US Senate

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Pelosi to depart as top House Democrat to make way for ‘new generation’

      by

      Pelosi to depart as top House Democrat to make way for ‘new generation’Outgoing speaker, 82, who has led House Democrats for two decades, makes announcement after Republicans win control Nancy Pelosi, a giant of American politics and the first woman to lead the House of Representatives, is stepping down from leadership to make way for a new generation, she said on Thursday.The 82-year-old, an ally of Joe Biden who led congressional Democrats for two decades, made the announcement after Republicans regained a majority in the chamber.Election denier Kari Lake refuses to concede Arizona governor race she lostRead more“With great confidence in our caucus, I will not seek re-election to Democratic leadership in the next Congress,” Pelosi said in a speech on the House floor. “For me, the hour’s come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect, and I’m grateful that so many are ready and willing to shoulder this awesome responsibility.”The outgoing speaker, wearing a Mace of the Republic brooch and a white suit that nodded to the suffragist movement, was greeted with a standing ovation. In an emotional scene House Democrats gathered around her, some tearful and many embracing her or planting kisses on her cheek.Biden led tributes to Pelosi’s career. In a statement released by the White House, the president described her as “the most consequential speaker of the House of Representatives in our history.“There are countless examples of how she embodies the obligation of elected officials to uphold their oath to God and country to ensure our democracy delivers and remains a beacon to the world. In everything she does, she reflects a dignity in her actions and a dignity she sees in the lives of the people of this nation.”Pelosi, a congresswoman from California, was the highest-ranking and most powerful elected woman in American history until Kamala Harris became vice-president in January last year.A devout Catholic, she grew up in Baltimore, the daughter of Thomas D’Alesandro Jr, a Democratic mayor and former congressman. By the age of 30, she was the mother of five children. “When I first came to the floor at six years old, never would I have thought that someday I would go from homemaker to House speaker,” she reflected on Thursday.Pelosi was first elected to the House in a special election and steadily moved up the ranks. She broke a glass ceiling in 2007 when she was elected the first woman to serve as speaker – a position second in line to the presidency – and steered then president Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law through the House.Regaining the position in 2019, she earned plaudits for her no-nonsense approach to then president Donald Trump. She memorably ripped up a copy of his speech just as he finished his third State of the Union address. She was the first speaker in history to oversee two House votes to impeach a president.In her remarks, Pelosi, who will remain in Congress, said she had enjoyed working with three presidents (George Bush, Obama and Biden), making no mention of Trump. She welcomed last week’s midterm elections, in which numerous election deniers loyal to Trump were defeated.“With these elections, the people stood in the breach and repelled the assault on democracy. They resoundingly rejected violence and insurrection and, in doing so, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there” – a reference to the national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.In recent days Pelosi had said the 28 October assault on her husband, Paul, by a hammer-wielding intruder in their San Francisco home, and other factors, would affect her decision on whether to continue.00:50David Axelrod, a former chief strategist for Obama, tweeted: “People will honor Speaker Pelosi as the first woman to hold that post. But history will remember her as one of the most skillful, durable and accomplished legislative leaders in American history. A truly towering figure. One of a kind.”Along with Biden, who turns 80 on Sunday, Democrats’ ageing leadership has raised questions about the party’s next generation.Her retirement sets up a leadership battle among contenders including the caucus chair, Hakeem Jeffries, 52, from New York. House Democrats are set to vote on their leaders on 30 November.On Wednesday, House Republicans offered initial support for Kevin McCarthy to serve as speaker when the next Congress convenes. McCarthy, also from California, currently serves as House Republican leader and will face election by the entire House at the start of the new year. It is not yet clear if he will gain enough backing from fellow Republicans to win the speakership.Republicans’ majority in the House will be much smaller than polls had predicted, a headache for whoever wins the speakership. Each member will have huge sway over what happens in the chamber, paving the way for potentially chaotic battles over government funding and other measures. Many are aligned with Trump.But control of House committees will give Republicans the ability to blunt Biden’s legislative agenda, as well as to launch potentially politically damaging investigations of his administration and family.On Thursday, Jim Jordan of Ohio and James Comer of Kentucky, the top Republicans on the House judiciary and oversight committees, signalled their intent by announcing an investigation to determine the extent of Biden’s involvement in his son Hunter’s business dealings.“We want to know what the Biden administration is trying to hide from the American people,” Comer said at a press conference, alleging that the Bidens “flourished and became millionaires by simply offering access to the family”.Joe Biden has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. In 2020 the Politifact website concluded that there is no evidence that Hunter Biden came close to breaking the law, much less any evidence that his father has done so.Kyle Herrig, executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project watchdog, said: “Instead of addressing the issues that affect the American people the most, they are acting like Donald Trump and pushing their radical Maga [Make America Great Again] Republican agenda. They haven’t learned their lesson.”The Democratic National Committee said in a statement: “The new Republican House majority features election deniers, conspiracy theorists, and Maga extremists. Whatever Republican wins the speaker race will be completely beholden to extreme Maga Republicans and you can count on House Republicans to remind Americans every day just how extreme their party is.”Any legislation that emerges from the House could face steep odds in the Senate, where Democrats won a slim majority on Saturday. Both parties are looking to a 6 December Senate runoff in Georgia to strengthen their hand.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsHouse of RepresentativesUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

    • 213 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Nancy Pelosi says she will not seek re-election as Democratic leader in House – as it happened

      by

      Nancy Pelosi has announced she will step down as House Democratic leader after nearly two decades, but remain as a lawmaker in the chamber.“There is no greater official honor for me than to stand on this floor and to speak for the people of San Francisco. This I will continue to do as a member of the House – speaking for the people of San Francisco, serving the great state of California and defending our constitution,” Pelosi said.“And with great confidence in our caucus, I will not seek re-election to Democratic leadership in the next Congress.”Nancy Pelosi will not run again for a position in House Democratic leadership, ending her nearly two decades as one of the most powerful figures in the party and the first woman to serve as speaker of Congress’s lower chamber. In a speech, she reflected on her decades representing San Francisco in Congress, and found time to throw shade at Donald Trump.Here’s what else happened today:
      Pelosi’s number-two, Steny Hoyer, will also leave House Democratic leadership, paving the way for a younger generation to take over the party’s top jobs.
      House Republicans are plowing ahead with plans to investigate Hunter Biden’s business ties, casting it as an inquiry into alleged corruption by Joe Biden.
      Arizona’s governor’s race may be over, but not for Republican candidate Kari Lake.
      The January 6 committee interviewed a Secret Service agent who Trump supposedly lunged at during a struggle for the steering wheel of his limo as he tried to get to the Capitol during the insurrection.
      Democratic senators want the Federal Trade Commission to look into how things are going at Twitter since Elon Musk took over.
      Donald Trump’s network of properties aren’t just good places to allegedly store government secrets – they’re also big-time moneymakers for the former president, according to a new report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).Starting from January 20, 2021, when Trump departed the White House, the former president has made hundreds of thousands of dollars off of lawmakers and other candidates from more than 500 visits to Mar-a-Lago in south Florida and his other properties. A few of the finer points from CREW’s report:
      Sixty-seven senators and House lawmakers have visited Trump’s properties 187 times since he left office. The incoming Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy is the biggest spender, putting down more than $250,000 at the former president’s real estate over five visits, despite the lawmaker’s condemnation of Trump after the January 6 attack.
      State officials including governors, attorney generals and lawmakers have made 106 visits to the president’s properties. Despite their budding rivalry, Florida governor Ron DeSantis showed up the most out of this group, making seven visits.
      Candidates for various offices at the state and federal levels have made nearly half of all political visits to the Trump properties, with 140 aspirants stopping by 236 times. Anna Paulina Luna, an incoming House representative from Florida, made six visits, while Kari Lake, who failed in her bid for Arizona’s governorship, made five. In fact, the New York Times reports that Lake stopped by today:
      Seen at Mar-a-Lago: Kari Lake, per a source.— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 17, 2022
      Meanwhile in Georgia, the bloopers are piling up as Republican Herschel Walker continues his campaign for Senate, ahead of the state’s 6 December run-off election. Martin Pengelly watched footage of the latest, so you don’t have to:In a campaign speech on Wednesday, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Georgia, Herschel Walker, told supporters: “I don’t want to be a vampire any more. I want to be a werewolf.”The remark was the latest controversial or outright bizarre intervention from the former football star who like other candidates endorsed by Donald Trump struggled to overcome his Democratic opponent in the midterm elections.Raphael Warnock, the incumbent Georgia senator, outpolled Walker last week but did not pass 50% of the vote, meaning that under state law a runoff will be held on 6 December. Control of the Senate has been decided, after Democrats won in Arizona and Nevada, but the Georgia race will still be keenly watched.On Wednesday, Walker spoke in McDonough.Choosing to rehash the plot of a film he said he recently watched late at night, whose title he remembered as “Fright Night, Freak Night, or some type of night”, he said in rambling remarks: “I don’t know if you know, but vampires are some cool people, are they not? But let me tell you something that I found out: a werewolf can kill a vampire. Did you know that? I never knew that.“So, I don’t want to be a vampire any more. I want to be a werewolf.”Herschel Walker says in rambling speech he wants to be ‘werewolf, not vampire’ Read moreSeven Democratic senators have sent the Federal Trade Commission a letter to express concerns about changes made by Elon Musk to Twitter, asking the regulator to “vigorously oversee” the social media platform’s consent decree and compliance with consumer privacy laws.“We write regarding Twitter’s serious, willful disregard for the safety and security of its users, and encourage the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate any breach of Twitter’s consent decree or other violations of our consumer protection laws,” begins the letter to the commissions’s chair Lina Khan, which was signed by Richard Blumenthal, Dianne Feinstein, Ben Ray Luján, Elizabeth Warren, Edward J. Markey, Cory Booker and Robert Menendez.“In recent weeks, Twitter’s new Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk, has taken alarming steps that have undermined the integrity and safety of the platform, and announced new features despite clear warnings those changes would be abused for fraud, scams, and dangerous impersonation,” the letter continues, noting the layoffs and resignations that have hit the company since Musk, the world’s richest man, took over last month.They also take issue with the bungled launch of the Twitter Blue service, which allows anyone to receive a verified account for $8 a month. The senators note it led to an explosion of impostor accounts, including “scammers impersonating companies and celebrities for cryptocurrency schemes, identity theft, and other financial crimes.”“We are concerned that the actions taken by Mr. Musk and others in Twitter management could already represent a violation of the FTC’s consent decree, which prohibits misrepresentation and requires that Twitter maintain a comprehensive information security program,” the senators write.“We urge the Commission to vigorously oversee its consent decree with Twitter and to bring enforcement actions against any breaches or business practices that are unfair or deceptive, including bringing civil penalties and imposing liability on individual Twitter executives where appropriate.”The Senate’s top Democrat Chuck Schumer made the journey to the House to watch Nancy Pelosi announce the end of her time in Democratic leadership.Here’s his thoughts on the end of the Pelosi era, delivered on the Senate floor:Thank you, @SpeakerPelosi. It is the honor of a lifetime to work with you. pic.twitter.com/V9pUMpSKAJ— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) November 17, 2022
      Reaction continues to come in after Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that she will not run for leadership of House Democrats again.Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics, says her organization has “witnessed a great deal of history in our 50 years of observing women’s roles in American politics, but among the most significant is Nancy Pelosi’s ascension as the first woman speaker of the US House of Representatives.“She has been, throughout her career, a symbol of the heights of aspiration for American women and girls … Nancy Pelosi will be remembered as one of the most consequential speakers in modern history, holding together an often-fractious caucus, shepherding momentous legislation, and wielding influence in ways that earned respect from allies and opponents alike.“She has weathered unprecedented vitriol but was nonetheless dedicated to consensus-building and results. She also prioritized the leadership of other women – encouraging and supporting women across the country to run for office. She presided over the largest ever increase in women’s representation in the US House, as well as the most diverse Democratic caucus in history … she has shown the world and future generations the unlimited potential of women’s leadership.”And here’s Danielle Melfi, executive director of the pro-Biden administration group Building Back Together: “Speaker Pelosi’s legacy is without equal in Congress. From the Affordable Care Act to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Dodd-Frank reforms, she has championed some of the most impactful legislation of the last four decades.“She fights for the interests of children and working families in California and across the country, broke down barriers as the first woman to serve as speaker of the House, and is a stalwart defender of our democracy – particularly in the wake of the January 6 attack. “Among her countless policy achievements, the speaker was instrumental in passing key elements of President Biden’s agenda, including the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Chips and Science Act, the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and the Pact Act – each of them a historic win for working families.”Interesting news emerging on the January 6 front via Annie Grayer of CNN, who reports that the House select committee “is interviewing Secret Service agent Robert Engel, the lead agent in former president Donald Trump’s motorcade on the day of the US Capitol attack, two sources [say]”.Grayer adds that “Engel was the agent Cassidy Hutchinson testified she was told Trump lunged at” when he was told he could not follow his supporters to the Capitol after his speech near the White House.Trump denies lunging at agents on his protective detail. Here’s video of Hutchinson’s testimony, in which she said: “The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr Engel grabbed his arm, said, ‘Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol.’ Mr Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel.”01:42In other January 6 news, there follows a write-up of Mike Pence’s statement to CBS in an interview that he will not testify because he thinks the committee is partisan and also doesn’t think he, as an ex-vice-president, should have to testify “about deliberations that took place at the White House”.Pence’s detailed descriptions of detailed deliberations that took place at the White House are currently available from all good booksellers – and no doubt quite a few bad ones too.Of course, accounts of detailed deliberations that took place at the White House as contained in memoirs aimed at the 2024 Republican primary are not given under oath. But testimony to congressional committees is, as the January 6 chair and vice-chair, Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney, made clear in their response to Pence.In short, testimony such as Hutchinson’s about Trump lunging at agents is “subject to criminal penalties for lying to Congress”. So news that Engel is interviewing with the committee is interesting to say the least.Further reading:Cheney hits back as Pence says January 6 committee has ‘no right’ to testimonyRead moreDave Wasserman, US House editor at the nonpartisan Cook Report political analysis website, says the Democrat Mary Peltola has won in Alaska, beating two Republicans, Nick Begich and the former governor and John McCain vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.I’ve seen enough: Rep. Mary Peltola (D) wins reelection in #AKAL, defeating Sarah Palin (R) and Nick Begich (R).— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 17, 2022
      Though Republicans have won the House back from Democrats this still qualifies for a “huge if true” – the Guardian follows the Associated Press, which has not called the Alaska race yet – and not only because Palin seems to have lost again in her attempt to return to meaningful political office.When she won a special election for the seat earlier this year, Peltola became the first Alaska Native elected to Congress.“I want to work with everyone and anyone who is a reasonable person to find solutions to Alaska’s challenges,” she told the Guardian then:‘I want to work with everyone’: Alaska’s history-making new congresswomanRead moreMore on Kari Lake and her refusal to concede defeat in the governor’s race in Arizona, where the Trump-endorsed Republican lost to her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs.Lake posted a two-minute statement to Twitter earlier. She began: “Hi, Arizona … I wanted to reach out to you to let you know that I am still in this fight with you. For two years I’ve been sounding the alarm about our broken election system here in Arizona. And this past week has confirmed everything we’ve been saying.”Lake proceeded to recount a list of evidence-free claims against Hobbs, the secretary of state who oversaw the election, and about supposed suspicious outcomes at the polls last week.Reporting Lake’s statement for the Guardian, Sam Levine writes: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There were equipment malfunctions at about a third of polling locations on election day in Maricopa county, but voters were still able to cast their ballots. Officials had figured out a solution by the afternoon. A county judge also rejected a lawsuit filed by Republicans to extend voting hours, saying there was no evidence voters had been disenfranchised.”Lake said she was “busy here collecting evidence and data” and had “assembled the best and brightest legal team and we are exploring every avenue to correct the many wrongs that have been done this past week”. “I’m doing everything in my power to right these wrongs,” she said. “My resolve to fight for you is higher than ever.”She also referred to being part of a “movement [that] started in Arizona and it quickly expanded to all 50 states … a movement of mama bears and papa bears and students and Arizonans who love this country”.Lake concluded by promising “one thing. This fight to save our republic has just begun”.Sam has more:Election denier Kari Lake refuses to concede Arizona governor race she lostRead moreNancy Pelosi will not run again for a position in House Democratic leadership, ending her nearly two decades as one of the most powerful figures in the party and the first woman to serve as speaker of Congress’s lower chamber. In a speech on the floor, she talked about her decades representing San Francisco in Congress, and found time to throw shade on Donald Trump.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Pelosi’s number-two, Steny Hoyer, will also leave House Democratic leadership, paving the way for a younger generation to take over the party’s top jobs.
      House Republicans are plowing ahead with plans to investigate Hunter Biden’s business ties, casting it as an inquiry into alleged corruption by Joe Biden.
      Arizona’s governor’s race may be over, but not for Republican candidate Kari Lake.
      As she announced her plans to step down from House leadership, Nancy Pelosi managed to get in one more dig at Donald Trump.“I have enjoyed working with three presidents, achieving historic investments in clean energy with President George Bush, transformed healthcare reform with President Barack Obama … and forging the future, from infrastructure to healthcare to climate action, with President Joe Biden,” she said on the House floor.The problem is, Pelosi worked with four presidents. Trump is left unmentioned.What moment might the House speaker remember most fondly from the former Republican president’s time in office? Perhaps it would be when she tore up Trump’s State of the Union address right after he finished delivering it. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Q&A: what does a split Congress mean for US politics?

      by

      ExplainerQ&A: what does a split Congress mean for US politics?With Republicans in control of the House and Democrats holding the Senate, expect a legislative logjam Republicans officially captured control of the House on Wednesday, as the Associated Press called the 218th seat for the party. The House victory ends four years of Democratic control of the lower chamber, handing Republicans the speakership and the chairmanships of key committees, while Democrats will maintain control of the Senate.But the incoming Republican speaker has the unenviable task of attempting to pass legislation with a very narrow majority, where only a few defections within the party will be enough to kill a bill.Republicans had hoped that a “red wave” in the midterm elections would allow them to flip dozens of House seats, giving them a much more comfortable majority. Instead, Republicans were barely about to flip the House, and Democrats may even be able to increase their Senate majority depending on the results of the Georgia runoff next month.With the House and the Senate now both called, Washington is bracing for at least two years of split control of Congress. Here’s what we can expect. :Will Congress be able to pass any bills?It will be extremely difficult for Democrats to advance their legislative agenda. Republicans can use their majority power to block any bills passed by the Democratic Senate from even getting a vote on the House floor.Since Joe Biden took office, some notable bills have passed the House with bipartisan support, including the infrastructure law that the president signed late last year. But the new Republican speaker will probably be hesitant to hand Biden and his party any more policy wins before the 2024 presidential race, which could result in a legislative logjam.How will Republicans use their House majority?Given their very narrow majority, House Republicans may have trouble advancing major legislation through the chamber. Even if they are able to pass something, the bill would almost certainly fail in the Democratic Senate, so it seems likely House Republicans will focus most of their attention on investigations and executive oversight.Even before polls closed last Tuesday, House Republicans had outlined plans to launch a series of investigations into the Biden administration and members of the president’s family. Republican members have expressed keen interest in investigating the administration’s handling of the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden’s oversight of the US-Mexican border and his son Hunter’s overseas business dealings.Some of the far-right members of the House Republican caucus have also threatened to use their new majority to hold up must-pass bills, including a debt ceiling hike. If the debt ceiling – essentially, the maximum amount the US government can borrow – is not raised, it could jeopardize the entire US economy. Some House Republicans have signaled they want to withhold support for a debt ceiling increase until they secure concessions on government spending and entitlement programs.The new House Republican majority could also threaten proposals to send more military aid to Ukraine amidst its war against Russia. The far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has said that “not another penny will go to Ukraine” once Republicans take control, alarming Ukraine’s allies on Capitol Hill and abroad. With such a narrow majority, it only takes a few votes to block bills.Who will replace Nancy Pelosi as House speaker?That is a question that many House Republicans are asking themselves right now as well. The obvious frontrunner for the role – which oversees, manages and directs the majority party in the House – is Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who has served as House minority leader since 2019.But McCarthy has faced some dissent from within his own caucus, and it remains unclear whether he can get the 218 votes needed to become speaker. On Tuesday, the House Republican caucus easily nominated McCarthy as their speaker candidate, but 31 members cast ballots for the far-right Arizona lawmaker Andy Biggs. That tally could spell disaster for McCarthy when the full floor vote is held in January.“My position remains the same until further notice – no one has 218 (or close, as needed),” Chip Roy, a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus who nominated Biggs, told the Texas Tribune on Tuesday. “We have to sit down and establish the fundamental changes needed.”How will Biden work with the new Republican speaker?Before becoming president, Biden built a reputation in the Senate for his ability to reach across the aisle and strike compromise with his Republican colleagues. During the 2020 Democratic primary, Biden boasted about how he was even able to work with hardline segregationists such as James Eastland and Strom Thurmond. Those comments, meant to demonstrate Biden’s collaborative nature, outraged many Democratic primary voters.But in recent months, Biden has become increasingly vocal in his criticism of the modern Republican party, which he says is beholden to Donald Trump and hostile to democratic principles. “Donald Trump and the Maga Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” Biden said in September.McCarthy has responded to Biden’s criticism by accusing the president of having “chosen to divide, demean, and disparage his fellow Americans … simply because they disagree with his policies”.So if McCarthy does manage to capture the speakership, he and Biden will not be starting off their new relationship on the best footing. When a reporter asked Biden last week about his relationship with McCarthy, the president deflected.“I think he’s the Republican leader, and I haven’t had much of [an] occasion to talk to him,” Biden replied. “But I will be talking to him.”What can Democrats get done without control of the House?Democrats’ continued control of the Senate ensures that they will still be able to approve Biden’s cabinet and judicial nominations. Their Senate majority will allow Democrats to install more liberal judges in key posts, and it could give them the ability to fill another supreme court seat if one opens up in the next two years.But overall, Democrats’ best opportunity to enact change between now and 2024 may come down to the power of the executive. Biden has already signed more than 100 executive orders since becoming president, according to the Presidency Project at University of California Santa Barbara.Biden has used executive orders to overturn some of Trump’s most controversial policies, such as halting funding for construction of a wall at the US-Mexican border, and to advance progressive proposals that would otherwise stall in Congress. Biden’s order to provide student debt relief of up to $20,000 for millions of borrowers was celebrated by the president’s progressive allies, although the policy is now facing legal challenges.With Republicans now in control of the House, Biden could soon be reaching for his executive pen more frequently.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US CongressRepublicansDemocratsUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesUS SenateexplainersReuse this content More

    • 188 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Donald Trump announces 2024 run for president nearly two years after inspiring deadly Capitol riot

      by

      Donald Trump announces 2024 run for president nearly two years after inspiring deadly Capitol riotTwice-impeached ex-president makes expected election announcement despite shaky midterms and surge from rival Ron DeSantis00:52Donald Trump on Tuesday night announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, likely sparking another period of tumult in US politics and especially his own political party.“In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said from ballroom of his private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he stood on a stage crowded with American flags and Make America Great Again banners.Vowing to defeat Joe Biden in 2024, he declared: “America’s golden age is just ahead.”The long-expected announcement by a twice-impeached president who incited a deadly attack on Congress seems guaranteed to deepen a stark partisan divide that has fueled fears of increased political violence.Who’s next? Republicans who might go up against Trump in 2024Read moreBut it also comes as Trump’s standing in the Republican party has suddenly been put into question. Trump spoke at Mar-a-Lago a week after midterm elections in which his Republican party did not make expected gains, losing the Senate and seeming on course for only a narrow majority in the US House.In his remarks, Trump took credit for Republicans’ performance victory in the House, even though they are poised to capture a far narrower majority than anticipated. “Nancy Pelosi has been fired. Isn’t that nice?” he said. The Associated Press has not yet projected which party will win the majority.In a party hitherto dominated by Trump, defeats suffered by high-profile, Trump-endorsed candidates led to open attacks on the former president and calls to delay his announcement or not to run at all. As Trump’s standing has slipped, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has surged into strong contention after sailing to reelection last week.Trump’s announcement also coincided on Tuesday with the release of Mike Pence’s memoir, So Help Me God, in which the ex-president’s once-faithful lieutenant criticizes him for his conduct on January 6. The former vice-president is also maneuvering toward a possible 2024 run despite falling out of favor with the Maga base.Brushing past Republican setbacks in 2022 and his defeat in 2020, Trump insisted that he was the only candidate who could deliver a Republican victory in 2024.“This is not a task for a politician or a conventional candidate,” he said. “This is a task for a great movement.”His third candidacy comes as he faces intensifying legal troubles, including investigations by the justice department into the removal of hundreds of classified documents from the White House to his Florida estate and into his role in the 6 January attack. Trump has denied wrongdoing and used the attacks to further his narrative that he has been unfairly targeted by his political opponents and a shadowy “deep state” bureaucracy.“I’m a victim,” Trump said, making reference to the Russia investigation and the raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate. On Tuesday, Trump nevertheless pressed forward with his run.Painting a bleak portrait of the United States, with “blood-soaked” city streets and an “invasion” at the southern border, Trump said his campaign was a “quest to save our country.”In the less than two years since Biden took office, a period Trump referred to as “the pause”, he accused his successor of inflicting “pain, hardship, anxiety and despair” with his economic and domestic policies.Trump offered an alternative vision, which he called the “national greatness agenda”. Among the policy proposals he endorsed on Tuesday were the death penalty for drug dealers, term limits for members of Congress and planting an American flag on Mars. And wading into the social fights he enjoys inflaming, Trump promised to protect “paternal rights” and keep transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.Though he made no explicit mention of his stolen-election lies, he promised to overhaul the nation’s voting laws, vowing that a winner would be declared on election night. In close contests, it can take several days before enough votes are tabulated in a state to project a winner, but Trump and his allies have seized on the delay to spread baseless conspiracy theories about results.Despite promising to deliver remarks as “elegant” as the gold-plated room he was standing in, Trump’s rambling, hourlong speech turned to name-calling and ridicule, lashing the “fake news”, mocking the former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s accent and accusing Biden of “falling asleep” at international conferences. At one point, he appeared to confuse the civil war with the reconstruction period that followed and scoffed at climate science.Without acknowledging his 2020 defeat, Trump insisted that beating Biden in 2024 would be much easier because “everybody sees what a bad job has been done.”He called Biden the “face of left-wing failure and government corruption” and accused him of worsening inflation and “surrendering” America’s energy independence. He also slammed the administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan as “the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country”.“Our country is being destroyed before your very eyes,” he said, casting his four years in office as a glowing success, despite leaving behind a nation shaken by disease and political turmoil.Now 76, Trump was long seen as a colorful if controversial presence in American life, a thrice-married New York real-estate mogul, reality TV star and tabloid fixture who flirted with politics but never committed.But in 2015, after finding a niche as a prominent voice for rightwing opposition to Barack Obama – and a racist conspiracy theory about Obama’s birth – Trump entered the race for the Republican nomination to succeed the 44th president.Proving immune to scandal, whether over personal conduct, allegations of sexual assault or persistent courting of the far right, he obliterated a huge Republican field then pulled off a historic shock by beating the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 election.Trump’s presidency was chaotic but undoubtedly historic. Senate Republicans playing political and constitutional hardball helped install three supreme court justices, cementing a dominant rightwing majority which has now removed the right to abortion and weakened gun control laws while eyeing further significant change.Trump is running for president again – but these legal battles might stand in the wayRead moreTrump’s third supreme court pick, replacing the liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Amy Coney Barrett, a hardline Catholic, came shortly before the 2020 election. That contest, with Obama’s vice-president, Joe Biden, was fought under the shadow of protests for racial justice and the coronavirus pandemic, the latter a test badly mishandled by Trump’s administration as hundreds of thousands died.Trump was conclusively beaten, Biden racking up more than 7m more votes and the same electoral college win, 306-232, that Trump enjoyed over Clinton, a victory Trump then called a landslide.But Trump’s refusal to accept defeat, based on his “big lie” about electoral fraud, fueled election subversion efforts in key states, the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol by supporters and far-right groups, a second impeachment for inciting that insurrection (and a second acquittal, if with more Republican defections) and a deepening crisis of US democracy.01:41With a third White House bid, Trump hopes to defy political history. Only one former president, Grover Cleveland, has served two nonconsecutive terms. Cleveland was elected in 1884 and 1892, but, unlike Trump, he won the popular vote in the intervening election of 1888.Trump flirted with announcing a new run throughout Biden’s first two years in power, ultimately delaying until after midterm elections, which did not go as he or his party expected. But while high-profile backers of Trump’s stolen election myth were defeated, among them his choice for Arizona governor, Kari Lake, more than 170 were elected, according to the Washington Post.Until his midterms reversal, Trump dominated polling of potential Republican nominees for 2024. His closest rival in such surveys, DeSantis, reportedly indicated to donors he would not compete with Trump. But the landscape has now changed. DeSantis won re-election by a landslide, gave a confident victory speech to chants of “two more years” and has surged in polling – prompting attacks from Trump. At least one Republican mega donor, Ken Griffin, has said he backs the Florida governor.Should Trump dismiss DeSantis as he has so many other challengers and win the nomination, the 22nd amendment to the US constitution would bar him from running again in 2028. But a rematch of 2020 remains possible. Though Biden will soon turn 80 and has faced questions about whether he should seek a second term himself, he is preparing a re-election campaign.TopicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2024US politicsRepublicansRon DeSantisJoe BidenUS midterm elections 2022newsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Raphael Warnock sues Georgia over early voting restrictions for runoff

      by

      Raphael Warnock sues Georgia over early voting restrictions for runoffState law limits early voting after state holidays, including Thanksgiving and another formerly honoring Confederate general Raphael Warnock’s campaign sued Georgia on Tuesday after the state said it would not offer Saturday early voting for the closely watched runoff in which Warnock is seeking re-election to the US Senate.The suit challenges the state’s interpretation of a law that would prohibit early voting on the Saturday following Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving is also a state holiday in Georgia, originally to commemorate Robert E Lee, the Confederate civil war general. In 2015, state officials dropped Lee’s name and started recognizing the day simply as a “state holiday”.‘This movement was rejected’: Republican election deniers lose key state racesRead moreLawyers for Warnock’s campaign argued that the voting prohibition only applies to primary and general elections, not runoffs, which have a much shorter voting period. Last year, Georgia Republicans passed a law shortening the runoff period from nine weeks to four. But the shortened runoff period is coming into conflict with the state law that bars early voting around holidays.The state “misreads” and “cherry-picks” provisions of the law that do not apply to runoffs, lawyers for Warnock’s campaign wrote in a complaint, which was joined by the Georgia Democratic party and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “The secretary’s insistence that counties may not hold advance voting on November 26 therefore has no support in the law and conflicts with [the statute’s] requirement that counties begin advance voting for the December 6 runoff as soon as possible,” it reads.The suit asks a judge to declare that state law does not prohibit counties from offering early voting on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and to order the state not to take any action blocking them from doing so.Georgia law says counties may start early voting “as soon as possible” after the state certifies results from the general election, with a mandatory period from 28 November to 2 December. State law also bars Saturday early voting on the Saturday before a runoff, 3 December.Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, initially said he believed some counties would offer early voting on Saturday, before his office reversed course and said it was prohibited.“It’s not our choice. It’s literally in black-letter law that the Saturday following a state holiday cannot be used for early voting,” Gabriel Sterling, an interim deputy secretary of state, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “We all thought there was going to be Saturday voting until we looked at the law really closely.”Gerald Griggs, the president of the Georgia NAACP, said a Confederate holiday should not block voting.A Confederate holiday should not prevent the protection of democracy, which is called voting. That holiday needs to be eliminated. #TakeDownHate #gapol https://t.co/FqxW4zEx7h— Gerald A. Griggs (@AttorneyGriggs) November 13, 2022
      A coalition of civil rights groups separately sent a letter to all of Georgia’s 159 counties on Tuesday urging them to offer at least three additional days of early voting from 7am to 7pm, which is allowed at the counties’ discretion under Georgia law. The coalition urged the counties to offer voting on the Tuesday and Wednesday preceding Thanksgiving as well as the Sunday after the holiday.“If you only offer advance voting on the five days required by statute (which, as noted above, is limited to weekdays), there is a significant risk that many voters will be unable to participate due to obligations during the workday,” lawyers for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU of Georgia wrote in the letter. “The lack of weekend or evening voting options is especially concerning for voters of color, who may be less able to take time off from work to vote.”Hillary Holley, the executive director of Care in Action, the political arm of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, tweeted on Tuesday that Fulton county, home to Atlanta and the state’s most populous county, had agreed to start early voting on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. She also said Gwinnett county, one of the largest and most diverse counties in the state, had also agreed to start early voting on Sunday.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022The fight for democracyGeorgiaUS SenateUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      US midterms 2022: Democrats’ hopes of keeping House fade as counting continues – live

      by

      If a president’s party can only keep one chamber of Congress, the Senate is the one to have.The Senate is tasked with approving the White House’s nominations, including cabinet secretaries, federal judges and most crucially, supreme court justices. With Democrats holding the majority for the next two years, Joe Biden is once again guaranteed the ability to get his cabinet secretaries and judges confirmed to post across the government. That will increase the chances Biden’s legislative accomplishments – and those of future Democratic presidents – survive court challenges.But if the House falls to Republicans, Biden’s days of big legislating may have come to an end, at least for now. The chamber’s GOP leadership has shown little interest in working with the president, and it’s unlikely any of their bills make it through the Senate and to the president’s desk. Control of the House also gives the GOP the ability to conduct investigations and issue subpoenas. Expect them to do that to officials involved in the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, and to Hunter Biden. Prosecutors say criminal charges not expected from Giuliani raidNew York prosecutors said in a letter to a judge on Monday they do not plan to criminally charge Rudy Giuliani following a probe into his dealings with Ukrainian associates – a development Giuliani’s called “a total victory”. Prosecutors had been investigating whether Giuliani should have been registered as a foreign agent due to his dealings with figures in Ukraine in the run-up to the 2020 election.The investigation, which resulted in raids on his residence in April 2021 and seizure of a number of electronic devices, has concluded, and that criminal charges would not be forthcoming.“In my business, we would call that total victory,” Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, told the Associated Press. “We appreciate what the US attorney’s [office] has done. We only wish they had done it a lot sooner.”Read the full story here. Kari Paul here taking over for the next couple hours, stay tuned for updates. Trump wasn’t keeping all those classified documents at Mar-a-Lago for the money, The Washington Post reports.Rather, the motivation for his alleged retention of government secrets at his south Florida resort was more about Trump’s desire to hang on to keepsakes from his time in the White House, according to the Post, which cited federal investigators. That doesn’t mean he won’t face charges in the case, which is one of many inquiries the former president is involved in nearly two years after he left office. Here’s more from the Post:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}That review has not found any apparent business advantage to the types of classified information in Trump’s possession, these people said. FBI interviews with witnesses so far, they said, also do not point to any nefarious effort by Trump to leverage, sell, or use the government secrets. Instead, the former president seemed motivated by a more basic desire not to give up what he believed was his property, these people said.
      Several Trump advisers said that each time he was asked to give documents or materials back, his stance hardened, and that he gravitated toward lawyers and advisers who indulged his more pugilistic desires. Trump repeatedly said the materials were his, not the government’s — often in profane terms, two of these people said.
      The people familiar with the matter cautioned that the investigation is ongoing, no final determinations have been made, and it’s possible additional information could emerge that changes investigators’ understanding of Trump’s motivations. But they said the evidence collected over a period of months indicates the primary explanation for potentially criminal conduct was Trump’s ego and intransigence.
      A Justice Department spokesman and an FBI spokeswoman declined to comment. A Trump spokesman did not return a request for comment Monday.
      The analysis of Trump’s likely motive in allegedly keeping the documents is not, strictly speaking, an element of determining whether he or anyone around him committed a crime, or should be charged with one. Justice Department policy dictates that prosecutors file criminal charges in cases in which they believe a crime was committed and the evidence is strong enough to lead to a conviction that will hold up on appeal. But as a practical matter, motive is an important part of how prosecutors assess cases and decide whether to file criminal charges.The Guardian’s Kari Paul is now taking over the live blog, and will take you through the latest politics news over the remainder of the day.Another notable Republican has reiterated his support for Donald Trump, Politico reports.Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville said he will back Trump for president in 2024, if he announces:Sen. Tuberville says he will endorse Trump for president when he announces. He also says he’ll support McConnell as GOP leader— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) November 14, 2022
      He also announced that he would back Mitch McConnell as Senate minority leader, the top office available for the GOP in that chamber after they failed to win control in the midterms.CNN reports that the bipartisan group of senators pushing a bill to codify same-sex marriage believes it has enough support to pass the chamber:Multiple sources say the bipartisan group working on legislation to codify same-sex marriage has the votes needed for the bill to pass and is urging leadership to put it on the floor for a vote as soon as possible.w/ @alizaslav— Daniella Diaz (@DaniellaMicaela) November 14, 2022
      The Respect for Marriage Act passed the House earlier this year with some Republican support. Assuming all Democratic senators vote for it, it will need the votes of at least 10 Republicans to overcome a filibuster, but it’s previously been unclear if that support exists.Ahead of the release of his memoir tomorrow, former vice-president Mike Pence sat down with ABC News to talk more about his experience on January 6.Here was his reaction when asked about Trump’s tweet lashing out at Pence on the day of the attack:”It angered me. … The president’s words were reckless. It was clear he decided to be part of the problem.”— Former Vice President Mike Pence, in an ABC News exclusive as he promotes his new book, rebukes Trump’s tweet attacking him on Jan. 6th as the mob stormed the Capitol pic.twitter.com/PqnqUH7vbQ— The Recount (@therecount) November 14, 2022
      In their quest to understand why they performed so poorly in the midterms, some Republicans are pointing the finger at Donald Trump, arguing he has outlived his usefulness to the party.Writing in The American Conservative, JD Vance, a Republican who just won a seat in the Senate representing Ohio, attempted to dissuade the GOP from casting blame on the former president. He argues that Trump serves as a unifying force for Republicans and can offset Democrats’ advantages in fundraising and voter turnout that are going to make it more difficult for the GOP to win House and Senate races.Here’s more from his piece:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In the long term, the way to solve this is to build a turnout machine, not gripe at the former president. But building a turnout machine without organized labor and amid declining church attendance is no small thing. Our party has one major asset, contra conventional wisdom, to rally these voters: President Donald Trump. Now, more than ever, our party needs President Trump’s leadership to turn these voters out and suffers for his absence from the stage.
      The point is not that Trump is perfect. I personally would have preferred an endorsement of Lou Barletta over Mastriano in the Pennsylvania governor’s race, for example. But any effort to pin blame on Trump, and not on money and turnout, isn’t just wrong. It distracts from the actual issues we need to solve as a party over the long term. Indeed, one of the biggest changes I would like to see from Trump’s political organization—whether he runs for president or not—is to use their incredible small dollar fundraising machine for Trump-aligned candidates, which it appears he has begun doing to assist Herschel Walker in his Senate runoff.
      Blaming Trump isn’t just wrong on the facts, it is counterproductive. Any autopsy of Republican underperformance ought to focus on how to close the national money gap, and how to turn out less engaged Republicans during midterm elections. These are the problems we have, and rather than blaming everyone else, it’s time for party leaders to admit we have these problems and work to solve them. Meanwhile in Georgia, the midterms are very much not over.The Senate race is headed to a run-off election on 6 December, with Republican Herschel Walker challenging Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock for the seat.In a speech today, Walker attacked Warnock for using campaign funds to pay for childcare – as US election law allows:Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker (R) criticizes Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D) parenting:”He paid himself for childcare, all that stuff — why don’t he keep his own kids? Don’t have nobody keep your kids. … I keep my own, even though he lied about me.” pic.twitter.com/C41IJUbA0F— The Recount (@therecount) November 14, 2022
      Left unsaid were reports that Walker paid for two women to have an abortion, even though he supports a nationwide ban on the procedure, without exceptions. He also did not mention one of his son’s claim that he has not been much of a father.It’s just one pollster in one state, but take a look at who CWS Research found was leading among Republican candidates for the White House in 2024.Florida governor Ron DeSantis topped Donald Trump in the poll of Republicans and independents, with 43% support against Trump’s 32%. The survey was conducted from 12 to 13 November, after the midterm elections, and represents a change from a previous poll conducted in mid-October before the vote. Then, Trump led, with 46% support compared to DeSantis’ 29%.Trump is widely expected to announce another campaign for office tomorrow, but DeSantis had a far better midterm election. The Florida governor resoundingly won another term on a day when Republicans performed well in the state overall. Trump, meanwhile, saw several of his handpicked candidates for office rejected by voters in states across the country.Joe Biden’s plan to relieve some student debt has lost again in court and will remain on hold, Politico reports:NEWS – 8th Circuit has blocked Biden’s student debt relief program, siding with GOP states in a 3-0 decision. pic.twitter.com/6gn7UyxmLa— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) November 14, 2022
      The panel of two Trump appointees & a GWB appointee ruled unanimously that Missouri has standing to challenge debt relief program based on injury to the state via MOHELA. pic.twitter.com/FixeqTSmAa— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) November 14, 2022
      But the 10-page decision doesn’t discuss the merits of the case much — other than to say the GOP states have raised “substantial questions of law which remain to be resolved”https://t.co/2WkRX1ozkd pic.twitter.com/0Qs03zL7qh— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) November 14, 2022
      The Guardian’s community team wants to hear from Americans about what they think of the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections. Be you Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, independent or something else, let them know your thoughts:US voters: share your reaction to the midterm results so farRead moreThe dust is settling from Tuesday’s midterm elections. Control of the House is still up for grabs, but the GOP appears on course to eke out a majority, while Democrats have won themselves the Senate for another two years. The 2024 presidential race may very well kick off tomorrow, when Donald Trump is expected to announce another campaign for the White House.Here’s what else is happening today:
      Joe Biden doesn’t believe the House is winnable for Democrats, nor that there’s enough support for a measure to codify abortion rights into law.
      The Senate plans to vote on a measure to codify same-sex marriage rights this week, after a conservative supreme court justice raised the possibility of the court reconsidering its ruling establishing the rights.
      The January 6 committee is cleared to access the phone records of Arizona’s Republican party chair after the supreme court quashed a challenge to the lawmakers’ subpoena.
      Mo Brooks was once one of Donald Trump’s closest allies, but has since joined the ranks of those who have fallen out with the former president.The Alabama Republican congressman will retire at the end of this year, and in an interview with AL.com called on the party to dump the former president.“It would be a bad mistake for the Republicans to have Donald Trump as their nominee in 2024,” said Brooks, who was the first congressman to object to the certification of the 2020 election. “Donald Trump has proven himself to be dishonest, disloyal, incompetent, crude and a lot of other things that alienate so many independents and Republicans. Even a candidate who campaigns from his basement can beat him.”The bad blood between the two men stems from Trump’s withdrawn endorsement of Brooks for Alabama’s Senate seat, which was won last week by Republican Katie Britt. Brooks said Trump asked him to remove Joe Biden from office and elevate the ex-president back to power, which the congressman told him was illegal. The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports on a new justice department filing in the Mar-a-Lago case, which claims Donald Trump kept classified documents at the resort, even after he left the White House:Donald Trump retained documents bearing classification markings, along with communications from after his presidency, according to court filings describing the materials seized by the FBI as part of the ongoing criminal investigation into whether he mishandled national security information.The former US president kept in the desk drawer of his office at the Mar-a-Lago property one document marked “secret” and one marked “confidential” alongside three communications from a book author, a religious leader and a pollster, dated after he departed the White House.The mixed records could amount to evidence that Trump wilfully retained documents marked classified when he was no longer president as the justice department investigates unauthorised possession of national security materials, concealment of government records, and obstruction.Court files show evidence Trump handled records marked classified after presidencyRead moreMike Pence will on Tuesday release a memoir detailing his time in the Trump White House, and Martin Pengelly takes a look at what the former vice president reveals:In his new book, Donald Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, protests his loyalty to his former boss but also levels criticisms that will acquire new potency as Trump prepares to announce another presidential run and the Republican party debates whether to stay loyal after disappointment in last week’s midterm elections.According to Pence, Trump mishandled his response to a march staged by neo-Nazis in Charlottesville in August 2017, a costly error that Pence says could have been avoided had Pence called Trump before a fateful press conference in which Trump failed to condemn “the racists and antisemites in Charlottesville by name”.Also in Pence’s judgment, “there was no reason for Trump not to call out Russia’s bad behaviour” early in his term while beset by investigations of Russian election interference on Trump’s behalf and links between Trump and Moscow.“Acknowledging Russian meddling,” Pence writes, would not have “somehow cheapen[ed] our victory” over Hillary Clinton in 2016.Pence does not stop there. Among other judgments which may anger his former boss, he says Trump’s claimed “perfect call” to Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine in 2019, the subject of Trump’s first impeachment after he withheld military aid in search of political dirt, was in fact “less than perfect” – if not, in Pence’s judgment, impeachable.Pence risks Trump’s wrath by piling on criticisms of ex-president in new bookRead moreThe January 6 committee can access the phone records of the chair of Arizona’s Republican party after the supreme court turned down an attempt to block the lawmakers’ subpoena:NEW: Supreme Court rejects bid by Ariz GOP Chair Kelli Ward to block a Jan. 6 committee subpoena for her phone records. Thomas and Alito dissent. pic.twitter.com/g3IoSuuRuk— Greg Stohr (@GregStohr) November 14, 2022
      Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are two of the court’s most conservative justices, and objected to the court’s order.Arizona was one of the states targeted by Donald Trump and his allies in the weeks after the 2020 election, as part of their effort to tamper with Joe Biden’s election victory.Later this week, Republicans in the House and Senate are set to vote on who their leaders will be for the next two years, but the party’s weak showing in the midterms has sparked calls to delay the election.It appears rightwing lawmakers are trying to punish top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell for failing to retake the chamber, and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy for the party’s weak showing there. According to Axios, conservative figures outside of Congress will soon release a letter backing the calls for a delay: Per source: collection of prominent conservative movement figures — incl Heritage President Kevin Roberts — will be releasing a letter calling for delay to House and Senate leadership elections. pic.twitter.com/ON8c1dvIyl— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) November 14, 2022
      Among the signatories: Ginni Thomas, wife of rightwing supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. She’s a prominent denier of the facts surrounding Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, and was interviewed by the January 6 committee earlier this year. Lawmakers on the panel said she didn’t have much to offer, and there wasn’t evidence she played a significant role in the insurrection. More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump for 2024 would be ‘bad mistake’, Republican says as blame game deepens

      by

      Trump for 2024 would be ‘bad mistake’, Republican says as blame game deepensAlabama congressman Mo Brooks, a once-zealous Trump ally, comments after party fails to retake Congress in midterms Alabama congressman and once-zealous Trump supporter, Mo Brooks, has a remarkable new stance on the political future of his former hero. “It would be a bad mistake for the Republicans to have Donald Trump as their nominee in 2024,” he said.Pence risks Trump’s wrath by piling on criticisms of ex-president in new bookRead moreThe stark judgment from Brooks was indicative of the deepening and brutal blame game among Republicans which continued on Monday, nearly a week after the party failed to retake Congress in the midterm elections and a day before Trump’s expected announcement of a new presidential campaign.Speaking to AL.com, Brooks, an Alabama congressman, added: “Donald Trump has proven himself to be dishonest, disloyal, incompetent, crude and a lot of other things that alienate so many independents and Republicans. Even a candidate who campaigns from his basement can beat him.”That was a reference to Joe Biden and his precautions against Covid in the 2020 election the Democrat won by more than 7m votes and 306-232 in the electoral college.Brooks did not accept that result. On 6 January 2021, he donned body armor and spoke to Trump supporters at a rally near the White House. Repeating Trump’s lie about electoral fraud, he said: “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.” The mob then attacked the Capitol, a riot now linked to nine deaths including suicides among law enforcement.The election subversion Brooks supported is under investigation by the House January 6 committee, the Department of Justice and state authorities. But Brooks broke with Trump earlier this year, when the former president rescinded his endorsement for US Senate, because Brooks publicly urged him to stop re-litigating 2020.Trump’s eventual endorsee in Alabama, Katie Britt, won a Senate seat. But elsewhere last Tuesday high-profile Trump-endorsed candidates failed, ensuring Democrats held the Senate and stayed on course to hold the Republicans to a tight House majority.Trump is almost certain to announce his 2024 run at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Tuesday. But the fire from his own party keeps coming, the barrage widening to include shots at leaders in both houses of Congress.In the Senate, Marco Rubio of Florida, who retained his seat against a highly-rated Democrat, Val Demings, tweeted: “The Senate GOP leadership vote next week should be postponed.”Josh Hawley of Missouri, a potential challenger to Trump in 2024, added: “Exactly right. I don’t know why Senate GOP would hold a leadership vote for the next Congress before this election is finished.”That was a reference to the runoff for the last Senate seat to be decided, in Georgia and between the Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker, a controversial former NFL star, and the incumbent Democrat, Raphael Warnock. Warnock won a tight vote last Tuesday but did not pass 50%, teeing up the runoff.Victories in Pennsylvania – the only Senate seat to flip so far – Arizona and Nevada mean the Democrats will control the Senate even if Warnock loses, thanks to the casting vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris.The other Florida senator, Rick Scott, is under pressure after leading the Republican election effort. The party leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, is also feeling the heat.On Tuesday, Josh Holmes, a Republican operative who was formerly chief of staff to McConnell, told the Wall Street Journal the Senate campaign “was run basically as a Rick Scott super Pac, where they didn’t want or need to input any Republican senators whatsoever. That’s a huge break from recent history where members have been pretty intimately involved.”Democrats seized on an “11 Point Plan to Rescue America” Scott issued earlier this year, in which the senator, widely thought to have presidential ambitions of his own, proposed that more Americans pay federal income tax and said Congress could “sunset” social security and Medicare within five years.Holmes said McConnell told Scott: “When you are in leadership you don’t have the ability to do something like this without other people carrying your water.”In the House, the defeat of the Trump endorsee, and election-denier, Joe Kent in Washington state quickly came to seem symbolic of Republican failures.In the primary, Kent defeated a six-term incumbent, Jamie Herrera-Beutler, who suffered for being one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol attack. Kent went on to lose the seat, to the Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez.‘It’s time to move on’: have the US midterms finally loosened Trump’s grip on the Republican party?Read moreThe House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, faces a growing threat from the far-right of the party, jeopardising his hopes of becoming speaker should Republicans take control of the House.Andy Biggs of Arizona, another congressman investigated for his support of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, is reported to be teeing up a challenge to McCarthy.Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, like Herrera-Beutler a Republican who voted to impeach Trump, announced his retirement rather than face a primary defeat then went on to sit on the House January 6 committee.Amid post-election recriminations on Capitol Hill, he tweeted: “To GOP’ers: if Kevin McCarthy had not gone to Mar-a-Lago, had the Senate convicted, or had any more congressmen actually stood on principle, likely we would have no Trump, the alt-right would be a sick memory, and you could look in the mirror.“Just FYI. Maybe start now.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansUS CongressUS SenateHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

    • 213 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      US midterm elections: Democrats retain control of Senate as House race still undecided – as it happened

      by

      It’s been a day of celebrations and recriminations so far in US politics after the Democrats retained control of the Senate in a stunning midterm election rebuke for previously confident Republicans.A civil war appears to be under way inside the Republican party, with several senior party officials taking to the Sunday political talk shows to point fingers of blame.In one camp, “legacy” Republicans such as Larry Hogan, the retiring governor of Maryland, say responsibility for the failure rests with former president Donald Trump, and his handpicked slew of extremist candidates who flopped at the polls.Hogan, among those calling for a change of leadership, told CNN’s State of the Union:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Trump’s cost us the last three elections, and I don’t want to see it happen a fourth time.This is the third election in a row that Trump has cost us. Three strikes and you’re out. pic.twitter.com/F3LIkZYCsX— Larry Hogan (@LarryHogan) November 13, 2022
      In the other faction, Florida senator Rick Scott, head of the Republican Senate leadership committee, is among the Trump loyalists attempting to scapegoat Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.Scott told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures he wanted next week’s party leadership elections postponed, claiming McConnell had strangled election strategy:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mitch McConnell said… we’re not going to have a plan. We’re just going to talk about how bad the Democrats are. Why would you do that?Democrats, meanwhile, are jubilant. Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren told NBC’s Meet the Press:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This victory belongs to Joe Biden. It belongs to Joe Biden, and the Democrats who got out there and fought for working people. The things we did were important and popular.Things are less clear in the House of Representatives, where a number of close races are yet to be called, and Republicans are closing in on a narrow majority.And in Arizona, we’re awaiting a winner in the tight and heated governor’s race between Democrat Katie Hobbs and extremist Republican Kari Lake.We’ll have more news, commentary and reaction coming up through the afternoon.We’re closing our US midterms blog now after a day of rancor and recriminations among senior Republicans following the Democrats’ success in retaining control of the Senate.The party seems split into two factions, those keen to move on from Donald Trump as party leader and kingmaker after the failure of many of his endorsed candidates, and those who insist others, such as Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, are to blame for a lack of messaging.By contrast, jubilant Democrats were looking ahead with renewed enthusiasm, even with control of the House of Representatives yet to be determined.
      Elizabeth Warren, senator for Massachusetts, said it was “Joe Biden’s victory”, while the president himself tweeted en route to Indonesia that he was always an optimist and “not surprised” his party had recaptured the Senate.
      We’ve also been watching the heated race for governor in Arizona between extremist Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Katie Hobbs. Lake has repeated unfounded allegations that the count is somehow improper as it approaches its sixth day.
      We’ll bring you any updates in news reports tonight, and please join us again on Monday. Meanwhile, take a read of Oliver Laughland’s report on where things stand:Democrats celebrate retaining control of Senate as Republicans take stockRead moreYounger candidates suggest a generational change is under way in the US political landscape. The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington takes a look:We are in the early hours of Wednesday morning, 6 November 2024, and after a nail-biting night two men are preparing to give their respective victory and concession speeches in the US presidential election. One of the men is days away from his 82nd birthday, the other is 78.The prospect of a possible rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in two years’ time is instilling trepidation in both main parties. It is not just the political perils that go with either individual, it’s also the simple matter of their age.What happened to the America of the new world, the young country?But in the wake of this week’s midterm elections there is a stirring in the air. The Democratic party may remain heavily dominated by the old guard – the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is 82 and the top senator, Chuck Schumer, is 69 – yet there are strong signs of fresh beginnings.From the first openly lesbian governors in the US and first Black governor of Maryland, to the first Gen Z member of Congress, as well as battle-hardened young politicians in critical swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, a new slate of Democratic leaders is coming into view after Tuesday’s elections. They may be too new to reshape the 2024 presidential race, but they carry much promise for the years to come.“There’s a generational change happening of the kind you see every few decades,” said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist who has worked on state and congressional campaigns. “A younger generation is emerging with different ideas who aren’t necessarily wedded to the old way of doing things.”It is perhaps no coincidence that several of the names garnering attention are to be found in battleground states where their political skills and resilience have been put to the test. In Michigan, which has become a frontline state in the struggle between liberal versus Maga politics, Gretchen Whitmer handily won a double-digit re-election in her gubernatorial race against Tudor Dixon, an election denier.Whitmer, 51, proved herself not only adept at fending off election subversion misinformation in a midwestern state, but she also withstood the pressures of the kidnap plot against her which led to last month’s convictions of three anti-government plotters. “After two terms as governor, Whitmer is going to be well placed for a move on to the national stage,” Trippi said.Read the full story:New generation of candidates stakes claim to Democratic party’s futureRead moreAuthor and political analyst Michael Cohen has penned an opinion piece for the Observer, and finds America “almost perfectly divided between Democrats and Republicans”:Midterm elections in the United States are where the hopes and dreams of governing parties go to die. Since 1932, the party in power has lost on average 28 seats in the House of Representatives and four seats in the Senate. In 2018, two years after taking the White House and both Houses of Congress, Republicans lost 40 House seats and control of the chamber. In 2010, Democrats lost 63 seats. In 1994, it was 54 and eight Senate seats. Every two years, after electing a new president, voters, generally speaking, go to the polls with buyer’s remorse.But not this year. In a truly stunning outcome, Democrats reversed the historical trend lines and, at least for the time being, protected American democracy from the worst excesses of the Donald Trump-led Republican party.While all the votes still need to be tabulated, it appears that Democrats will keep control of the Senate and have an outside chance of maintaining their narrow majority in the House of Representatives. At the beginning of the year such a scenario was virtually unimaginable. Democrats were facing not only historical headwinds but also rising inflation, a teetering economy and an unpopular incumbent president. Traditionally, these are the kinds of political dynamics that portend a Republican-wave victory in November.But then in June the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, removed a 50-year constitutional guarantee protecting reproductive health rights and virtually overnight turned American women into second-class citizens. Over the summer, congressional Democrats achieved a host of notable legislative successes and President Biden announced billions in student loan forgiveness, fulfilling a promise he’d made during the 2020 presidential campaign.By the autumn, the political winds shifted in the Democrats’ direction – and no issue loomed larger than abortion. In August, a referendum in ruby-red Kansas, which would have made it easier for Republicans in the state legislature to outlaw the procedure, lost by a whopping 18 points.Democratic campaign advisers took their cues from Kansas and made abortion the centrepiece of the autumn campaign. And in the states where Republicans’ victories could have led to potentially greater abortion restrictions, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, Democrats won decisive victories. In suburban districts, the new linchpin of the Democratic coalition, white female college graduates, outraged by the supreme court decision, propelled House Democratic candidates to victory in toss-up races.Republicans compounded the problem by nominating a host of Trump-endorsed first-time Senate and gubernatorial candidates. The closer a Republican was to Trump, the worse they did on Tuesday.Read the full story:Democrats’ triumph may be miraculous but US is still split down the middle | Michael CohenRead moreJamie Raskin, the Democratic Maryland congressman who serves on the January 6 committee, and led the House prosecution at Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, says the former president might “destroy” the Republican party.Raskin was speaking on CBS’ Face the Nation, five days after numerous Trump-endorsed candidates flopped in midterm election races. Emboldened by their failures, some senior Republicans are openly calling out Trump for the first time.He said he cautioned the Republican party during the impeachment last year to jettison Trump, but instead the Senate voted to acquit him:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When I was over in the Senate with the impeachment team, I told the Republicans there that this was our opportunity to deal with the problem of Donald Trump, who had committed high crimes and misdemeanors against the people of the United States.
      And they needed to act on behalf of the country and the Constitution. But if they didn’t, he would become their problem. And at this point, Donald Trump is the problem of the Republican Party and he may destroy their party.Raskin notes on CBS that Republicans had an opportunity to convict Trump after his second impeachment and prevent him from running for office, but they didn’t, and now “he may destroy their party” pic.twitter.com/ddaxECesrA— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 13, 2022
      The work of the January 6 committee investigating Trump’s coup attempt will continue, Raskin says, though the panel is mindful that Republicans might win control of the House of Representatives and close the inquiry down:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In a democracy, the people have the right to the truth. And what we withstood was a systematic assault on democratic institutions in an attempt to overthrow a presidential election. So we have set forth the truth in a series of hearings.
      And we’re going to set forth the truth in our final report, along with a set of legislative recommendations about what we need to do to fortify American democracy, against coups, insurrections, electoral sabotage and political violence with domestic violent extremist groups involved.
      We’re going to put all of that out there.The January 6 final report is expected to be released before the end of the year.Here’s the Guardian’s Oliver Laughland on the ongoing fallout from the midterm election results:As the balance of power in the US House of Representatives remained unresolved on Sunday, Democrats are celebrating the projection that they won control of the Senate, marking a significant victory for Joe Biden as Republicans backed by his presidential predecessor Donald Trump underperformed in key battleground states.While senior Democrats remained guarded Sunday about the chances of keeping control of both chambers of Congress, House speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed the party’s performance in the midterms following months of projections indicating heavy losses.“Who would have thought two months ago that this red wave would turn into a little tiny trickle, if that at all,” Pelosi told CNN.She added: “We’re still alive [for control of the House] but again the races are close. We don’t pray for victory… but you pray that God’s will will be done.”As of Sunday morning Republicans remained seven seats shy of the 218 needed to win control of the House, with Democrats requiring 14, an indication that a majority on either side will be slim. As internal discussions between House Republicans intensify over potential leadership roles, with minority leader Kevin McCarthy facing opposition from the far right freedom caucus, Pelosi remained circumspect about her own future, saying she would not make any announcements on her plans until after the House’s control is decided.“My decision will then be rooted in what the wishes of my family [are], and the wishes of my caucus,” Pelosi said, with reference to her husband Paul Pelosi’s ongoing recovery following an allegedly politically motivated violent burglary and attack at their family home in San Francisco last month. She added: “There are all kinds of ways to exert influence. The speaker has awesome power, but I will always have influence.”The Democrats were projected to maintain their control of the Senate on Saturday evening when a tight race in Nevada was called for the incumbent Catherine Cortez Mastro who defeated Adam Laxalt, a Trump-backed, former state attorney general.Read the full story:Democrats celebrate retaining control of Senate as Republicans take stockRead moreJoe Biden says he always felt his party would keep control of the Senate.The president is tweeting on his way to Indonesia, where he’ll meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Monday ahead of the two-day G20 summit in Bali. He has been following closely election developments back home.I’m an optimist but I’m not surprised Senate Democrats held the majority. Working together, we’ve delivered historic progress for working families.Americans chose that progress.— President Biden (@POTUS) November 13, 2022
      Speaking to reporters in Cambodia late on Saturday during the Asean summit, Biden congratulated Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer but appeared to acknowledge how a Republican-controlled House might affect his agenda going forward.“We feel good about where we are,” Biden said. “And I know I’m a cockeyed optimist – I understand that – from the beginning, but I’m not surprised by the turnout.”Here’s an interesting, and historic, statistic from the midterm elections, according to the States Project, an advocacy group promoting democracy at state level.For the first time in almost 90 years, covering dozens of election cycles, the party in the White House retained every state legislative chamber it was defending, and this year gained two more.HISTORY. MADE. For the first time since 1934, the party who holds the WH didn’t lose a *single* state leg chamber. AND we gained 2 new trifectas. I believe that the @StatesProjectUS historic investment made the difference. Here’s why.🧵 https://t.co/EKoeEVr0ZS— Daniel Squadron (@DanielSquadron) November 11, 2022
      It’s been a day of celebrations and recriminations so far in US politics after the Democrats retained control of the Senate in a stunning midterm election rebuke for previously confident Republicans.A civil war appears to be under way inside the Republican party, with several senior party officials taking to the Sunday political talk shows to point fingers of blame.In one camp, “legacy” Republicans such as Larry Hogan, the retiring governor of Maryland, say responsibility for the failure rests with former president Donald Trump, and his handpicked slew of extremist candidates who flopped at the polls.Hogan, among those calling for a change of leadership, told CNN’s State of the Union:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Trump’s cost us the last three elections, and I don’t want to see it happen a fourth time.This is the third election in a row that Trump has cost us. Three strikes and you’re out. pic.twitter.com/F3LIkZYCsX— Larry Hogan (@LarryHogan) November 13, 2022
      In the other faction, Florida senator Rick Scott, head of the Republican Senate leadership committee, is among the Trump loyalists attempting to scapegoat Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.Scott told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures he wanted next week’s party leadership elections postponed, claiming McConnell had strangled election strategy:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mitch McConnell said… we’re not going to have a plan. We’re just going to talk about how bad the Democrats are. Why would you do that?Democrats, meanwhile, are jubilant. Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren told NBC’s Meet the Press:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This victory belongs to Joe Biden. It belongs to Joe Biden, and the Democrats who got out there and fought for working people. The things we did were important and popular.Things are less clear in the House of Representatives, where a number of close races are yet to be called, and Republicans are closing in on a narrow majority.And in Arizona, we’re awaiting a winner in the tight and heated governor’s race between Democrat Katie Hobbs and extremist Republican Kari Lake.We’ll have more news, commentary and reaction coming up through the afternoon.Analysts say victory by Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, which secured her party’s control of the Senate for two more years, will be of massive importance to Joe Biden’s plans for filling judicial vacancies.Retaining the majority in the chamber gives the president the opportunity to keep getting his picks confirmed, something for which the incumbent senator was a key ally even before the midterms.“Cortez Masto has been an excellent senator, who has represented Nevada very well. One example is her efforts to keep the federal district court vacancies in Nevada filled,” said Carl Tobias, Williams professor of law at the University of Richmond and former lecturer in law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.“Last year, she and Senator [Jacky] Rosen recommended two well qualified, mainstream candidates whom Biden nominated and the Senate smoothly confirmed.“The Democrats’ retention of the Senate majority will enable Biden and that majority to continue nominating and confirming highly qualified judges who are diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ideology and experience, like Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Nevada district judges Cristina Silva and Anne Traum. “These nominees and appointees will mean that Biden and the Democrats have honored their promises to counter former President Trump’s confirmation of 231 judges, especially on the Supreme Court and the appellate courts, who are extremely conservative. “For example, Biden and the Democrats have already appointed 25 appellate judges and are on track to confirm at least five, and perhaps as many as 10 more, judges for those courts this year. Biden and the Democratic majority can build on this success for two more years. “Kari Lake, the Republican election denier trailing Democrat Katie Hobbs in the contest to become governor of Arizona, has been on Fox News complaining again about the pace of the count.Although Arizona law dictates the process, and speed, by which the ballots are counted, Lake is also unhappy that Hobbs, as secretary of state, has involvement in the election, even though her opponent’s role is at arm’s length by certifying the count when it’s complete.“I consider someone’s vote their voice. I think of it as a sacred vote, and it’s being trampled the way we run our elections in Arizona,” Lake said.“We can’t be the laughingstock of elections anymore. Here in Arizona, and when I’m governor, I will not allow it. I just won’t.”It’s a familiar gripe from Lake, who has pledged to be the media’s “worst fricking nightmare” if she wins, and has refused to say if she would accept the result of the election if she lost.Several dozen of her supporters, some in military-style fatigues, lent a menacing air to the count by gathering outside the Maricopa county elections in Phoenix on Saturday and hurling abuse at sheriff’s deputies.VOTERS: All legal votes will be counted. Your vote will count equally whether it is reported first, last, or somewhere in between. Thank you for participating.— Maricopa County (@maricopacounty) November 12, 2022
      Lake, the Arizona Republican party, and Republican national committee (RNC), have all lobbed out unfounded allegations of misconduct and incompetence by election officials, as the count enters its sixth day.Bill Gates, chair of Maricopa’s board of supervisors, hit back, telling CNN: “The suggestion by the RNC that there is something untoward going on here in Maricopa county, is absolutely false and offensive to these good elections workers.”The county is also rejecting online grumblings:SOCIAL MEDIA BOTS: Your disapproval is duly noted but your upvotes and retweets will not be part of this year’s totals. This is not meant as an affront to your robot overlords, it’s just not allowed for in Arizona law.— Maricopa County (@maricopacounty) November 12, 2022
      Lake said she did not expect the race to be called until at least Monday. She conceded: “I’m willing to wait until every vote is counted. I think every candidate should wait until every vote is counted.”Rick Scott, the Florida senator who heads the Republican senatorial committee, has been pouring fuel on the post-midterms fire that threatens Mitch McConnell’s future as Senate minority leader.Despite helping to mastermind the election campaign strategy that fell flat when Democrats retained control of the chamber, Scott, and other Donald Trump loyalists, say it’s all McConnell’s fault.On Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, Scott repeated his call for next week’s Republican leadership elections at least until after the Georgia Senate run-off on 6 December:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mitch McConnell said… we’re not going to have a plan. We’re just going to talk about how bad the Democrats are. Why would you do that?
      What is our plan? What are we running on? What do we stand for? What are we hell bent to get done? The leadership of the Republican Senate says ‘no, you cannot have a plan’. We’re just gonna run it on how bad the Democrats are, and actually they cave in to the Democrats.Scott, and Senate colleagues Marco Rubio (Florida) and Ted Cruz (Texas) are among those with knives out for McConnell, aided and abetted by former members of Trump’s inner circle who are keen to shift the blame for the Republican flop away from the former president.Stephen Miller, Trump’s former senior policy advisor, continued the theme, also on Sunday Morning Futures:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}You’re going to lose these close races because the Republican brand, set by Mitch McConnell on down, is not exciting, is not persuasive, is not convincing to voters.While Republicans, or some of them at least, are blaming Donald Trump for the party’s midterms misfire, leading Democrats have no doubt with whom the credit should lie: Joe Biden.Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, herself a former candidate for the party’s presidential nomination, was almost giddy in her analysis of the elections in an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press this morning:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Donald Trump, with his preening and his selection of truly awful candidates, didn’t do his party any favors.
      But this victory belongs to Joe Biden. It belongs to Joe Biden, and the Democrats who got out there and fought for working people. The things we did were important and popular.
      Remember, right after Joe Biden was sworn in, all of the economists and the pundits in his ear who were saying, “go slow, go small.”
      Joe Biden didn’t listen to them. And in fact, he went big. He went big on vaccinations. He went big on testing, but he also went big on helping people who were still unemployed, on setting America’s working families up so they could manage the choppy waters in the economy following the pandemic.
      We were able to address the values and the economic security of people across this country. And it sure paid off. It paid off at historic levels.Also on Meet the Press, White House senior advisor Anita Dunn reflected on Biden’s pre-election strategy of bashing extremist “Maga Republicans” named for Trump’s Make America Great Again movement:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}A lot of people thought it wouldn’t work. Former President Trump kind of adopted it himself. But it was a very effective strategy for raising for the American people the hazards of going down that path with democracy denial, threats of political violence to achieve political ends, an extremist program that involves denying women the right to an abortion, economic policies that continue to be trickled down, as opposed to bottom up and middle out.
      The Republican Party has to come up with what they’re actually for. It’s very clear what President Biden and the Democratic Party are for.The Guardian’s Sam Levine has news of a consequential victory for Democrats in Nevada:Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, was elected Nevada’s top election official, beating Jim Marchant, a Republican who is linked to the QAnon sought to spread misinformation about the results of the 2020 race.His victory is a significant win against efforts to sow doubt in US elections, a growing force in the Republican party.The Nevada secretary of state race was one of the most competitive in the country and closely watched because of Marchant’s extreme views. It was also one of several contests in which Republican candidates who questioned the election results were running to be the top election official in their state.Thank you, Nevada!! It is the honor of my life to serve as your next Secretary of State. pic.twitter.com/XiQtpCTlRu— Cisco Aguilar (@CiscoForNevada) November 12, 2022
      Marchant, a former state lawmaker, said during the campaign that if he and other like-minded secretary of states were elected, Donald Trump would be re-elected in 2024. He has also said that Nevada elections are run by a “cabal”, and that Nevadans haven’t elected a president in over a decade.He also has pushed Nevada counties to adopt risky and costly hand counts of ballots and leads the America First Secretary of State coalition, a group of secretary of state candidates running for key election positions who pledged to overturn the 2020 race.Aguilar had never run for elected office, but cast himself as a defender of Nevada’s democracy. His campaign emphasized the extremist threat Marchant posed. He far outraised Marchant and was much more present on the campaign trail.Read the full story:Democrat Cisco Aguilar defeats election denier in Nevada secretary of state raceRead moreRepublicans have been bashing Donald Trump on the Sunday talk shows, with Maryland governor Larry Hogan calling him the “800lb gorilla” as the former president prepares to announce a new White House run this week.The party’s less than stellar midterms performance, which included a slew of defeats for extremist candidates endorsed by Trump, have prompted growing chorus from senior officials that it’s “time to move on” from him.Leading the call Sunday was Hogan, for so long one of very few Republicans daring to speak out against the twice-impeached former president.Hogan, who is termed out of office in January, told CNN’s State of the Union it would be “a mistake” for Trump to run again, noting that the White House, Senate and House were all lost under his watch:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}He’s still the 800 pound gorilla. It’s still a battle that’s going to continue for the next few years. We’re two years out from the next election. And the dust is settling from this one. I think it’d be a mistake. Trump’s cost us the last three elections and I don’t want to see it happen a fourth time.Over on NBC’s Meet the Press, Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy also laid Republicans’ poor showing at Trump’s door, alluding to his fixation with his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, and candidates who bought into the lie that the election was stolen from him:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Those that were most closely aligned with the past, those are the ones that underperformed.
      We’re not a cult. We’re not like, ‘OK, there’s one person who leads our party’. If we have a sitting president, she or he will be the leader of our party, but we should be a party of ideas and principles. And that’s what should lead us.
      What we’ve been lacking, perhaps, is that fulsome discussion,Read more:‘It’s time to move on’: have the US midterms finally loosened Trump’s grip on the Republican party?Read moreNancy Pelosi says Democrats are “still alive” in the race for control of the House of Representatives, but acknowledges the pathway to victory is narrow.The speaker’s party needs 218 seats in Congress to retain control of the chamber, and currently has 203. Republicans, despite losing several seats they were expected to win handily, have 211 and are closing in on the majority.On CNN’s State of the Union just now, Pelosi was asked specifically about the loss of four House seats in usually reliably blue New York, and whether they would determine control of the chamber.Pelosi said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}You cannot make sweeping overviews the day after the election, just every district at a time. Our message, people over politics, lower costs, bigger paychecks, safer communities, served us well in the rest of the country.
      I want to salute President Biden for his campaign and President Obama, all of it raising the urgency of the election, and the awareness that people must vote and that they shouldn’t listen to those who say this is a foregone conclusion because of history, but it’s about the future and get out there and vote.
      We’re still alive. But again, the races are close.Pelosi, 82, would not be drawn about her own future if Republicans take the House, despite hinting last week that the attack on her husband would influence her decision about whether to retire. House leadership elections are on 30 November..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}My members are asking me to consider [running], but that’s just through the eyes of the members.
      We are so completely focused on our political time… and not worrying about my future, but for the future for the American peopleBut she said she was hurt by response to the attack, which included offensive mockery:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It wasn’t just the attack, there was a Republican reaction to it which was disgraceful. An attack is horrible. Imagine how it feels to was the one who was the target, and my husband paying the price, and the traumatic effect on our family.
      But that trauma is intensified by the ridiculous, disrespectful attitude that the Republicans had. There is no nobody disassociating themselves from the horrible response that they gave to it.One of the biggest midterms winners for the Democrats was Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who was reelected by double digits. She’s just been on CNN’s State of the Union, speaking out against political violence she says extremists have been stoking.Whitmer herself was the victim of a kidnap plot that resulted in the conviction of several rightwing extremists, and called out a hammer attack by another on the husband of House speaker Nancy Pelosi:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}My opponent [election denier Tudor Dixon] was a conspiracy theorist, and she has regularly stoked politically violent rhetoric [and] undermined institutions. Whether it is aimed at me, or it is aimed at a Republican congressman like Ron Upton or Peter Meijer here in Michigan, it’s unacceptable.
      My heart goes out to the Pelosi family. I think that this is a moment where good people need to call this out and say we will not tolerate this in this country. Whitmer says the key to her victory was focusing on basics, while her challengers were concentrating on divisiveness:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We stay focused on the fundamentals, whether it’s fixing the damn roads or making sure our kids are getting back on track after an incredible disruption in their learning, or just simply solving problems and being honest with the people.
      Governors can’t fix global inflation. But what we can do is take actions to keep more money in people’s pockets, protect our right to make our own decisions about our bodies.
      And all of this was squarely front and center for a lot of Michigan voters, and I suspect that’s probably true for voters across the country.Among the happiest Democrats at the party’s strong midterms performance is Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader who gets to keep his job for another two years.Speaking after Catherine Cortez Masto’s victory in Nevada kept the chamber in Democrat hands, Schumer told reporters the results were a “vindication” of the party’s agenda, and a rejection of extremist candidates and “divisive” rhetoric put forward by the Republican party:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The election is a great win for the American people.
      Three things helped secure the Senate majority. One, our terrific candidates. Two, our agenda and accomplishments. And three, the American people rejected the anti-democratic, extremist Maga (Make America Great Again) Republicans.
      The American people soundly rejected the anti-democratic, authoritarian, nasty and divisive direction the Maga Republicans wanted to take our country, from the days of the big lie, which was pushed by so many, to the threats of violence and even violence itself against poll workers, election officials and electoral processes.
      And of course, the violence on January 6, all of that bothered the American people.
      And another thing that bothered them just as much, too many of the Republican leaders went along with that, didn’t rebut that violence, and some of them even aided and abetted the words of negativity.
      Where was the condemnation from the Republican leaders so often missing from so many of them?Americans have woken to the remarkable news that Democrats will retain control of the Senate for the next two years, secured by Catherine Cortez Masto’s projected victory over Republican Adam Laxalt in Nevada that was declared on Saturday night.Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer, who will remain Senate majority leader, hailed an achievement that appeared unthinkable amid talk of a red tsunami before last Tuesday’s midterm elections.Only the Senate race in Georgia, which heads to a 6 December runoff, remains to be settled. But the outcome cannot affect control of the chamber as Democrats now have 50 seats, plus vice president Kamala Harris’s tie breaking vote.
      Things are less clear in the House of Representatives, where a number of close races are yet to be called, and Republicans are closing in on a narrow majority.
      And in Arizona, we’re awaiting a winner in the tight and heated governor’s race between Democrat Katie Hobbs and extremist Republican Kari Lake.
      We’ll have plenty more news, commentary and reaction coming up in today’s live blog, including from senior officials in both parties.While we wait for the day to unfold, here’s a catch up from The Guardian’s Dani Anguiano in Las Vegas about Cortez Masto’s majority clinching victory:Catherine Cortez Masto wins Nevada Senate race to hold Democrat seatRead more More