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      Pat Robertson obituary

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      Although the concept of separation of church and state is entrenched in the US constitution, the influence of churchmen in political affairs is an American tradition dating back to the colonial era. Indeed, modern media has made the voice of contemporary evangelists every bit as powerful as Cotton Mather’s sermons were to the early Puritans. Pat Robertson, who has died aged 93, rode the growth of cable television, and a shrewd sense of the economics of the business, to become the most overtly political, and arguably the most influential, of them all.When Robertson appeared on the front of Time magazine in 1986, the cover line read Gospel TV: Religion, Politics and Money. The melding of those three strands of his career was not always seamless, though in American fundamentalism, material wealth is usually seen as a visible sign of God’s blessing. Through his Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), he progressed from televised faith healing to a serious run at the US presidency in 1988, and made a fortune in the process.Robertson started that campaign for the Republican nomination with a petition, and contributions, from 3 million viewers, and finished second in the Iowa caucuses, ahead of the then vice-president George HW Bush. But voters gave him little support in the Republican primaries, and Bush of course went on to the presidency.Robertson, who had handed control of CBN to his son Tim, then founded the Christian Coalition of America. Having failed to take over the Republican party, his “rainbow coalition” of fundamentalists would attempt to steer the party in its ideological direction.The coalition’s lobbying exerted immense influence, helping spearhead the right’s assault on President Bill Clinton, and provided both a fundraising and ideological template for Bush. Although the coalition was censured and fined for coordinating its campaigns directly with the Republican party, and for improper aid delivered to then-House majority leader Newt Gingrich and the Virginia senatorial candidate Oliver North, its success spurred on Robertson’s indulgence in another grand tradition of American evangelical preachers, the hubris that found him courting constant controversy, and frequent financial scandal.Controversy became inevitable with the shift from mainstream politics to the Christian Coalition. Preaching to the converted meant the restraints on expressing his true beliefs were lifted. The framework for those beliefs was set out in his 1991 bestseller The New World Order, an amalgam of historical conspiracy theories, which posited an alliance of Masons and Jewish bankers who controlled the world.Robertson called feminism a “socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practise witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians”. He predicted that the staging of “gay days” at Disney World would result in God’s retribution through earthquakes, tornados, terrorist bombings or meteors.Asked to be “nice” about rival Protestant denominations, such as Episcopalians, Presbyterians or Methodists, he said: “I don’t have to be nice to the spirit of the antichrist.” He described leftwing academics as “racists, murderers, sexual deviants, and supporters of al-Qaida”.In 2005 he called for the assassination of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and explained Ariel Sharon’s 2006 stroke as God’s retribution for giving land back to Palestinians. He later apologised to Sharon’s family and claimed to have been misquoted.That followed Robertson’s standard pattern, of making wild accusations that pleased his core audience, then claiming to have been misquoted by an anti-Christian mainstream media. Most notoriously, on his TV show The 700 Club, he agreed emphatically with his fellow evangelist Jerry Falwell’s theory that the 9/11 attacks were caused by “pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the American Civil Liberties Union, and [the progressive advocacy group] People for the American Way”. After the ensuing uproar, he claimed that due to a malfunctioning earpiece he had not actually heard what Falwell was saying when he agreed with it.Robertson came by his political ambitions naturally, being related through the family of his mother, Gladys (nee Willis), to two presidents, the Harrisons, William Henry and Benjamin, while his father, Willis Robertson, was a US Senator from Virginia, one of the conservative segregationist southern Democrats dubbed “Dixiecrats”. He was born in Lexington, Virginia, and christened Marion Robertson, but was nicknamed Pat, because his older brother, Willis Jr, would say “pat, pat, pat” while patting baby Marion’s cheeks.Pat was educated at two military academies: McDonogh, near Baltimore, and McCallie, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He attended Washington and Lee University in his home town. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Marines, but his claims to have seen combat with the First Marine Division in Korea came back to haunt him during his run for the presidential nomination.His Republican rival, Congressman Pete McCloskey, who had served with Robertson, said Robertson’s father had used influence to keep him out of combat, and that his primary responsibility had been to keep the officers’ clubs stocked with liquor. Robertson denounced this, and allegations by fellow Marines that he had consorted with prostitutes, as attempts to discredit him.Robertson returned home to gain a law degree in 1955 from Yale, but failed the bar exam. Soon afterwards, he was converted by the Dutch missionary Cornelius Vanderbreggen. By the time he was ordained by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1961, he had bought his first television station, in Portsmouth, Virginia, and established the Christian Broadcasting Network. He gave Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker their first break, doing a children’s programme, and started the breakfast-time show The 700 Club, its title taken from a fundraising drive for 700 subscribers.Robertson’s early success was based on televised faith healing. Critics pointed out that God seemed to speak through Robertson while taking programme cues from the director. His style, with fixed smile and narrow eyes, could seem almost a caricature of a snake-oil salesman, but its appeal was unquestionable, as CBN eventually claimed an audience in 180 countries. It functioned as a network of affiliated stations subscribing to its programming, but in 1977 Robertson started his own cable channel, CBN Cable, offering mainstream entertainment bookended by The 700 Club.Renamed the Family Channel, its profits eventually threatened CBN’s religious non-profit status, so Robertson set up International Family Entertainment, with himself and Tim as its heads, and sold the Family Channel to it. In 1992 he took IFE public, making $90m on the launch. In 1997, IFE sold the Family Channel to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox network for $1.9bn. Fox has since sold it on to Disney, but as a condition of the original sale, the channel, now called Freeform, is still required to broadcast The 700 Club, hosted by Pat’s son Gordon, president of CBN, twice a day.Evangelists including Oral Roberts and Bob Jones had founded their own colleges, and Robertson’s television success spawned CBN University, now called Regent University, at the CBN headquarters in Virginia Beach, the city where Robertson lived in a hilltop mansion with its own landing strip. On a number of occasions he credited his public prayers for steering hurricanes away from Virginia Beach, though he was unsuccessful with Hurricane Isabel in 2003.More controversial than Regent was his international humanitarian charity Operation Blessing. In 1994, it was claimed in his local newspaper, the Virginian-Pilot, that Robertson’s impassioned fundraising for Operation Blessing’s refugee airlift in Rwanda and Zaire was at least partly a cover for the use of his aircraft to transport diamond-mining equipment for the Robertson-owned African Development Corporation. A long investigation by Virginia’s Office of Consumer Affairs recommended Robertson be prosecuted for fraud, but the state’s attorney general, Mark Earley, brought no charges against him. The George W Bush administration made Operation Blessing the second-largest recipient of federal relief funds in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, which was seen in some quarters as payback for Robertson’s support.In 2003, Robertson used The 700 Club as a platform to argue on behalf of the Liberian president Charles Taylor, who had been indicted by the UN for war crimes. It emerged that Robertson had an investment in a Liberian gold mine, which he claimed was intended to help pay for Operation Blessing’s humanitarian efforts in the country, but which was allowed to go bankrupt after Taylor’s departure from office.Other business enterprises included the Ice Capades, a pyramid sales scheme, and a financial services venture with the Bank of Scotland, which was cancelled after Robertson called Scotland “a dark land overrun by homosexuals”. No matter how outrageous his statements, Robertson never alienated his core audience, and could count on the committed support of born-again Christians who felt the Lord spoke through him, and rewarded him for passing on his message, as did countless politicians hungry for his endorsement.He married Dede (Adelia) Elmer in 1954. She died in 2022 and Robertson is survived by their sons, Tim and Gordon, and daughters, Elizabeth and Ann, 14 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren. More

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      The Guardian view on the Republican primary: leader of the unappetising pack | Editorial

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      Donald Trump has an excess of companions in the race for the Republican nomination for 2024, but a paucity of rivals. The quantity of candidates in the presidential primary so far appears in inverse relationship to the threat they pose to him. The main question prompted by several recent declarees is not how they might win or what they might offer, but simply “why?” (Mike Pence, Chris Christie), or even “who?” (Perry Johnson).No one can predict what will happen in this race, and upsets do happen. Large fields and long shots positioning politicians for a future bid or the vice-presidential slot on the ticket are nothing new in primaries. Nor are improbable, often self-funded entrants. But the current flurry of activity – Mr Pence, former New Jersey governor Mr Christie and North Dakota’s governor Doug Burgum all announced runs this week – seems to be prompted less by the belief that Mr Trump is beatable than by the belief that Ron DeSantis isn’t the man to beat him. The Florida governor surged in polls after winning by a landslide in the midterms, while Trump-backed candidates fell short. It did not last.Mr Trump’s savaging of Mr DeSantis shows he takes nothing for granted. But he is polling more than 50% among Republicans, while Mr DeSantis is a distant second on about 20%. Mr Trump has the status of a former president, yet pitches himself as an insurgent. His personal conduct and erratic politics are already priced in, and he has delivered for his base – notably on the supreme court and, therefore, abortion. Some still like the idea of Trumpism without Trump: a more competent, less reckless version of the former president. But Mr DeSantis has appeared awkward on the campaign trail. While he counts on a hard line on social issues – including abortion and the battle with Disney – to help him regain ground, it may be unsettling donors.Mr Pence trails in distant third: though vice-presidents often win presidential nominations, he is loathed both for backing his former boss’s iniquities until the 11th hour – and for certifying 2020’s election results and rejecting the lie that Mr Trump had won. His support is in single digits, at about 5%, as is that for Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, and Mr Trump’s ambassador to the UN. Tim Scott, also of South Carolina, and only the second black Republican senator ever directly elected, has impressed some pundits but is even further behind.The concern of anti-Trump Republicans is that the sheer number of candidates will split the votes of those pondering an alternative. While Mr Christie has laid into Mr Trump, and Mr Pence did so in his campaign launch, Mr DeSantis has vacillated before hardening his line – and still refuses to comment on Mr Trump’s claims that the last election was stolen.The others criticise him only in veiled terms. They hope to pick up Mr Trump’s supporters should he be hobbled, perhaps due to some unforeseen act or his multitude of legal woes. Prosecutors have formally notified the former president that he is a target of the criminal investigation examining the retention of national security materials. It is far from clear that any of the cases against him will obstruct his return. Yet the biggest threats to Mr Trump’s political prospects still appear to remain outside his party. More

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      Republican hardliners’ revolt against Kevin McCarthy shuts down US House of Representatives

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      The US House of Representatives has been forced to postpone all votes until next week – paralyzed by a revolt against its Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, by ultra-conservative members of his own party.The standoff between McCarthy and a hardline faction of his own Republican majority has forced the chamber into a holding pattern that looks likely to persist until at least Monday.Members of the House Freedom Caucus have been upset over the bipartisan debt ceiling bill that McCarthy recently brokered with the Democratic president, Joe Biden, as well as claims that some hardliners had been threatened over their opposition to the deal.“You’ve got a small group of people who are pissed off that are keeping the House of Representatives from functioning,” said Republican representative Steve Womack.“This is insane. This is not the way a governing majority is expected to behave, and frankly, I think there will be a political cost to it.”The hardliners were among the 71 Republicans who opposed debt ceiling legislation that passed the House last week. They say McCarthy did not cut spending deeply enough and retaliated against at least one of their members. McCarthy and other House Republican leaders dismissed the retaliation claims.They also accuse McCarthy of violating the terms of an agreement that allowed him to secure the speaker’s gavel in January, though it was not clear which aspects they believe were not honored.House action came to a sudden halt midday on Tuesday when the band of conservatives refused to support a routine procedural vote to set the rules schedule for the day’s debate. It was the first time in some 20 years a routine rules vote was defeated.Days of closed-door negotiations have not yielded a resolution, but McCarthy said he was confident they would sort out their differences. “We’re going to come back on Monday, work through it and be back up for the American public.”McCarthy oversees a narrow House Republican majority of 222-213, meaning that he can lose only four votes from his own party on any measure that faces uniform opposition from Democrats.Along with an attempt by Republicans to pass a bill preventing the banning of gas stoves, the dispute also has delayed bills that would increase congressional scrutiny of regulations and expand the scope of judicial review of federal agencies.As a result of the revolt against McCarthy, routine votes could not be taken, and the pair of pro-gas stove bills important to GOP activists stalled out. Some lawmakers asked if they could simply go home.McCarthy brushed off the disruption as healthy political debate, part of his “risk taker” way of being a leader — not too different, he said, from the 15-vote spectacle it took in January for him to finally convince his colleagues to elect him as speaker. With a paper-thin GOP majority, any few Republicans have outsized sway.But the aftermath of the debt ceiling deal is coming into focus. The McCarthy-Biden compromise set overall federal budget caps — holding spending flat for 2024, and with a 1% growth for 2025 — and Congress still needs to pass appropriations bills to fund the various federal agencies at the agreed-to amounts. That is typically done by 1 October. After Biden signed the debt deal into law last weekend, lawmakers have been fast at work on the agency-spending bills ahead of votes this summer to meet the deadline.Not only did the conservatives object to the deal with Biden as insufficient, they claim it violated the terms of an agreement they had reached with McCarthy to roll back spending even further, to 2022 levels, to make him speaker.“There was an agreement in January,” Ken Buck, a Republican representative from Colorado, told reporters after he left the speaker’s office on Wednesday morning. “And it was violated in the debt-ceiling bill.”If Congress fails to pass the spending bills by fall it risks a federal government shutdown – an outcome conservatives have forced multiple times before, starting in the Clinton era when then-Speaker Newt Gingrich led the House into a budget standoff, and again in 2013 when conservatives shut down the government as they tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act.The longest federal shutdown in history was during the Trump era when Congress refused his demands for money to build the border wall between the US and Mexico.With Reuters and the Associated Press More

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      Mike Pence: ‘Trump asked me to choose him or the constitution – I chose the constitution’ – as it happened

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      From 4h agoMike Pence directly addressed the rivalry between him and Donald Trump, saying on January 6, his then-boss asked him to “choose between him and the constitution.”“January 6 was a tragic day in the life of our nation,” Pence began. “As I’ve said many times, on that fateful day, president Trump’s words were reckless. They endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol. But the American people deserve to know that on that day, president Trump also demanded that I choose between him and the constitution. Now, voters will be faced with the same choice: I chose the constitution and I always will.”Mike Pence is now officially on the presidential campaign trail, after kicking off his bid for the White House with a speech in Iowa where he unsurprisingly attacked Joe Biden, but also went directly at Donald Trump. Pence accused his former running mate of drifting away from conservative values and of asking him to violate the constitution, as the former vice-president sought to carve a place out for himself in the crowded Republican field. In the months to come, we’ll find out what voters think.Here’s what else happened today:
      North Dakota governor Doug Burgum started his own campaign for the Republican presidential nomination with a speech in Fargo.
      Trump said he has not been told he is being indicted, after days of reports that prosecutors are nearing the end of their investigation into his possession of classified documents.
      Major East Coast cities including Washington DC and New York City are grappling with an influx of wildfire smoke that has drifted down from Canada, rendering the air quality hazardous for some groups.
      Clarence Thomas, the conservative supreme court justice, asked for extra time to file his financial disclosures following reports that he’d accepted gifts and travel from a Republican megadonor.
      Ron DeSantis isn’t letting the wide gap between his second place and Trump’s lead in the polls phase him.
      Donald Trump says he has not been told he is being indicted, despite reports in recent days that prosecutors are nearing the conclusion of their investigation into the classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago resort last year.Here’s what the former president wrote on his Truth social account:
      No one has told me I’m being indicted, and I shouldn’t be because I’ve done NOTHING wrong, but I have assumed for years that I am a Target of the WEAPONIZED DOJ & FBI, starting with the Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX, the “No Collusion” Mueller Report, Impeachment HOAX #1, Impeachment HOAX #2, the PERFECT Ukraine phone call, and various other SCAMS & WITCH HUNTS. A TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE & ELECTION INTERFERENCE AT A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE. REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS MUST MAKE THIS THEIR # 1 ISSUE!!!
      Earlier this week, attorneys for the former president met at justice department headquarters in Washington DC with top officials, including Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed to handle the investigation into the classified documents, as well as Trump’s involvement in the January 6 insurrection and the plot to overturn the 2020 election result.Such meetings typically take place before charging decisions are announced in federal investigations. Today, an aide to the former president, Taylor Budowich, said he had spoken to a grand jury investigating Trump.The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell has reported the Budowich was among those summoned by federal prosecutors to appear before a new grand jury convened in Florida, which is focusing on Trump’s handling of national security matters and potential obstruction of justice. It remains unclear what that grand jury’s empaneling implies for the status of the overall investigation, but you can read more about it here:Ron DeSantis doesn’t appear to be too worried about trailing Donald Trump in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination, and claims to be “really excited” about the enthusiasm he believes he has generated.Florida’s governor, who entered the race with a glitch-ridden launch event on Twitter last month, has just been speaking at a immigration roundtable in Arizona, and was asked by a reporter about his numbers.“Did you just see the Iowa polls that just came out?” DeSantis said, presumably referring to his own internal polling, reported by the New York Post, that purportedly shows him gaining ground on the former president in the state.“We can talk about polls all day long. You’ve seen some some great stuff. When you run in these things, you run and you persuade people. I mean, that’s the whole point of it. Like you don’t do a poll a year out and say that that’s how the election runs out.“If that were the case, you know, I wouldn’t have been elected in the first place as governor, and even my reelection I had people saying we were going to win by a couple of percentage points. We won by 20.“So we’re really excited about the enthusiasm we’ve generated. I think you’re gonna see a lot of really good stuff over the ensuing weeks and months.”The latest polling by Real Clear Politics for the Republican nomination has Trump at 53% and DeSantis at 22.The academic and public intellectual Cornel West could pose a threat to Joe Biden’s hold on the White House, the former Trump strategist Kellyanne Conway said – not because West’s People’s Party candidacy has a chance of winning the race but because it could draw young voters and voters of colour away from the Democratic president.“Even if you don’t become president, you, as a third-party candidate spoiler, can decide who is the president,” Conway told Fox News.Conway gave the example of Ross Perot, the millionaire businessman whose third-party run is widely held to have cost George HW Bush dear in 1992, when he was turfed out of the White House by Bill Clinton.Other third-party candidates who have had an impact on presidential races include Ralph Nader, widely held to have damaged Al Gore in the knife-edge 2000 election against George W Bush.In 2016, when Conway managed Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton, both the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, and the Green candidate, Jill Stein, made an impact at the polls in states that decided the contest.Conway continued: “It’s important also … that if you play to win and you’re Cornel West, and you are still not satisfied with the trajectory of the Democratic party being progressive enough for you under a Biden-Harris administration, then you’re going to run to the left of them.”West, Conway said, is “going to make a play for people who feel forgotten, who feel abandoned by this Democratic party, who feel like nobody’s listening to them and including them.“It’s part of how Trump won in 2016, but I think he could do it from the left.“I know him. He’s a super-smart guy. He’s very committed to the principles and policies that he thinks more Americans want to hear.”The supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has asked for extra time to file his financial disclosures, records keenly awaited amid the ongoing scandal concerning his links to, and extensive gifts from, the Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow.Crow and another conservative on the court, Samuel Alito, asked for 90 more days to file their annual financial disclosures, the Washington Post reported.The Post added: “Both requests were confirmed by the Administrative Office of the US Courts on Wednesday, the same day that disclosure reports filed by their court colleagues were posted on the court system’s website.”As the Post also said, the supreme court “is under increasing pressure from Democratic lawmakers and transparency advocates to strengthen disclosure rules and adopt ethics guidelines specific to the justices after news reports revealed Thomas’s undisclosed real estate deals and private jet travel, and raised questions about the recusal practices of both conservative and liberal justices”.Crow is the subject of attempts by Senate Democrats to obtain details of gifts given to Thomas.Supreme court justices are nominally subject to the same ethics rules as all federal judgs but in practise govern themselves. Thomas and Crow deny wrongdoing. Thomas has said he did not declare extensive and costly gifts from Crow because he was advised he did not have to.In a statement after news of Thomas’s request for an extension, Kyle Herrig, president of the pressure group Accountable.US, said: “Justice Thomas and his billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow can’t dodge accountability forever. It was their decades-long improper relationship that sparked the supreme court corruption crisis in the first place.“What more is Thomas trying to hide? Are his gifts and connections so extensive that he needs more time to account for them all? Chief Justice [John] Roberts needs to act immediately to clean up his court.”Further reading:Mike Pence is now officially on the presidential campaign trail, kicking off his bid for the White House with a speech in Iowa where he unsurprisingly attacked Joe Biden, but also went directly at Donald Trump. He accused his former running mate of drifting away from conservative values and asking him to violate the constitution in an attempt to carve a place out for himself in the crowded Republican field. In the months to come, we’ll find out what voters think.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      North Dakota governor Doug Burgum started his own campaign for the Republican presidential nomination with a speech in Fargo.
      An aide to Trump confirmed he had spoken to a grand jury that the Guardian reports has been empaneled in Florida to look into the former president’s handling of national security matters and potential obstruction of justice.
      It’s really smoky on the East Coast. Also, a volcano is erupting in Hawaii, and you can watch it happen live.
      A major Pac supporting Donald Trump has responded to Mike Pence’s campaign announcement with a statement that dismisses both him and Florida governor Ron DeSantis.“Mike Pence’s entrance into the race caps off another bad week for Ron DeSantis’ faltering campaign, but the question most GOP voters are asking themselves about Pence’s candidacy is ‘Why?’” Make America Great Again Inc spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.As Pence’s speech wrapped up, he accused Donald Trump and Joe Biden of being too mean to lead.“Joe Biden promised to restore decency and civility if he was elected president. He broke that promise on day one. He’s continually vilified those of us that disagree with him, and even vilified members of his own party,” Pence said.‘Our politics are more divided than ever before, but I’m not convinced our country is as divided as our politics. Most Americans treat each other with kindness and respect even when we disagree. We know how to be good neighbors. That’s not too much to ask our leaders to do the same. But sadly, it’s clear that neither Joe Biden or Donald Trump share this belief.”Pence is taking both Joe Biden and Donald Trump to task over their approach to managing the US government’s debt and spending, and their support for Ukraine.“Joe Biden’s policy is insolvency,” Pence said, after recounting the looming challenges the massive government Social Security and Medicare problems face. “But you deserve to know, my fellow Republicans, that Donald Trump’s position on entitlement reform is the same. Both of them refuse to even talk about the issue taken to the American people.”He then turned to both Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the possibility of war with China.“America is the leader of the free world. We’re the arsenal of democracy … Donald Trump and others who would seek the presidency would walk away from our traditional role on the world stage,” Pence said.“President Trump, he described Vladimir Putin as a ‘genius’ at the outset of the invasion and another candidate for the Republican nomination described the invasion of Ukraine as a quote, territorial dispute,” he continued in a reference to Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a competitor for the Republican nomination.“I know the difference between a genius, I know the difference between a territorial dispute and a war of aggression. The war in Ukraine is not our war but freedom is our fight and America must always stand for freedom, and when I’m your president, we will.”One more broadside at Trump: “What President Trump and others are forgetting is that our administration succeeded not because we compromised or abandoned conservative principles, but because we acted,” Pence said.Pence hasn’t held back on criticizing Joe Biden.Earlier in the speech, he decried his “disastrous presidency”, and promised to, if elected, lower taxes, “give the American people freedom from excessive federal regulations” and end Biden’s “trillion-dollar spending spree that’s driving inflation”.But Pence also needs to get through a crowded Republican primary field that includes Donald Trump if he wants to appear on the general election ballot, and the former vice-president has spent a considerable portion of his speech criticizing his ex-boss.“You know, when Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he promised to govern as a conservative. Together, we did just that. Today, he makes no such promise,” Pence said.“After leaving the most pro-life administration in American history, Donald Trump and others in this race are retreating from the cause of the unborn. Sanctity of life has been our party’s calling for a half-a-century, long before Donald Trump was a part of it. Now he treats it is an inconvenience, even blaming our election losses in 2022 on overturning Roe v Wade,” he continued.“Mr. President, I will always stand for the sanctity of life, and I will not rest and I will not relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the land,” Pence said.What he did not say: whether he would sign a federal law banning abortion.As Pence continues his speech, his strategy for taking on Donald Trump has become clear.The former vice-president is touting the Trump administration’s accomplishments, while simultaneously portraying his former running mate as straying from true conservative principles.“I’ll always be grateful for what president Trump did for this country. I’ve often prayed for him over the past few years. And I prayed for him again today. I had hoped he would come around, see that he had been misled about my role that day,” Pence said, referring to January 6.“The Republican party must be the party of the constitution of the United States. We’ve had enough of the Democrats in the radical left repeatedly trampling on our constitution, threatening to pack the court, to dismantle the God given rights that are enshrined,” Pence continued, saying the GOP must protect the “right to life” as well as keep firearms freely available.And then he again turned to Trump.“I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the constitution should never be president of the United States. And anyone who asked someone else to put them over the constitution should never be president of the United States again,” Pence said. “Our liberties have been bought at too high a price.” More

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      Pence’s historic challenge: can Trump’s loyal deputy become his nemesis?

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      Mike Pence enters the 2024 presidential race with a murky path to capturing the Republican nomination and a contentious relationship with his former boss and now primary opponent, Donald Trump.Pence formally launched his campaign on Wednesday with a video announcement and an event in Des Moines, Iowa, after the former vice-president spent months traveling to early voting states and speaking at Republican party events.“It would be easy to stay on the sidelines. That’s not how I was raised,” Pence told the Iowa crowd. “I’ve long believed that to whom much is given much would be required. That’s why today, before God and my family, I’m announcing that I’m running for president of the United States of America.”Pence’s campaign launch kicks off a historic primary battle, as this marks the first time in more than 80 years that a former vice-president has competed against his former boss in a nomination fight.In his speech on Wednesday, Pence did not shy away from attacking Trump, accusing the former president of straying from the rightwing priorities that carried him to victory in 2016.“I know we can bring this country back,” Pence said. “But it’ll require new leadership in the White House and the Republican Party.”The former vice-president becomes the latest Republican to join a growing field of candidates looking to deprive Trump of the nomination. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum have all jumped into the race in just the past few weeks, following the campaign announcements of Trump, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.Historically, vice-presidents have been able to use their past White House experience to make a strong case for their party’s nomination. But Pence faces unique challenges that could complicate his already difficult task of attempting to topple Trump, who continues to lead in polls of Republican primary voters.Pence left the vice-presidency in 2021, weeks after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. As part of his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, Trump attempted to pressure Pence into using his role as president of the Senate to disrupt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory.Pence refused to do so, as he argued that the vice-president has no authority to object to the election results, an assessment supported by constitutional experts. Trump lashed out against Pence, accusing the vice-president of cowardice for refusing to meddle in a free and fair election. The vice-president then became a target for the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol, some of whom chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!”Secret Service officers safely evacuated Pence for the Capitol, and he was ultimately able to oversee the certification of the election results. But the horror of that day has become an ongoing source of tension between Pence and Trump, who has continued to falsely claim that his vice-president could have stepped in to overturn the election results. When asked at a CNN town hall last month whether he owed Pence an apology for endangering him on January 6, Trump said no.On Wednesday, Pence offered pointed criticism of Trump’s actions on January 6, insinuating that they should disqualify the former president from seeking another term.“I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the constitution should never be president of the United States,” Pence said. “And anyone who asks someone else to put them over the constitution should never be president of the United States again.”Although Pence’s actions on January 6 have been lauded by Republicans and Democrats in Congress, they have not made him as popular with the primary voters whose support he will need to win the nomination.According to a Quinnipiac University poll taken last month, 48% of Republican voters have a favorable opinion of Pence, compared with 35% who have an unfavorable opinion of him. Pence’s favorability rating of +13 among Republican voters is considerably lower than Trump’s rating of +75 and DeSantis’s of +74.Pence appears to be counting on white evangelical voters, who make up a significant portion of the Republican base, to boost his standing. To appeal to those voters, Pence has leaned heavily into the issue of abortion access.Since the supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade last year, abortion rights have become an even more crucial issue in America’s elections. Other Republican presidential candidates have struggled to clarify their stances on a potential federal abortion ban. Pence has said that he would “of course” support a six-week nationwide ban.Speaking to Iowa voters on Wednesday, Pence emphasized his commitment to the anti-abortion movement and attacked fellow Republican primary candidates for failing to do the same.“After leading the most pro-life administration in American history, Donald Trump and others in this race are retreating from the cause of the unborn,” Pence said. “As your president, I will always stand for the sanctity of life and I will not rest and I will not relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the land.”Despite his staunch support for a federal abortion ban, it remains unclear whether Pence can sway a large number of evangelical voters, many of whom remain loyal to Trump after helping him secure his 2016 win. A Monmouth University survey released in February found that 3% of evangelical voters wanted Pence to be the Republican presidential nominee, compared with 34% who said the same of Trump.Pence has his work cut out for him, but he projected optimism as he entered what promises to be a bruising primary fight.“The American people have always been great. We just need government as good as our people,” Pence said Wednesday. “And we’ll have it soon.” More

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      North Dakota governor Doug Burgum announces Republican presidential bid

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      Doug Burgum, the Republican governor of North Dakota, has announced his candidacy for the party’s presidential nomination next year.Burgum made the announcement in the the Wall Street Journal newspaper. A campaign event is scheduled for later on Wednesday in the city of Fargo.“We need a change in the White House. We need a new leader for a changing economy. That’s why I’m announcing my run for president,” he said in a commentary on the Journal’s website.The 66-year-old was a software entrepreneur, Microsoft executive and venture capitalist before becoming governor in 2016. He will be a rank outsider in a race dominated by two candidates: former US president Donald Trump and rightwing Florida governor Ron DeSantis.Trump enjoys commanding polling leads, having parlayed unparalleled legal jeopardy, including possible indictments over his election subversion and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress, into a surge of support.DeSantis, a hardline self-styled culture warrior, is a distant second but still well clear of a raft of other candidates including former vice-president Mike Pence, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott, the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur.Burgum has rarely made national headlines but he did so in May 2020, pleading emotionally for North Dakotans to “try to dial up your empathy and your understanding” over the need to wear masks in public during the Covid pandemic.“We’re all in this together and there’s only one battle we’re fighting,” Burgum said. “And that’s the battle of the virus.”In that appearance in Bismarck, the state capital, Burgum also said he “would really love to see in North Dakota that we could just skip this thing that other parts of the nation are going through, that they’re creating a divide. Either it’s ideological or political or something around mask versus no mask.“This is, I would say, a senseless dividing line … If someone is wearing a mask, they’re not doing it to represent what political party they’re in or what candidates they support.”In Trump’s culture war-stoked Republican party, however, masks and other public health measures against Covid quickly became a key political issue.Only recently, Trump and DeSantis swapped campaign-trail barbs about what each said or did not say about Anthony Fauci, then Trump’s chief Covid adviser, in the early stages of the pandemic.Should Burgum pull off a political miracle and win the Republican nomination, another culture war issue would be likely to hurt his chances with the US public.In April, Burgum signed a law banning abortion at six weeks of gestation, when many women do not know they are pregnant, with few exceptions.Burgum said the bill “reaffirms North Dakota as a pro-life state”.In the year since the US supreme court removed the right to abortion, other Republican governors have signed strict abortion bans. DeSantis is among them, having signed a six-week ban in Florida.US public opinion is consistently in favor of abortion rights.Burgum has also signed numerous laws curtailing the rights of transgender North Dakotans and a law banning the teaching of critical race theory in public schools.Last year, Burgum approved a new electoral map which Indigenous leaders said was gerrymandered to reduce their political voice, already challenged by a voter ID law.Though Burgum’s policies include the goal of making North Dakota carbon neutral by 2030, a rare environmental commitment from a Republican governor, he has also been a backer of fossil fuel projects including the Dakota Access pipeline, which has fueled widespread protests. More

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      Chris Christie files papers to run for US president ahead of official campaign launch tonight – live

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      From 3h agoNew Jersey’s former Republican governor Chris Christie has officially filed to run for president, according to the Federal Election Commission, setting himself up to face off against Donald Trump and a host of other candidates for the party’s nomination to challenge Joe Biden in the general election next year.Christie will announce his candidacy at 6.30pm eastern time with a town hall in New Hampshire. This campaign will be a sort of rematch for Christie: he was among the slew of Republicans Trump defeated in 2016 to win the party’s nomination, and later that year, the White House.While Christie worked with Trump during his time in the White House, they later had a falling out, and Christie recently said Trump “needs to be called out and … needs to be called out by somebody who knows him. Nobody knows Donald Trump better than I do.”While Christie has insisted he is “not a paid assassin”, the 60-year-old is certainly a seasoned brawler.Christie’s claims to fame include leaving office in New Jersey amid a scandal about political payback involving traffic on the George Washington Bridge to New York, then leaving the Florida senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign in pieces after a debate-stage clash for the ages.Christie was quick to drop out of that campaign, then equally quick to endorse the clear frontrunner. He stayed loyal despite a brutal firing as Trump’s transition coordinator, fueled by old enmities with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and only broke from Trump after the January 6 Capitol attack.Recently, Christie has worked for ABC News as a political analyst, honing his turn of phrase. Speaking to Politico, he insisted he was serious about winning the primary.“I’m not a paid assassin,” he said. “When you’re waking up for your 45th morning at the Hilton Garden Inn in Manchester [New Hampshire], you better think you can win, because that walk from the bed to the shower, if you don’t think you can win, it’s hard.”He also said Trump “needs to be called out and … needs to be called out by somebody who knows him. Nobody knows Donald Trump better than I do.”Read more:Back in the Capitol, here’s more from Fox News on why rightwing lawmakers banded together to frustrate the chamber’s Republican leaders by blocking debate on legislation dealing with gas stoves and federal government rule-making.The revolt caused a vote to start debate on legislation to fail for the first time since 2002. It came after the far-right lawmakers joined with Democrats in what one of their members, Dan Bishop, told Fox was an expression of frustration with House speaker Kevin McCarthy:The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh is on deck now to run the blog through the evening’s news, including Chris Christie’s town hall kicking off his presidential campaign.Here’s more from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly on Chris Christie’s return to the presidential campaign trail and his primary rematch against foe turned friend turned foe Donald Trump:The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie has confirmed his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination next year.Christie filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday afternoon. He was scheduled to announce his presidential run hours later in a town hall hosted at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics in Manchester, New Hampshire.The pugilistic politician joins the primary as a rank outsider but promises a campaign with a singular focus: to take the fight to Donald Trump, the former president who left office in disgrace after the January 6 attack on Congress but who is the clear frontrunner to face Joe Biden again at the polls.A few hours ago, Donald Trump’s allies released a statement welcoming Chris Christie to the presidential race with a grin – a big, toothy, Cheshire cat grin.“Ron DeSantis’ campaign is spiraling, and President Trump’s dominance over the Republican primary field has opened a mad rush to seize the mantle for [a] runner-up. Ron DeSantis is not ready for this moment, and Chris Christie will waste no time eating DeSantis’ lunch,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Make America Great Again Inc Pac supporting the former president’s campaign.And now that Christie has announced his candidacy, the Democrats are out with their customary roast. Here’s Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison’s statement:
      The American people still remember what happened the last time Chris Christie ran for president. After dropping his own bid in 2016 to wholeheartedly endorse Donald Trump, Christie served as head of Trump’s transition team, gave his presidency an ‘A,’ and used his position as chair of Trump’s Commission on Opioids to land a lucrative consulting contract with big pharma. A longtime champion of the MAGA agenda, Christie backed a federal abortion ban and helped coordinate efforts to restrict access in every state, called for cutting Medicare and Social Security, and vetoed minimum wage increases for working people.Nothing he says can change the fact that Chris Christie is just another power-hungry extremist in the rapidly growing field of Republicans willing to say anything to capture the MAGA base.
      New Jersey’s former Republican governor Chris Christie has officially filed to run for president, according to the Federal Election Commission, setting himself up to face off against Donald Trump and a host of other candidates for the party’s nomination to challenge Joe Biden in the general election next year.Christie will announce his candidacy at 6.30pm eastern time with a town hall in New Hampshire. This campaign will be a sort of rematch for Christie: he was among the slew of Republicans Trump defeated in 2016 to win the party’s nomination, and later that year, the White House.While Christie worked with Trump during his time in the White House, they later had a falling out, and Christie recently said Trump “needs to be called out and … needs to be called out by somebody who knows him. Nobody knows Donald Trump better than I do.”An effort by House Republicans to stop the government from banning gas stoves and change the federal rule-making process has been blocked by a revolt from within the party.Rightwing GOP lawmakers just now joined with Democrats in voting down the rule that would kick off debate on the four bills, a key step before the chamber could vote on their passage:The Biden administration opposes the bills, and there was little chance they would be passed by the Democrat-controlled Senate. We’ll let you know as soon as it becomes clear what fueled the conservative revolt.In other House shenanigans, you will recall that Republican congressman, admitted fabulist and potentially soon-to-be federal inmate George Santos tried and failed to keep secret the names of those who paid for his expensive bail.Reporters at the Capitol have been wondering why he didn’t want these people’s identities publicized, and did what they have done to Santos ever since he first showed up in Washington in January: chased him around while asking him questions. See the pursuit, and the little that he had to say, below, courtesy of CNN:Republicans control the House and should have no trouble voting to start debate on the bills intended to ensure gas stove access. But they are having trouble, and that says something about the state of the GOP today.As you can see in the tweet below from Axios, 10 GOP lawmakers are currently opposing the rule to start debate on the four bills that stop the government from banning gas stoves and also changing the federal rule-making process. That’s enough to stop the legislation from being debated by the House, a formal step that must be taken before the bills can be passed.Who’s doing the revolting? Rightwing members of the House Freedom Caucus, many of whom were behind the days of GOP infighting in January that delayed Kevin McCarthy’s election as speaker of the House. We’ll let you know when we find out what the Freedom Caucus is mad about this time.The White House will “assess” whether an attack on a dam that flooded a swath of southern Ukraine amounts to a war crime, US national security council spokesman John Kirby said at the White House this afternoon.Follow the Guardian’s live blog for the latest on this developing story from Ukraine:The Biden administration has taken a look at the two Republican House bills advertised as protecting Americans’ access to gas stoves, and it does not like what it sees.In a statement, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said it “strongly opposes” the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act and the Save Our Stoves Act, while adding: “The Administration has been clear that it does not support any attempt to ban the use of gas stoves.”Lawmakers are expected to today vote on passage of the former legislation, and consider the latter tomorrow. The OMB’s statement says the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act would undercut the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s job of using “the best available data to promote the safety of consumer products. This Administration opposes any effort to undermine the Commission’s ability to make science-based decisions to protect the public.”The OMB criticizes the Save Our Stoves Act for preventing the energy department from creating and enforcing new standards for stove and oven efficiency, denying “the American people the savings that come with having more efficient new appliances on the market when they choose to replace an existing appliance”.The two bills “would undermine science-based Consumer Product Safety Commission decision-making and block common sense efforts to help Americans cut their energy bills”. While the OMB doesn’t outright say Joe Biden would veto them, it’s hard to see the two pieces of legislation making it through the Democratic-led Senate, or even being considered.The House of Representatives will this week take up two pieces of legislation aimed at blocking new regulations on the use of gas stoves.On Tuesday, the House is expected to vote on the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act – a measure to prevent the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a federal regulatory agency, from taking steps to stop the sale of the appliances, including by labeling them as hazardous.And on Wednesday, representatives will vote on the Save Our Gas Stoves Act, which would bar the Energy Department from finalizing, implementing or enforcing a proposed rule setting efficiency standards for the appliances.If the House advances the Republican bills, they will likely face opposition from the Democratic-controlled Senate.Gas stoves have for months been the subject of ire for rightwingers, after a slew of studies showed that the appliances are damaging to the climate and public health. A recent report found that one in eight cases of childhood asthma in the US is due to the pollution given off by cooking on gas stoves – a level of risk similar to that of exposure to secondhand smoke – while an earlier study found that gas stoves each year pump out as much planet-warming pollution as 500,000 carsr.Late last year, a member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission floated the possibility of banning gas stoves, but the agency quickly backtracked to clarify that no ban is currently under consideration. But US cities and counties are considering policies to limit or even phase out the use of the polluting appliances.Though it has recently become the topic of public concern, researchers and regulators have long suspected that gas stoves are dangerous. In 1973, the Environmental Protection Agency had preliminary evidence that exposure to gas stoves posed respiratory risks, and in 1985 the Consumer Product Safety Commission raised concerns about gas stoves’ nitrogen emissions.The murder rate in a number of large US cities has seen a “sharp and broad decline” this year, new research has found, even as the number of mass shootings around the country continues to climb.My colleague Richard Luscombe writes that statistics compiled by New Orleans-based AH Analytics show a 12.2% drop in murders in 90 US cities to the end of May over the same period last year, although the study notes there are places, such as Memphis and Cleveland, where the murder rate has actually increased.The report will do little to weaken calls by weapons control advocates and Joe Biden for Congress to pass meaningful gun reforms as the US remains on track for a record number of mass killings in 2023.A federal judge has granted media requests to release the names of people who co-signed George Santos’s $500,000 bond in his criminal fraud case, according to The Hill.Santos’s attorney had asked to keep those names secret and Joseph Murray said he feared “for their health, safety and wellbeing”.Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna has criticised what he called the Supreme Court’s partisan decision-making, saying it was a “crisis”.Speaking at the Indian Impact event in Washington, DC, he said: “What we have right now is a court that has lost the legitimacy of the American people.”Khanna was addressing the rulings on reproductive rights, affirmative action and other issues that the conservative majority has continued to push forward. Asking for term limits and more stringent ethical boundaries, he said the current court included “political hacks” and referenced times in history when presidents like Abraham Lincoln called for supreme court reform.“We need a mobilization that is much more explicit and harsh in calling out the supreme court,” he said. “We should get rid of the niceties.”The investigations into Donald Trump grind on, but one may be nearing a conclusion: the inquiry into the classified documents discovered last year at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. His attorneys met with the justice department yesterday, including special counsel Jack Smith, and the former president spent this morning angrily posting on Truth social about the alleged injustice he was facing. House Republicans are rushing to his defense, while also moving forward with a plan to hold FBI director Christopher Wray in contempt for not turning over a document alleging corruption by Joe Biden. The vote on that is set for Thursday.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      US intelligence knew of a Ukrainian plan to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline, though it’s unclear if Kyiv was actually behind its sabotage.
      Trump has feuded with Fox News’s straight-news division, but will on 19 June sit down for an interview with them for the first time since his 2020 election defeat.
      Federal investigators are looking into a swimming pool that was drained at Mar-a-Lago and into room full of servers containing surveillance footage of the resort, according to a report.
      Punchbowl News reports that speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy also supports the push to hold FBI director Christopher Wray in contempt: More

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      LGBTQ+ Americans living in state of emergency, human rights group warns

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      LGBTQ+ Americans are facing a state of emergency as states continue targeting them with legislation, the community’s largest advocacy organization has declared.The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has issued a statement on the emergency that emerged from “an unprecedented and dangerous spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislative assaults sweeping state houses this year”.The declaration, made during the first week of Pride month, echoes similar ones issued by other civil rights organizations such as the NAACP, which warned travelers that Florida in particular is “actively hostile” to minorities in the wake of measures such as the state’s “don’t say gay” law, which bans discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in public classrooms.The HRC president, Kelley Robinson, said: “LGBTQ+ Americans are living in a state of emergency. The multiplying threats facing millions in our community are not just perceived – they are real, tangible and dangerous. In many cases they are resulting in violence against LGBTQ+ people, forcing families to uproot their lives and flee their homes in search of safer states, and triggering a tidal wave of increased homophobia and transphobia that puts the safety of each and every one of us at risk.”The organization has been tracking the rise of anti-LGBTQ+ laws and compiled the information in an impact report that shows 115 bills were introduced in 2015 compared with more than 500 in 2023.According to the report, “the 2023 state legislative session was the worst year on record for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.”Anti-transgender legislation made up a significant part of this count.Far-right groups such as the Family Policy Alliance, the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation are behind the push for these discriminatory policies. The groups have drafted model legislation and garnered support from legislators. Many have also offered financial support for legal fees to fight when laws were challenged in court.In 2022, the Heritage Foundation ran advertisements totaling more than $1m targeting the Biden-backed Respect for Marriage Act that secured protections for LGBTQ+ Americans in the event that the conservative majority on the supreme court overturns the 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage across the US.The HRC also curated a guidebook for LGBTQ+ Americans to arm them with information about their rights. It includes a detailed chart of existing anti-LBTGQ+ laws such as those that ban gender-affirming care, sports participation and drag shows across each state.The Florida governor and Republican candidate Ron DeSantis has signaled his stance on LGBTQ+ rights by signing laws that would ban gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy; prevent trans students from using their preferred pronouns; restrict drag shows; and make it difficult or impossible for transgender Floridians to access appropriate restrooms and spaces that match their gender identity.However, on Tuesday afternoon a federal judge temporarily blocked portions of the new Florida law that bans transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, ruling after a challenge to the law signed by DeSantis that the state has no rational basis for denying patients treatment.Judge Robert Hinkle issued a preliminary injunction, saying three transgender children can continue receiving treatment. The ruling was narrowly focused on the children, whose parents brought the suit.“Gender identity is real. The record makes this clear,” Hinkle said, adding that even a witness for the state agreed.Meanwhile, another Republican gunning for the highest office is the former US ambassador to the UN and ex-South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who has said Biden’s “support of transgender rights will destroy women’s sports”.Haley also opposed same-sex marriage rights while she served in South Carolina’s state legislature and as the state’s governor. More