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      ‘Do something, Democrats’: party struggles to rise to abortion challenge

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      ‘Do something, Democrats’: party struggles to rise to abortion challenge Despite controlling the White House and Congress, Democrats seem powerless to fight the assault on Roe v Wade but hope it will energise midterm votersVisibly shaking with fury and brandishing megaphones and posters, thousands of women defending reproductive rights in America thronged below the marbled columns of the US supreme court to protest against what appears to be the imminent demise of the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling recognizing abortion as a constitutional right.“Do something, Democrats,” the crowd chanted at one point.Tell us: how has Roe v Wade made a difference to your life?Read moreIn the hours that followed, Democrats, who currently control the House, the Senate and the White House, echoed their outrage and vowed a response.The urgency follows a leak late on Monday evening of a draft opinion from the court that a majority of the nine judges on the bench – all conservative-leaning appointees of Republican presidents – support not just more restrictions on abortion services but the overturning of the landmark Roe ruling that guarantees the right to abortion when final opinions are issued in June.“I am furious – furious that Republicans could be this cruel, that the supreme court could be this heartless, that in legislatures across the country, extreme Republicans are ready for their trigger bans to go into effect,” Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat of Washington and a longtime advocate of women’s reproductive rights, said.Speaking from the steps of the US Capitol, she was referring to states that have legislative bans on abortion prepared and waiting to be “triggered” into effect as soon as Roe is overturned. “It is craven and we won’t stand for it,” she said. “I’m not going to sit quietly and neither should any of you.”Yet, infuriatingly for the pro-choice voters who helped elect Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress, the party finds itself largely powerless at present, without a legislative path forward to protect abortion rights in the likely event the court reverses its decision in Roe.Biden said it would be a “radical decision” by the court and called on Congress to act to enshrine the rights afforded by Roe into federal law via legislation.And Vice-President Kamala Harris, speaking to attendees at a gala hosted by Emily’s List, which works to elect Democrats who support abortion rights, railed that a ruling overturning Roe would be a “direct assault on freedom” in America.Barring swift legislative action, nearly half of US states are likely to ban abortion or severely restrict access to the procedure.But the reality of Democrats’ thin congressional majorities is that they don’t have enough support in the evenly divided US Senate to codify abortion protections, nor do they have the votes to eliminate the so-called filibuster rule, thus allowing legislation to pass with a simple majority.Biden has resisted pressure from progressives to use his bully pulpit to call for eliminating the filibuster, following recent demands to do so to pass voting rights legislation. And on Tuesday, he said he was “not prepared” to do so to protect reproductive rights.Nevertheless, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, vowed to forge ahead with a vote on current legislation that is stalled in Congress but, if it could be passed would enshrine a woman’s right to end her pregnancy.But the measure, a version of which passed the Democratic-controlled House last year, was already rejected once this year, when it fell far short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. It didn’t even win the support of all 50 Democrats, so even if the filibuster were scrapped the bill, called the Women’s Health Protection Act, would not have passed in the Senate.Senator Joe Manchin, an anti-abortion Democrat from West Virginia, voted with Republicans to block consideration of the bill. The bill also failed to attract the support of two pro-choice Senate Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who have introduced separate legislation that they say would codify Roe.Yet Schumer argued that it was important to put every senator on the record.“A vote on this legislation is no longer an abstract exercise. This is as urgent and real as it gets,” he said. The leaked draft decision, written by the conservative justice Samuel Alito, would shift the question of whether abortion should be legal to the individual states.The effect would dramatically alter the US landscape almost overnight, with restrictions and bans going into effect across much of the south and midwest while abortion would remain legal in many north-eastern and western states.Emboldened by the supreme court’s conservative super-majority, Republican legislatures have enacted a flurry of new abortion laws as conservative activists begin to lay the groundwork for a nationwide ban.On Tuesday, as the country reeled from the revelation that the supreme court was likely to dismantle Roe, Oklahoma’s Republican governor signed into law a bill that would ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a copycat version of a Texas law enacted last year.Meanwhile, liberal states have moved to safeguard abortion protections. Last week, Connecticut lawmakers approved a bill that would protect abortion providers in the state. And states like California and New York have vowed to be a “sanctuary” for people seeking reproductive care from places where the procedure is banned.With few options, Democrats have implored Americans shocked and angered by the seemingly impending loss of abortion rights to vote in the midterm elections. Majorities of Americans say they want abortion to remain legal in some or most cases. Few say they want the court to overturn Roe.But Democrats face steep headwinds in November, weighed down by Biden’s low approval ratings, rising inflation and a sour national mood.The Republican reaction to the news that the nation’s highest court was prepared to strike down Roe was relatively subdued. In the Senate, lawmakers were far more focused on the source of the leaked document than the decision, which is the culmination of a decades-long drive by the conservative movement to overturn Roe.The response suggested that there may be some concern that Republicans are worried about provoking a political backlash among more moderate and independent voters who broadly support a constitutional right to abortion.“There’s an answer,” the Illinois senator Dick Durbin, the majority whip, said at a press conference. “The answer is in November.”But many Democrats and activists believe November is too late for millions of women in states where abortion will banned almost immediately. They want the party – from the president on down – to throw every ounce of their political capital at finding a legislative solution.“People elected Democrats precisely so we could lead in perilous moments like these- to codify Roe, hold corruption accountable, & have a President who uses his legal authority to break through Congressional gridlock on items from student debt to climate,” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive Democrat from New York, wrote on Twitter. “It’s high time we do it.”TopicsDemocratsAbortionUS politicsJoe BidenUS SenateUS CongressfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Rand Paul promises Covid review if Republicans retake Senate in midterms

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      Rand Paul promises Covid review if Republicans retake Senate in midtermsKentucky senator who has clashed publicly with Dr Anthony Fauci champions lab leak theory in remarks at rally The Kentucky senator Rand Paul promised on Saturday to wage a vigorous review into the origins of the coronavirus if Republicans retake the Senate and he lands a committee chairmanship.This Will Not Pass review: Trump-Biden blockbuster is dire reading for DemocratsRead moreSpeaking to supporters at a campaign rally, the senator denounced what he sees as government overreach in response to Covid-19. He applauded a recent judge’s order that voided the federal mask mandate on planes and trains and in travel hubs.“Last week I was on an airplane for the first time in two years and didn’t have to wear a mask,” he said, drawing cheers. “And you know what I saw in the airport? I saw at least 97% of the other free individuals not wearing masks.”Paul has clashed repeatedly with Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, over government policies and the origins of the virus.Paul, who is seeking a third term, said he was in line to assume a committee chairmanship if the GOP wins Senate control. The Senate has a 50-50 split, with the vice-president, Kamala Harris, the tie-breaking vote.“When we take over in November, I will be chairman of a committee and I will have subpoena power,” Paul said. “And we will get to the bottom of where this virus came from.”The senator, an ophthalmologist before politics, continued to offer his theory about the origins of the virus.02:49“If you look at the evidence, overwhelmingly, not 100%, but overwhelmingly the evidence points to this virus being a leak from a lab,” Paul said.Many US conservatives have accused Chinese scientists of developing Covid-19 in a lab and allowing it to leak.US intelligence agencies remain divided on the origins of the coronavirus but believe China did not know about the virus before the start of the global pandemic, according a Biden-ordered review released last summer.The scientific consensus remains that the virus most likely migrated from animals. So-called “spillover events” occur in nature and there are at least two coronaviruses that evolved in bats and caused human epidemics, SARS1 and MERS.At the Kentucky rally, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, the state’s senior senator, also pointed to Paul’s opportunity to lead a committee. If that occurs, he said, Paul would become chairman of “one of the most important committees in the Senate – in charge of health, education, labor and pensions”.McConnell was upbeat about Republican prospects in November.“I’ve never seen a better environment for us than this year,” said McConnell, who is in line to again become majority leader.The rally featured other prominent Kentucky Republicans, including several considering running for governor in 2023, when Andy Beshear, a Democrat, will seek a second term.In his speech, Paul railed against socialism, saying it would encroach on individual liberties. The senator was first elected to the Senate in the Tea Party wave of 2010.02:21“When President Trump said he wanted to ‘Make America Great Again’, I said, ‘Amen,’” Paul said. “But let’s understand what made America great in the first place, and that’s freedom, constitutionally guaranteed liberty.”Charles Booker is by far the best known Democrats seeking their party’s nomination for Paul’s seat in the 17 May primary. Paul is being challenged by several little-known candidates. A general election campaign between Paul and Booker would be a battle between candidates with starkly different philosophies.Booker, a Black former state lawmaker, narrowly lost a bid for the Democratic nomination in 2020. He is a progressive who touts Medicare for all, anti-poverty programs, a clean-energy agenda and criminal justice changes.Paul, a former presidential candidate, has accumulated a massive fundraising advantage.Kentucky has not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since Wendell Ford in 1992.TopicsRepublicansRand PaulUS midterm elections 2022CoronavirusUS politicsDemocratsAnthony FaucinewsReuse this content More

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      This Will Not Pass review: Trump-Biden blockbuster is dire reading for Democrats

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      This Will Not Pass review: Trump-Biden blockbuster is dire reading for Democrats Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns have made waves with tapes of Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans – but the president’s party has more to fear from what they revealThis Will Not Pass is a blockbuster. Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns deliver 473 pages of essential reading. The two New York Times reporters depict an enraged Republican party, besotted by and beholden to Donald Trump. They portray a Democratic party led by Joe Biden as, in equal measure, inept and out of touch.The Right review: conservatism, Trump, regret and wishful thinkingRead moreMartin and Burns make their case with breezy prose, interviews and plenty of receipts. After Kevin McCarthy denied having talked smack about Trump and the January 6 insurrection, Martin appeared on MSNBC with tapes to show the House Republican leader lied.In Burns and Martin’s pages, Trump attributes McCarthy’s cravenness to an “inferiority complex”. The would-be speaker’s spinelessness and obsequiousness are recurring themes, along with the Democrats’ political vertigo.On election day 2020, the country simply sought to restore a modicum of normalcy. Nothing else. Even as Biden racked up a 7m-vote plurality, Republicans gained 16 House seats. There was no mandate. Think checks, balances and plenty of fear.Biden owes his job to suburban moms and dads, not the woke. As the liberal Brookings Institution put it in a post-election report, “Biden’s victory came from the suburbs”.Said differently, the label of socialism, the reality of rising crime, a clamor for open borders and demands for defunding the police almost cost Democrats the presidency. As a senator, Biden knew culture mattered. Whether his party has internalized any lessons, though, is doubtful.On election day 2021, the party lost the Virginia governor’s mansion. Republican attacks over critical race theory and Covid-driven school closures and Democrats’ wariness over parental involvement in education did them in. This year, the midterms offer few encouraging signs.This Will Not Pass portrays Biden as dedicated to his belief his presidency ought to be transformational. In competition with the legacy of Barack Obama, he yearns for comparison to FDR.“I am confident that Barack is not happy with the coverage of this administration as more transformative than his,” Biden reportedly told one adviser.Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, is more blunt: “Obama is jealous of Biden.”Then again, Hunter Biden is not the Obamas’ son. Michelle and Barack can’t be too jealous.A telephone conversation between Biden and Abigail Spanberger, a moderate congresswoman from Virginia, captures the president’s self-perception. “This is President Roosevelt,” he begins, following up by thanking Spanberger for her sense of humor.She replies: “I’m glad you have a sense of humor, Mr President.”Spanberger represents a swing district, is a former member of the intelligence community and was a driving force in both Trump impeachments.This Will Not Pass also amplifies the disdain senior Democrats hold for the “Squad”, those members of the Democratic left wing who cluster round Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.Martin and Burns quote Steve Ricchetti, a Biden counselor: “The problem with the left … is that they don’t understand that they lost.”Cedric Richmond, a senior Biden adviser and former dean of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), is less diplomatic. He describes the squad as “fucking idiots”. Richmond also takes exception to AOC pushing back at the vice-president, Kamala Harris, for telling undocumented migrants “do not come.”“AOC’s hit on Kamala was despicable,” Richmond says. “What it did for me is show a clear misunderstanding of what’s going on in the world.”Meanwhile, Cori Bush, a Squad member, has picked a fight with the CBC and led the charge against domestic terror legislation.Burns and Martin deliver vivid portraits of DC suck-ups and screw-ups. They capture Lindsey Graham, the oleaginous senior senator from South Carolina, in all his self-abasing glory.During the authors’ interview with Trump, Graham called the former president. After initially declining to pick up, Trump answered. “Hello, Lindsey.” He then placed Graham on speaker, without letting him know reporters were seated nearby.Groveling began instantly. Graham praised the power of Trump’s endorsements and the potency of his golf game. Stormy Daniels would not have been impressed. The senator, Burns and Martin write, sounded like “nothing more than an actor in a diet-fad commercial who tells his credulous viewer that he had been skeptical of the glorious product – until he tried it”.This Will Not Pass also attempts to do justice to Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona senator and “former Green party activist who reinvented herself as Fortune 500-loving moderate”. In addition to helping block Biden’s domestic agenda, Sinema has a knack for performative behavior and close ties to Republicans.Like Sarah Palin, she is fond of her own physique. The senator “boasted knowingly to colleagues and aides that her cleavage had an extraordinary persuasive effect on the uptight men of the GOP”.Palin is running to represent Alaska in Congress. Truly, we are blessed.Subtitled Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future, Burns and Martin’s book closes with a meditation on the state of US democracy. The authors are anxious. Trump has not left the stage. Republican leadership has bent the knee. Mitch McConnell wants to be Senate majority leader again. He knows what the base is thinking and saying. Marjorie Taylor Greene is far from a one-person minority.Martin and Burns quote Malcolm Turnbull, a former prime minister of Australia: “You know that great line that you hear all the time: ‘This is not us. This is not America.’ You know what? It is, actually.”The Republicans are ahead on the generic ballot, poised to regain House and Senate. Biden’s favorability is under water. Pitted against Trump, he struggles to stay even. His handling of Russia’s war on Ukraine has not moved the needle.Inflation dominates the concerns of most Americans. For the first time in two years, the economy contracts. It is a long time to November 2024. Things can always get worse.
      This Will Not Pass is published in the US by Simon & Schuster
      TopicsBooksPolitics booksUS politicsJoe BidenBiden administrationDonald TrumpUS elections 2024reviewsReuse this content More

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      JD Vance’s Senate run is a test of Trump’s influence on the Republican party

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      JD Vance’s Senate run is a test of Trump’s influence on the Republican partyTrump’s primary endorsement has split voters and the party in Ohio in a race already defined by ‘meanness and pettiness and just plain craziness’ “America’s Hitler.” “A total fraud.” “A moral disaster.” Those were a few of the descriptions that JD Vance, bestselling author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy, once offered for Donald Trump. But none of that past criticism was evident here last Saturday night, as Vance shared a stage with Trump to accept the former president’s endorsement in the Ohio Senate Republican primary.“He’s the guy that said some bad shit about me,” Trump said of Vance during his rally at the Delaware county fairgrounds. “If I went by that standard, I don’t think I would have ever endorsed anybody in the country.”Taking the podium as the rally crowd chanted his name, Vance said, “The president is right. I wasn’t always nice, but the simple fact is, he’s the best president of my lifetime, and he revealed the corruption in this country like nobody else.”In less than six years, Vance has gone from a Trump skeptic who openly contemplated voting for Hillary Clinton to a devoted loyalist who has endorsed finishing the border wall and denounced identity politics as a Democratic gimmick. Vance’s radical shift reflects the larger transformation of the Republican party, as it has become nearly impossible to succeed in a primary as a Trump critic.The stakes are high for Republicans in Ohio, as they try to hold on to retiring Senator Rob Portman’s seat and ultimately regain control of the evenly divided upper chamber of Congress. The Republican candidate who wins the 3 May primary will probably face off against Democratic congressman Tim Ryan in the general election. The Republican primary winner, whoever it is, will then be favored to win in November, considering Trump defeated Joe Biden in Ohio by eight points in 2020.Trump endorses Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance in Ohio Republican primariesRead moreFor Trump, the Ohio Senate election also represents the biggest test yet for his most influential tool as party leader: a primary endorsement. Trump’s endorsement of Vance was considered a gamble, given that he had been trailing in the limited public polling of the race. Before Trump’s announcement, former state treasurer Josh Mandel and businessman Mike Gibbons were widely considered the two frontrunners in the primary. But a new poll released this week showed Vance pulling ahead of Mandel and Gibbons.“Before the Trump endorsement, I think JD was probably top of the second tier behind Gibbons and Mandel,” said Mike Hartley, who previously served as a senior adviser to former Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich. “I believe that the former president’s endorsement has made this race an actual toss-up.”Now Vance is counting on Trump’s endorsement to carry him to victory. And Trump is counting on that, too.“Meanness and pettiness and just plain craziness”When Vance announced his Senate candidacy last year, he began his campaign with a remorse tour, seizing every opportunity to explain his change of heart about Trump.“I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016,” Vance told Fox News last July. “I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy.”Vance’s groveling was successful in convincing the person whose opinion mattered most in the race: Trump. The former president announced earlier this month that he would endorse Vance, even though several candidates, including Mandel and Gibbons, had been openly campaigning for Trump’s support.“Like some others, JD Vance may have said some not so great things about me in the past, but he gets it now, and I have seen that in spades,” Trump said in his endorsement. “He is our best chance for victory in what could be a very tough race.”But Vance’s critics have not been so easily convinced. As reports emerged of the likely endorsement, Ohio Republican leaders who had backed other candidates circulated a letter urging Trump to reconsider. The letter noted that Vance had previously attacked some of Trump’s supporters as racist and chose to support independent candidate Evan McMullin in the 2016 presidential election, after he considered voting for Clinton.“I don’t have a problem with somebody changing their mind about somebody, and JD Vance has expressed on any number of occasions that he changed his mind as Trump held office,” Gibbons told the Guardian during an event with supporters in Powell, Ohio, last week. “What troubles me is that he actually kind of played with voting for Hillary Clinton. And I don’t think you can have a shred of conservative ideology to think for one second about voting for Hillary Clinton.”Despite the last-minute effort to prevent the endorsement, Trump went ahead with his plans to publicly back Vance. Rather than inspiring unity among Ohio Republicans, the endorsement appears to have injected even more vitriol into a race that was already defined by, as one columnist said, “meanness and pettiness and just plain craziness”.The conservative group Club for Growth, which has thrown its support behind Mandel in the race, has continued to air ads highlighting Vance’s past negative comments about Trump. This week, the group released a new ad arguing Trump had made the wrong choice in backing Vance and highlighting the former president’s 2012 endorsement of Mitt Romney, who lost to Barack Obama.When Trump learned that Club for Growth, with whom he has worked in the past, was standing by its endorsement of Mandel, he reportedly had his assistant text the group’s president, “Go fuck yourself.”Trump’s closest allies have engaged in similar mudslinging, intent on proving that the former president’s endorsement is enough to guarantee victory in a close race. Donald Trump Jr, the former president’s eldest son, who has campaigned with Vance in recent days, attacked Mandel on Twitter as the “Club for Chinese Growth backed establishment candidate”.Both Mandel and Vance have the backing of super PACs that have spent millions of dollars to aid their campaigns, making it even easier to flood the airwaves with attack ads. The pro-Vance group Protect Ohio Values has been propped up by $13.5m in donations from the tech investor Peter Thiel, who reportedly lobbied Trump directly for his endorsement. Meanwhile, Gibbons has mostly self-funded his run, lending more than $16m to his campaign.The cost of the primary has given Ohio Democrats, who have relished the ugliness of the Republican race, another opening to criticize the entire field of candidates.“It was already a race to the bottom, and Trump’s visit will make it a photo-finish to the gutter for this nasty, chaotic and expensive primary,” Elizabeth Walters, chair of the Ohio Democratic party, said ahead of the former president’s rally. “No matter which one of them hobbles out of the primary, we are ready to fight back and show working families that we’re on their side.”“I don’t have to follow Trump’s every whim”Vance is hoping that Trump’s endorsement will be enough to ensure he is the candidate who “hobbles out of the primary”, and there are indeed signs that he has picked up support. A Fox News poll taken after Trump’s announcement showed Vance leading Mandel by five points, although that advantage is within the survey’s margin of error. Gibbons is now trailing Vance by 10 points, the poll found.“The endorsement’s already given us a ton of momentum,” Vance told reporters after his town hall last week in Huber Heights, just outside Dayton. “It’s my race to lose, but at the end of the day, we still have to do the work.”At Vance’s town hall, several attendees said Trump’s endorsement had brought their attention to Vance in a new way. Judy Coeling, a 59-year-old primary voter from Centerville, said she had previously been deciding between Mandel and Gibbons, but Trump’s endorsement had prompted her to reconsider Vance.“I came just to find out more information because I had two other people in mind that I was kind of debating,” Coeling said. “I think he’s probably a lot stronger than what I gave him credit for.”Despite his opponents’ efforts to smear him for his past criticism of Trump, some of Vance’s supporters also said that they understood his negative opinion because they also once had their doubts about the former president.“I thought Trump had no chance, and then I saw how skilled he was,” said Evron Colhoun, a retiree from Englewood who volunteers with the Vance campaign. “I would say that I identified with that, too, because we had a similar evolution [with Trump]. I mean, I was really surprised that Vance got his endorsement, but I see why.”“I get where he’s coming from,” Brian Kitchen, a 48-year-old voter from Huber Heights, said of Vance’s past anti-Trump views. “I was a Kasich supporter, so I still have a Kasich bumper sticker on my other car.”Vance’s opponents have attempted to downplay the impact of the endorsement, claiming they have not seen a significant decline in their support. “I literally have gotten – and I’m not exaggerating – hundreds of texts saying, ‘We’re with you,’” Gibbons said. “I’ve only had one person that said they were switching their vote.”Will Trump’s ‘reckless’ endorsements be a referendum on his political power?Read moreStanding outside an early voting site in Columbus last week, Drew Sample, 37, said he had still voted for Gibbons because of his misgivings about Vance. “I don’t completely dislike him. I just don’t think he’s qualified to be senator,” Sample said. “He’s an opportunist. I think most of these guys are opportunists.”At the Trump rally in Delaware, some of the former president’s most ardent admirers were not persuaded by his endorsement of Vance. Jessica Dicken, a 31-year-old voter from Logan, said she would instead be supporting Mark Pukita, who has bragged about being unvaccinated and was accused of making an antisemitic ad about Mandel. (He denied that charge.)“I kind of think for myself,” Dicken said as she lined up hours early to enter the rally grounds. “I definitely support Trump, but I’m going to vote for my own Ohio primary who I feel is fit and who’s best.”Laura Beringer, another Pukita supporter from Akron standing a bit behind Dicken in line, added, “I love Trump, but he’s not perfect. I don’t have to follow his every whim. I have to go by what I feel.”Democrats are hoping they will be able to capitalize on those internal divisions in November and flip Portman’s seat. “Trump’s visit won’t unite the party,” Walters said. “All it really does is throw more fuel on the dumpster fire that is the Senate and gubernatorial races in Ohio on the Republican side.”But Republicans in Ohio – and across the country – have a number of factors working in their favor for November. The president’s party traditionally loses seats in Congress during the midterm elections, and Biden’s approval rating continues to languish in the low 40s. The Cook Political Report has rated the Ohio Senate race as “lean Republican”.“I think any of the [top candidates] will beat Tim Ryan,” Hartley said. “With this political environment, if a Republican doesn’t win, it’s going to be their own damn fault.”TopicsUS politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansUS SenatefeaturesReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      McConnell was ‘exhilarated’ by Trump’s apparent January 6 downfall, book says

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      McConnell was ‘exhilarated’ by Trump’s apparent January 6 downfall, book saysNew York Times reporters show how Senate leader’s opposition to Trump dwindled in face of hard political reality Hours after the deadly Capitol attack on 6 January 2021, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, told a reporter he was “exhilarated” because he thought Donald Trump had finally lost his grip on the party.Biden finds Murdoch ‘most dangerous man in the world’, new book saysRead moreClose to a year and a half later, however, with midterm elections looming, Trump retains control over the GOP and is set to be its presidential candidate in 2024.What’s more, McConnell has said he will support Trump if so.McConnell’s short-lived glee over Trump’s apparent downfall is described in This Will Not Pass, an explosive new book by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns of the New York Times which will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.The two authors describe a meeting between one of them and McConnell at the Capitol early on 7 January 2021. The day before, a mob Trump told to “fight like hell” in service of his lie about electoral fraud attempted to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory by forcing its way into the Capitol.A bipartisan Senate committee connected seven deaths to the attack. In the aftermath, 147 Republicans in the House and Senate nonetheless lodged objections to electoral results.According to Martin and Burns, McConnell told staffers Trump was a “despicable human being” he would now fight politically. Then, on his way out of the Capitol, the authors say, McConnell met one of them and “made clear he wanted a word”.“What do you hear about the 25th amendment?” they say McConnell asked, “eager for intelligence about whether his fellow Republicans were discussing removing Trump from office” via the constitutional process for removing a president incapable of the office.Burns and Martin say McConnell “seemed almost buoyant”, telling them Trump was now “pretty thoroughly discredited”.“He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger,” McConnell is quoted as saying. “Couldn’t have happened at a better time.”The authors say McConnell indicated he believed he would regain control of his party, alluding to a previous confrontation with the far right and saying: “We crushed the sons of bitches and that’s what we’re going to do in the primary in ’22.”McConnell also said: “I feel exhilarated by the fact that [Trump] finally, totally discredited himself.”McConnell’s words ring hollow, in fact, as the 2022 midterms approach. Trump endorsements are highly prized and Republicans who voted for impeachment are either retiring or facing Trump-backed challengers.Trump was impeached for a second time over the Capitol attack but as Burns and Martin describe, McConnell swiftly realised that most Republican voters still supported the former president – many believing his lie about electoral fraud – and that most Republicans in Congress were going to stay in line.Burns and Martin describe how in Trump’s Senate trial, Democratic House managers sought to convince McConnell of their case, knowing his loathing for Trump and hoping he would bring enough Republicans with him to convict.But McConnell, grasping a legal argument that said Congress could not impeach a former president, did not join the seven Republicans who did find Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection.After voting to acquit, McConnell excoriated Trump, saying he was “practically and morally responsible” for the Capitol attack.That did not change the fact that thanks in large part to McConnell, Trump remains free to run for office again.TopicsBooksDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden’s message drowned out by beat of the Republican culture-war drum

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      Joe Biden’s message drowned out by beat of the Republican culture-war drumDemocrats struggle to tell a good-news story, raising fears of midterm losses in November The interruption was unplanned but Joe Biden immediately knew this was no ordinary heckler. “I agree!” he told a babbling baby as the audience laughed. “I agree completely. By the way, kids are allowed to do anything they want when I speak so don’t worry about it.”It was a welcome note of light relief during a speech that could not be described as blockbuster television. Beside a blue sign that said “Building a Better America”, perched on a white boat at the New Hampshire Port Authority in Portsmouth, the US president was last week trying to gin up enthusiasm about infrastructure investment and supply chains.Biden’s choice of state was telling: Democratic senator Maggie Hassan faces New Hampshire voters in November as she seeks a second term in elections that will decide the control of Congress. And not for the first time, there are fears the Democrats have a messaging problem.The party does have a story to tell about the creation of 7.9 million jobs – more over his first 14 months in office than any president in history – along with progress against the coronavirus pandemic, the passage of a $1tn bipartisan infrastructure law, diverse judicial appointments and leading the Nato alliance against Russia’s Vladimir Putin.But opinion polls suggest this could be overwhelmed by Republicans’ characteristically blunt and visceral campaign targeting 40-year high inflation, rising crime, immigration at the Mexico border and “culture wars” over abortion, transgender rights and how race is taught in schools.“Hearts beats charts,” said John Zogby, an author and pollster. “Very simply, look at the Democrats who’ve won the presidency: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden. Contrast the obvious empathy and real-life stories with Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton.“It’s the ability to tell a story that relates to all Americans. All of which is to suggest that Republicans will tell stories that matter and Democrats will show statistics.”The stakes this time could hardly be higher: the Senate is currently split 50-50, while Democrats can afford to lose only three seats in the House of Representatives if they want to retain control. Given the headwinds typically faced by the president’s party in midterms, Republicans believe both chambers are within their grasp.Such an outcome could turn Biden into a lame-duck president, able to do little more than issue executive orders and veto legislation, while empowering congressional Republicans to launch investigations into his son, Hunter Biden, and other foes while paving the way for the return of the former president, Donald Trump.The polls look bleak for Democrats. Last month, NBC News found that 46% of registered voters prefer a Republican-controlled Congress while 44% want Democrats in charge – the first time Republicans have led in this survey since September 2014.Inflation fears dominate, according to online focus groups run last week by Navigator Research with swing voters in Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin. They found that presenting economic facts “only modestly moves the needle” and pervasive inflation concerns outweigh job creation.A North Carolina woman who took part said of the economy: “So you can tell me it’s doing great but if I’m struggling to buy groceries and gas and will be out of a job in two months, that to me is saying no, it’s not really doing that great.”Biden has attempted to shift blame for rising fuel costs to “Putin’s price hike” but with limited success. His public approval rating stands at 43%, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, with disapproval of his job performance at 51%.Democrats’ four most-endangered Senate incumbents – Hassan of New Hampshire, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada – duly seem to be distancing themselves from the president, for example by visiting the southern border and criticising his plan to lift a pandemic-era restriction there known as Title 42.Biden, touring the country and refocusing on domestic concerns after two months dominated by Ukraine, wants to convince voters that investing in roads and bridges is a major accomplishment after years of unfulfilled promises from his predecessor. But most of the benefits will not be felt for years and even the word “infrastructure” tends to land with a thud.There are further worries that the Democratic base, including many voters of colour, will stay at home on election day, disenchanted by the party’s failure to get gun safety, police reform and voting rights legislation through Congress. Biden no longer uses the phrase “Build Back Better” and is struggling to salvage parts of that plan to address the climate crisis.Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington, said: “The difficulty that Democrats have is that a message that would energise the base is not one that resonates with the centre. The swing voter doesn’t prioritise voting rights, climate change, big expansion of spending. They want much more pedestrian things and Democrats have not yet figured out how to have a narrative that combines both.”Biden launches $6bn effort to save America’s distressed nuclear plantsRead moreRepublicans have the luxury of opposition, Olsen added. “When you don’t have the power to be for anything, it’s easier to be against something and that’s what you’re going to see: Biden inflation, Biden weakness, Biden liberalism, Biden socialism.“They will try to paint the Democratic party as a whole with its left wing but, by and large, they will attack Biden and the Democratic party as out of touch and producing bad results for the average American on the things they care most about: crime, immigration and the economy. This is one of, if not the most, favourable environment for an out party that I’ve seen in my lifetime.”Indeed, Republicans are exuding confidence despite still being in thrall to a former president who incited a deadly insurrection and despite offering no policy agenda. Florida senator Rick Scott, the chairman of the national Republican senatorial committee, published his own 11-point plan that includes forcing poorer Americans who do not currently pay income tax to do so, but it was swiftly disowned by minority leader Mitch McConnell.Instead, Republicansare filling the vacuum by assailing rising prices at the petrol pump and at the supermarket (“Bidenflation”), increasing crime rates in major cities and Biden’s reversal of Trump-era policies on immigration. US authorities arrested 210,000 migrants attempting to cross the southern border in March, the highest monthly total in two decades.The party has also reverted to its playbook of social and cultural hot-button topics, railing against a caricature of “critical race theory” (CRT) in schools and pushing state legislation to restrict abortions and ban transgender children from sport. It casts itself as a champion of “parental rights” while portraying Democrats as “woke” socialists bent on controlling lives’ and “cancelling” dissent.Addressing the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank in Washington last month, Scott warned:“We survived the war of 1812, world war one, world war two, Korea, Vietnam and the cold war. But now, today, we face the greatest danger we have ever faced: the militant left wing in our country has become the enemy within.”Come election season, Democrats are often accused of bringing a power-point presentation to a bar brawl: trying to explain policies in intellectual paragraphs while Republicans spin slogans ready-made for car bumper stickers. But this time some Democrats say they are ready to take the fight to their opponents.Congressman Eric Swalwell of California has just launched the Remedy political action committee, which turns Scott’s message on its head by contending that American democracy is “under attack from within” and promising to “hold accountable those who choose party over country”.Swalwell said: “At the end of the day, elections are about A or B. It’s about drawing a contrast and we can just make it as simple as chaos or competency. When it comes to transitions of power, do you want violence or voting? When it comes to the character of who runs the country, do you want indecency or integrity?”“When [pro-Trump members of Congress] Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene proudly declare that they’re not the fringe, they’re the base of the party, we’re going to make sure every voter knows that. That’s what they’re going to get if they give Republicans the keys to the country.”One dilemma for Democrats is how much time they should spend harking back to Trump, reminding voters of the existential threat that his party still poses to democracy, versus a positive forward-looking vision that encompasses bread-and-butter concerns.Swalwell acknowledges that Democrats must identify with the pain that people are feeling from inflation while also offering solutions. He points to last month’s example of the House passing a bill to limit the cost of insulin to $35 a month (Americans currently pay around five to eight times more than Canadians). Some 193 Republicans opposed the bill while just 12 voted in favour.Swalwell said: “We’re going to make them own walking away from solutions that would help people. Their plan for the economy is that 100 million people will pay more in taxes: that’s Rick Scott’s rescue plan that they’re running on. As people pay more already at the checkout stand, Rick Scott would have most Americans pay more in taxes.“It’s going to be about choices and, if we have the resources to tell America what the choices are, we’re going to win. Right now I see the punditry betting against us but I don’t see our supporters betting against us because, when you look at Democratic versus Republican fundraising quarter after quarter, we’re beating them. There’s no fatigue in our base. They get it.”The four embattled Senate Democrats – Cortez Masto, Hassan, Kelly and Warnock – outraised their Republican opponents in the first quarter of this year, boosting hopes that supporters will remain energised. Trump’s determination to insert himself into dozens of races with risky endorsements, campaign rallies and his “big lie” of a stolen election could also galvanise Democrats and independents.Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican national committee, predicts that Republicans will pick up 30 to 35 seats in the House but Democrats might just hold the Senate. He said: “The Republicans’ main message is going to be Democrats can’t run the country. ‘I give you the economy. I give you culture. I give you crime.’ And the Democrats’ message is, ‘Can we get back to you in a moment?’ That sums up the 2022 election.”He added: “Republicans don’t have to run on anything substantive; all they have to do is say, ‘gee, look how screwed up these guys are.’ You’re going to see Republicans run a culture war-based strategy that drives the fear and loathing that white suburban families, particularly women, have over things that are not even relevant to their children’s lives, like CRT. And Democrats will be sitting there pissed off at all the wrong stuff.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022The ObserverJoe BidenDemocratsRepublicansUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Overcoming Trumpery review: recipes for reform Republicans will never allow

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      Overcoming Trumpery review: recipes for reform Republicans will never allow The depth of Trump’s corruption is familiar but still astonishing when presented in the whole. Alas, his party shares itThe great abuses of power by Richard Nixon’s administration which are remembered collectively as Watergate had one tremendous benefit: they inspired a raft of legislation which significantly strengthened American democracy.The Presidency of Donald Trump review: the first draft of historyRead moreThis new book from the Brookings Institution, subtitled How to Restore Ethics, The Rule of Law and Democracy, recalls those far-away days of a functioning legislative process.The response to Watergate gave us real limits on individual contributions to candidates and political action committees (Federal Election Campaign Act); a truly independent Office of Special Counsel (Ethics in Government Act); inspector generals in every major agency (Inspector General Act); a vastly more effective freedom of information process; and a Sunshine Law which enshrined the novel notion that the government should be “the servant of the people” and “fully accountable to them”.Since then, a steadily more conservative supreme court has eviscerated all the most important campaign finance reforms, most disastrously in 2010 with Citizens United, and in 2013 destroyed the most effective parts of the Voting Rights Act. Congress let the special counsel law lapse, partly because of how Ken Starr abused it when he investigated Bill Clinton.The unraveling of Watergate reforms was one of many factors that set the stage for the most corrupt US government of modern times, that of Donald Trump.Even someone as inured as I am to Trump’s crimes can still be astonished when all the known abuses are catalogued in one volume. What the authors of this book identify as “The Seven Deadly Sins of Trumpery” include “Disdain for Ethics, Assault on the rule of law, Incessant lying and disinformation, Shamelessness” and, of course, “Pursuit of personal and political interest”.The book identifies Trump’s original sin as his refusal to put his businesses in a blind trust, which led to no less than 3,400 conflicts of interest. It didn’t help that the federal conflict of interests statute specifically exempts the president. Under the first president of modern times with no interest in “the legitimacy” or “the appearance of legitimacy of the presidency”, this left practically nothing off limits.The emoluments clause of the constitution forbids every government official accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State” but lacks any enforcement mechanism. So a shameless president could be paid off through his hotels by everyone from the Philippines to Kuwait while the Bank of China paid one Trump company an estimated $5.4m. (As a fig leaf, Trump gave the treasury $448,000 from profits made from foreign governments during two years of his presidency, but without any accounting.)Trump even got the federal government to pay him directly, by charging the secret service $32,400 for guest rooms for a visit to Mar-a-Lago plus $17,000 a month for a cottage at his New Jersey golf club.The US Office of Special Counsel catalogued dozens of violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits political activity by federal officials. Miscreants included Peter Navarro, Dan Scavino, Nikki Haley and most persistently Kellyanne Conway. The OSC referred its findings to Trump, who of course did nothing. Conway was gleeful.“Let me know when the jail sentence starts,” she said.There was also the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, addressing the Republican convention from a bluff overlooking Jerusalem during a mission to Israel. In a different category of corruption were the $43,000 soundproof phone booth the EPA administrator Scott Pruitt installed and the $1m the health secretary Tom Price spent on luxury travel. Those two actually resigned.The book is mostly focused on the four-year Trump crimewave. But it is bipartisan enough to spread the blame to Democrats for creating a climate in which no crime seemed too big to go un-prosecuted.Barack Obama’s strict ethics rules enforced by executive orders produced a nearly scandal-free administration. But Claire O Finkelstein and Richard W Painter argue that there was one scandal that established a terrible precedent: the decision not to prosecute anyone at the CIA for illegal torture carried out under George W Bush.This “failure of accountability” was “profoundly corrosive. The decision to ‘look forward, not back’ on torture … damaged the country’s ability to hold government officials to the constraints of the law”.However, the authors are probably a little too optimistic when they argue that a more vigorous stance might have made the Trump administration more eager to prosecute its own law breakers.The authors point out there are two things in the federal government which are even worse than the wholesale violation of ethical codes within the executive branch: the almost total absence of ethical codes within the congressional and judicial branches.The ethics manual for the House says it is “fundamental that a member … may not use his or her official position for personal gain”. But that is “virtually meaningless” became members can take actions on “industries in which they hold company stock”.Dignity in a Digital Age review: a congressman takes big tech to taskRead moreThe Senate exempts itself from ethical concerns with two brilliant words: no member can promote a piece of legislation whose “principal purpose” is “to further only his pecuniary interest”. So as long as legislation also has other purposes, personal profit is no impediment to passage.The authors argue that since the crimes of Watergate pale in comparison to the corruption of Trump, this should be the greatest opportunity for profound reform since the 1970s. But of course there is no chance of any such reform getting through this Congress, because Republicans have no interest in making government honest.Nothing tells us more about the collapse of our democracy than the primary concern of the House and Senate minority leaders, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell. Their only goal is to avoid any action that would offend the perpetrator or instigator of all these crimes. Instead of forcing him to resign the way Nixon did, these quivering men still pretend Donald Trump is the only man qualified to lead them.
      Overcoming Trumpery is published in the US by Brookings Institution Press
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      What caused the rise of anti-Asian hate crime in the US? Politics Weekly America – podcast

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      Last year, President Biden signed the anti-Asian hate crimes bill into law. Jonathan Freedland speaks to Prof Claire Kim of UCI about what’s behind the recent rise in anti-Asian hate in America, why this is an issue both sides of Congress can actually agree on, and what influence Asian-American voters could have in the midterms and in 2024

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      Archive: NBC, ABC Claire Jean Kim is professor of political science and Asian American Studies at the University of California Irvine Listen to this week’s episode of Politics Weekly UK with John Harris Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More