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      Kamala Harris uses casting vote to pass Covid relief budget resolution

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      The US Senate has passed a budget resolution that allows for the passage of Joe Biden’s $1.9tn (£1.4tn) Covid-19 relief package in the coming weeks without Republican support.
      The vice-president, Kamala Harris, broke a 50/50 tie by casting a vote in favour of the Democratic measure, which sends it to the House of Representatives for final approval. It marked the first time Harris, in her role as president of the Senate, cast a tie-breaking vote after being sworn in as the first female vice-president on 20 January.
      The House passed its own budget measure on Wednesday. Congress can now work to write a bill that can be passed by a simple majority in both houses, which are controlled by Democrats. Mid-March has been suggested as a likely date by which the measure could be passed, a point at which enhanced unemployment benefits will expire if Congress does not act.
      The vote came at 5.30am on Friday at the end of a marathon Senate debate session, known among senators as a “vote-a-rama”, a procedure whereby they can theoretically offer unlimited amendments.
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      Biden is scheduled to meet with Democratic House leaders and committee chairs early on Friday morning to discuss the Covid economic stimulus, and is expected to make public remarks on the progress at an 11.45am EST (1645 GMT) briefing.
      There was dissent from Republicans in the Senate overnight, particularly over plans for a $15 federal minimum wage. Iowa’s Republican senator, Joni Ernst, raised an amendment to “prohibit the increase of the federal minimum wage during a global pandemic”, which was carried by a voice vote.
      The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders said he still intended to support bringing the measure through: “We need to end the crisis of starvation wages in Iowa and around the United States.”
      He outlined plans to get a wage increase, phased in over five years, included in a budget reconciliation bill. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour, and has not been raised since 2009.
      In a tweet after the vote, Sanders said: “Today, with the passage of this budget resolution to provide relief to our working families, we have the opportunity not only to address the pandemic and the economic collapse – we have the opportunity to give hope to the American people and restore faith in our government.”
      During the debate Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said “This is not the time for trillions more dollars to make perpetual lockdowns and economic decline a little more palatable. Notwithstanding the actual needs, notwithstanding all the talk about bipartisan unity, Democrats in Congress are plowing ahead. They’re using this phony budget to set the table to ram through their $1.9 trillion rough draft.”
      The $1.9 trillion relief package proposed would be used to speed Covid-19 vaccines throughout the nation. Other funds would extend special unemployment benefits that will expire at the end of March and make direct payments to people to help them pay bills and stimulate the economy. Democrats also want to send money to state and local governments dealing with the worst health crisis in decades. More

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      Donald Trump's second impeachment: will the Senate convict him?

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      Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial begins in the Senate next week. Lawrence Douglas explains the process and politics of the spectacle ahead

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      The US Senate will be transformed into a courtroom next week when Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial begins. After hearing evidence against the former president, the Senate’s 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats will have to decide whether Trump was guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” when he incited supporters to storm the Capitol building and disrupt the election certification process. Lawrence Douglas, an Amherst College professor and Guardian opinion contributor, explains what kind of defence Trump is planning to mount, and whether any Senate Republicans are likely to vote to convict him. And the former Democratic senator Russ Feingold, who served during Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in the 90s, tells Anushka Asthana how the process has become more partisan than ever. Archive: CNN, C-Span, Rev, Bloomberg, CBS-DFW, Fox News, CBS, 60 Minutes (CBS), YouTube More

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      Donald Trump will refuse to testify at Senate impeachment trial, lawyers say

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      Donald Trump’s legal team has said the former president will not voluntarily testify under oath at his impeachment trial in the Senate next week, where he faces the charge from House Democrats that he incited the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January.
      The lead House impeachment manager, Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, wrote to Trump asking him to testify under oath before or during the trial, challenging the former president to explain why he and his lawyers have disputed key factual allegations at the center of their charge that he incited a violent mob to storm the Capitol.
      “You denied many factual allegations set forth in the article of impeachment. You have thus attempted to put critical facts at issue,” Raskin wrote in a letter made public on Thursday.
      He went on to say that if Trump refused to do so, an adverse inference would be made from his reluctance.
      Hours after the letter was released, the Trump adviser Jason Miller said that the former president “will not testify” in what he described as an “unconstitutional proceeding”. Trump’s lawyers dismissed the request as a “public relations stunt”.
      The request from House impeachment managers does not require Trump to appear – though the Senate could later force a subpoena – but it does warn that any refusal to testify could be used at trial to support arguments for a conviction. Even if Trump does not testify, the request nonetheless makes clear Democrats’ determination to present an aggressive case against him even though he has left the White House.
      The Senate impeachment trial starts on 9 February. Trump is charged with inciting an insurrection on 6 January, when a mob of his supporters broke into the Capitol to interrupt the electoral vote count. Democrats have said a trial is necessary to provide a final measure of accountability for the attack. If he is convicted, the Senate could hold a second vote to disqualify him from seeking office again.
      In the letter, Raskin asked that Trump provide testimony about his conduct “either before or during the Senate impeachment trial”, and under cross-examination, as early as Monday, 8 February, and not later than Thursday, 11 February.
      The request from Raskin cites the words of Trump’s own attorneys, who in a legal brief earlier this week not only denied that Trump had incited the riot, but also asserted that he had “performed admirably in his role as president, at all times doing what he thought was in the best interests of the American people”.
      With that argument, Raskin said, Trump had questioned critical facts in the case “notwithstanding the clear and overwhelming evidence of your constitutional offense”. He said Trump should be able to testify now that he is no longer president.
      Raskin said if Trump refuses to appear, the managers will use his refusal against him in the trial – a similar argument put forth by House Democrats in last year’s impeachment trial, when many Trump officials ignored subpoenas. Trump was eventually acquitted of the Democratic charges that he abused his presidential powers by pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden, now the president.
      The impeachment managers do not have the authority to subpoena witnesses now since the House has already voted to impeach him. The Senate could vote to subpoena Trump, or any other witnesses, on a simple majority vote during the trial. But it is unclear if the Senate would be willing to do so.
      Shortly after Raskin’s letter was made public, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said he would listen to the House managers’ arguments if they felt a subpoena was necessary. But he said that “the more I see what’s already in the public record, the more powerful the case” against Trump, based on his own words and actions.
      Trump’s statements before and after the attack on the Capitol “are the most powerful evidence”, Blumenthal said. “His own words incriminate him. They show his guilty intent.”
      The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest GOP allies, said he thought the letter was a “political ploy” and noted that Democrats did not invite or subpoena him to testify before the House, which voted to impeach Trump on 13 January.
      Asked if he thought Trump would testify, Graham said it would be a “bad idea”.
      “I don’t think that would be in anybody’s interest,” he said.
      Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      Democracy or the white supremacist mob: which side is the Republican party on? | Richard Wolffe

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      In 2001, nine days after terrorists attacked the United States and its federal government, a Republican president stood before Congress with the overwhelming support of a terrified nation, as he presented a stark choice to the world.“Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” said George W Bush to loud applause in September 2001. “From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”Thus was born the post-9/11 era, which survived for the best part of two decades, costing trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives, and realigning American diplomacy and politics in stark terms.Republicans fought and won two elections on the basis that they were strong and unequivocal in defending the nation, while Democrats were weak flip-floppers who tried to have it both ways.Today Washington is staring at something like a new dawn – the start of the post-Trump era – and Republicans don’t know which side of the war they’re on. Are they with the United States or with the insurrectionists?The early answers are catastrophically weak in a world where the threats are not distant or abstract. This is not a risk posed to American officials halfway around the world, or a potential threat that might one day materialize in a foreign capital.This is a clear and present danger for the very members of Congress who must now decide between protecting their own careers or protecting the lives of the people working down the hall. With the second impeachment trial of Donald J Trump starting next week, there’s no escaping the moment of decision for at least 50 Republican senators: are you with the United States or not?In every single other working environment, this would not be a hard choice. Given the chance to save your own job or save the lives of your co-workers – even the ones you dislike – the vast majority of decent people would save lives.Just listen to the first-hand accounts of representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Katie Porter. Ocasio-Cortez gave a chilling account of hiding in her office bathroom to save her life as insurrectionists stormed the Capitol last month.It is long past time to admit the blindingly obvious: the Republican party has been hijacked by fascist extremistsThere’s no question that she, like many others, feared for her life. Porter recalled her friend desperately seeking refuge in her office. She gave Ocasio-Cortez a pair of sneakers in case they needed to run for their lives.The mortal threat was not confined to high-profile Democrats. Mike Pence, the most toady of Trump loyalists, was hiding from the mob with his family, while terrorists chanted about hanging him. If anyone needed confirmation of their murderous intent, there was a makeshift gallows outside the Capitol.It is long past time to admit the blindingly obvious: the Republican party has been hijacked by fascist extremists. It is now a far-right organization in league with neo-Nazis who have made it painfully clear they want to overthrow democracy and seize power, using violence if necessary.Every decision the so-called leaders make at this point defines which side they are on: the United States as we know it, or the white supremacist mob.In these few weeks since the mob trashed the Capitol, leading to five deaths, Republican leaders have bathed themselves less in glory than in the sewage of fascism. Given a choice between the conservative Liz Cheney and the fascist Marjorie Taylor Greene, House Republicans have shunned the former and hugged the latter.It’s Cheney whose position as part of the Republican leadership is under threat, while Greene is only coming under pressure from Democrats – who for some reason find themselves alone in feeling horrified by Greene’s advocacy for the execution of Democrats and white supremacy in general.Republican leaders now find themselves in a prisoner’s dilemma of their own making. Both Mitch McConnell in the US Senate and Kevin McCarthy in the House of Representatives could escape the worst public punishment if they act together to take back their own party. Instead, they are ratting on each other.McConnell said in a statement on Monday that Greene posed an existential threat to the party. “Loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican party and our country,” he said, while also supporting Cheney’s leadership.Technically this is McCarthy’s mess to clean up, in the House rather than the Senate. But McCarthy can’t bring himself to say something in public about the QAnon cultist Greene, or what she represents.Instead he traveled to Florida at the weekend to kiss the ring of the man who really stands at the center of this threat to our democracy: one Donald J Trump, who is supposedly a Greene fan, according to Greene herself.There may be rational short-term reasons why McConnell and McCarthy have parted ways on this fascist thing.McConnell just lost control of the Senate because it’s challenging to win statewide contests – even in conservative places like Georgia – when you’re trying to overthrow democracy at the same time. McCarthy, meanwhile, deludes himself that he can get closer to power because House districts are so gerrymandered that Republicans are only threatened by the cannibalizing power of the mob.But in reality, there is no choice. This isn’t about loony lies or conspiracy theories, as McConnell suggests. It’s not about Republican primaries or Trump’s disapproval, as McCarthy fears.The choice in front of Republicans is whether they support democracy or not; whether they want to live and work in fear of the mob, or not. QAnon may be loony but its goals are to murder elected officials, and its supporters include heavily armed insurrectionists. The 1930s fascists were also unhinged and proved themselves deadly serious about mass murder.Next week Republicans in Washington have one more chance to turn their backs on fascism. They could reject the laughable claims from Trump’s lawyers that he was merely exercising his free speech rights by telling his mob to march on Congress and fight like hell. Apparently such conduct does not constitute incitement to riot, because the word “incitement” has lost all relationship to reality.Nobody expects Republican senators to vote in enough numbers to convict Trump of the obvious charges that played out on television. Nobody expects enough of them to reject the violent overthrow of the democracy that put them in the Senate.They represent, to use Bush’s language, a hostile regime inside the nation’s capital. Until Republicans split with the insurrectionists – by ejecting them from their party or forming their own – democracy itself is unsafe. More

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      Biden and Republicans agree to further Covid relief talks but deep divisions remain

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      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterTen Republican senators have agreed to continue talks with the White House in an attempt to negotiate a bipartisan coronavirus relief package, after a two-hour meeting with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Monday night ended short of a breakthrough.The meeting lasted much longer than expected, providing a visible example of the president’s stated ambition to reach across the aisle. But the group of senators who emerged from the Oval Office shortly after 7pm did so empty-handed.The leader of the Republican pack, Susan Collins of Maine, described the meeting with the president and the vice-president as “excellent”, and “frank and very useful”. But she was clear about the huge gulf that still exists between Biden’s proposed $1.9tn package and the alternative posed by the 10 senators, which is less than a third of that size.“It was a very good exchange of views,” Collins told reporters as the meeting came to a close. “I wouldn’t say that we came together on a package tonight – no one expected that in a two-hour meeting.”She added that they did agree to “follow up and talk further on how we can continue to work together on this very important issue”.After the meeting, the White House put out a statement that bluntly underlined Biden’s unwillingness to allow his relief efforts to be delayed. “While there were areas of agreement, the president reiterated his view that Congress must respond boldly and urgently, and noted many areas which the Republican senators’ proposal does not address.”The lack of any major advance between the two sides means that Democrats are likely to continue to press ahead quickly with plans to push through Biden’s much larger package without Republican support. Hours earlier, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, filed a joint budget resolution, a step towards passing a relief package without Republican backing.That 10 Republican senators were prepared to enter into such a high-profile interaction with Biden and Harris in the first formal meeting held in the Oval Office under the new administration was significant in itself. That is the number who would be needed to vote in favor of any package to reach the 60-vote threshold in the Senate able to resist a filibuster.The gap between the Democrats’ proposed package and what the Republican senators envision remains enormous – not only is the Republican alternative small by comparison at $618bn, but it contains no funding for state and local governments and differs in other key regards.The Republican package would offer direct stimulus checks of $1,000 per individual, phasing out for anyone earning above $40,000 a year. By contrast, the Biden plan would offer $1,400 and begin phasing out above $75,000 a year.Biden’s package is also more generous in extending enhanced unemployment insurance.Reporters were allowed to witness the start of the Oval Office gathering. Biden and Harris sat on either side of a fire, with Collins on a sofa to Biden’s left and Mitt Romney of Utah to Harris’s right.The White House made efforts through the day to lower expectations about the discussions. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, indicated in the daily press briefing that there was no intention to “make or accept an offer”.She emphasized that Biden was determined to move swiftly to address the multiple crises posed by the pandemic and its economic consequences. She added: “The president believes that the risk is not going too small, but going not big enough.”Nine of the senators were physically present at the Oval Office. In addition to Collins and Romney, they included: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Todd Young of Indiana, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Rob Portman of Ohio, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.Mike Rounds of South Dakota attended by phone. More

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      Why Republicans won’t agree to Biden’s big plans and why he should ignore them | Robert Reich

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      If there were ever a time for bold government, it is now. Covid, joblessness, poverty, raging inequality and our last chance to preserve the planet are together creating an existential inflection point.Fortunately for America and the world, Donald Trump is gone, and Joe Biden has big plans for helping Americans survive Covid and then restructuring the economy, rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and creating millions of green jobs.But Republicans in Congress don’t want to go along. Why not?Mitch McConnell and others say America can’t afford it. “We just passed a program with over $900bn in it,” groused Senator Mitt Romney, the most liberal of the bunch.Rubbish. We can’t afford not to. Fighting Covid will require far more money. People are hurting.Besides, with the economy in the doldrums it’s no time to worry about the national debt. The best way to reduce the debt as a share of the economy is to get the economy growing again.The real reason Republicans want to block Biden is they fear his plans will workRepairing ageing infrastructure and building a new energy-efficient one will make the economy grow even faster over the long term – further reducing the debt’s share.No one in their right mind should worry that public spending will “crowd out” private investment. If you hadn’t noticed, borrowing is especially cheap right now. Money is sloshing around the world, in search of borrowers.It’s hard to take Republican concerns about debt seriously when just four years ago they had zero qualms about enacting one of the largest tax cuts in history, largely for big corporations and the super-wealthy.If they really don’t want to add to the debt, there’s another alternative. They can support a tax on super-wealthy Americans.The total wealth of America’s 660 billionaires has grown by a staggering $1.1tn since the start of the pandemic, a 40% increase. They alone could finance almost all of Biden’s Covid relief package and still be as rich as they were before the pandemic. So why not a temporary emergency Covid wealth tax?The real reason Republicans want to block Biden is they fear his plans will work.It would be the Republican’s worst nightmare: all the anti-government claptrap they’ve been selling since Ronald Reagan will be revealed as nonsense.Government isn’t the problem and never was. Bad government is the problem, and Americans have just had four years of it. Biden’s success would put into sharp relief Trump and Republicans’ utter failures on Covid, jobs, poverty, inequality and climate change, and everything else.Biden and the Democrats would reap the political rewards in 2022 and beyond. Democrats might even capture the presidency and Congress for a generation. After FDR rescued America, the Republican party went dark for two decades.Trumpian Republicans in Congress have an even more diabolical motive for blocking Biden. They figure if Americans remain in perpetual crises and ever-deepening fear, they’ll lose faith in democracy itself.This would open the way for another strongman demagogue in 2024 – if not Trump, a Trump-impersonator like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley or Donald Trump Jr.The worst-kept secret in Washington is Biden doesn’t really need RepublicansIf Biden is successful, Americans’ faith in democracy might begin to rebound – marking the end of the nation’s flirtation with fascism. If he helps build a new economy of green jobs with good wages, even Trump’s angry white working-class base might come around.The worst-kept secret in Washington is Biden doesn’t really need Republicans, anyway. With their razor-thin majorities in both houses of Congress, Democrats can enact Biden’s plans without a single Republican vote.The worry is Biden wants to demonstrate “bipartisan cooperation” and may try so hard to get some Republican votes that his plans get diluted to the point where Republicans get what they want: failure.Biden should forget bipartisanship. Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans didn’t give a hoot about bipartisanship when they and Trump were in power.If Republicans try to stonewall Biden’s Covid relief plan, Biden and the Democrats should go it alone through a maneuver called “reconciliation”, allowing a simple majority to pass budget legislation.If Republicans try to block anything else, Biden should scrap the filibuster – which now requires 60 senators to end debate. The filibuster isn’t in the constitution. It’s anti-democratic, giving a minority of senators the power to block the majority. It was rarely used for most of the nation’s history.The filibuster can be ended by a simple majority vote, meaning Democrats have the power to scrap it. Biden will have to twist the arms of a few recalcitrant Democrats, but that’s what presidential leadership often requires.The multiple crises engulfing America are huge. The window of opportunity for addressing them is small. If ever there was a time for boldness, it is now. More

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      Explainer: what is the filibuster and why do some Democrats want to get rid of it?

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      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterWhile the US Senate has temporarily averted a showdown over its so-called filibuster rule, the issue appears likely to resurface, as the wafer-thin Democratic majority endeavors to pass Joe Biden’s legislative agenda into law – and Republicans try to stop them. Here’s what you need to know:What is the filibuster? There is a movie version, in which an impassioned senator holds the floor by speaking at marathon length to block or force an issue – and a much more common version, lodged deep in the parliamentary weeds. The latter, less cinematic version, is the current focus.So what’s the gist?The filibuster is a way for a relatively small group of senators to block some action by the majority. The filibuster rule allows a minority of 41 senators (out of 100 total) to prevent a vote on most species of legislation.Whether you see that capability as an important safeguard against the tyranny of the majority, or a guarantee of institutional paralysis, likely corresponds with your party identity and who controls the Senate at the time.For progressives, what is the strongest argument in favor of keeping the filibuster?The legislative filibuster has been used by Democrats in recent years to block funding for Donald Trump’s border wall project, to protect unemployment benefits and to stop Republicans from restricting abortion access.Also, some Democrats fear that if there is no filibuster, Republicans will, next time they hold the Senate majority, pass horrifying laws, for example to restrict voting access, encourage environmental despoilment, reward Wall Street, curtail reproductive rights – who knows.Why are so many influential Democrats calling for an end to the filibuster?Democrats say Republicans have abused it serially, forcing their minority vision on the entire country with narrow-minded parliamentary tactics and blocking policies the people support, such as gun control.Abolishing the filibuster rule would theoretically allow Democrats to finally get some things done while they hold power: immigration reform, climate legislation, voter protections, racial justice legislation, and so on.Would ending the filibuster really work?Ending the filibuster in 2021 may not net Democrats the legislative victories they dream of. Because they hold only very slight majorities in both houses, Democrats would need to maintain a unified caucus to take advantage of a Senate sans filibuster. And that would mean only passing legislation that the most centrist senators agree with. So, it’s complicated.Should the Senate really get rid of the filibuster?There are risks, definitely, but many top Democrats have concluded that the time is nigh, because Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell have grown so relentlessly obstructionist that Democrats are powerless to enact policy even after they win elections. A study by the Center for American Progress found that Republicans have used the filibuster roughly twice as often as Democrats to prevent the other side from passing legislation.Basically, it’s down to the last straw. Democrats have put McConnell on notice that if Republicans continue trying to block everything that fairly elected Democrats would like to do, it’s bye-bye filibuster.“It’s going to depend on how obstreperous they become,” Biden told reporters last summer. “But I think you’re going to just have to take a look at it.”But couldn’t Republicans just block any effort to end the filibuster … with a filibuster?No. In a paradox best left alone, the power of the filibuster may be exorcised by a straight majority vote. Note that as of January 2021, the Democrats might not even be able to muster such a majority, despite controlling the Senate, with some centrists (and Bernie Sanders) wanting to keep the filibuster. So maybe Democrats would not be able abolish the filibuster even if they tried. For now. But that could change.Wouldn’t scrapping the filibuster violate hallowed history?On the contrary. The filibuster has a generally ignominious history, with some moments of glory. It’s not in the constitution and it emerged in its current form only through the exigencies of wartime a century ago. Since then, the filibuster has prominently been used to prop up racially discriminatory Jim Crow laws.Two of the most famous uses of the movie-version filibuster mentioned above were by the segregationist senator Strom Thurmond, who in 1957 held the Senate floor for more than 24 hours in an attempt to block civil rights legislation – and who mounted a sequel filibuster to sequel legislation in 1964.“For generations, the filibuster was used as a tool to block progress on racial justice,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is eager to bin the filibuster, told the National Action Network in 2019. “And in recent years, it’s been used by the far right as a tool to block progress on everything.”Who else hates the filibuster?In a separate address at the funeral of the civil rights leader representative John Lewis in 2020, Barack Obama laid the filibuster on the chopping block.“Once we pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, we should keep marching,” Obama said, referring to a bill to stop minority disenfranchisement. “And if all this takes eliminating the filibuster – another Jim Crow relic – in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do.”Which party pioneered filibuster abuse?The who-started-it argument about killing the filibuster revolves around federal judicial nominees and whether they could be filibustered.In brief, the Democrats were first to filibuster a federal judge nominee, in response to a loathed George W Bush pick who at the time was taken to be so uniquely unacceptable as to warrant unusual measures.Years later, McConnell adopted the strategy on steroids, blocking an army of Obama-nominated judges. In response, the Democrats in 2013 killed the filibuster for executive nominees below the level of supreme court justice.In 2017, to begin cramming the supreme court with what would turn out to be three Donald Trump justices, McConnell killed what was left of the judicial filibuster. Only the legislative filibuster remains, and it’s on life support.Will the gentleman yield his time?Thought you’d never ask. More