the election there will be “bedlam” and a “bloodbath for the country”. These words referred, in part, to the fallout Trump predicted for the auto industry, but have distinct echoes of his false charges that he lost to Joe Biden in 2020 due to fraud.At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on 13 April, right before his first criminal trial in New York began, Trump repeated his bogus claims about his 2020 defeat: “The election was rigged. Pure and simple, 2020 was rigged. We could never let it happen again.”At the same rally he blasted Juan Merchan, the very judge who oversees his trial in Manhattan. In that case, Trump faces 34 counts for altering company records in 2016 to hide $130,000 in hush-money payments that his fixer Michael Cohen made to the porn star Stormy Daniels, who alleged an affair with him.“I have a crooked judge,” Trump raged at Merchan, adding that he was “fully gagged before a highly conflicted and corrupt judge, who suffers from TDS … Trump Derangement Syndrome”.Trump’s multiple attacks on witnesses and jurors, who he had been told were off limits and could spur a contempt citation, have prompted Merchan twice to fine Trump a total of $10,000 for violating a gag order against such attacks.“The court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders,” the judge has said, warning that Trump could face jail time if he made similar attacks.Trump insists without evidence that the more than seven dozen federal and state criminal charges he faces in four jurisdictions are “election interference”, and says he has done nothing illegal.Former prosecutors and judges say Trump’s incendiary rhetoric is catnip to his Maga allies and could spur violence in 2024.“At its core, the promise of pardons by Trump signals to anyone prone to insurrectionist behavior that they can expect a get out of jail card free,” said former federal judge John Jones, who is now president of Dickinson College.View image in fullscreen“My fear is that we will have civil unrest that will impede the election. My concern is that you can have vigilante groups under the guise of ‘stop the steal’, patrolling polling places and intimidating voters.”Jones stressed that “every one of the Jan 6 defendants has had appropriate due process”.“They have either been convicted or pled guilty to substantial federal crimes,” he said. “Promising them pardons in the face of that is against every principle in our system of justice.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRegarding Trump’s ongoing claims that the 2020 election was rigged and that the country will see a “bloodbath” if he loses again, Jones said: “The word ‘bloodbath’ is not ambiguous. The last time Trump fomented this kind of post-election destructiveness, people lost their lives.”Ex-federal prosecutors raise similar concerns.“To the extent President Trump is dangling pardons of the J6 defendants he is, in effect, trying to eliminate the deterrent effect of criminal prosecutions with the anticipated result of making violence on his own behalf more likely,” former prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig said.“From a legal perspective, deterrence is critical. The threats of violence in 2024 can only be mitigated by strong, consistent prosecution for violent acts in 2020.”Concerns about the potentially dangerous fallout from Trump’s attacks on the electoral and legal systems are underscored by a Brennan Center study in late April, which showed 38% of over 925 local election officials surveyed had experienced “threats, harassment or abuse”.The Brennan survey, conducted in February and March, also found that 54% of those surveyed were worried about the safety of fellow workers, and 62% were concerned about political leaders trying to interfere with how they do their jobs.On a related track, the DC judge Tanya Chutkan, who has handled a number of cases involving January 6 insurrectionists, has warned starkly about the dangers of more violence this year. Chutkan, who is slated to oversee Trump’s trial on charges by the special counsel Jack Smith that he sought to subvert the 2020 election, echoed Rosenzweig’s warning that more violence is less likely to happen if those convicted or who have pleaded guilty for the January 6 attack receive appropriate sentences.Last month, Chutkan issued a stiff sentence of 66 months for one insurgent who attacked the Capitol and has called the Jan 6 violent Capitol attack by Trump allies that led to injuries of 140 police officers “as serious a crisis as this nation has ever faced”.Notably, Chutkan has stressed that “extremism is alive and well in this country. Threats of violence continue unabated.”Ex-prosecutors also say that Trump’s attacks on the legal system are alarming.“Trump’s persistent denigration of the legal system is surely as divisive as everything else he does because he’s lying,” said the former justice department official Ty Cobb, who worked as a White House counsel for part of the Trump administration. “Trump’s lies in this area seem to have been embraced by his followers as truth.”Cobb stressed that “Trump has not been unfairly targeted by the justice department or the Biden administration, but charged only with serious crimes he has committed. The two state cases in which Trump stands criminally indicted have nothing to do with the Biden administration.” More

    • 125 Shares24 Views

      in US Politics

      Bernie Sanders to run for fourth term in US Senate

      by

      Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent senator and former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, announced on Monday that he will run for a fourth six-year term – at the age of 82.In a video statement, Sanders thanked the people of Vermont “for giving me the opportunity to serve in the United States Senate”, which he said had been “the honor of my life.“Today I am announcing my intention to seek another term. And let me take a few minutes to tell you why.”In his signature clipped New York accent, Sanders did so.Citing his roles as chair of the Senate health, labor and pensions committee, part of Senate Democratic leadership, and as a member of committees on veterans affairs, the budget and the environment, Sanders said: “I have been, and will be if re-elected, in a strong position to provide the kind of help that Vermonters need in these difficult times.”Should Sanders win re-election and serve a full term, he will be 89 years old at the end of those six years. In a decidedly gerontocratic Senate, that would still be younger than the current oldest senator, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who will turn 91 in September. The Republican is due for re-election in 2028 – and has filed to run.Sanders was a mayor and sat in the US House for 16 years before entering the Senate in 2007.In 2016 he surged to worldwide prominence by mounting an unexpectedly strong challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, from the populist left. He ran strongly again in 2020 but lost out to Joe Biden.Announcing another election run, Sanders stressed the need to improve public healthcare, including by defending social security and Medicare and lowering prescription drug prices; to combat climate change that has seen Vermont hit by severe flooding; to properly care for veterans; and to protect abortion and reproductive rights.“We must codify Roe v Wade [which protected federal abortion rights until 2022] into national law and do everything possible to oppose the well-funded rightwing effort to roll back the gains that women have achieved after decades of struggle,” Sanders said. “No more second-class citizenship for the women of Vermont. Or America.”Addressing an issue which threatens to split Democrats in the year of a presidential election, Sanders said: “On October 7, 2023, Hamas, a terrorist organization, began the war in Gaza with a horrific attack on Israel that killed 1,200 innocent men, women and children and took more than 230 hostages, some of whom remain in captivity today. Israel had the absolute right to defend itself against this terrorist attack.”But Sanders, who is Jewish, also said Israel “did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, which was exactly what it is doing: 34,000 Palestinians have already been killed and 77,000 have been wounded, 70% of whom are women and children. According to humanitarian organizations, famine and starvation are now imminent.“In my view, US tax dollars should not be going to the extremist [Benjamin] Netanyahu government to continue its devastating war against the Palestinian people.”In conclusion, if without mentioning Donald Trump by name, Sanders called the 2024 election “the most consequential election in our lifetimes”.“Will the United States continue to even function as a democracy? Or will we move to an authoritarian form of government? Will we reverse the unprecedented level of income and wealth inequality that now exists? Or will we continue to see billionaires get richer while working families struggle to put food on the table? Can we create a government that works for all of us? Or will our political system continue to be dominated by wealthy campaign contributors?“These are just some of the questions that together we need to answer.” More

    • 150 Shares30 Views

      in US Politics

      Noem book contains threat against Biden dog: ‘Commander, say hello to Cricket’

      by

      The White House condemned as “disturbing” and “absurd” comments in which Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota and a potential running mate for Donald Trump, threatened to harm or kill Joe Biden’s dog.“We find her comments from yesterday disturbing,” Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s press secretary, told a White House briefing. “We find them absurd. This is a country that loves dogs and you have a leader that talks about putting dogs down, killing them.”Noem’s bizarre threat is contained in No Going Back, a campaign book that generated unusual buzz after the Guardian revealed how Noem describes in detail the day she shot dead her dog, Cricket, which she deemed untrainable and dangerous, and an unnamed goat.The revelation sparked a political firestorm, widely held to have incinerated Noem’s chances of being named running mate to Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.But as the book neared publication on Tuesday, it became clear Noem was not done when she closed her chapter on killing Cricket, a 14-month-old female wirehaired pointer, and the unnamed male goat, which Noem says was smelly and aggressive and dangerous to her children.At the end of No Going Back, Noem asks: “What would I do if I was president on the first day in office in 2025?”Remarkably, she writes that “the first thing I’d do is make sure Joe Biden’s dog was nowhere on the grounds. (‘Commander, say hello to Cricket for me.’)”Noem adds that her own dog, Foster, “would sure be welcome” at the White House.“He comes with me to the [state] capitol all the time and loves everyone,” she writes.Regardless, a governor widely held to have designs on the presidency in 2028 has at least implied, in print, that she would have a predecessor’s dog killed – whether by herself with a shotgun, like Cricket and the goat, or not.Noem has defended her description of killing Cricket and the goat as evidence of her willingness to do unpleasant but necessary things in farm life as well as in politics.Commander, a German shepherd owned by Joe and Jill Biden, was removed from the White House after biting Secret Service agents.On Monday, Jean-Pierre said: “Commander’s living with family members.”The day before, Noem doubled down.Her host on CBS’s Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan, quoted Noem’s apparent threat to kill Commander and asked: “Are you doing this to try to look tough? Do you still think that you have a shot at being a VP?”Noem said: “Well, number one, Joe Biden’s dog has attacked 24 Secret Service people. So, how many people is enough people to be attacked and dangerously hurt before you make a decision on a dog and what to do with it?”Brennan said: “Well, he’s not living at the White House any more.”Noem said: “That’s a question that the president should be held accountable to.”Brennan said: “You’re saying he [Commander] should be shot?”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNoem said: “That what’s the president should be accountable to.”Noem tried to move on, to talk about Covid in South Dakota. But she also said she was “so proud” of a book that contained “a lot of truthful stories”.Elsewhere, though, Noem’s publisher, Center Street, said that at Noem’s request it was removing from her book “a passage regarding Kim Jong-un … upon a reprint of the print edition and as soon as technically possible on the audio and ebook editions”.In her book, Noem writes: “I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all).”As first reported by the Dakota Scout, no such meeting occurred.Noem told CBS: “What bothers me the most about politicians is when they’re fake.”Brennan said: “But if you have to retract … parts of [the book] …”Noem, whose publisher said it would retract part of her book, said: “I’m not retracting anything.”Brennan said: “OK.”On Saturday, Noem attended a Trump Florida fundraiser featuring a host of vice-presidential contenders.Noem was “somebody I love”, NBC reported Trump as saying, adding: “She’s been with me, and a supporter, and I’ve been a supporter of hers for a long time.”But unlike other hopefuls, among them the South Carolina senator Tim Scott and the New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Noem was not called to the stage.She reportedly left early. More