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      Trump, battered by January 6 testimony, mulls 2024 run – and not all Republicans are happy

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      Trump, battered by January 6 testimony, mulls 2024 run – and not all Republicans are happy Republicans are odds-on to take back the House and Senate in November, and the last thing the party needs, experts say, is a Trump distraction On Thursday the Trump campaign sent out a begging-bowl email to hundreds of thousands of supporters, previewing the former president’s rally in Arizona this weekend and teasing the recipients with a portent of momentous things to come.Trump to face sworn deposition in New York lawsuit as legal troubles mountRead moreDonald Trump “wants to make sure it’s one of his best rallies yet”, his loyal followers were told. “He is preparing the speech that he will give in front of the American people.”“The speech he will give” was a nudge-nudge wink-wink suggestion that the one-term president is poised to announce another run on the White House in 2024. The tantalizing hint was the latest in an intensifying stream of similar baits – most recently in remarks to Olivia Nuzzi of New York magazine this week – that are driving Republican party leaders to distraction.With inflation running at 40-year highs, and with Joe Biden suffering record lows in his approval ratings, the Republican script for winning back the US House and Senate in November’s midterm elections writes itself. The last thing the party needs, many top Republicans believe, is Trump muddying the message by talking about himself and 2024.“Trump never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” said Frank Luntz, the pollster who has a long track record of advising Republican campaigns. “He has the chance to participate in an amazing, historic Republican resurgence, and instead he’s making everything all about him. That could cost Republicans the majorities.”Luntz said that Republican leaders have told Trump “in no uncertain terms that anything that takes attention away from inflation and Biden’s failures could hand the election to the Democrats. But they know there is nothing they can do to influence him, and that he doesn’t really care.”The incentive to announce early is self-evident: Trump is a past master at deflecting public attention from inconvenient truths. It is no coincidence that his dalliance with a third presidential bid comes just when he is taking a battering at the hands of the congressional hearings into the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.Millions of Americans have watched live as the January 6 committee has exposed the lengths to which the then-sitting president was prepared to go to hold onto power having lost the 2020 election. He tried to grab the steering wheel of his armored vehicle to turn it towards the Capitol and join the insurrectionists; he splattered White House walls with ketchup in a fit of rage; and when his vice-president faced a mob of violent white supremacists chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” he told aides that “Mike deserves it”.“It’s the cumulative weight of the evidence that’s piling up,” said Charlie Sykes, a prominent conservative commentator who edits the Trump-critical news site the Bulwark. “The most damaging evidence is coming from people within Trump’s orbit. That’s potentially the greatest danger for Donald Trump: it’s the people closest to him, people who were inside the Oval Office, who are saying it was a big lie.”People like Trump’s then-attorney general Bill Barr who testified that he told the president to his face that his claims that the election was stolen were “crazy stuff” and “bullshit”. Or Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, who declared in a heated Oval Office meeting a month after the election that seizing voting machines was a “terrible idea” and “not how we do things in the United States”.It is not yet clear whether the hearings have managed to launch a torpedo sufficiently explosive to sink USS Trump. But the vessel is clearly taking on water, as is demonstrated by the polls.A revealing survey from the New York Times / Siena College this week showed that more than half of Republican primary voters want to move on from Trump. Though the former president remains dominant in the field of possible candidates, there is one obvious and growing threat: Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who is quietly but steadily gaining strength.“Trump is dropping,” Luntz said. “Six months ago he was at 60%, and no one else was in double digits. Now he’s in the upper 40s and DeSantis has climbed into the 20s. You see poll after poll suggesting a majority of Republicans not wanting him to run again.”That explains the baby steps that some Republican leaders have begun to take to detach themselves from Trump ahead of a possible 2024 head-to-head. Last month DeSantis, who initially adopted the mantle of Trumpism but is now forging his own iteration of it, pointedly let it be known that he was not interested in Trump’s endorsement in his gubernatorial re-election race.Pence, in May, campaigned with the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, in his primary re-election contest in which Trump had backed a rival candidate (Kemp went on to win).Such activity, tentative though it may yet be, is matched by moves among those who are arguably the real powerbrokers in the Republican party: the major donors. “Donors are increasingly flocking to and chatting about Ron DeSantis – he is increasingly sucking up all the oxygen,” said Dan Eberhart, a Denver, Colorado-based businessman who is himself a longtime Republican donor. “They are tired of rehashing the 2020 election. They like Trump’s policies, but not the drama. If he runs they will vote for him, but their preference would be to have someone else like Trump on the top of the ticket,” Eberhart said.One of those critical battleground states is Arizona which Biden won in 2020 by just 10,000 votes. A fascinating insight into the sea-change that is happening in the Grand Canyon state is given by Rusty Bowers, Republican speaker of the Arizona House.In the fourth day of the January 6 hearings last month, Bowers related in searing detail how he had refused to play along with Trump’s plot to overturn Biden’s victory in his state. Asked at the hearing what he thought of a Trump-backed scheme to send fake electors to Washington countering Biden’s win, he called it a “tragic parody”, citing the words he wrote in his journal at the time: “I do not want to be a winner by cheating”.This week Bowers elucidated his thinking on the future of Trump and the Republican party in Arizona to the Guardian. In response to Guardian questions about Trump’s possibly imminent announcement of another presidential run, he talked about the growing exhaustion that he and many other Republicans are feeling.“I know I am no-one in the great scheme of things, and Mr Trump still has a lot of sway here with the extreme part of the Republican party,” Bowers began. “I personally am more upset that we have inflation robbing us of our financial security and many of our seniors are very worried.”He went on to say that “many Republicans are tired of the friction between the poles of the parties and would like us to focus on getting water supplies increased for our arid state, getting common sense solutions to the border which has gone crazy and which causes much of the angst that the extremists take advantage of. I am in that camp and know there are many with me.”He ended with this reflection: “While the fringes focus on the past, we want to tackle the present and future progress we need.”If those are the expressed views of one of the most powerful Republicans in a key swing state, it is a fair assumption that similar ennui is setting in across the country. The question is, will any of the leaders of the party have the guts to act on it?“This is an ideal off-ramp for Republicans to take from Trump, but they’ve had so many other off-ramps they’ve refused to take,” Sykes said. “The one thing we’ve learned is that the Republican party is ultimately invertebrate – it just cannot stand up to someone like Donald Trump, even in these circumstances.”Luntz’s assessment was more bullish about the prospects of Trump being ousted. “No one attacks Republicans more viciously than Donald Trump, not even top Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,” he said.“Eventually that will come back to bite him.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2024US politicsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Biden pledges executive action after Joe Manchin scuppers climate agenda

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      Biden pledges executive action after Joe Manchin scuppers climate agendaWest Virginia senator refuses to support funding for climate crisis and says he will not back tax raises for wealthy Americans Joe Biden has promised executive action on climate change after Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator who has repeatedly thwarted his own party while making millions in the coal industry, refused to support more funding for climate action.Did Joe Manchin block climate action to benefit his financial interests?Read moreIn another blow to Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, the West Virginia senator also came out against tax raises for wealthy Americans.Manchin’s opposition became clear on Thursday night. On Friday, with Biden in Saudi Arabia, the White House issued a statement.Biden said: “Action on climate change and clean energy remains more urgent than ever.“So let me be clear: if the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, I will take strong executive action to meet this moment.“My actions will create jobs, improve our energy security, bolster domestic manufacturing and supply chains, protect us from oil and gas price hikes in the future, and address climate change. I will not back down: the opportunity to create jobs and build a clean energy future is too important to relent.”Biden and Democrats hope to include environmental measures in a $1tn version of the $2tn Build Back Better spending bill Manchin killed last year in dramatic fashion.Then, the Biden White House angrily accused Manchin of breaching “commitments to the president and [his] colleagues in the House and Senate”. Bridges were rebuilt but on Thursday night Manchin appeared to reach for the dynamite once again.According to a Democrat briefed on negotiations, Manchin told Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, he would oppose legislation if it included climate or green energy provisions or higher taxes on the rich and corporations.The Democrat also said Manchin told Schumer he would support a new spending package only if it was limited to curbing pharmaceutical prices and extending federal subsidies for buying healthcare insurance.Manchin disputed that version of events in a call to a West Virginia radio show. He said he told Schumer he would not commit to environmental or tax measures until he saw the inflation rate for July, which is due out on 10 August, and the size of the expected interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve at the end of July.“Let’s wait until that comes out, so we know that we’re going down a path that won’t be inflammatory, to add more to inflation,” Manchin said. “I can’t make that decision … on taxes … and also on the energy and climate because it takes the taxes to pay for the investment into clean technology that I’m in favor of. But I’m not going to do something and overreach that causes more problem.”Manchin said he asked Schumer for time.“I said, ‘Chuck, can we just wait. How much more and how much damaging is that going to be?’ He took that as a no, I guess, and came out with this big thing last night, and I don’t know why they did that.”In Riyadh, Biden told reporters: “I’m not going away. I’m using every power I have as president to continue to fulfill my pledge to move toward dealing with global warming.”Asked if Manchin had been “negotiating in good faith”, Biden said: “I didn’t negotiate with Joe Manchin.”In his earlier statement, Biden also promised progress on healthcare.He said: “After decades of fierce opposition from powerful special interests, Democrats have come together, beaten back the pharmaceutical industry and are prepared to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices and to prevent an increase in health insurance premiums for millions of families with coverage under the Affordable Care Act.“Families all over the nation will sleep easier if Congress takes this action. The Senate should move forward, pass it before the August recess, and get it to my desk so I can sign it.”To pass legislation, Democrats are dependent on Manchin’s vote in a Senate divided 50-50 and controlled by the vice-president, Kamala Harris.In March last year, Manchin backed Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus relief package after tense negotiations during which, according to the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Biden told him: “Joe, please don’t kill my bill.”But the senator has since stood in the way of much of Biden’s agenda, from the Build Back Better package to measures which would require reform to the filibuster, the Senate rule which requires a 60-vote supermajority for most legislation.Democrats and progressives have argued for scrapping or reforming the filibuster in order to legislate on key issues under attack from the right, including voting rights and abortion.But Manchin and others opposed to such moves, prominently including Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, are in part aligned with Biden, a former senator opposed to abolishing the filibuster entirely.Manchin will not face re-election as the only Democrat in statewide office in West Virginia, a state with a powerful coal industry lobby, until 2024. His business, Enersystems, has earned millions of dollars as the only supplier of low-grade coal to a high-polluting power plant near Fairmont, West Virginia.‘A modern-day villain’: Joe Manchin condemned for killing US climate actionRead moreAccording to campaign finance filings, in 2021-22 Manchin is the senator who has received most money from donors in coal mining, natural gas transmission and distribution and oil and gas. He is second for donations from alternate energy production and services.Climate advocates reacted angrily to Manchin’s move.“It’s outrageous that Manchin and the Republican party have killed climate legislation this Congress,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity advocacy group.Norm Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said: “Senators have told me and others that negotiating with Joe Manchin is like negotiating with an Etch-a-Sketch. It appears to be a coal-powered Etch-a-Sketch.”John Podesta, founder of the Center for American Progress, said: “It seems odd that Senator Manchin would choose as his legacy to be the one man who single-handedly doomed humanity. But we can’t throw in the towel on the planet.”TopicsJoe ManchinClimate crisisUS politicsDemocratsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘I will not back down’: Biden vows executive action if Senate cannot pass climate bill – as it happened

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      President Joe Biden has just issued a statement calling on the Senate to pass legislation that would lower prescription drug prices and extend health insurance subsidies, while vowing to sign executive orders meant to fight climate change. The announcement comes after Democratic senator Joe Manchin said yesterday he would not support legislation intended to curb America’s carbon emissions, nor new tax proposals to offset its costs. His statement was the latest complication for Democrats’ long-running efforts to pass a major spending bill despite their narrow majority in Congress, where they can afford to lose no votes in the Senate and few in the House. While the initial proposals for the bill released last year showed it would address a host of the party’s priorities, it is now set to be much narrower in scope.Here’s more from Biden’s statement:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Action on climate change and clean energy remains more urgent than ever.
      So let me be clear: if the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, I will take strong executive action to meet this moment. My actions will create jobs, improve our energy security, bolster domestic manufacturing and supply chains, protect us from oil and gas price hikes in the future, and address climate change. I will not back down: the opportunity to create jobs and build a clean energy future is too important to relent.
      Health care is also critical. After decades of fierce opposition from powerful special interests, Democrats have come together, beaten back the pharmaceutical industry and are prepared to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices and to prevent an increase in health insurance premiums for millions of families with coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Families all over the nation will sleep easier if Congress takes this action. The Senate should move forward, pass it before the August recess, and get it to my desk so I can sign it.=
      This will not only lower the cost of prescription drugs and health care for families, it will reduce the deficit and help fight inflation.After more than a year of negotiations, was today the beginning of the end for Democrats’ long-running effort to pass a spending bill improving America’s social services? It very well may have been, after Senator Joe Manchin nixed provisions to raise taxes and fight climate change, and President Joe Biden called on Democrats to pass a narrow agreement that would lower drug costs and extend health insurance subsidies.Here’s what else happened today:
      Democrats in the House passed two bills to preserve access to abortion nationwide, but they are unlikely to pass the Senate due to Republican opposition.
      Biden fist bumped Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after arriving in the country, drawing a rebuke from The Washington Post’s publisher. Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in an operation US intelligence concluded the crown prince approved, wrote for the newspaper. The president later said he brought up Khashoggi’s murder with MBS.
      Peter Navarro, a former top advisor to Donald Trump, declined a plea deal from federal prosecutors over his refusal to cooperate with the January 6 committee.
      A House committee announced it would take up a Democratic proposal to ban assault weapons.
      A deposition of Donald Trump and his children was postponed due to the death of his first wife Ivana Trump.
      A Georgia district attorney has warned some Republicans lawmakers in the state that they could be indicted for their role in helping Donald Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election.
      In Riyadh, Joe Biden was also asked about Joe Manchin’s apparent torpedoing of Democrats’ attempt to pass spending legislation targeting the climate crisis, healthcare and other party priorities before the midterm elections.Asked for “your message to those Americans right now who were looking for that relief that would have a wide impact as it affects the climate and energy specifically”, the president said: “I’m not going away. I’m using every power I have as president to continue to fulfill my pledge to move toward dealing with global warming.”On his way out of the short and slightly testy briefing, Biden was asked if he thought Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who has nonetheless stymied his party’s agenda over and over again, had been “negotiating in good faith” over the spending deal and its climate-related provisions.“I didn’t negotiate with Joe Manchin,” Biden said.It’s true that Manchin has been talking to Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic Senate majority leader, this time.It’s also true that Manchin has an outsized influence on Democratic policy priorities in the 50-50 Senate and has been at the centre of almost every legislative drama since Biden took back the White House.In their book Peril, about the end of Trump and the beginning of Biden, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of the Washington Post devote considerable space to Manchin’s machinations around the $1.9tn Covid relief package Biden got through in March 2021.At one point, they write, Biden told the senator: “Joe, please don’t kill my bill.”He didn’t. That time.More:Biden pledges executive action after Joe Manchin scuppers climate agendaRead moreSpeaking from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Joe Biden said he brought up the murder of Jamal Khashoggi when he met with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman earlier today.“I made my view crystal clear. I said very straightforwardly, for an American president to be silent on an issue of human rights, is this consistent… with who we are and who I am? I will always stand up for our values,” Biden said.Asked how the crown prince responded, Biden replied, “He basically said that he he was not personally responsible for it. I indicated I thought he was”. The president has previously said he wanted to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah state” for the murder, and was asked if he wanted to take those words back. “I don’t regret anything that I said. What happened to Khashoggi was outrageous,” Biden said.The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection has announced its next hearing for 8 pm eastern time on Thursday, July 21.Just in: Jan. 6 committee formally announces eighth hearing on Thursday, July 21 at 8p ET— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) July 15, 2022
      The lawmakers are expected to explore what Donald Trump was doing as the Capitol was attacked.New: Jan. 6 committee member Elaine Luria on CNN confirms @GuardianUS reporting that she and Adam Kinzinger will lead the eighth hearing, taking place in prime time next week, about how Trump did nothing during the 187mins of the Capitol attack.— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) July 14, 2022
      The publisher of The Washington Post has condemned Joe Biden’s fist bump with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom US intelligence concluded ordered the operation that resulted in the murder of Jamal Khasshogi, a contributor to the newspaper.pic.twitter.com/l2EDKZOLsS— Kristine Coratti Kelly (@kriscoratti) July 15, 2022
      Biden, who is visiting Saudi Arabia, will address the press in about 20 minutes, according to CNN. The event was not previously scheduled.In a last minute addition to his schedule, President Biden will address reporters at 3:30 ET/10:30 P.M. local following his meeting with the Saudi crown prince.— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) July 15, 2022
      President Joe Biden has just issued a statement calling on the Senate to pass legislation that would lower prescription drug prices and extend health insurance subsidies, while vowing to sign executive orders meant to fight climate change. The announcement comes after Democratic senator Joe Manchin said yesterday he would not support legislation intended to curb America’s carbon emissions, nor new tax proposals to offset its costs. His statement was the latest complication for Democrats’ long-running efforts to pass a major spending bill despite their narrow majority in Congress, where they can afford to lose no votes in the Senate and few in the House. While the initial proposals for the bill released last year showed it would address a host of the party’s priorities, it is now set to be much narrower in scope.Here’s more from Biden’s statement:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Action on climate change and clean energy remains more urgent than ever.
      So let me be clear: if the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, I will take strong executive action to meet this moment. My actions will create jobs, improve our energy security, bolster domestic manufacturing and supply chains, protect us from oil and gas price hikes in the future, and address climate change. I will not back down: the opportunity to create jobs and build a clean energy future is too important to relent.
      Health care is also critical. After decades of fierce opposition from powerful special interests, Democrats have come together, beaten back the pharmaceutical industry and are prepared to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices and to prevent an increase in health insurance premiums for millions of families with coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Families all over the nation will sleep easier if Congress takes this action. The Senate should move forward, pass it before the August recess, and get it to my desk so I can sign it.=
      This will not only lower the cost of prescription drugs and health care for families, it will reduce the deficit and help fight inflation.Joe Biden is making his controversial visit to Saudi Arabia, with an increase in oil production seen as the goal. The Guardian’s Bethan McKernan reports:Three years after Joe Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a pariah state over the assassination of a prominent dissident, the US president greeted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a fist bump as his administration attempts to reset relations and stabilise global oil markets.Whereas Donald Trump was personally welcomed to the conservative Gulf kingdom on his first presidential visit by King Salman, Biden was met on the tarmac on Friday evening by the governor of Mecca and the Saudi ambassador to the US in a subdued ceremony before travelling to the city’s al-Salam palace, where he held talks with the 86-year-old king and his powerful heir, Prince Mohammed, before a working meeting.Fist bumps as Joe Biden arrives to reset ties with ‘pariah’ Saudi ArabiaRead moreLast week, we learned that Herschel Walker, who’s the Republican nominee for a Senate seat in Georgia, lied to his own campaign team about how many children he had. This is not his only misstep, but the longtime friend of Donald Trump continues to have the support of Georgia Republicans. The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland speaks to Roger Sollenberger of the Daily Beast about why Walker might prove a fatal blow for the GOP in November’s midterm elections.Politics Weekly AmericaWhy Republicans are backing a controversial former NFL star: Politics Weekly AmericaSorry your browser does not support audio – but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/05/05-61553-gnl.fw.200505.jf.ch7DW.mp300:00:0000:24:04The passage of two bills preserving the right to abortion is likely to temporarily buoy Democrats, even if both bills are extremely unlikely to pass the Senate.One thing is clear though: the issue of abortion access is not going away.According to the Wall Street Journal, Democrats are “increasingly talking about abortion in their midterm campaign advertising,” while Republicans are shying away from the issue.In June the Supreme Court reversed the Roe v Wade ruling which enshrined the right to abortion in federal law. On Friday almost all House Republicans voted against the bills which would restore and protect access to abortion – but the GOP is out of step with Americans, a majority of whom think abortion should be legal. Ahead of the November mid-term elections, Democrats seem to be tying Republicans to the reversal of Roe v Wade, the WSJ reported:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}[An analysis] of broadcast and national cable data from the ad-tracking firm AdImpact shows more than a third of all spots aired by Democrats and their allies in congressional and gubernatorial campaigns from July 1-12 have mentioned abortion.
      Republicans are focusing their ads on inflation, which voters have consistently cited as their top concern heading into November’s elections. Less than 3% of all spots run by GOP candidates and their allies during that period included the abortion issue, the analysis showed.A second bill protecting the right to abortion has passed the US House.HR 8297, the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act of 2022, passed by 223 votes to 205 no votes. Three Republicans did not vote.The bill would prohibit restrictions on out-of-state travel for the purpose of obtaining an abortion service.Like HR 8296, the bill is likely to fail in the Senate, where there is not enough support for either bill to survive the 60-vote filibuster threshold. There are 50 Republicans in the Senate.223-205: House passes abortion access legislation prohibiting restrictions blocking out of state travel to obtain an abortion in response to Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.3 Republicans joined all Democrats in voting Yes.Ensuring Access to Abortion Act now heads to Senate. pic.twitter.com/a3nAuTLnvp— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) July 15, 2022
      The US House of Representatives has approved a law which would preserve access to abortion nationwide at the federal level – but the bill is still expected to fail in the Senate.HR 8296, the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022, passed the House by 219 yes votes to 210 no votes. Two members did not vote.The law would preserve access to abortion, after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade.The bill is expected to fail in the Senate, however. In May a vote in the Senate failed, with Joe Manchin, the Democrat who has repeatedly blocked his own party’s legislative efforts, joining Republicans to vote the bill down by 51 votes to 49.The House will now consider another abortion rights bill, HR8297 – the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act of 2022. That bill would protect individual’s right to travel for abortion access.President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda is reeling after a crucial senator said he wouldn’t support proposals to address climate change or raise taxes to pay for it. Meanwhile, Democrats in the House are moving to pass a measure to codify abortion rights.Here is what has happened today so far:
      Peter Navarro, a former top advisor to Donald Trump, declined a plea deal from federal prosecutors over his refusal to cooperate with the January 6 committee.
      A House committee announced it would take up a Democratic proposal to ban assault weapons.
      A deposition of Donald Trump and his children was postponed due to the death of his first wife Ivana Trump.
      A Georgia district attorney has warned some Republicans lawmakers in the state that they could be indicted for their role in helping Donald Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election.
      House lawmakers have taken to the floor to speak for and against a proposal from the chamber’s Democratic leadership to protect abortion rights nationwide.The speeches split along party lines, with Republicans decrying the bill and Democrats casting it as a necessary response to the supreme court’s decision last month overturning Roe v. Wade and handing states the power to ban the procedure outright.California Democrat Barbara Lee condemned Republicans’ proposals to restrict abortion access, asking, “What in the world is this?” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) directly addresses Republicans during debate on bill protecting right to travel for an abortion:“You’re trying to take away people’s right to travel. What in the world is this? Is this America? … They come for me today, they’re coming for you tomorrow.” pic.twitter.com/Qkv7at6h9m— The Recount (@therecount) July 15, 2022
      Brian Mast, a Republican from Florida, put a $20 bill on the table and said to Democrats, “Any one of you or your colleagues wants to speak up and tell us when life begins, it’s sitting here for you.”Pelosi and her allies are pushing for bills that would allow abortion to the very last moment before birth. I asked if they can tell me when a life begins, but I was met with silence. pic.twitter.com/xytK5yUYza— Rep. Brian Mast (@RepBrianMast) July 15, 2022
      A Georgia district attorney has sent “target” letters to prominent Republicans in the state, warning them they could face indictments for their attempt to help Donald Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election, Yahoo! News reports.Fani Willis, the Democratic district attorney for Fulton county, which includes the capital and largest city Atlanta, has sent the letters to Republicans including Burt Jones, a state senator who is standing as Georgia governor Brian Kemp’s running mate in this year’s election, and David Shafer, chair of the state’s Republican party, as well as state senator Brandon Beach.According to the report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Jones and Shafer were among those who participate in a closed-door meeting at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, in which 16 Georgia Republicans selected themselves as the electors for the state, although they had no legal basis for doing so. Shafer, according to a source who was present, presided over the meeting, conducting it as though it was an official proceeding, in which those present voted themselves as the bona fide electors in Georgia — and then signed their names to a declaration to that effect that was sent to the National Archives.In an interview with Yahoo! News, Willis said she was also considering asking Donald Trump to testify before the grand jury investigating the plot.A colleague of Indiana doctor Caitlin Bernard, who provided the 10-year-old girl from Ohio with an abortion after her rape, has written an op-ed in The New York Times about how the episode, and the downfall of Roe v. Wade, has affected reproductive health.Tracey A. Wilkinson, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, wrote:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Political attacks on abortion providers are, of course, nothing new. And that’s not all that providers and their staff face: They have been targeted, harassed and in some cases even murdered for providing legal health care to their patients; some types of attacks against them recently have increased. This moment, post-Roe v. Wade, feels particularly frightening and is chilling to anyone who cares for patients, especially those providing reproductive health care.
      This saga has had real-world repercussions for Dr. Bernard. The local police have been alerted to concerns for her physical safety.
      My colleagues and I have watched all this in horror. We are worried that this could happen to us, too. A law that recently went into effect in Indiana mandates that doctors, hospitals and abortion clinics report to the state when a patient who has previously had an abortion presents any of dozens of physical or psychological conditions — including anxiety, depression, sleeping disorders and uterine perforation — because they could be complications of the previous abortion. Not doing so within 30 days can result in a misdemeanor for the physician who treated the patient, punishable with up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.Here’s more on the story, which has become an example of the real consequences of the supreme court’s landmark decision last month:Man charged with rape of 10-year-old who had abortion after rightwing media called story ‘not true’Read moreThe depositions of Donald Trump and two of his children planned for Friday will be delayed following the death of Ivana Trump, his first wife and the childrens’ mother. “In light of the passing of Ivana Trump yesterday, we received a request from counsel for Donald Trump and his children to adjourn all three depositions, which we have agreed to,” the New York Attorney General’s Office said. “This is a temporary delay and the depositions will be rescheduled as soon as possible,” the office also said. “There is no other information about dates or otherwise to provide at this time.”Trump and his two eldest children, Ivanka and Donald Jr., were scheduled to give sworn testimony in the office’s three-year civil investigation into potential misconduct surrounding property values. The office is probing whether the Trump Organization provided inaccurate valuation to secure loans at favorable rates, or improperly claim tax breaks. Trump’s attorney has reportedly indicated that the former president will invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination and refuse to respond to questions. The Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, is facing a tax fraud trial amid a parallel investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. House Democrats will today make a renewed push to pass legislation protecting the right to abortion nationwide and the ability of Americans to cross state lines to seek the procedure. But the bills’ chances of passing the Senate are slim due to opposition from Republicans.House speaker Nancy Pelosi just held an event with other Democrats prior to the vote, declaring, “As we pass his landmark legislation today, Democrats will not stop ferociously defending freedom for women and for every American. And we want everybody to know, women out there who are concerned about their own personal reproductive freedom and what it means to their health, that… the message from the House Democrats in our groups here today is, we are not going back”, sparking a chant that was joined by the lawmakers assembled behind her.You can watch the full speech below:Join @DemWomensCaucus and me at the U.S. Capitol ahead of the passage of legislation to protect women’s reproductive freedom and to stop Republicans from criminalizing women exercising their constitutional right to travel to obtain an abortion. https://t.co/yHypmYBTR5— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 15, 2022 More

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      January 6 panel examines whether erased Secret Service texts can be revived

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      January 6 panel examines whether erased Secret Service texts can be revivedSources say committee investigating whether watchdog can use forensic tools to reconstruct messages from 5 and 6 January The House committee investigating the Capitol attack is examining whether Secret Service text messages from 5 and 6 January 2021 that were erased around the time of an internal review can be reconstructed, according to sources familiar with the matter.Secret Service agents’ January 6 texts were erased after oversight requestRead moreThe panel was perturbed that texts between agents on perhaps two of the most important days in the history of the Secret Service – the day before the Capitol attack and the day itself – could be lost in such an abrupt manner, the sources said.The committee is now examining whether the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, the watchdog for the Secret Service which disclosed the erasure in a letter to Congress, can use forensic tools to reconstruct the messages, the sources said.The texts are potentially significant for January 6 investigators as the Secret Service played a crucial role in preventing Donald Trump from going to the Capitol on that day, and according to the panel, wanted to remove then-vice president Mike Pence from the complex.January 6 investigators believe that the texts from the day of the Capitol attack could shed light on how the Secret Service wanted to move Donald Trump and Mike Pence, while texts from the day before could provide greater clarity on how security plans developed, the sources said.Days before the Capitol attack, the Secret Service assessed that it could likely not guarantee Trump’s safety if he went to the Capitol on January 6 and, according to a person familiar with the report, conveyed that to senior staff in the White House.On the day of the Capitol attack, according to testimony by the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, the Secret Service played a major part in stopping Trump going to the Capitol by driving back to the West Wing after his speech at the Ellipse.The committee believes Secret Service text messages could provide a record for security plans for January 6. It was not clear whether texts from Anthony Ornato, a former agent who became a White House deputy chief of staff, and Trump’s lead agent, Bobby Engel, were among messages erased during a “device-replacement program”.But the committee is understood to have asked the DHS inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, on Friday morning if the texts can be reconstructed using forensic tools available to federal law enforcement.The meeting with Cuffari came after the committee chairman, Bennie Thompson, met his staff director, David Buckley, and deputy staff director, Kristin Amerling, before convening the full committee which decided to call Cuffari, the sources said.In the letter to Congress, reviewed by the Guardian, Cuffari said the erasure of the text messages appeared to come after his office requested the communications as part of an internal review into the Secret Service response to the Capitol attack.The Secret Service has pushed back at that characterization, saying the texts were lost during a pre-planned, agency-wide cellphone upgrade scheme in January 2021 because some agents apparently had not backed up messages as required.Zero Fail review: US Secret Service as presidential protectors – and drunken frat boysRead moreThe Secret Service has a history of abruptly losing crucial records sought by investigations, and personnel declining to cooperate or turn over materials directly to investigators, a complaint raised in Cuffari’s letter.By the time Cuffari requested internal agency communications, memorandums, emails and telephonic records such as text messages, according to a person familiar with the matter, around a third of personnel had been given new phones.The question from the committee appears to be whether the inspector general’s office could reconstruct the lost texts using messages that were backed up or not erased. Cuffari’s response was not immediately clear on Friday.The justice department inspector general has previously been able to retrieve lost texts, using “forensic tools” in 2018 to recover texts from two senior FBI officials who investigated Hillary Clinton and Trump and exchanged notes criticizing the latter.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Joe Biden lands in Saudi Arabia seeking to halt shift towards Russia and China

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      Joe Biden lands in Saudi Arabia seeking to halt shift towards Russia and ChinaAnalysis: US president aiming to convince Jeddah to increase oil supply in order to calm global energy markets00:24Joe Biden landed in the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah to a tepid welcome from the Saudi crown prince whose country he once pledged to make a “pariah” on the world stage.While Saudi Arabia announced it would open its airspace to flights from Israel, making Biden the first US president to fly directly from Tel Aviv to the kingdom, expectations of further gains during his visit remained low. The US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told journalists onboard Air Force One not to expect any bilateral announcements in response to American demands that Saudi Arabia pump more oil to calm global energy markets after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Fist bumps as Joe Biden arrives to reset ties with ‘pariah’ Saudi ArabiaRead moreSaudi Arabia is keen to prove its independence from US interests as it increasingly courts Russia and China.“From the start, my aim was to reorient – but not rupture – relations with a country that’s been a strategic partner for 80 years,” Biden wrote in the Washington Post prior to his visit, sidestepping his pledge on the campaign trail to make Saudi Arabia “a pariah”, and the later release of a US intelligence report stating that Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, “approved” an operation to capture and murder the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.“It’s a completely different Saudi Arabia, one that in many ways has modernised and opened up a bit, but is also seeing greater crackdowns – and the Biden administration is brutally aware of all this,” said Dina Esfandiary of the NGO Crisis Group.Biden’s visit means carefully stage-managing relations with Prince Mohammed, the Kingdom’s powerful de facto ruler, who observers say has the upper hand as Biden courts his goodwill at a time of rising global oil prices mounting a challenge to his presidency domestically.The two shared a fist bump on Biden’s arrival, although the president later warmly shook hands with the king, Salman bin Abdulaziz. At the start of the president’s Middle East trip, officials said he would avoid close contact such as shaking hands as a precaution against Covid.The US president is under intense pressure to repair the fragile relationship between two nations, one that traditionally relied on the kingdom liberally supplying oil to the global market in exchange for the US’s backing in areas of security and defence.This has increasingly shifted in recent years, exacerbated as the relationship between Biden and Prince Mohammed has soured and Saudi Arabia looks to Russia and China to diversify its interests.“The message from Saudi is you can’t tell us what to do, we’ll help you as far as it suits us but we won’t go against our own interests,” said Esfandiary.Cinzia Bianco, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, agreed. “The Saudi leadership has learned to do without seeking validation from the United States, and Bin Salman in particular – he’s learned to survive and maybe even thrive within the region and to some degree internationally, without getting validation from the US administration,” she said.Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said that, with the visit to Saudi Arabia, Biden was reneging on previous promises to prioritise human rights. “It’s a very huge backing down actually,” Cengiz told the Associated Press. “It’s heartbreaking and disappointing. And Biden will lose his moral authority by putting oil and expediency over principles and values.”Saudi Arabia’s recent cooperation with Russia has included an agreement for Rosatom, a Russian state company, to build a nuclear power plant in the kingdom, as well as signing an agreement last year to “explore ways to develop military to strengthen the military and defence cooperation” between the two countries according to the deputy defence minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman.China is historically the largest importer of Saudi Arabian oil, while the kingdom has bought Chinese arms including drones and fighter aircraft. Last November, US intelligence agencies concluded that Saudi Arabia is manufacturing its own ballistic missiles with the help of China, according to satellite imagery.Bianco stressed that the US administration saw Biden’s visit as a vital opportunity to intervene and warm relations before Saudi Arabia moves ahead with Chinese and Russian deals that largely remain in their infancy. “The US administration sees an opportunity to undo all of that or take a step back and create some space,” she said. “There’s a lot on paper rather than in reality, and there’s still space for the administration to try to create some distance between Saudi Arabia, Russia and China.”Yet as Biden landed in Jeddah to discuss how to increase the global supply of oil in order to bring down prices, doubts persisted as to whether he would fly home with anything to show for his visit at all. Shortly before his arrival, Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia had more than doubled its imports of Russian oil in order to free up more of its own crude for export, shunning demands for sanctions from the west while increasing profit margins amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.“Maybe the US administration had good intentions when it began setting up this trip, but ultimately it’s making them look bad – they’re losing the public relations war,” said Esfandiary. “It’s not clear that they’re going to make any gains, my sense is that everyone will walk away disappointed.”TopicsUS foreign policyJoe BidenUS politicsSaudi ArabiaMiddle East and north AfricaBiden administrationMohammed bin SalmananalysisReuse this content More

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      in World Politics

      Saudi King Salman, His Sons and Airbus

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      in US Politics

      Joe Biden defends human rights record ahead of Saudi visit

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      Joe Biden defends human rights record ahead of Saudi visitPresident says he will not avoid rights issues but skirts commitment to discuss Khashoggi murder00:47Joe Biden has defended his imminent trip to Saudi Arabia, saying he will not avoid human rights issues on the final leg of his Middle East tour, despite refusing to commit to mentioning the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi when he meets the kingdom’s crown prince.Speaking during a news conference with the interim Israeli prime minister, Yair Lapid, in Jerusalem on Thursday, the US leader said his stance on Khashoggi’s killing was “absolutely” clear.US intelligence services concluded last year that Khashoggi’s 2018 killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was approved by the powerful heir to the throne, Mohammed bin Salman. On the campaign trail, the president vowed to turn the conservative Gulf kingdom into a “pariah state”, but the turmoil in global oil markets unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced a U-turn.“I have never been quiet about talking about human rights,” the president said. “The reason I am going to Saudi Arabia though, is much broader, it’s to promote US interests.“And so there are so many issues at stake, I want to make clear that we can continue to lead in the region and not create a vacuum; a vacuum that is filled by China and/or Russia.”Biden embarked on his first visit to the region as president with engagements in Israel on Wednesday, a trip dominated by the threat posed to the region by the growing military capabilities of Iran and its proxies around the Middle East.Joe Biden arrives in Middle East at time of rapid changeRead moreThe Biden administration hopes that Israel’s new relationships with several Arab states – including a gradual warming of ties with Saudi Arabia, which vies with Tehran for regional hegemony – will strengthen a fledgling regional alliance against Iran.After a cursory meeting with Palestinian leaders in Bethlehem on Friday, the president will fly to the Saudi city of Jeddah with the aim of convincing Gulf oil producers to increase supply, as well as lobbying for fully integrating Israel into the emerging regional defence architecture.Iran was top of the agenda for Israeli officials on the second day of Biden’s visit, during which the president pledged that the US was prepared to use “all elements of its national power” to deny Iran nuclear weapons.The “Jerusalem declaration”, a joint communique issued by Biden and Lapid after their meeting, reaffirmed an “ironclad” US commitment to Israel’s security, as well as Israel’s right to defend itself.The two countries, however, continue to disagree on the utility of rescuing the landmark nuclear deal with Iran, abandoned by Donald Trump in 2018. Talks to revive the accord began in April 2021, but have made little progress.The Islamic Republic could still be prevented from enriching uranium to the level needed to manufacture a nuclear bomb, Biden said, and “Diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome”, although the US is “not going to wait forever”.Lapid, on the other hand, said: “The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that if they continue to develop their nuclear programme, the free world will use force.”The Jerusalem declaration offered little to the Palestinians other than a brief reaffirmation of Biden’s commitment to a two-state solution to the conflict. Israel made no mention of the peace process, instead promising to improve the economy and quality of life for the 5 million people living in the occupied Palestinian territories.Biden has declined a request for an audience from the family of the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, who the US state department concluded was accidentally killed by the Israeli army in May.The family, who accused Biden’s administration of siding with Israel by not calling for a criminal investigation, have instead been invited for talks in Washington. Protests demanding justice for Abu Aqleh are planned for Friday morning outside a US-funded hospital in East Jerusalem which Biden is scheduled to visit.Palestinian expectations for Biden’s trip to Bethlehem are low; Washington has not pressured Israel to return to the peace process, nor moved to curb Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank.The administration has also not fulfilled a promise to reopen a US mission to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, which was closed by Trump after he recognised the divided city as Israel’s capital in 2017.TopicsJoe BidenBiden administrationIsraelSaudi ArabiaJamal KhashoggiPalestinian territoriesIrannewsReuse this content More

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      in World Politics

      The Russia-Ukraine War Proves That We Must Define National Security Differently

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More