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      Donald Trump once tried to pay a lawyer with a horse, new book says

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      Donald Trump once tried to pay a lawyer with a horse, new book saysNew York Times reporter David Enrich also says White House counsel Donald McGahn once called senior Trump aides ‘morons’ Donald Trump once tried to pay a lawyer he owed $2m with a deed to a horse.‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book saysRead moreThe bizarre scene is described in Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump and the Corruption of Justice, a book by David Enrich of the New York Times that will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Enrich reports that “once he regained the capacity for speech”, the lawyer to whom Trump offered a stallion supposedly worth $5m “stammered … ‘This isn’t the 1800s. You can’t pay me with a horse.’”Accounts of Trump refusing to pay legal and other bills are legion. In New York, his business and tax affairs are the subject of civil and criminal investigations.Trump’s reluctance to pay legal fees also featured in his attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, which has landed him in further legal jeopardy.In another forthcoming book, Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor, Andrew Kirtzman reports that in January 2021 Rudy Giuliani’s girlfriend sought $2.5m from Trump, for the former New York mayor’s legal work on the attempt to block Joe Biden’s win and for “defending you during the Russia hoax investigation and then the impeachment”.Maria Ryan, Kirtzman writes, made the request in the same letter in which she requested that Giuliani receive a “general pardon” and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.Ryan was not successful. The New York Times has reported that Trump told advisers Giuliani “would only get ‘paid on the come’, a reference to a bet in the casino game craps that is essentially payment on a successful roll of the dice”.Enrich’s book places particular focus on Trump’s relationship with Jones Day, a giant US law firm, and the role played by Donald McGahn, a partner, in Trump’s 2016 campaign and then in the White House.It was not all plain sailing. Enrich quotes an unnamed Jones Day associate as saying that in the early days of the campaign, after a Trump Tower meeting with Corey Lewandowski and Alan Garten, close Trump aides, McGahn said: “These guys are morons.”McGahn, Enrich writes, “disputed the quotes attributed to him, particularly the word ‘moron’”. He has, however, previously been reported to have called Trump “King Kong” behind his back.McGahn was Trump’s first White House counsel. A member of the rightwing Federalist Society, he worked with the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, on an unprecedented stacking of the federal judiciary with conservative hardliners, which ultimately included three supreme court picks.McGahn resigned in 2018, after it was revealed he cooperated extensively with Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.Enrich describes Trump’s “reputation for short-changing his lawyers (and banks and contractors and customers)” but says that in the case of Jones Day, “against all odds, Trump paid and paid again”.In contrast to the description of the alleged “morons” remark, Enrich’s story about Trump trying to pay a debt with a horse does not identify the attorney involved.Trump is reading my memoir, Kushner claims of famously book-shy bossRead moreDescribing “a lawyer at a white-shoe firm” who worked for Trump in the 1990s, Enrich writes: “The bill came to about $2m and Trump refused to pay.“After a while, the lawyer lost patience, and he showed up, unannounced, at Trump Tower. Someone sent him up to Trump’s office. Trump was initially pleased to see him – he didn’t betray any sense of sheepishness – but the lawyer was steaming.“‘I’m incredibly disappointed,’ he scolded Trump. ‘There’s no reason you haven’t paid us.’“Trump made some apologetic noises. Then he said: ‘I’m not going to pay your bill. I’m going to give you something more valuable.’ What on earth is he talking about? the lawyer wondered. ‘I have a stallion,’ Trump continued. ‘It’s worth $5m.’ Trump rummaged around in a filing cabinet and pulled out what he said was a deed to a horse. He handed it to the lawyer.”Enrich describes the lawyer’s stunned and angry response, in which he threatened to sue.Trump, Enrich writes, “eventually coughed up at least a portion of what he owed”.TopicsBooksDonald TrumpLaw (US)US politicsRepublicansPolitics booksnewsReuse this content More

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      Republican Senate candidate says she’s anti-abortion but against federal ban

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      Republican Senate candidate says she’s anti-abortion but against federal banTiffany Smiley, a trained nurse, wants to win in Washington state, where a 1991 law protects abortion access A Republican Senate nominee in Washington state said on Sunday she was against abortion – but supported a state law that guarantees the right to abortion until fetal viability.Trump calls FBI, DoJ ‘vicious monsters’ in first rally since Mar-a-Lago searchRead moreSpeaking to CNN’s State of the Union, Tiffany Smiley said she supported the law despite the US supreme court decision earlier this summer, in Dobbs v Jackson, which overturned the right to abortion, a right previously guaranteed for almost 50 years.“I respect the voters of Washington state,” Smiley said. “They long decided where they stand on the issue.”The state law was passed in 1991. Across the US, polls consistently show that nearly two-thirds of Americans support the right to abortion in some form.As the midterm elections approach, abortion has served as a prime motivator for women voters across the US, especially among Democrats and fueling striking special-election successes for the party seeking to hold both houses of Congress.Smiley’s remarks reflected a growing recognition among Republicans that the fall of Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which protected the right to abortion until June this year, may have been a longed-for supreme court success but could cost them dearly at the polls as they seek to take the House and Senate.Speaking to CNN, Smiley also backed off her previous statement that she would welcome an endorsement from Donald Trump.“I am laser-focused on the endorsement of the voters of Washington state,” she said, twice, as she sought to deflect the question.Smiley, a trained nurse, is challenging the incumbent Democratic senator, Patty Murray, who has criticized Smiley for her “100% pro-life” views.In an ad released last week, Smiley told viewers she was “pro-life but I opposed a federal abortion ban”. The ad came in response to a Murray ad which called Smiley “Mitch McConnell’s hand-picked candidate”, referring to the Senate Republican leader known for his anti-abortion views and push to stack the supreme court with conservative justices opposed to abortion.Murray’s ad claimed that if elected, Smiley would support federal abortion bans. Smiley said: “Murray is trying to scare you, I am trying to serve you.”On Sunday, Smiley said: “I made it clear in my ad that … I am not for a federal abortion ban. You know, the extreme in this race is Patty Murray. She is for federalizing abortion.”Smiley previously expressed support for a Texas law that implements a near-total abortion ban, the Hill reported last year. On Sunday, Smiley said “there’s a lot of parts of [the Texas ban] that make it very hard for me in Washington state”.‘I want to work with everyone’: Alaska’s history-making new congresswomanRead moreShe added: “But at the end of the day, I’m pro-woman first and then always pro-life.”In response, Murray told CNN: “What I believe is that we have a constitutional right in this country under Roe by the supreme court that allowed women and their families and their faith and their doctor to make a decision for them about whether or not they should carry their pregnancy.“That is what the law and constitutional right of this land was, until this supreme court overturned that.“I do not believe that politicians should be making these decisions for women. That is what I support.”TopicsAbortionUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansWashington stateUS CongressUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      The Future of Vice President Kamala Harris in American Politics

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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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      Trump calls FBI, DoJ ‘vicious monsters’ in first rally since Mar-a-Lago search

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      Trump calls FBI, DoJ ‘vicious monsters’ in first rally since Mar-a-Lago searchFormer president also calls Joe Biden’s Philadelphia address the ‘most vicious, hateful, divisive speech’02:19Speaking in Pennsylvania on Saturday, at his first rally since the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago for top-secret material taken from the White House and since Joe Biden used a primetime address to warn that Republicans were assaulting US democracy, Donald Trump lashed out. Democracy is under attack – and reporting that isn’t ‘violating journalistic standards’ | Robert ReichRead moreThe former president said: “The FBI and the justice department have become vicious monsters, controlled by radical-left scoundrels, lawyers and the media, who tell them what to do.”Trump nominated the FBI director, Christopher Wray, in 2017.Biden spoke outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, a site with tremendous resonance in US history, on Thursday night.Presenting a “battle for the soul of the nation”, he said: “This is a nation that rejects violence as a political tool. We are still, at our core, a democracy. Yet history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and the willingness to engage in political violence is fatal in a democracy.”In Wilkes-Barre on Saturday night, Trump called Biden’s remarks “the most vicious, hateful, and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president”.The former president was appearing in support of Mehmet Oz, the Republican candidate for US Senate, and Doug Mastriano, the candidate for governor.Oz, a TV doctor, is struggling against the lieutenant governor, John Fetterman. On Saturday night, Trump called the Democrat “a socialist loser”. He also claimed without evidence that Fetterman, who recently suffered a stroke and whose health has been mocked by the Oz campaign, used illegal drugs.“Fetterman supports taxpayer-funded drug dens and the complete decriminalization of illegal drugs, including heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, and ultra lethal fentanyl,” Trump said. “By the way, he takes them himself.”Trump also said: “Fetterman may dress like a teenager getting high in his parents’ basement, but he’s a raging lunatic hell-bent on springing hardened criminals out of jail in the middle of the worst crime wave in Pennsylvania history.”Mastriano is a supporter of Trump’s lie that Biden’s 2020 election victory was the result of electoral fraud. The candidate has compared the January 6 assault on the US Capitol to the Reichstag fire, the event in Berlin in 1933 which propelled Adolf Hitler to power. He has also been photographed wearing the uniform of a Confederate soldier.Biden’s speech continues to resonate. In Philadelphia, he spoke against a dramatic, deep-red background. Republicans protested, some saying the speech was too political to be delivered amid the trappings of the presidency, including attendant US Marines.On Sunday, Tiffany Smiley, the Republican candidate for Senate in Washington state, was asked on CNN’s State of the Union if she believed Biden won the 2020 election fairly and legitimately – a question now asked of most Republican candidates for state and national office.Smiley said she did. But she also said she was “extremely disappointed” with the speech in Philadelphia, “because unity is not conformity. And I think President Biden got that really, really mixed up”.Michael McCaul, a Republican congressman from Texas, told ABC’s This Week: “If this was a speech to unify the American people, it had just the opposite effect. It basically condemned all Republicans who supported Donald Trump in the last election. That’s over 70 million people.”More than 81 million voted for Biden. In his speech, the president said he wanted “to be very clear, very clear up front: not every Republican, not even a majority of Republicans, are Maga [pro-Trump] Republicans … [who] represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”In Wilkes-Barre, Trump told his audience that under Biden, they were “enemies of the state”. Of Biden, he said: “He’s an enemy of the state, you want to know the truth.”Of the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said: “It was not just my home that was raided last month. It was the hopes and dreams of every citizen who I’ve been fighting for.”Calling the search “one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history” and “a travesty of justice”, he said: “They’re trying to silence me and more importantly they’re trying to silence you. But we will not be silenced, right?”Investigators recovered thousands of documents, including more than 100 with classified and top-secret markings. A Trump-appointed judge is considering Trump’s request for the appointment of a court official to review the documents for any covered by executive privilege.Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016, one success in a string of usually Democratic states which fueled his victory over Hillary Clinton. But Biden won it in 2020, its call four days after election day putting him in the White House. As the 2022 midterms approach, Biden is due back in the state on Monday, the Labor Day holiday, for an event in Pittsburgh.Trump in increasing legal peril one month on from Mar-a-Lago searchRead moreReporters in Pennsylvania for Trump’s rally found support for the former president over the Mar-a-Lago search. Roy Bunger, 65, told the New York Times the Biden administration was “deliberately targeting” Trump “to keep him from running again”.But there are signs that Trump’s endorsement will not be enough to help Oz win a Senate seat Republicans have targeted in their attempt to take back the chamber. Larry Mitko voted for Donald Trump in 2016. He told the Associated Press he would not back Oz, “No way, no how.”Mitko said he did no feel like he knew the celebrity heart surgeon, who narrowly won his May primary with Trump’s backing. Mitko said he would vote for Fetterman, with whom he has been familiar with since Fetterman was mayor of nearby Braddock.“Dr Oz hasn’t showed me one thing to get me to vote for him,” he said. “I won’t vote for someone I don’t know.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS midterm elections 2022US politicsUS CongressRepublicansPennsylvanianewsReuse this content More

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      Leonard Leo: the secretive rightwinger using billions to reshape America

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      Leonard Leo: the secretive rightwinger using billions to reshape AmericaMarble Freedom Trust, advocacy group headed by Leo, has received vast $1.6bn donation to push conservative causes As the US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas prepared to take questions from members of the rightwing legal advocacy group the Federalist Society, a few years back, he turned to the moderator.Thomas joked that the nondescript man in the blue suit and white shirt was the “No 3 most powerful person in the world”, and then fell about laughing. The target of the judge’s mirth, Leonard Leo, grinned and remarked: “God help us.”Biden’s stern warning on extremism shows the rose-colored glasses are offRead moreYet both men understood at that moment in 2018 just how influential Leo was, in ways that few Americans knew. Most had never even heard of Leo, even though he was at that time instrumental in maneuvering Donald Trump to reshape the court on which Thomas sits, and so deliver one of its most politically sensitive rulings of recent times by overturning the right to abortion.Leo, a 56 year-old whose opposition to abortion is rooted in his Catholic faith, remains an obscure figure to much of the US public, even after revelations that he heads a political group that has received an astonishing $1.6bn donation to push conservative causes, including election manipulation ahead of this year’s midterm votes.Earlier this month the New York Times revealed that the money, said to be one of the largest single contributions to a political pressure group, arrived in a circuitous route from a figure who is equally obscure to most Americans: Barre Seid.Seid, who has spent tens of millions of dollars funding conservative and libertarian organisations, donated an entire company last year to a newly founded political advocacy group run by Leo, the Marble Freedom Trust. Marble sold the firm, the Chicago electronics manufacturer Tripp Lite, this year for $1.6bn, according to tax records.The roundabout process has prompted speculation Seid was sidestepping tax on the sale to maximize the funding for Leo.The Marble Freedom Trust has already distributed nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, including $153m to the Rule of Law Trust to push the appointment of conservative judges. That still leaves more than $1bn to fund political causes close to Leo’s heart, including his interest in helping Republican officials manipulate elections ahead of the midterm vote and the next presidential ballot.Leo defended the injection of a huge amount of “dark money” into the political process by claiming it merely levels the playing field against Democrats funded by liberal billionaires.“It’s high time for the conservative movement to be among the ranks of George Soros, Hansjörg Wyss, Arabella Advisors and other leftwing philanthropists, going toe-to-toe in the fight to defend our constitution and its ideals,” he said in a statement.Leo’s close relationship with Thomas goes back to 1991 when he worked to gather evidence to support the judge during his confirmation hearing for the supreme court.Leo went on to work for the Federalist Society, founded in 1982 to counter what conservatives claimed was liberal dominance of US courts and law schools. He rose to become the society’s co-chair and oversaw the rise in its influence at the expense of the more liberal American Bar Association, in part through the effectiveness of his fundraising to back conservative judicial nominees.As the conservative lawyer Ed Whelan wrote six years ago in the National Review: “No one has been more dedicated to the enterprise of building a supreme court that will overturn Roe v Wade than the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo.”In 2005, George W Bush nominated Harriet Miers, his deputy chief of staff, for a vacant seat on the supreme court. She was widely regarded as a weak candidate in any case, but when conservatives turned on her, and Miers withdrew, Leo saw to it that she was replaced by a figure far more acceptable to the right and opponents of abortion, Samuel Alito.Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, one of the most outspoken critics of dark money’s influence on politics, told the Guardian earlier this year that was a turning point.“It was at that point that the grip of this little donor elite and Leo, its Federalist Society operative, really took hold. Justice Samuel Alito was the product of that and he has proven himself on the court as being a faithful workhorse for that dark money corporate rightwing crew,” he said.New opportunities presented themselves with Trump’s election in 2016.Leo drew up a list of 11 potential supreme court nominees to help Trump, a man who had previously claimed to be pro-choice, woo conservative and evangelical voters by committing to nominate justices who were hostile to abortion rights.After Trump’s victory, Leo took time away from the Federalist Society to work as an advisor to the president. All three of those eventually seated on the US’s highest court during Trump’s tenure and who voted to overturn Roe v Wade – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – were named on the list Leo drew up during the campaign.Now Leo has turned his attention to pushing conservative moves to manipulate elections in favour of Republicans through the Honest Elections Project, a recent addition to a web of interlinked groups funded with dark money, including from the libertarian Koch brothers.Among other things, Leo is pushing a contentious legal theory that the US constitution gives state legislatures the power to decide how to run elections without intervention from the courts. The Honest Elections Project has made multiple legal submissions on the issue with the aim of removing the power of state courts to block gerrymandering and voter suppression measures to manipulate elections.Earlier this year, Leo told the Washington Post that in using dark money for political ends he is not doing anything that has not been done before.“Let’s remember that in this country, the abolitionist movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the American Revolution, the early labor movement, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s were all very much fueled by very wealthy people and oftentimes wealthy people who chose to be anonymous. I think that’s not a bad thing. I think that’s a good thing,” he said.TopicsUS politicsRepublicansAbortionnewsReuse this content More

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      Turki bin Salman Is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Money Man

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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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      Thanks to bad electoral laws, Detroit will soon have no Black members of Congress | David Daley

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      Thanks to bad electoral laws, Detroit will soon have no Black members of CongressDavid DaleyIf we’re to avoid a future in which the nation’s largest Black-majority city lacks representation that looks like most of its citizens, we need electoral reform Detroit has been represented by at least one Black member of Congress since 1955. That’s four years before Berry Gordy founded Motown Records, three years before Ozzie Virgil became the first person of African descent to play for the Detroit Tigers, and 17 years before General Motors hired its first Black automotive designer in 1972.Now that long, proud run is nearing an end. After this November’s elections, Detroit – nearly 80% Black, the largest percentage, by far, of any major American city – will probably be left without any Black representation in the House of Representatives. An era that covered parts of eight decades, and the careers of heavyweights such as Representatives John Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick will close.New legal filings paint Trump as a flailing liar surrounded by lackeys | Lloyd GreenRead moreHow is this possible? This is a story about redistricting, good intentions and unintended consequences, about population loss and suburban growth. It’s about the cold, unforgiving math of our political system, and the way overcrowded primaries divide votes and distort outcomes. And it points to the electoral reforms we desperately need – especially ranked-choice voting, but also an end to single-member congressional districts – if we’re to avoid having the nation’s largest Black majority city lacking representation that looks like the majority of its citizens.Let’s start here: every congressional map in the nation gets redrawn every 10 years, post-census, to account for population changes. When Michigan’s maps were redrawn in 2011, Republicans held the pen and sought to create as many Republican-leaning districts as they could get away with.Any gerrymander involves two key tools: cracking and packing – the art of either spreading the other side’s voters thinly across many districts, or packing them into as few as possible. In Michigan, Republicans packed Black voters – who tend to vote for Democrats – into two wildly contorted, even snake-like districts, then carved the Detroit suburbs into a pinwheel of whiter, Republican-friendlier seats.Michigan’s 13th (56% Black) and 14th (57% Black) districts overwhelmingly elected Black representatives to Congress for much of the decade, usually with 80% or more of the vote and little organized opposition. The 2011 Republican gerrymander worked as expected, however – and, with so many Democratic voters packed into those two seats, Republicans held nine of the 14 seats in this Democrat-leaning swing state for several consecutive election cycles. The state legislature, drawn with the same intent, also produced reliable Republican majorities, even when Democrats won more votes.Frustrated citizens, recognizing correctly that their votes didn’t really matter, demanded a fairer approach to redistricting. In 2018, 61% of Michiganders supported an amendment to the state constitution that would take the line-drawing power away from politicians and put it in the hands of an independent citizen commission that included voices representing many ethnicities, ideologies and geographic backgrounds.The members of that citizen panel did a tremendous job. They held public hearings across the state, worked openly and transparently, consulted experts on the Voting Rights Act – and drew the fairest and most equitable state legislative and congressional districts that Michigan has seen in several decades. Non-partisan experts graded the maps highly for partisan fairness and competitiveness. This fall, the party that wins the most votes will, in almost every likelihood, win the most seats.Yet this decade Michigan lost one of its seats in Congress to faster-growing states. Detroit’s population has plunged; the 2020 census recorded 10.5% fewer residents than the one a decade earlier. Some of that decline could be attributed to Black residents moving from Detroit to nearby suburbs. The Voting Rights Act experts retained by the commission produced a study showing that there was enough “crossover” or coalition voting in metro Detroit that Black voters could still elect a member of their own choosing even if the overall Black voting-age population was less than 50%.But those experts missed something crucial. Black voters, along with white crossover voters, might still elect a Black candidate in the general election. Yet a primary election in a Black political stronghold, where several strong candidates might seek office and divide votes, could be something else entirely. Black voters, in that case, could be punished for producing multiple candidates and having to choose among them.This shouldn’t have been a theoretical concern. It’s exactly what happened in the 2018 primary. Four Black candidates – including the Detroit city council president, a state senator, a former state representative, and Conyers’s son – earned 55.6% of the primary vote between them. Rashida Tlaib ultimately won the race with just 31.2% of the vote, defeating Brenda Jones, the council president, by 900 votes.The same thing happened in the Democratic primary this year. Eight of the nine candidates for the new 13th district seat were Black. They divided 71.7% of the vote. The winner, Shri Thanedar, captured Michigan’s last-remaining Black seat with 28.3% of the vote.There’s a better way to do this – one that would allow more Black candidates to run without fears of dividing the vote, provide fair representation to the communities represented by Tlaib and Thanedar, and also guarantee that more votes mean more seats.If Michigan adopted ranked-choice voting (RCV) for primary elections, and required any winner to earn at least 50% support, there would be no spoilers. RCV works much like an instant runoff; if no one earns 50% on the first round, the last-place candidates are eliminated and second choices come into play. This would allow multiple Black candidates to run without fear of vote splitting. And while Thanedar, for example, assured Black voters he would be their representative too, RCV would have pushed him to campaign more within Black communities and work for second choices, rather than best a deeply divided field with a mere 28% plurality victory.Better still, we could end gerrymandering altogether and fix one of the core problems in our politics if we moved from single-member congressional districts to larger, multi-member seats, under a plan currently before Congress called the Fair Representation Act. Under this measure, Michigan, for example, would have the same 13 members of Congress – but they would be elected from districts of five, four and four members. A five-member district with metro Detroit and its suburbs at its heart would probably elect at least two Black Democrats, Tlaib (one of only two Muslims in Congress) and perhaps as many as two Republicans.Under a more proportional system such as this, communities of color and communities that include diverse political perspectives are not pitted against one another. Instead, everyone receives representation according to the number of votes they earn. The side with the most votes would receive the most seats, but everyone would have a voice. This would put an end to our poisonous zero-sum, winner-takes-all politics, in which politicians cater to their base, by providing strong new incentives for leaders to talk to every voter and work together in Washington.It’s outrageous that Detroit lacks any Black representation in Congress. But it’s an outrage that makes clear how damaging plurality primaries and single-member districts have become. Detroit’s story shows how the imbalances and vote-rigging that plague our voting system distort and interfere with equitable representation – and the harm they create for voters who ought to be able to choose among candidates without fearing that their community will lose representation altogether. Fortunately, it’s an outrage that can be fixed.
      David Daley is the author of Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count and Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy. He is a senior fellow at FairVote
      TopicsDetroitOpinionUS politicsMichiganUS CongresscommentReuse this content More

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      Biden targets Trump and says ‘anyone who fails to condemn violence is a threat to democracy’ – as it happened

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      Joe Biden delivered a brief and impromptu speech seemingly targeting Donald Trump as “a threat to Democracy”. Responding to a question from a reporter on whether “all Trump supporters are a threat to this country”, Biden said he does not consider any Trump supporter to be a threat. “I do think that anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it’s used, refuses to acknowledge when an election has been won, insists upon changing the way in which you count votes, that is a threat to democracy and everything we stand for,” Biden said. “Everything we stand for rests on the platform of democracy.” Biden continued by saying that those who voted for Trump in 2020 “weren’t voting to attack the Capitol, they weren’t voting for overruling the election. They were voting for a philosophy he put forward.”The comments came after Biden shifted his tone in a primetime address last night, directly calling out Trump and his allies, saying “democracy is under assault”. Here’s a quick summary of what happened today:
      Joe Biden implicitly criticized Donald Trump for threatening democracy, saying that anyone who fails to condemn violence is a threat. Both Biden and Trump will be in Pennsylvania this weekend rallying for candidates in their respective parties.
      Gina McCarthy, Biden’s top climate adviser, is stepping down in less than two weeks. The White House announced that John Podesta, former top adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, will be senior clean energy adviser to Biden.
      The US Bureau of Labor Statistics released data today that showed 315,000 jobs were added to the US economy in August. Biden celebrated the numbers, saying “American has some really good news going into Labor Day weekend”.
      As Trump heads back onto the campaign trail for Republican candidates, there are rumblings about a potential 2024 bid from the former president. Son-in-law Jared Kushner said in an interview that Trump has been thinking about it, while a former Trump White House official predicted that Trump will bow out after raising cash for his campaign.
      That’s it for the live blog today. Thanks for reading.Bill Barr, former attorney general, think that Florida governor Ron DeSantis could be elected president if he runs in 2024.“I don’t know Ron DeSantis that well, but I’ve been impressed with his record down in Florida,” Barr told Bari Weiss on her podcast, “Honestly”.Though Barr was once a part of Trump’s band of loyalists, he has taken to lightly criticizing his former boss, who in turn referred to him as “slow and very boring”.Whether Barr is right ultimately depends on how much of a sway Trump still has over voters.DeSantis has posited himself as a potential successor to the Maga throne, bringing the flare of Trumpism without the baggage of investigations and the Capitol insurrection. Though he has not confirmed any presidential ambitions, Republican voters picked him as a second choice, behind Trump, in a theoretical 2024 election.Two of Donald Trump’s former lawyers appeared in federal court today to testify in front of a grand jury investigating the January 6 insurrection.Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone arrived at the courthouse first and was with the grand jury for over two hours, according to Reuters. Former White House deputy counsel Pat Philbin arrived at the courthouse shortly after and was also with the grand jury for over two hours. Cipollone and Philbin are the most high-profile witnesses the grand jury has seen. The grand jury is investigating the “fake electors” plot to send fake slates of electors to Congress to fraudulently inflate the number of electors in Trump’s favor, despite him losing the election.The Department of Veteran Affairs announced Friday that it will provide access to abortions to pregnant veterans and veteran beneficiaries. Abortions will be available for those whose life or health is endangered through their pregnancy or if it is a result of rape or incest. The rule will allow VA employees, “when working within the scope of their federal employment” to “provide authorized services regardless of state restrictions”. “This is a patient safety decision,” VA secretary Denis McDonough said in a statement. “Pregnant veterans and VA beneficiaries deserve to have access to world-class reproductive care when they need it most. That’s what our nation owes them.” New: The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs “is taking steps to guarantee Veterans and other VA beneficiaries abortion-related care anywhere in the country. VA employees…may provide authorized services regardless of state restrictions.” https://t.co/ysv96U4FZT— Gabriella Borter (@gabriellaborter) September 2, 2022
      Donald Trump will continue to flirt with a third White House run in 2024 in order to raise money but will ultimately choose not to mount a campaign, a Trump White House official predicts.In communications reviewed by the Guardian on Friday, the official said Trump would look to “Bring in the $$$ then bow out gracefully before announcing”.The 45th president, in office from 2017 to 2021, dominates polling of possible Republican nominees in 2024. He has amassed a significant campaign war chest and is generally held to have maintained his grip on his party despite being impeached twice, the second time for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol.On Thursday, senior Republicans sprang to Trump’s defense – and eagerly expressed their own sense of offense – when Joe Biden used a primetime address to outline the threat to American democracy posed by Trump and his supporters.Trump himself floated pardons – and official apologies – for January 6 rioters should he return to the White House. Lest anyone forget, nine deaths have been connected to the Capitol attack, including suicides among law enforcement officers.Regarding the former White House official’s prediction that Trump will not run, the Guardian recently reported the contrary view of a senior source close to Trump, who said Trump “has to” announce a 2024 campaign soon, to head off being indicted under the Espionage Act after the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago in August.That source indicated Trump needed to announce because politically it would be harder for the Department of Justice to indict a candidate for office than a former president out of the electoral running.Developments since then have in most eyes increased the likelihood of an indictment over Trump’s handling of classified records. But most observers believe an indictment is not likely until after the midterm elections on 8 November, given DoJ policy regarding avoiding politically insensitive moves close to polling day.Hugo Lowell has more:FBI materials seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home included 90 empty foldersRead moreThe White House has announced that John Podesta will become senior advisor to US president Joe Biden for clean energy innovation and implementation, among other developments following the news earlier today that top climate advisor Gina McCarthy plans to step down.Podesta was White House chief of staff to Bill Clinton when he was president, a climate adviser to Barack Obama and – infamously as it became, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid.Current deputy White House national climate advisor, Ali Zaidi will be promoted to assistant to the president and national climate advisor.The White House statement noted that: “In his new role, Podesta will oversee implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act’s expansive clean energy and climate provisions and will chair the president’s national climate task force in support of this effort.”Meanwhile, Zaidi will also be vice-chair of the national climate task force. Gina McCarthy will leave her current role on September 16.Biden expressed gratitude to McCarthy and said of his new appointees: “Under Gina McCarthy and Ali Zaidi’s leadership, my administration has taken the most aggressive action ever, from historic legislation to bold executive actions, to confront the climate crisis head-on. The Inflation Reduction Act is the biggest step forward on clean energy and climate in history, and it paves the way for additional steps we will take to meet our clean energy and climate goals. “We are fortunate that John Podesta will lead our continued innovation and implementation. His deep roots in climate and clean energy policy and his experience at senior levels of government mean we can truly hit the ground running to take advantage of the massive clean energy opportunity in front of us.”Podesta, 73, is a veteran Washington establishment insider and Democratic party stalwart. But he achieved infamy in the 2016 presidential election campaign when, as a result of a chain of mishaps, his email was breached.As the Guardian reported in late 2016, the blunder gave Kremlin hackers access to about 60,000 emails in Podesta’s private Gmail account. According to US intelligence officials, Moscow then gave the email cache to WikiLeaks. The website released them in October, and the email scandal dominated the news cycle and was exploited by Donald Trump, who went on to a shock victory over Hillary Clinton in the November election.The revelation gave further credence to a CIA finding that the Moscow deliberately intervened to help Trump.Here’s a summary of everything that’s happened so far today:
      Off the heels of his eviscerating speech last night, Joe Biden is continuing to attack Donald Trump, saying today that anyone who fails to condemn violence “is a threat to democracy and everything we stand for”.
      Biden touted the jobs figures that were released today that showed the US added 315,000 jobs in August, saying that “American workers are back to work”.
      Gina McCarthy, Biden’s top climate adviser, is planning to step down in less than two weeks, according to the New York Times. McCarthy had privately expressed frustration with the pace of climate policy.
      Stay tuned for more live updates.At the White House press briefing just now, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spoke on Joe Biden’s speech last night where he warned that Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans” are a threat to democracy. “The president was trying to give the American people a choice: how do we move forward in this inflection point?” Jean-Pierre said. “When it comes to the soul of the nation, that is something the president has talked about for years… He has been concerned about where our democracy is going.” Responding to criticism that Biden’s speech was politically charged despite it being an official White House event, Jean-Pierre said that “standing up for democracy is not political”. “Denouncing political violence is not political. Standing up for freedom and rights is not political,” she said. “We don’t call any of that political. We see that as leadership and as presidential.” Jean-Pierre on Biden speech: “Standing up for democracy is not political. Denouncing political violence is not political. Standing up for freedom and rights is not political… We see that as leadership and as presidential.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) September 2, 2022
      Joe Biden delivered a brief and impromptu speech seemingly targeting Donald Trump as “a threat to Democracy”. Responding to a question from a reporter on whether “all Trump supporters are a threat to this country”, Biden said he does not consider any Trump supporter to be a threat. “I do think that anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it’s used, refuses to acknowledge when an election has been won, insists upon changing the way in which you count votes, that is a threat to democracy and everything we stand for,” Biden said. “Everything we stand for rests on the platform of democracy.” Biden continued by saying that those who voted for Trump in 2020 “weren’t voting to attack the Capitol, they weren’t voting for overruling the election. They were voting for a philosophy he put forward.”The comments came after Biden shifted his tone in a primetime address last night, directly calling out Trump and his allies, saying “democracy is under assault”. Gina McCarthy, Joe Biden’s top climate adviser, is stepping down on 16 September, the New York Times is reporting, citing people familiar with her plans.Rumors have swirled around her departure for months as McCarthy privately expressed frustrated with the “slow pace of climate progress” in the administration.McCarthy was an Environmental Protection Agency administrator during the Obama administration.In a press conference on the American Rescue Plan – the $1.9tn coronavirus stimulus package passed in March 2021 – Joe Biden celebrated today’s jobs report that said the US added 315,000 jobs in August. “We received more good news. American workers are back to work, earning more, manufacturing more, building an economy from the bottom up and the middle out,” Biden said. “We have created nearly 10m jobs since I took office. The fastest growth in all of American history.” Biden noted that the labor participation rate, or the number of people working or looking to work, is up and that more working-age women have come back to work. He also noted that gas prices have been going down over the last few weeks. “America has some really good news going into Labor Day weekend,” he said. Biden has been trying to emphasize the positive benefits to his stimulus package, particularly in light of claims from conservatives that it contributed to inflation. In his press conference, Biden emphasized that the stimulus created jobs, especially in manufacturing.A new Pew Research poll shows that opinions of the supreme court are more polarized than ever. Just 28% of Democrats and liberal independents have a favorable view of the court, versus 73% of Republicans and conservative independents.The gap is the largest since Pew started polling Americans on their opinion of the court. The court is also facing their lowest approval rating, with 48% of American having an unfavorable view of the court versus 49% with a favorable view.Today, 49% of Americans have a favorable view of the Supreme Court. Among partisans, just 28% of Democrats say they have a favorable view, while 73% of Republicans say the same. https://t.co/iLKP70pW4n pic.twitter.com/hqnVm0degr— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) September 1, 2022
      More Americans also believe the court is Republican/Conservative-leaning, with 49% of Americans saying they view they court as conservative versus 30% in August 2020.This Labor Day weekend kicks off the midterm election season which will put both the lasting sway of Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s presidency to the test with American voters.The primary election showed that the myth that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump is potent with voters: Many candidates who publicly questioned the election results won their primaries over the last few months.Now that these Trump-backed Republican candidates are in place heading into the general election, the test now shifts to how strong “Maga Republicans” – as Joe Biden put it Thursday night – are among the broader electorate.Pennsylvania is being seen as a key state to watch this midterm season. Trump is traveling to northeastern Pennsylvania this weekend to rally for two Republican candidates, Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano, who are running for US Senate and governor, respectively.Both candidates have vied themselves for Trump’s endorsement, but they are also trailing in the polls behind their Democratic opponents. Oz is eight points behind Democratic candidate John Fetterman, while Mastriano is seven points behind that state’s attorney general, Josh Shapiro.Oz, a one-time heart surgeon and celebrity television doctor, has had a particularly hard time convincing conservative voters that he is no longer attached to his liberal Hollywood persona. Oz “looks forward to President Trump talking to Pennsylvanians about the importance of fighting the radical, liberal agenda,” a spokesperson told Politico.New York City mayor Eric Adams released a joint statement with family and friends of 9/11 victims criticizing a Saudi-funded women’s golf tournament that is to be hosted at a Trump golf course in the city. “It is outrageous that the Trump Organization agreed to host a tournament with this organization while knowing how much pain it would cause New Yorkers,” Adams said. Last September, the FBI declassified documents related to 9/11 that revealed that the Saudi government provided logistical report to the attackers and helped fund the attacks.The tournament is scheduled to be held at Trump Golf Links, a Trump golf course in the Bronx, in October. Mayor Eric Adams quietly releases a statement online after meeting with the families of 9/11 victims about their opposition to a Saudi-backed golf tournament at the city-owned Trump Ferry Point course, h/t @maggieNYT: https://t.co/tOXL0OT1ep pic.twitter.com/ZghLXpd9Iv— Emma G. Fitzsimmons (@emmagf) September 2, 2022
      Donald Trump is “obviously thinking about” running for president in 2024, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner told Sky News in an interview Friday. “He hates seeing what’s happening in the country,” Kushner said. Though Trump has not officially announced a run in 2024, he and his allies have dropped plenty of hints that he is wanting to. On Thursday, Trump said that he would pardon the January 6 rioters if he were elected president again. Trump is, of course, facing multiple investigations into his business dealings as well as unauthorized retention of sensitive government documents.The US added another 315,000 jobs in August as the jobs market remained strong amid signs of a worsening economy.The US jobs market lost 22m jobs in early 2020 at the start of the pandemic but roared back after the Covid lockdowns ended. It has remained strong despite four-decade high rates of inflation and slowing economic growth. In July, the US unexpectedly added 528,000 new jobs, restoring employment to pre-pandemic levels.The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.7% in August from 3.5% in July but is still close to a 50-year low.The remarkable strength of the jobs market has spurred the Federal Reserve to sharply increase interest rates in the hopes of cooling the economy and bringing down prices.Last week the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, made clear the Fed intends to keep raising rates sharply as the central bank struggles to tamp down inflation. His speech triggered a meltdown on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones index losing 1,000 points. The latest jobs report is the last to be released before the Fed meets again in September.US added 315,000 jobs in August as strong market defies signs of worsening economyRead moreGood morning, and welcome to the Guardian’s US politics live blog. It’s 10 weeks before the midterms, and it’s starting to feel like it’s 2020 again. Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden are in Pennsylvania this weekend to rally for candidates in their respective parties.Donald Trump will go to Wilkes-Barre in northern Pennsylvania on Saturday support two Pennsylvania Republican candidates: Mehmet Oz (known as “Dr Oz”), who is running for US Senate, and Doug Mastriano, who is running for governor. Trump, despite intensifying investigation into alleged unauthorized retention of sensitive government documents, has also geared up his talk about the 2024 election, saying on Thursday that he would seriously consider full pardons for participants of the January 6 US Capital insurrection.Joe Biden, on the other hand, in turn delivered a speech last night from Philadelphia attacking Trump and “Maga Republicans”.“There’s no question that the Republican party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the Maga Republicans, and that is a threat to this country,” Biden said. “Maga Republicans are destroying American democracy.”Biden will travel further into Pennsylvania this weekend with a planned stop in Pittsburgh to continue pushing for Democratic candidates running in the state.Here’s what else we’re watching today:
      The US added 315,000 jobs in August, a sign of continuing growth in the labor market despite high rates of inflation and slowing economic growth.
      Biden is scheduled to discuss the American Rescue Plan on the heels of today’s jobs report release.
      Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former deputy Patrick Philbin are appearing before a grand jury that is investigating the January 6 insurrection.
      Stay tuned for more live updates. More