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      ‘This is a violent attack against women’: Florida Senate candidate seeks to channel abortion outrage

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      A round table on abortion rights, hosted by Florida’s Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, has only just begun, and already she finds herself comforting a woman in tears with a very personal story to tell.The woman is from Colombia, and speaks softly in Spanish as she tells the intimate gathering of the Miami-Dade Hispanic Democratic Caucus about the distressing decision her daughter had to make to terminate a pregnancy after learning the fetus was not developing.“In Colombia, which tends to be a very conservative country, she was glad supportive medical professionals were there for her daughter in the decision, and grateful she had access to good-quality healthcare for it,” said Mucarsel-Powell.“It was traumatic and painful, but at least they could rely on that healthcare. I’m just seeing outrage, from men and women, that here, families are faced with having to live in a state where you will not be able to get that care, because most women don’t even know they’re pregnant at six weeks.”She was referring to the ruling by Florida’s supreme court earlier this month that will allow a six-week abortion ban, with few exceptions for rape or incest, to take effect on 1 May. It will end the state’s position as a bulwark of access to the procedure in the south-eastern US.Yet it has also acted as rocket fuel to the campaign of Mucarsel-Powell, an Ecuador-born former congresswoman and mother of two daughters. She seized on the issue to launch a statewide Freedom Tour championing the protection of abortion rights and exposing the “unapologetic and proud” support for the ban on the part of her opponent in November, the incumbent Republican senator Rick Scott.View image in fullscreenThe Hispanic Caucus event in Coral Gables was only the third of the tour, but Mucarsel-Powell said it was already clear that abortion is a “top-of-mind” issue galvanizing voters, as it is in other Republican-controlled states that have curtailed reproductive rights since the US supreme court ended almost 50 years of federal protections with its 2022 reversal of Roe v Wade.On Monday, her campaign announced it had raised over $3.5m in the first quarter of the year, with more than 5,300 new donors since the supreme court ruling. And Democrats across Florida are also sensing wind in their sails as opposition to the ban, as well as support for a court-approved ballot initiative that could enshrine access to the procedure in the state’s constitution, hardens.“This is a violent attack against women, because it is fundamental for us to make that decision on our own, with our healthcare provider, with our families, with our faith,” Mucarsel-Powell told the Guardian in an interview following the round table.“This is about protecting privacy, protecting healthcare for women, making sure that there’s no government interference, especially from extreme politicians like Rick Scott. I can tell you what people are thinking about this, and that it’s affecting women living in the state of Florida that were sent home when they thought they were having a miscarriage, and they weren’t able to get that healthcare.“And then they got very ill, and almost died because they didn’t receive that healthcare. So this is a top-of-mind issue, like so many other issues, but we’ll see in November how voters decide what are going to be their priorities. I think they’re going to make things very clear.”View image in fullscreenAlso clear is Mucarsel-Powell’s disdain for Scott, who she believes is vulnerable in November as he defends the seat he narrowly won from the incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson in 2018 by only 10,000 votes from 8.2m cast.“If he goes back to the Senate, he will push for a national abortion ban,” she said. “His true agenda includes signing away women’s reproductive rights and trying to control their bodies.“And he knows he will have to answer for his support of Florida’s ban in November. The choice is going to be very clear for voters, they know who I am, they know what I stand for, and who and what Rick Scott isn’t.An Emerson College poll this week showed that 42% of Florida voters planned to vote for the constitutional amendment that would overturn the Florida ban, far short of the 60% it would need to pass.Yet Mucarsel-Powell sees hope in the 32% who say they are still unsure. “A lot of people don’t know that this amendment is on the ballot, so the movement that has been created and has built this infrastructure on the ground is ready to make sure that everyone knows this is an issue,” she said.“The work is happening, it will continue to happen, and I think in November, the majority of Floridians will know that they have a choice. I believe they’re going to come out and vote for freedom.” More

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      House Republicans’ bid to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas fails in US Senate

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      Senate Democrats on Wednesday dismissed the impeachment case brought by House Republicans against Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, on grounds that the charges failed to meet the bar of “high crimes and misdemeanors” outlined in the constitution as a basis for removing an official from office.In a pair of party-line votes, Democrats held that two articles alleging Mayorkas willfully refused to enforce the nation’s immigration laws and breached the public trust with his statements to Congress about the high levels of migration at the US southern border with Mexico were unconstitutional. On the first article, the Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, voted “present”.Democrats then voted 51-49 to adjourn the trial, just one day after House Republicans presented the articles to the Senate. Chuck Schumer, the senate majority leader, moved to dismiss the charges outright, arguing that a cabinet official cannot be removed from office for implementing the policies of the administration he serves.“It is beneath the dignity of the Senate to entertain this nakedly partisan exercise,” Schumer said in a floor speech opening Wednesday’s session.Constitutional scholars, including conservative legal experts, have said the Republicans’ impeachment case is deeply flawed and weakens Congress’s most powerful tool for holding despots and delinquents to account. But Republicans pushed ahead, arguing that Mayorkas’ handling of the southern border warranted a historic rebuke.“This process must not be abused. It must not be short-circuited,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, said, imploring Democrats to hold a full trial. “History will not judge this moment well.”After the Senate convened as a court of impeachment, Schumer offered his plan to hold votes to dismiss the two articles of impeachment after limited debate. Senator Eric Schmitt, a Republican of Missouri, immediately objected to Schumer’s proposal and accused the Democratic leader of “setting our constitution ablaze” by seeking to dispense with the charges against Mayorkas.The majority leader then called for votes to dismiss the trial, setting off a series of procedural maneuvers by Republicans to delay the proceedings, all of which were rejected 51-49 by the Democratic majority.Had they moved to a trial, Republicans still would have lacked the support of two-thirds of the Senate that is needed to convict and remove Mayorkas from office.Mayorkas has denied wrongdoing, defending the work of his agency as it grapples with soaring migration and a refusal by Congress to act.“As they work on impeachment, I work in advancing the missions of the Department of Homeland Security. That’s what I’ve done throughout this process,” Mayorkas said on Wednesday during an appearance on CBS to discuss a new federal initiative to combat online abuse of children.Democrats cast the impeachment effort as election-year political theater designed to draw attention to the situation at the border, one of the president’s biggest liabilities. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has made immigration the centerpiece of his campaign for the White House.“The impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas has nothing to do with high crimes and misdemeanors and everything to do with helping Donald Trump on the campaign trail,” Schumer added on Wednesday.He charged Republicans instead to join Democrats in passing the bipartisan Senate border bill aimed they derailed at Trump’s behest.Some Senate Republicans have expressed deep skepticism of the impeachment effort. But conservatives have cried foul and are preparing to deploy a series of procedural tactics in an effort to delay the vote ending the trial without arguments.“What Senator Schumer is going to do is fatuous, it is fraudulent and it is an insult to the Senate and a disservice to every American citizen,” said John Kennedy, Republican Senator of Louisiana, at a press conference on Tuesday.By a single vote, House Republicans impeached Mayorkas in February for his handling of the border. It was the first time in nearly 150 years that a cabinet secretary was impeached.But Mike Johnson delayed the transfer of the articles for several weeks, initially to allow the chambers more time to complete work on government funding legislation. Upon returning from a two-week recess, the House speaker again postponed the transfer at the request of Senate Republicans, who requested more time to prepare.The outright dismissal of the charges, without the opportunity to argue their case, was yet another setback for House Republicans, plagued by internal drama and a vanishingly thin majority.In a joint statement, House Republican leaders said: “The American people will hold Senate Democrats accountable for this shameful display.”The White House, meanwhile, applauded Senate Democrats for dispensing with what it called a “baseless” case.“President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas will continue doing their jobs to keep America safe and pursue actual solutions at the border, and Congressional Republicans should join them, instead of wasting time on baseless political stunts while killing real bipartisan border security reforms,” said the White House spokesperson Ian Sams.The proceedings began at 1pm, when Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, administered the oath of office to the Senate president pro tempore Patty Murray, a Democrat of Washington. Each senator was sworn in as a juror and signed their name in an oath book.“Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye!” the sergeant-at-arms proclaimed, reminding senators that they are to “keep silent on pain of imprisonment” for the duration of the trial.Had the Senate moved to an impeachment trial, it would be the third time in five years. Trump was impeached twice during his presidency, first over his dealings with Ukraine and later over his involvement in the January 6 assault on the US Capitol. He was acquitted both times by Senate Republicans. More

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      Far-right US Senate candidate tells crowd to ‘strap on a Glock’ before elections

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      Republican US Senate candidate Kari Lake has told supporters to “strap on a Glock” ahead of the 2024 elections as she struggles to gain ground against her Democratic rival in Arizona.In a campaign speech made to a crowd in Arizona’s Mohave county on Sunday, Lake echoed Trump-like terms in calling Washington DC a “swamp” – and used a reference to carrying guns when she told people to prepare for an “intense” election year.Lake hopes to represent Arizona in the seat to be vacated by Democrat turned independent Kyrsten Sinema.Lake told the crowd: “We need to send people to Washington DC that the swamp does not want there. And I can think of a couple people they don’t want there. First on that list is Donald J Trump; second is Kari Lake.“He’s willing to sacrifice everything I am. That’s why they’re coming after us with ‘lawfare’,” Lake said, referencing the ex-president’s many legal troubles as he stands trial in New York.“They’re going to come after us with everything. That’s why the next six months is going to be intense. And we need to strap on our … ”Lake briefly paused before deciding on the item her supporters should strap on. After suggesting a “seatbelt”, a “helmet” and “the armor of God”, she said: “And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case.”Before running for the Senate seat, Lake ran for governorship of Arizona in 2022 on a hard-right platform where she echoed Donald Trump’s false claims that he was not beaten in the 2020 presidential election by Joe Biden. She lost to her Democratic rival, Katie Hobbs.She told supporters on Sunday, referring to constitutional gun rights and free speech rights: “We’re not going to be the victims of crime. We’re not going to have our second amendment taken away. We’re certainly not going to have our first amendment taken away by these tyrants.”But despite Lake’s assertive remarks, more voters are now moving towards her Democratic opponent, Ruben Gallego, Politico reported.Politico cited election analyst Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, which moved the likelihood of the open Senate race from “toss-up” to “leans Democratic”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt’s not yet clear how much the issue of abortion will sway elections in the state, where last week the Arizona supreme court ruled a divisive 19th-century near-total abortion ban would soon go into effect, almost two years after the overturning of Roe v Wade’s federal abortion rights protection by the US supreme court. The revived historical law in Arizona makes no exceptions for rape or incest and only allows abortions if the mother’s life is at risk.Lake has flip-flopped on the issue, previously supporting the law and now saying she opposes it.Democrats in the Arizona house of representatives are seeking to repeal the pending 1864 ban on abortion, but they will need the help of some Republicans in the closely divided legislature.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      House Republicans present Mayorkas impeachment articles to Senate

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      House Republicans on Tuesday formally presented articles of impeachment against Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to the Senate, part of the party’s attempt to force an election-year showdown with the Biden administration over immigration and border security.In a ceremonial procession, 11 House Republican impeachment managers carried the two articles of impeachment across the rotunda of the US Capitol, where they informed the Senate they were prepared, for the first time in American history, to prosecute a sitting cabinet secretary for “willful and systemic refusal” to enforce border policies and a “breach of public trust”.Constitutional scholars, including conservative legal experts, have said the Republicans’ impeachment case is deeply flawed and fails to meet the high bar of “high crimes and misdemeanors” outlined in the constitution.Democrats, who control the Senate, have made clear their intention to quickly dispense with the articles, arguing that the politically charged proceedings amount to little more than a policy dispute with the administration. A two-thirds majority is needed to win an conviction in the Senate, an impossible threshold if all of the Democrats are united in favor of dismissing the charges against Mayorkas, who retains the support of Joe Biden.In February, House Republicans bypassed skepticism within their own ranks and unified Democratic opposition to approve by a one-vote margin two articles of impeachment against the secretary, who they have made the face of the Biden administration’s struggle to control record migration at the US-Mexico border.“Impeachment should never be used to settle a policy disagreement,” the Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on Tuesday, adding: “Talk about awful precedents. This would set an awful precedent for Congress.”Schumer has said the Senate would convene on Wednesday as a “court of impeachment” and senators will be sworn in as jurors. Patty Murray, the Senate president pro tempore, a Democrat of Washington, presided over the chamber as the House homeland security chair, Mark Green of Tennessee, read the charges aloud.Schumer said he hoped to deal with the matter as “expeditiously as possible”. But Republicans are pressuring Democrats to hold a full trial.“We must hold those who engineered this crisis to full account,” the House speaker, Mike Johnson, said in a statement on Monday after signing the articles of impeachment. “Pursuant to the constitution, the House demands a trial.”Johnson initially delayed the delivery of the articles to focus on funding legislation to avert a government shutdown. Then the transmission was delayed again after Senate Republicans asked for more time to strategize ways to ensure a Senate trial.In remarks on Tuesday, Senator Mitch McConnell charged that it would be “beneath the Senate’s dignity to shrug off our clear responsibility” and not give thorough consideration to the charges against Mayorkas.“I will strenuously oppose any effort to table the articles of impeachment and avoid looking the Biden administration’s border crisis squarely in the face,” the Senate minority leader said.Mayorkas, the first Latino and first immigrant to lead the agency, has forcefully defended himself throughout the process, writing in a January letter to House Republicans: “Your false accusations do not rattle me.”Hours before the articles were delivered to the Senate, Mayorkas was on Capitol Hill, pressing Congress to provide his agency with more resources to enforce border policies and to pass legislation updating the nation’s outdated immigration laws.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Our immigration system, however, is fundamentally broken,” he told members of the House homeland security committee on Tuesday morning. “Only Congress can fix it. Congress has not updated our immigration enforcement laws since 1996 – 28 years ago. And, only Congress can deliver on our need for more border patrol agents, asylum officers and immigration judges, facilities and technology.”Republicans seized on the opportunity to assail Mayorkas, blaming him for the humanitarian crisis at the country’s southern border.“The open border is the number one issue across America in poll after poll and that is exactly why this committee impeached you,” said Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia congresswoman, one of 11 House Republicans tapped to serve as an impeachment manager.Several Republican senators have expressed deep skepticism about the House’s impeachment effort, former secretaries of homeland security as well as conservative legal scholars have denounced the Republicans’ case against Mayorkas as deeply flawed and warned that it threatens to undermine one of Congress’s most powerful tools for removing officials guilty of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors”.A group of Republican senators are contemplating ways to slow-walk the process, suggesting they will deliver lengthy speeches and raise time-consuming procedural inquiries to keep the attention on immigration, one of Biden’s greatest political vulnerabilities.Americans broadly disapprove of the president’s handling of the border, now a top concern for many voters. Ahead of the 2024 election, Republicans have assailed Biden over the border while Donald Trump, the party’s likely presidential nominee, has again put immigration at the center of his campaign.An attempt to pass a bipartisan border bill – negotiated by Mayorkas and touted as the most conservative piece of immigration legislation in decades – was derailed by Republicans at the behest of Trump, who did not want Biden to notch a victory on an issue that plays to the former president’s political advantage.Biden has also asked Congress to approve requests for more border patrol agents and immigration court judges, but Republicans have refused, saying Biden should use his executive authority to stem the flow of migrants. Biden has said he is mulling a far-reaching executive action that would dramatically reduce the number of asylum seekers who can cross the southern border. More

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      Mike Johnson unveils complex plan for Israel and Ukraine aid as pressure rises

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      Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, has unveiled a complicated proposal for passing wartime aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, rejecting pressure to approve a package sent over by the Senate and leaving its path to passage deeply uncertain.The Republican speaker huddled with fellow GOP lawmakers on Monday evening to lay out his strategy to gain House approval for the funding package. Facing an outright rebellion from conservatives who fiercely oppose aiding Ukraine, Johnson said he would push to get the package to the House floor under a single debate rule, then hold separate votes on aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and several foreign policy proposals, according to Republican lawmakers.However, the package would deviate from the $95bn aid package passed by the Senate in February, clouding its prospects for final passage in Congress.Johnson has faced mounting pressure to act on Joe Biden’s long-delayed request for billions of dollars in security assistance. It’s been more than two months since the Senate passed the $95bn aid package, which includes $14bn for Israel and $60bn for Ukraine.The issue gained new urgency after Iran’s weekend missile and drone attack on Israel. Congress, however, remains deeply divided.Johnson has declined to allow the Republican-controlled House to vote on the measure. The senate passed it with 70% bipartisan support and backers insist it would receive similar support in the House, but Johnson has given a variety of reasons not to allow a vote, among them the need to focus taxpayer dollars on domestic issues and reluctance to take up a Senate measure without more information.As the House has struggled to act, conflicts around the globe have escalated. Israel’s military chief said on Monday that his country will respond to Iran’s missile strike. And Ukraine’s military head over the weekend warned that the battlefield situation in the country’s east has “significantly worsened in recent days”, as warming weather has allowed Russian forces to launch a fresh offensive.Meanwhile, Joe Biden, who is hosting Petr Fiala, the Czech prime minister, at the White House, called on the House to take up the Senate funding package immediately. “They have to do it now,” he said.Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat, also put pressure on Johnson and pledged in a letter to lawmakers to do “everything in our legislative power to confront aggression” around the globe, and he cast the situation as similar to the lead-up to the second world war.“The gravely serious events of this past weekend in the Middle East and eastern Europe underscore the need for Congress to act immediately,” Jeffries said. “We must take up the bipartisan and comprehensive national security bill passed by the Senate forthwith. This is a Churchill or Chamberlain moment.”In the Capitol, Johnson’s approach could further incite the populist conservatives who are already angry at his direction as speaker.Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican Congresswoman from Georgia, is threatening to oust him as speaker. As she entered the closed-door Republican meeting on Monday, she said her message to the speaker was: “Don’t fund Ukraine.”The GOP meeting was filled with lawmakers at odds in their approach to Ukraine: Republican defense hawks, including the top lawmakers on national security committees, who want Johnson to finally take up the national security supplemental package as a bundle, are pitted against populist conservatives who are fiercely opposed to continued support for Kyiv’s fight.On the right, the House Freedom Caucus said Monday that it opposed “using the emergency situation in Israel as a bogus justification to ram through Ukraine aid with no offset and no security for our own wide-open borders”.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      ‘Donald Trump is a symptom, not the cause’: Tim Kaine’s journey to healing

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      Jack Kemp. Joe Lieberman. John Edwards. Sarah Palin. Paul Ryan. All ran for vice-president of the United States and fell short. All had to confront the question: what next? The same fate befell Tim Kaine, whose turn as running mate to Hillary Clinton in 2016 ended in a catastrophic defeat by Donald Trump and Mike Pence. The US has not recovered, as polarisation, rancour and looming criminal trials testify. But Kaine has.At 7.30am on the Monday after the 2016 election, the Virginia senator was back at work in his office. With Trump in the White House, the work of the Senate proved critical, including preserving Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. But as time wore on, Kaine found ways to nourish his soul – not on the campaign trail but the nature trail.To mark his 60th birthday and 25th year in public office, he invented his own triathlon in Virginia. On weekends and in Senate recess weeks, Kaine hiked (mostly solo) the 559 miles (900km) of the Appalachian Trail, biked 321 miles (517km) along the crest of the Blue Ridge mountains and canoed all 348 miles (560km) of the James River. He kept a 100-word-a-day diary on his phone, raw material for his first book, Walk, Ride, Paddle.The hike was the toughest, he recalls, averaging about 14 miles (22km) a day with a 30lb (14kg) backpack, mostly in the heat of August.“I’d have two litre bottles and I’d be getting down to no water and I’ve got to get to this next stream and I’d get there and it’d be bone dry and then oh, man, talk about depressing!” the 66-year-old tells the Guardian.“The physical challenge of the hike was very difficult. It wasn’t probably till I got to mile 300 that I quit thinking about ‘I don’t need to do this whole thing. Why be so type-A about it?’ But when I passed mile 300 and I only had 260 left, it’s like, I’m going to finish this but I don’t have to rush.”A former teacher and civil rights lawyer, Kaine is one of only 30 people in US history to have been a mayor, governor and senator. In person, in a conference room on Capitol Hill, he lives up to adjectives that often tail him: affable, genial, nice. Only in politics does that count as an insult.In 2016, the New Republic ran a headline: “Tim Kaine Is Too Boring to Be Clinton’s Running Mate.” The Washington Post wondered: “What’s a nice guy like Senator Tim Kaine doing in a campaign like this?” Kaine himself quipped on NBC: “I am boring. Boring is the fastest-growing demographic in this country.”True to form, no one should look to Walk, Ride, Paddle for tales of Teddy Roosevelt-esque derring-do. Like other vice-presidential near misses, Kaine never quite became a celebrity. To those who encountered him in the great outdoors, he was just another guy in baseball cap and hiking shorts.He recalls: “I would say maybe a quarter recognised me and of that quarter, half didn’t say they recognised me. You’re out on the trail to relax and they get that. I learned there’s a beautiful Emily Dickinson poem about once being famous:
      Fame is a bee.
      It has a song—
      It has a sting—
      Ah, too, it has a wing.
      “People would see me and if you see somebody and they’re not dressed the way you normally see them, you’re like, ‘I think I kind of know you, but I’m not sure.’ Sometimes people would know me. Most often they wouldn’t. And then sometimes they were, ‘I think I know you. What do you do?’ ‘I work in Washington.’ ‘What do you do in Washington?’ ‘I do some stuff in politics’. ‘What?’ ‘I’m a United States senator.’”The journey took about 30 months, from May 2019 to October 2021, a jaw-dropping period of American history that spanned two impeachment trials, a global pandemic, racial justice protests, a presidential election and the January 6 attack on the Capitol. When the Senate was in session, Kaine had a key part to play. When in nature, he could tune out the noise and contemplate his faith in friendship, God (he grew up in an Irish Catholic household) and America.View image in fullscreenHe likens the experience to a camper who wakes up, stuffs everything into their backpack and gets going.“I realised in the course of the hike that’s how I dealt with 2016. I showed up right back to work. I started working. I said, ‘I’ll sort it all out later.’“The hike was primarily by myself. That extended time, both the solitude but also the appreciation of nature and your humility in the grand scheme of things, was helpful in taking the stuff out of the pack that needed to be washed and folded and put away the right way.”His epiphany came not around how Trump won, or relitigating what mistakes the Clinton-Kaine campaign might have made, but reckoning with a deeper question: why is America going through this dark chapter? Early one morning, Kaine was hiking alone in fog and rain and nearing Mount Rogers, the highest peak in Virginia, when he thought about the biblical Book of Job.A faithful man who has it all, Job starts to lose his family, his business, his money and his health, compelling him to ask if the universe is pointless and neighbours to assume he is suffering divine retribution.Kaine says: “There’s two explanations of why people or maybe nations suffer: because you did something wrong or maybe it’s just all pointless and random. The reader of the story knows that neither is the case: Job’s being tested. The end of the story is, as mad as he is at God, he still is true to his principles and then what was lost to him is restored.”Kaine was just days away from Trump’s first Senate impeachment trial.“I’d never been on a jury ever in my life, even on a traffic case. I’m just like, I’m 61 years old and I thought I understood this country. What’s going on here?“It’s not necessarily punishment and it’s not necessarily random, but it could be a test. So we stay true to our principles. Belief in religious equality – are we going to kick Muslims around? Our belief in free press – are we going to expose journalists to intimidation, rule of law? No person should be above the law.“I started to think about the virtues that we claim about ourselves, some of which are truer than others, none of which we can perfectly attain. But maybe this is one of these moments to see whether we’re going to stay true to principle or abandon principle, and if we stay true to principle, maybe we’ll end up sadder but wiser but we’ll turn a corner and feel like we’ve passed. I think we’re surviving the test but I don’t think we passed it yet.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNo test was more severe than January 6, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s win. Having become less addicted to his phone during his communions with nature, Kaine forgot to take it into the Senate chamber.“It was hours after the beginning of the attack, when we were finally over in a committee room and they turned on TV monitors, that I realised, ‘Oh, man, this is what my parents are seeing, this what my kids are seeing, this is what my wife was seeing.’ So, ‘[Senator] Martin Heinrich [of New Mexico], give me your phone, I got to call people quick!’“It was a day that I never would have imagined, never will forget and hope is never repeated. It was very powerful and my overwhelming emotion was anger. There was a moment when we were in the committee room that CNN called the Georgia Senate race for Jon Ossoff, which meant that the Dems now had the Senate, and it was very much like, in the middle of this attack, the American public are saying, ‘OK, we’ve seen enough here, you guys take the wheel for a while.’ They handed the keys to us.”View image in fullscreenKaine went up to the Republican senator Lindsey Graham and told him Democrats would not have taken the majority but for Trump’s lies. Graham did not disagree. Kaine said the same thing to the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, and saw a level of anger in his eyes he had never witnessed before.“The other thing that happened about three hours after we were in the room, the Virginia state police cruisers arrive to help the Capitol police. I went over to [fellow Virginia senator] Mark Warner and said the last time there was an insurrection against the United States, Virginia was leading it. Now here there’s an insurrection that’s being inspired by the president of the United States and Virginia is coming to the rescue of the union. We were both very emotional as we thought about that.”In his book, Kaine, a senator since 2013, acknowledges painful lessons about a country he thought he understood. While he has always been an optimist, he writes, Trump is “a symptom of a national sickness”. Trump is energising and galvanising for Democrats but also brings “a level of dread and tension” to everyday life.Kaine explains: “I was a missionary in Honduras when I was a young man and it was a military dictatorship and it made me be less naive: this authoritarian thing is still real, a lot of people live that way. But even then, when I came back, I still was naive because I thought that would never be something we would see in the United States, the authoritarian impulse.“But it’s Donald Trump and it’s [Nayib] Bukele [of El Salvador] and [Viktor] Orbán [of Hungary] and [Vladimir] Putin [of Russia]. You just go place to place, continent to continent, you’re going to see examples of this. The struggle between the authoritarianism and the democratic impulses is very live right now here and everywhere. That’s the global sickness that I’m talking about. Donald Trump is a symptom. He’s not the cause.”Kaine is one of a small group to have run on a US presidential ticket. His advice to Biden and Kamala Harris: continue to emphasise democracy and freedom, which connect January 6, Russia’s war on Ukraine and rightwing threats to reproductive rights. He also believes they have accomplishments to sell, including the best post-Covid recovery of any major economy.“People aren’t feeling the vibe yet,” Kaine admits, attributing this to a Covid “hangover”.“As I travel around Virginia, this is such a common phrase: ‘I’m doing pretty well but I’m not so sure about three months from now.’ They acknowledge first that economically things are OK but, just around the corner, ‘I’m sure what I’m going to see.’ The Biden-Harris ticket – and I’m on the ticket too because I’m running in 2024 – we just have to sell, sell, sell. The good news is we have a lot to sell.”The alternative, a replay of 2016, putting Trump back in the White House, is too much to bear.“I don’t want to contemplate it. We’re coming up on celebrating our 250th birthday in 2026. I want there to be a vigorous democracy for our kids and grandkids to inherit. And by vigorous, that doesn’t mean just do it the way we did it. Each generation has to decide how to renew these traditions and make them better.“But I don’t view Donald Trump as a guy who’s committed to institutions: one man one vote, free press, independent judiciary, professionalised civil service, civilian control of the military. Donald Trump is committed to himself but he’s not committed to democratic institutions and virtues. He’s done enormous harm to them.“We can wake up from that and, like Job, stick to our principles, become sadder and wiser but still pass the test that is before us. But he will do enormous damage to this nation and to others in the world with a second term.”
      Walk, Ride, Paddle: A Life Outside is published in the US by Harper Horizon More

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      Japanese leader asks US to overcome ‘self-doubt’ about global leadership

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      Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, on Thursday called on Americans to overcome their “self-doubt” as he offered a paean to US global leadership before a bitterly divided Congress.Warning of risks from the rise of China, Kishida said that Japan – stripped of its right to a military after the second world war – was determined to do more to share responsibility with its ally the United States.“As we meet here today, I detect an undercurrent of self-doubt among some Americans about what your role in the world should be,” Kishida told a joint session of the House of Representatives and Senate during a state visit to Washington.“The international order that the US worked for generations to build is facing new challenges, challenges from those with values and principles very different from ours,” Kishida said.Kishida said he understood “the exhaustion of being the country that has upheld the international order almost single-handedly” but added: “The leadership of the United States is indispensable.“Without US support, how long before the hopes of Ukraine would collapse under the onslaught from Moscow?” he asked.“Without the presence of the United States, how long before the Indo-Pacific would face even harsher realities?”He sought to remind lawmakers of the leading role the US has played globally since the second world war. After dropping two nuclear weapons on Japan to end the war, the US helped rebuild Japan, and the nations transformed from bitter enemies to close allies. “When necessary, it made noble sacrifices to fulfill its commitment to a better world,” Kishida said of the US.While he was careful not to touch on US domestic politics, Kishida’s address comes amid a deadlock in Congress on approving billions of dollars in additional military aid to Ukraine, due to pressure from hard-right Republicans aligned with their presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump.Kishida met on Wednesday with Joe Biden where they pledged to step up cooperation, including with new three-way air defenses involving the United States, Japan and Australia.Sending a clear signal toward China, Kishida meets again with the president on Thursday for a three-way summit with President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, which has been on the receiving end of increasingly assertive Chinese moves in dispute-rife waters.Kishida said that China’s military actions “present an unprecedented, and the greatest, security challenge”.China’s actions pose challenges “not only to the peace and security of Japan but to the peace and stability of the international community at large”, he said.Kishida’s speech, from the dais where Biden delivered a raucous State of the Union address a month ago, marked a rare moment of bipartisan unity in Congress.Lawmakers across party lines offered repeated standing ovations as Kishida reaffirmed support for Ukraine, warned of Chinese influence and highlighted Japanese investment in the United States.The prime minister, who spent part of his childhood in New York City, read his address in fluent English, after speaking in Japanese at his news conference with Biden.He mentioned how he watched the classic cartoon The Flintstones as a child in New York.“I still miss that show, although I could never translate, ‘Yabba Dabba Doo’,” he said. More

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      Mitt Romney says Alejandro Mayorkas’s actions do not merit impeachment

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      Alejandro Mayorkas is not guilty of a high crime or misdemeanour, the Republican senator Mitt Romney said, making clear he will not vote to remove the US homeland security secretary from office if his impeachment goes to a trial.“Secretary Mayorkas is following the position of his party and of the president who was elected,” Romney, from Utah and his party’s nominee for president in 2012, told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday.“We have pointed out that President Biden is for open borders, as are the Democrats, and Mayorkas is simply following that policy. It’s the wrong policy, it has a huge damaging effect on the country – but it’s not a high crime or misdemeanour.”Republicans have zeroed in on undocumented migration and the southern border as campaign issues in an election year.House Republicans impeached Mayorkas in February but have not yet formally sent the articles of impeachment across the Capitol to the Senate. On Tuesday, John Kennedy, a Republican senator from Louisiana, told reporters that process would now be delayed until Monday.Under article two, section four of the US constitution, “the president, vice-president and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours”.Debate over what exactly constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanours” is a constant of US political life.Impeachment is meant to be rare: from the founding until Donald Trump only two presidents were impeached and both, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, were acquitted at trial.Donald Trump, however, was impeached twice: first for seeking to blackmail Ukraine for dirt on political rivals, second for inciting an insurrection, the attack on Congress of 6 January 2021.Romney was the only Republican to vote to convict both times. Now a lonely anti-Trump Republican voice, he will quit Congress this year.Democrats control the Senate, making conviction and removal of Mayorkas a near impossibility. But Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, must still decide what to do. Republicans are pressing for a trial. Schumer has indicated Democrats will do so, though they do not have to.Romney said: “Precedent is a matter of interpretation in this case. There have been impeachments that have been brought forward that did not go to trial in part because the people left office.”The last impeachment of a cabinet official concerned William Belknap, secretary of war to President Ulysses S Grant, in 1876. Belknap resigned, was tried anyway on charges of corruption, and acquitted.Romney did not say if he would vote to table the articles of impeachment, thereby avoiding a trial.“What does one do will depend on what the legal options are,” he said. “When to vote and how is uncertain at this stage. I believe a high crime or misdemeanour has not been alleged.” More