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      Bernie Sanders condemns speech to Congress by ‘war criminal’ Netanyahu

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      The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has condemned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming address to the US Congress, calling him a “war criminal” presiding over a “rightwing extremist government”.Sanders delivered his remarks on the Senate floor on Tuesday as Congress expects Netanyahu to give a speech to Congress on Wednesday afternoon. The speech comes after an underwhelming arrival to the US, just after President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from November’s elections.“Tomorrow will be unique in bringing Prime Minister Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress,” said Sanders on Tuesday. “It will be the first time in American history that a war criminal has been given that honor.”Sanders said of Netanyahu: “He should not be welcome in the United States Congress.”Several Democratic lawmakers were planning to boycott the speech on Wednesday.Kamala Harris, the Democratic party’s presumptive presidential nominee, will not be attending because of a scheduling conflict, according to an aide.Netanyahu is slated to meet with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, before the speech.Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland will oversee the event, according to the New York Times. Cardin, an orthodox Jew, has voiced support for Israel in the months since the attacks on 7 October and amid Israel’s war in Gaza.Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, is among the lawmakers who plan to boycott Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday afternoon, reminding senators of the ongoing hunger, destruction to housing and damage done to Gaza’s health and educational system.Israel’s war on Gaza has “trampled on international law, on American law, and on basic human values”, Sanders said.The UN has reported a death toll of more than 36,000 Palestinians as of 31 May.“His [Netanyahu’s] policies in Gaza and the West Bank and his refusal to support a two-state solution should be roundly condemned,” Sanders said in a statement on Monday. “In my view, his rightwing, extremist government should not receive another nickel of US taxpayer support to continue the inhumane destruction of Gaza.”“Every university has been bombed, and 88% of all school buildings have been damaged,” said Sanders. “And now, because of the ongoing restrictions on humanitarian aid, some 495,000 people face catastrophic levels of food insecurity – in other words, they are starving.”Representative Jerry Nadler of New York said he would attend Wednesday’s speech, but still lashed out against the Israeli prime minister, calling him the “worst leader in Jewish history”.“Tomorrow’s address is the next step in a long line of manipulative bad-faith efforts by Republicans to further politicize the US-Israel relationship for partisan gain and is a cynical stunt by Netanyahu aimed at aiding his own desperate political standing at home,” said Nadler.The invitation was originally extended by the speaker Johnson, and endorsed by Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, and Schumer, despite the latter’s earlier denunciation of Netanyahu and call for fresh Israeli elections.Sanders had previously supported Israel’s right to defend itself after the 7 October attacks, also lashing out against Hamas.“Netanyahu’s extreme rightwing government has, since that attack, waged what amounts to total war against the entire Palestinian people,” Sanders said in the chamber on Tuesday.In January, Sanders sponsored an unsuccessful Senate bill to make US aid to Israel conditional on its observance of human rights and international law.“This invitation to Netanyahu is a disgrace and something that we will look back on with regret,” Sanders said. “With this invitation, it will be impossible, with a straight face, for the United States to lecture any country on Earth about human rights and human dignity.” More

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      Secret Service urging Trump to stop outdoor rallies after shooting – report

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      Secret Service officials are reported to be encouraging Donald Trump’s campaign to stop holding outdoor rallies in the wake of the 13 July assassination attempt on the former president at a fairground in Butler, Pennsylvania.The move, reported by the Washington Post, comes as Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday following a combative grilling before a congressional committee by both Democrats and Republicans over apparent security failures before an attempt on Trump’s life by a 20-year-old gunman.In a resignation letter, Cheatle said she’d made the “difficult” decision to leave the agency “with a heavy heart” and acknowledged that the agency “fell short” of its mission “to protect our nation’s leaders”, referring to the Butler rally.The Trump campaign, which may have favored outdoor venues until the shooting because of their larger crowd capacity, is not currently planning further outdoor events and instead is looking to book indoor venues, including basketball arenas, according to the outlet.During a rally in an arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday, Trump appeared to lament that some supporters had been left outside. The Republican candidate is also known for exaggerating crowd estimates, dating back at least to his inauguration in 2017.Since launching his first presidential bid, Trump has held hundreds of outdoor rallies that have become like festivals for his most ardent supporters, featuring tailgate parties and vendors hawking Trump memorabilia and campaign merchandise.According to the Post, Trump advisers had told the Secret Service the 2024 re-election campaign was planning to hold large events, and would need increased protection and assets. But the agency is believed to have turned down the requests, citing a lack of resources.If Trump now holds rallies in more secure locations, such as sports arenas, they will prove more expensive to the campaign.The rally site in Butler where the attempted assassination took place had clear sightlines to the stage far beyond its security perimeter, including the roof from which suspected shooter Thomas Matthews Crooks fired off an estimated seven rounds before being fatally shot by Secret Service snipers.It has since been reported that Crooks was able to scout out the rally site with a drone and had been identified as “suspicious” an hour before the event. The presidential protection agency had assigned security of the roof to local law enforcement and had been notified of a suspicious person minutes before the shooting took place.Former White House physician Ronny Jackson, now a Texas representative, said at the weekend that the bullet that grazed Trump’s ear came “less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head”.Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, appointed Ronald Rowe, deputy director of the Secret Service, to serve as the acting director until a permanent replacement is chosen. More

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      Trump files complaint against Harris for taking over Biden’s campaign funds

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      Donald Trump’s campaign on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against the vice-president Kamala Harris, accusing her 2024 campaign of violating federal campaign finance laws by replacing Joe Biden’s name with her own to take control of his campaign funds.The complaint, filed by the Trump campaign’s general counsel, David Warrington, argued that the Biden campaign could not rename its committee from “Biden for President” to “Harris for President” once Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, and roll over $91m.“This is little more than a thinly veiled $91.5m excessive contribution from one presidential candidate to another, that is, from Joe Biden’s old campaign to Kamala Harris’s new campaign. This effort makes a mockery of our campaign finance laws,” the eight-page complaint said.“Federal candidates are prohibited from keeping contributions for elections in which they do not participate,” it added. “Biden for President 2024 has shown no intention to properly refund or re-designate the general election funds it has already received. This makes them all excess contributions.”Whether the complaint generates traction with the FEC remains unclear, but the Trump campaign has been looking for any way to slow down the momentum Harris has been able to generate with voters and donors after she quickly became the presumptive Democratic nominee.The strategy, according to people familiar with the matter, has included opening new legal battles to try to prevent Harris from accessing Biden’s funds, although the complaint on Tuesday stopped short of a lawsuit.Warrington made that explicit request to the FEC in the complaint, asking the agency to enjoin the transfer. And if the FEC were to deem the transfer unlawful, the complaint said, it would ask the FEC to consider issuing a fine or making a criminal referral to the US justice department.The Harris campaign has viewed the FEC complaint as a spurious legal effort to throw sand in their gears, noting that the Biden-Harris committees have always been authorized committees for either Biden or Harris, according to a person familiar with the thinking.And in a statement, the Harris campaign noted that they had raised $100m in donations in the 36 hours since Biden withdrew from the 2024 race, adding: “Baseless legal claims – like the ones they’ve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections – will only distract them.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe complaint, earlier reported by the New York Times, also argued that Harris taking over Biden’s remaining campaign funds amounted to an excessive unlawful contribution given that “Biden for President” was not an authorized committee for the Harris campaign.“If Mr Biden will not seek the Democratic party’s nomination, then he will never participate in the general election and all general election contributions received by Biden for President are excessive and must be disposed of,” the complaint said. More

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      Kamala Harris vows US not going back to ‘chaos’ of Trump years in rally speech

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      Kamala Harris vowed on Tuesday that Americans were “not going back” to the “chaos” of the Donald Trump years, as she made her campaign trail debut in battleground Wisconsin with just over 100 days left before the election.In an fiery speech a day after securing enough Democratic delegates to win the party’s nomination, the vice-president sought to frame the contest against Trump as a choice between starkly different visions for the country, casting his as regressive and backward-looking and hers as optimistic and forward-looking. “Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion and rule of law or a country of chaos, fear and hate?” she asked, drawing roaring applause and chants of “Kamala” – reflecting an enthusiasm that has eluded Democrats in recent months.As Harris arrived in Milwaukee, the two most powerful Democrats in Congress, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, threw their support behind Harris during a joint press conference in Washington DC.“Democrats are moving forward stronger and more united than ever before,” Schumer told reporters on Tuesday, adding that he had seen a “surge of enthusiasm from every corner of our party” since Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race and endorse his vice-president.In short order, Harris consolidated support among the party, ending weeks of internal drama following Biden’s calamitous debate performance last month that exacerbated voters’ concerns about the 81-year-old president’s fitness to serve another four years – and a discussion over who could replace him if he bowed out.Fears of a messy contest for the nomination never materialized, as members of Congress, party activists, labor leaders and would-be rivals lined up behind Harris. The campaign – which she inherited from Biden – was renamed, and has raised an astonishing $100m in 36 hours.At the rally on Tuesday, Harris drew a sharp contrast between herself, a history-making prosecutor, and Trump, the first president ever to be convicted of a felony.“I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” she said to roaring applause. “So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”She added: “I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week.”During a visit to campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday, Harris acknowledged that the last few weeks had been a “rollercoaster” but sought to project calm and a sense of continuity. She announced that Jen O’Malley Dillon would continue to lead the campaign and that Julie Chávez Rodriguez would remain in her role as campaign manager.Promising a “people-powered campaign”, Harris told supporters in Milwaukee that “building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency”. She also vowed to stop Republicans’ “extreme abortion bans”, saying that Democrats “trust women to make decisions about their own body”.View image in fullscreenTuesday’s event was scheduled even before Biden dropped his bid for the presidency, but took on renewed resonance as Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket at an extraordinary moment in American politics.Just days before, Republicans left their party’s convention in Milwaukee, projecting confidence about their prospects in November after nominating Trump just days after he survived an assassination attempt, along with his running mate, the 39-year-old senator from Ohio, JD Vance. As Democrats called on their party’s leader to step aside, Republicans emerged energized and united.Surveys taken since Biden’s withdrawal have shown a nail-bitingly close contest, with Harris running marginally stronger than Biden was against Trump. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday found Harris opened up a small two-percentage-point lead over Trump.Danielle Butterfield, executive director for Priorities USA, one of the largest liberal Super Pacs, said Biden’s decision to end his re-election bid had given Democrats an opening to turn the contest into a referendum on the former president.“Without an incumbent on the ticket, we believe we have a renewed chance to make this election about the future,” she told reporters during a briefing on Tuesday. The group’s data showed Harris was exciting key Democratic constituencies, especially among Black and Hispanic voters and young people.“It’s our No 1 job to remind voters why they voted against Trump in 2020,” Butterfield added.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRepublicans quickly pivoted to the vice-president. Trump has already assailed Harris, a former California senator, as “dangerously liberal”, part of Republicans’ effort to tie her to Biden’s record on the economy and immigration, the Democrats’ weakest issues. This week, House Republicans were weighing whether to bring to the floor a resolution condemning her handling of the border as vice-president, even though her mission was to address the “root causes” of migration, not immigration policy.“She’s the same as Biden but much more radical,” Trump said on Tuesday, on a call with reporters, aimed at hammering Harris over border security and immigration. “She’s a radical left person and this country doesn’t want a radical left person to destroy it.”“That’s all he’s got?” Harris’s husband, the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, said of Trump’s attacks during a visit to a reproductive rights clinic in McLean, Virginia, earlier in the day. There, he raised Trump’s legacy of appointing the conservative justices who ended the constitutional right to an abortion, which he said paved the way for a “post-Dobbs hellscape”.Wisconsin is considered one of the “blue wall” battleground states that is critical to the Democrats’ hopes of winning the White House in November. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 and four years later Biden clinched the state.“The path to the White House goes through Wisconsin,” Harris told the raucous crowd.By the time Harris took the stage in Milwaukee on Tuesday, the high school where she spoke was standing room only. A campaign official said organizers received so many requests to attend the event that they were forced to find a larger venue at the last minute.“I’m glad Joe Biden is passing the torch,” said Sue Fearson, a longtime Democratic party voter who said she had been worried about what might happen if Biden stepped down – but warmed to the idea once it seemed clear Harris would take over at the top of the ticket.“I’m trying to be in the moment,” said Kami Graham, a 51-year-old secretarial worker who attended the rally. “I feel confident and excited. She knows what to do and she will get the young vote that the Democrats need.”For Olivia Della Rosa, who is 18 and votes absentee from Brazil, the 2024 presidential election will be her first opportunity to vote.“It’s very exciting,” said Della Rosa, who attended the rally with her grandmother, who lives in Milwaukee. “I can’t wait for the debate – I’m looking forward to Harris bringing down the hammer.”David Smith contributed to this report More

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      Democratic congressional leaders back Kamala Harris as campaign gains energy

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      Kamala Harris won key backing from the Democratic party’s senior congressional leadership on Tuesday as she carried the energy and momentum from her whirlwind ascent to presumptive presidential nominee into a lively first campaign rally.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, gave the vice-president their endorsement during a lunchtime press briefing. Harris, they said, had re-energized Democrats following Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he would no longer seek a second term.“We are brimming with excitement, enthusiasm, unity,” Schumer said.“In just the last 36 hours I have seen a surge of enthusiasm from every corner of our party uniting behind Vice-President Harris, an enthusiasm felt in every corner of the country. And it’s contagious among Democrats, the volunteers, the small contributions, they’re just pouring in, in ways even beyond our expectations.”Jeffries said Harris was “a commonsense leader who knows how to deliver real results for hard-working American taxpayers”.Their approval came shortly before Harris addressed cheering supporters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday afternoon in her first solo campaign appearance. Harris praised Biden, attacked the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, and predicted: “We will win this election.”“Before I was elected vice-president, before I was a US senator, I was elected attorney general of the state of California, and a courtroom prosecutor before that,” she said.“In those roles I took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.“So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type. And in this campaign I promise I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week.”The rally followed news that the Harris for President campaign had raised more than $100m in the day following Biden’s withdrawal, largely from first-time donors. Harris hailed it as a record: “the best 24 hours of grassroots fundraising in presidential campaign history”.It also came after confirmation on Monday night that Harris had secured the support of enough Democratic party delegates at its national convention next month to win the nomination for November’s election.Biden said in a tweet he would deliver a prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday evening to explain his decision to withdraw, and lay out a vision for his final six months in the White House.Also on Tuesday, Harris’s campaign took the first formal steps towards naming a running mate. Reports in US media outlets suggested that Harris was looking at closely at two potential candidates, the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, and the Arizona senator Mark Kelly, but had requested vetting materials from several others.They included the governors Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Tim Walz of Minnesota, and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, although Whitmer has said she would serve instead as co-chair of the campaign.A surprise omission was reported to be Kentucky’s governor, Andy Beshear, a vocal Harris acolyte. He told CNN he had not received a package from the campaign, but would “at least listen” if he was called, stressing his focus was the people of Kentucky.Eric Holder, the attorney general during Barack Obama’s administration, has been hired to vet Harris’s potential picks of her running mate, according to Reuters.The news that Harris had already begun assessing potential running mates reflects the speed at which the campaign is moving towards next month’s Democratic national convention in Chicago, at which the party’s candidates must be confirmed.A survey by the Associated Press indicated that Harris had the backing of 2,688 state delegates, far more than the 1,976 needed to become the nominee.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“When I announced my campaign for president, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination. I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top,” Harris, a former California senator, said in a statement.“I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.”A CBS News/YouGov poll on Tuesday found that 83% of Democratic registered voters approved of Biden withdrawing from the race, while just 17% disapproved.Polls matching Harris against Trump were tighter, but showed Democrats gaining ground. Morning Consult found that the former president has 47% support nationally to Harris’s 45%, while Biden trailed Trump by six percentage points in an earlier poll.Harris entered the second full day of her campaign for the nomination in an almost unassailable position, following a breathless 24 hours that saw almost every senior party figure championing her candidacy.All 23 Democratic state governors have publicly backed Harris, including several who had been considered potential rivals for the nomination, such as Whitmer and JB Pritzker of Illinois.The rapid pace at which she racked up endorsements was matched by an avalanche of donations. More than $100m poured into campaign coffers in its first day, a spokesperson said on Monday, calling it the largest single-day haul of any presidential candidate in history and with most of the money coming from grassroots donors making their first contributions of the election cycle.Campaign officials, however, were equally enthused by the succession of heavyweight Democrats who voiced their support for Harris even before Schumer and Jeffries did so on Tuesday. Notable among them was Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, who called the vice-president “brilliantly astute” and “rooted in strong values, faith and a commitment to public service”.A number of organizing efforts are also under way on her behalf. The Win With Black Women advocacy group hosted a Zoom call for 44,000 people and raised more than $1.5m. A similar initiative involving more than 20,000 Black men on Monday pulled in at least another million.Among the high-profile endorsements to come in for Harris on Tuesday was that of George Clooney, the Hollywood actor who wrote a powerful opinion article earlier this month calling for Biden to step aside.“President Biden has shown what true leadership is. He’s saving democracy once again. We’re all so excited to do whatever we can to support Vice-President Harris in her historic quest,” he said in a statement. More

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      Michigan man kills himself after running over 80-year-old Trump supporter

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      A Michigan man suspected of using an all-terrain vehicle to run over an elderly man for supporting Donald Trump died by suicide as police closed in on him, according to authorities.Police in Hancock – a city located in the state’s upper peninsula – said the man in question was under investigation for allegedly running over an 80-year-old man at about 5.45pm local time on Monday.The elderly man was described as a supporter of the former president who was posting a political sign in his yard, according to police. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition with serious injuries after the man on the ATV struck him, police said.Investigators said they had identified a suspect in the case by Monday evening, and he had been linked to a total of three cases which were apparently “politically motivated”.That man later contacted officers, told them he wanted to “confess a crime involving an ATV driver within the last 24 hours” and asked to be picked up, police said in a statement. When police arrived at the scene, they found a 22-year-old man dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.The events in Hancock came a little more than a week after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a presidential campaign rally in Butler county, Pennsylvania, on 13 July. The gunman at the rally fatally shot a 50-year-old Trump supporter, former fire chief Corey Comperatore, while the former president was wounded on one of his ears.The assassination attempt prompted bipartisan condemnations of political violence, including from the vice-president, Kamala Harris, who is expected to be the Democratic nominee to face Trump in November’s presidential race after Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he would not pursue another term in the White House.On 17 July at the Air Zoo Aerospace and Science Museum in Portage, Michigan, which by car is about nine hours away from Hancock, Harris said political violence was unacceptable.“There must be unity around the idea that while our nation’s history has been scarred by political violence, violence is never acceptable,” Harris said. “There can be no equivocation about that.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“At the same time, the hallmark of American democracy, the hallmark of any democracy is a strong competition of ideas, policies and a vision for the future. And just as we must reject political violence, we must also embrace a robust discussion about what is at stake in this election.”In an statement posted on Facebook on Tuesday, Hancock police and the nearby Houghton county sheriff’s office issued their own condemnation of “violence against any political candidates”. More

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      Netanyahu upstaged by Biden and Harris on highly anticipated US visit

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      Benjamin Netanyahu expected to land in Washington DC this week with a bang. So far, it has been more of a whimper.The Israeli prime minister has kept a low profile in the US capital, which was stunned by Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday to drop out of the presidential race and endorse his vice-president, Kamala Harris, to challenge Donald Trump.Netanyahu’s first 24 hours have seen a series of small meetings with the families of hostages kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October, in which he said that progress was being made on negotiating a prisoner exchange of the remaining 120 hostages as part of a ceasefire deal but defended delaying for better terms.“I say at the outset that this will be a process – unfortunately it’s not all at once, there will be stages,” he said, according to remarks of the meeting published by the Times of Israel, “but I believe that we can move a deal forward and maintain the means of pressure that can bring about the release of the others.”Some of those in the room were family members that Netanyahu had himself brought to Washington onboard his official jet.Netanyahu however cautioned that the way to reach the deal would be by continuing to apply pressure to Hamas, even as some families of hostages have urged Netanyahu to conclude the deal as quickly as possible. Others have lobbied the Biden administration to put pressure on Netanyahu to cut a deal.“In no circumstance am I willing to give up on victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said. “If we let up, we will be in danger from all of Iran’s evil axis.”A day into his trip, Netanyahu had not publicly met any US officials, and his meeting with Biden, who is recovering from Covid-19, was rescheduled to Thursday. Trump said he would meet the Israeli prime minister on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. No timings for meetings have been released with Harris.And Biden will address the nation on Wednesday evening, upstaging the Israeli PM once again just hours after Netanyahu was set to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress.“I think Netanyahu was dismayed that he’s not the center of attention,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who focuses on US foreign policy and the Middle East. “He’s not the center of attention here because of what Biden did and what’s going on with Kamala. And he’s certainly not the center of the attention in Israel.”On Tuesday, Netanyahu is set to meet with leaders of the US evangelical Christian community, then hold an event with leaders of the local Jewish community, according to his office.Dozens of Democratic lawmakers were planning to boycott the speech to Congress on Wednesday afternoon. Harris will not be attending, which an aide said was because of a scheduling conflict. According to his public schedule, Netanyahu will meet with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, before the speech.Some hostage family members have said they hope that Netanyahu would use the visit to Washington to announce a ceasefire deal, which Biden had said was already agreed on as a “framework”.“We fully expect that his speech is going to be the announcement of this hostage deal that we’ve all been waiting for,” said Jon Polin, the father of one of the hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, during a separate press conference of the families of hostage members in Washington.Yet analysts have said that Netanyahu may be relying on the war to divert attention from his own political difficulties, or could be delaying a deal until the domestic turmoil in the US resolves and the next president is chosen.“Benjamin Netanyahu’s world is political survival,” said Miller. “That’s his prime directive. That is what drives him and motivates him.“I don’t think there’s anything Kamala can do or Biden can do or not do, frankly, that’s going to alter Netanyahu decision making” on the ceasefire, he said. “He will do this based on whether or not he thinks he can get away with it politically.” More