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Biden administration reinstates Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy
Biden administration reinstates Trump-era ‘Remain in Mexico’ policyBiden called the policy inhumane after Trump administration used it to return over 60,000 asylum seekers across the border Asylum seekers looking to enter the US from its southern border will again be sent to Mexico while their claims are assessed, with the Biden administration announcing the reinstatement of the controversial “Remain in Mexico” policy on Thursday.Remain in Mexico policy needlessly exposed migrants to harm, report saysRead moreThe US and Mexican governments haver agreed to a resumption of the program, put in place by Donald Trump in 2019, following its previous suspension by Joe Biden after he became president. It will initially begin in San Diego and in the Texas cities of Laredo, Brownsville and El Paso next week.Biden had called the arrangement inhumane after it was used by Trump’s administration to return more than 60,000 asylum seekers across the border to Mexico, where they were often preyed upon by criminal gangs. Many people were left waiting for months in limbo in Mexico as their fate was determined.In October, Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, said that the program “had endemic flaws, imposed unjustifiable human costs, pulled resources and personnel away from other priority efforts, and did not address the root causes of irregular migration”.However, Republican officials in Missouri and Texas sued Biden’s administration in federal court to prevent the scrapping of the return to Mexico policy, claiming that it would place an undue burden on them from incoming migrants.The supreme court ultimately concurred with the states, placing an injunction on the federal government in August which forced it to resume the program. Since then, federal officials have been negotiating with their Mexican counterparts on how the scheme will resume.Under the reinstated deal, single adult asylum seekers will be the primary focus of the removals, with those transferred offered Covid-19 vaccinations. Mexico will accept asylum seekers from Spanish-speaking countries, the Washington Post reported.The US will aim to complete migrants’ claims within 180 days, amid fears they will be left to languish in Mexico. The US Department of Justice is assigning 22 immigration judges to work specifically on these cases.Supporters of the system have claimed it will help reduce the flow of migrants into the US but advocates have argued that there is little evidence that this will happen and point to the often dire humanitarian situation the program has exacerbated on the border.People expelled by the US often end up in sprawling tent camps or sub-standard housing in places such as Tijuana and Reynosa that often lack basic foods and amenities for asylum seekers.According to Human Rights First, a US human rights group, there have been more than 1,500 cases of reported kidnappings and attacks against migrants subjected to the system, known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), and thousands more under another Trump policy known as Title 42 that uses public health concerns to eject asylum seekers.“President Biden and his administration must stop implementing Trump policies that endanger the lives and safety of people seeking refuge in the United States,” said Eleanor Acer, senior director for refugee protection at Human Rights First.Trump’s ‘shameful’ migrant stance condemns thousands to violent limbo in MexicoRead more“Remain in Mexico and other policies that flout asylum laws and treaties are inhumane and unjust. Every day they are in place, they deliver people seeking protection to places where they are targets of brutal attacks and kidnappings perpetrated by deadly cartels and corrupt Mexican officers.”The Biden administration has also been sharply criticized by refugee advocates for the growing number of immigrants being held at private facilities. Biden had promised to end the private, for-profit jails but has exempted the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency from this effort and the number of immigrants in detention has nearly doubled to 29,000 since he took office.“Frankly, it’s infuriating,” Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director for Detention Watch Network, told the Washington Post. “It’s incredibly disappointing. We really expected more.”TopicsUS immigrationUS-Mexico borderBiden administrationTrump administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
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‘Handful of fanatics’ to blame for Capitol riot, Trump ally Meadows says in book
‘Handful of fanatics’ to blame for Capitol riot, Trump ally Meadows says in bookEx-chief of staff downplays Trump involvement in insurrection and says mob had ‘absolutely no urging’ from the president
Trump tested positive before first debate, says Meadows
In his new memoir, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows blames just “a handful of fanatics” for the 6 January attack on the Capitol – over which nearly 700 people have now been charged.Capitol attack panel recommends contempt prosecution for Jeffrey ClarkRead more“No one would [focus] on the actions of … those supporters of President Trump who came [to Washington on 6 January] without hate in their hearts or any bad intentions,” he writes. “Instead, they would laser in on the actions of a handful of fanatics across town.”Throughout his book, Meadows seeks to play down Donald Trump’s role in an insurrection regarding which Meadows himself will now co-operate with the investigating House committee.The former chief of staff writes extensively, supportively and selectively about Trump’s attempts to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden, of which the Capitol attack was the deadly culmination.But while enthusiastically repeating Trump’s lie that his defeat was the result of electoral fraud, Meadows skates over attempts to stop the certification of electoral college results, the cause in which the mob attacked the Capitol.For example, Meadows does not mention Jeffrey Clark, a former Department of Justice official whose attempt to persuade Trump he could legally overturn his defeat landed him in legal jeopardy.Reporting by Jon Karl of ABC News has placed Meadows in the Oval Office on 3 January, when Clark tried to persuade Trump to fire the acting attorney general, Jeffery Rosen, who rejected the scheme.In his book, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, Karl details how Trump was deterred by the threat of mass resignations at the DoJ.On Wednesday, the 6 January committee recommended a contempt charge for Clark. The issue now moves to the House.Karl also reports that aides to the then vice-president, Mike Pence, who would oversee certification of results at the Capitol on 6 January, “began to suspect” Meadows himself was pushing schemes to overturn the process.Meadows, Karl says, sent the vice-president’s staff a memo written by the campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis which argued that Pence could declare results in six key states to be under dispute.Reporting another memo written by Johnny McEntee, Trump’s director of the presidential personnel office, Karl writes: “This was all madness. There was no other way to put it.”Karl concurs with other reporters in saying Meadows was not in the Oval Office when on 4 January a constitutional scholar, John Eastman, presented his own memo on how Pence could supposedly stop certification.Two days later, in a few chaotic hours at the Capitol, offices were ransacked, rioters paraded Trump and Confederate flags through the halls of Congress and lawmakers were hustled to safety. Some rioters chanted that Pence should be captured and hanged. Five people died, including a Trump supporter shot by law enforcement and a Capitol police officer who collapsed the next day.Meadows, however, insists the mob had “absolutely no urging from President Trump”.The Guardian obtained a copy of the book, The Chief’s Chief, as Meadows reversed course under threat of a contempt charge and agreed to testify before the House select committee investigating 6 January.Also this week, lawyers for Trump argued in court that executive privilege means records from his White House should not be released to the panel. The former president contends the same doctrine should apply to former aides.Last weekend, the California Democrat Adam Schiff said the 6 January panel wanted to establish “the complete role of the former president” in the Capitol riot.“That is, what did he know in advance about propensity for violence that day? Was this essentially the back-up plan for the failed [election] litigation around the country? Was this something that was anticipated? How was it funded, whether the funders knew about what was likely to happen that day? And what was the president’s response as the attack was going on, as his own vice-president was being threatened?” Schiff stated.On Tuesday, citing sources close to Trump, the Guardian reported that hours before the Capitol attack, Trump made several calls from the White House to allies at a Washington hotel and talked about ways to stop certification.Meadows’ book, however, will provide few further answers.As he rode with Trump to a rally near the White House on 6 January, Meadows writes, Trump “was in mourning for the second term he had been unfairly denied”.Trump took the stage following an exhortation to “trial by combat” from his attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Trump’s own words featured his instruction to supporters to “fight like hell”.But Meadows claims the speech was “more subdued than usual”.He also claims that when Trump told the crowd “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on” Republicans objecting to electoral college results, it was all an “ad lib”.Trump called aides hours before Capitol riot to discuss how to stop Biden victoryRead moreMeadows said Trump told him immediately after the speech that when he said he would march on the Capitol himself, he had been “speaking metaphorically” – but only because he “knew as well as anyone that we couldn’t organise a trip like that on such short notice”.In their own Trump book, Peril, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of the Washington Post describe what happened next.“Following Trump’s hour-long speech, thousands of attendees took his advice. They marched down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, and when they arrived, they … surged closer and closer to the Capitol despite pleas from [law enforcement].“By 1.30pm, parts of the crowd had become a mob, pounding on the doors and demanding entry. At 1.50pm [police] declared a riot. Possible pipe bombs had been found nearby.“Shortly after 2pm, windows at the Capitol began to shatter. They were in. Many were looking for Mike Pence … outside, a makeshift gallows had been erected.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Abortion rights advocates vow to fight on after supreme court hearing
Abortion rights advocates vow to fight on after supreme court hearingLeaders say they will look to statehouses and lower courts if justices allow undermining of Roe v Wade In the wake of Wednesday’s supreme court hearing in which a majority of justices appeared willing to significantly curb abortion rights, reproductive rights advocates said they would continue to fight in statehouses and lower courts for the right to choose.The supreme court heard oral arguments in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, widely regarded as the most important abortion rights case in nearly five decades.The case before the court pits Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s last abortion clinic, also known as the “Pink House”, against the state health director, Dr Thomas Dobbs. A decision is expected in June 2022.Conservative US supreme court justices signal support for restricting abortion in pivotal caseRead moreMississippi intends to ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a move blocked so far by lower courts.While a significant blow to abortion rights is far from a foregone conclusion, questions from the supreme court’s conservative justices on Wednesday appeared to show a willingness to allow restrictions on abortion at 15 weeks and perhaps earlier in a pregnancy.The case also requests the court overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 supreme court decision that established a constitutional right to abortion and is the only safeguard for such rights in dozens of conservative US states.Under present law, pregnant people have a right to terminate a pregnancy up to the point a fetus can survive outside the womb, widely regarded as 24 weeks gestation. A full-term pregnancy is considered 39 weeks gestation.In a consensus shared across the political spectrum, at least five justices appeared divided over whether to significantly curb or overturn Roe v Wade.Six of the nine justices lean to the right, with three of them nominated by Donald Trump during his one-term presidency. “Congress could fix the issue right now,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), the organization that represented abortion providers in the supreme court on Wednesday.Although abortion was legalized in 1973 and has been relied upon by women nationally since then, Congress has never affirmed the right to abortion in legislation. That left the Roe v Wade precedent as the principle protection of the option for termination, while anti-abortion campaigners have brought many legal challenges and also pushed laws undermining access to the procedure.“All these bans and undue burdens in abortion care would be addressed by the Women’s Health Protection Act,” Northup said, referring to a bill recently passed by the US House of Representatives. “That would make sure women can access abortion without unnecessary bans.”Thus far, the bill has been viewed as highly unlikely to pass into law because it would need to overcome the Senate filibuster rule, requiring a 60-vote majority in the evenly divided chamber, where the Republicans would oppose it.Joe Biden said on Wednesday: “I support Roe v Wade. I think it’s a rational position to take.”Julie Rikelman, CRR’s litigation director, who argued before the justices, said campaigners would continue to fight if the supreme court went against reproductive choice. “We will continue to make every argument we can in the federal courts, we will continue to litigate in the state courts … we will not stop fighting, because it is just too important,” Rikelman said.Shannon Brewer, the director of the Pink House, said the coming months would be tough, with her providers “sitting and waiting and twiddling our thumbs” in anticipation of a decision.“It was a difficult day for everybody [but] I listened to the arguments and I think they did a great job at representing women today,” Brewer said.Following what was widely viewed as a hearing favorable to anti-abortion forces, conservatives chimed in.“What we want to see is the court do the right thing and overturn Roe,” said Chip Roy, a Republican US representative from Texas. He decried fears over a threat to choice as a “wailing and gnashing of teeth from the left”.Sam Brownback, the former US ambassador at large for international religious freedom under Trump, said it was time to overturn Roe “and let states address the issue”.Overturning Roe v Wade would effectively return the issue to be decided at state level, where swaths of the south and midwest would be “certain or likely” to ban most abortion. Already, several states have banned abortion at six weeks, though all those laws have been blocked by courts, with the prominent exception of Texas.Some reproductive rights advocates remained optimistic.Schaunta James-Boyd, co-executive director of Trust Women, an organization dedicated to providing abortions in underserved states, said her group “look[s] forward to a positive outcome later in 2022”.The pressure to legislate an affirmative right to abortion in states not openly hostile is likely to increase as a supreme court decision nears. While 26 states are “certain or likely” to outlaw abortion if Roe v Wade were overturned, states such as New York and Illinois have worked to protect abortion rights. Polling shows about six in 10 Americans believe abortion should be legal in “all or most” circumstances.Meanwhile, the House speaker and California Democrat Nancy Pelosi said: “The House is committed to defending women’s health freedoms and to enshrining into law our House-passed Women’s Health Protection Act, led by Congresswoman Judy Chu, to protect reproductive health care for all women across America.”She added that the supreme court “has the opportunity and responsibility to honor the constitution, the law and this basic truth: every woman has the constitutional right to basic reproductive healthcare”.TopicsAbortionHealthGenderUS politicsUS supreme courtLaw (US)newsReuse this content More
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Capitol attack panel recommends contempt prosecution for Jeffrey Clark
Capitol attack panel recommends contempt prosecution for Jeffrey ClarkFormer Trump DoJ official punished for refusal to comply with subpoena but gets last chance after 11th-hour statement The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack recommended on Wednesday the criminal prosecution of the former Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark, over his refusal to comply with a subpoena in the inquiry into the 6 January insurrection.The select committee approved the contempt of Congress report unanimously. The resolution now heads to the full House of Representatives, which could refer Clark for prosecution in a vote that could come as soon as next week.Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, said at the vote to report Clark in contempt that the panel was seeking his criminal prosecution to demonstrate their resolve in enforcing subpoenas, and to warn other Trump aides about the penalties for non-compliance.Trump called aides hours before Capitol riot to discuss how to stop Biden victoryRead more“The select committee has no desire to be placed in this situation but Mr Clark has left us no other choice. He chose this path. He knew what consequences he might face if he did so. This committee and this House must insist on accountability,” Thompson said.But the select committee gave Clark one final opportunity to escape a referral to the justice department for prosecution by appearing at a new deposition on Saturday, after his attorney said in an 11th-hour letter that Clark now intended to claim the fifth amendment.“The committee would certainly consider that we will not finalize his contempt process if Mr Clark genuinely cures his failure to comply with the subpoena this Saturday,” the vice-chair of the select committee, Liz Cheney, said at the vote.The reprieve for Clark means that the select committee may ultimately take no action against him, even if he claims the fifth amendment – his right to protect himself against self-incrimination – for almost every question put before him at the deposition on Saturday.“The fifth amendment is part of the constitution. Our committee is here to defend the constitution against a violent assault,” said the select committee member Jamie Raskin. “So we’re not going to begrudge anyone an honest invocation of the fifth amendment.”“If he thinks that his communications with Trump or anyone else reveal criminal activity, and he has a reasonable fear that that can be used against him, then he’s got an opportunity to exercise the fifth amendment,” Raskin said. That could mean House investigators learn nothing more about Clark’s role in Trump’s scheme. But if Clark testifies under immunity, he would then have to respond truthfully to all questions asked by the select committee.Raskin told reporters after the vote that the contempt report would next go to the House rules committee, which would prepare it for a full House vote, which remains on the table should Clark not cooperate to a satisfactory degree at his new deposition.The select committee’s recommendation could bring grave consequences for Clark: if the report is passed by the House, the justice department is required to take the matter before a federal grand jury, which last month indicted the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon over his subpoena defiance.In his opening statement before the vote, Thompson noted that Clark’s attorney had sent a letter to the select committee late on Monday night stating that Clark had experienced a late change of mind and would claim fifth amendment protection.But Thompson said even though the select committee would provide Clark an opportunity to assert that protection at a second deposition on Saturday, he viewed the move as “a last-ditch attempt to delay the select committee’s proceedings” and would proceed with the vote to recommend his prosecution.The select committee would only move to halt the contempt of Congress proceeding if Clark demonstrated that he intended to fully cooperate with House investigators, Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the select committee said in her opening statement.A successful contempt prosecution could result in up to a year in federal prison, $100,000 in fines, or both – although the misdemeanor offense may not ultimately lead to his cooperation, and pursuing the charge could still take years.The select committee subpoenaed Clark last month as it sought to uncover the extent of his role in Donald Trump’s scheme to subvert the results of the 2020 election and stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win on 6 January.Thompson said at the time that the subpoena, which followed a Senate judiciary committee report detailing Clark’s efforts to abuse the justice department for Trump, also sought to identify who else in the Trump administration had been involved in the scheme.But after Trump issued a directive to former aides to refuse to cooperate with the investigation, even though Clark agreed to appear before investigative counsel at a deposition, he declined to answer questions broadly citing attorney-client and executive privileges.The select committee on Tuesday rejected those arguments, saying Clark had no basis to refuse his subpoena on grounds of privilege because Trump had never formally asserted the protections – but also because Clark tried to use executive privilege for non-privileged material.“Mr Clark refused to answer questions regarding whether he used his personal phone or email for official business, when he met a specific member of Congress, and what statements he made to media,” the contempt report said, “none of which involve presidential communication.”The contempt report added that even if the select committee had accepted his executive privilege claim, the law made clear that even senior White House officials advising sitting presidents don’t have the kind of immunity from congressional inquiries being claimed by Clark.The select committee also objected to the argument by Clark’s counsel that he could not respond to the panel’s questions until the courts resolved whether Trump could use executive privilege to block the National Archives from turning over White House documents.“This is not a valid objection to a subpoena, and the select committee is not aware of any legal authority that supports this position,” the report said. “The issues raised in the National Archives litigation are wholly separate and distinct from those raised by Mr Clark.”Ahead of the select committee’s vote to recommend prosecution, Clark’s attorney, Harry MacDougal, disagreed and told Thompson in a letter that Clark could not testify until the National Archives case was decided.“He is duty-bound not to provide testimony to your committee covering information protected by the former president’s assertion of executive privilege,” MacDougalsaid of Clark in the letter. “Mr Clark cannot answer deposition questions at this time.”The Senate report found Clark had played a leading role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, leveraging his role at the justice department to do Trump’s bidding and pressure the then acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, to avow debunked claims of fraud.It detailed, for instance, a 2 January confrontation during which Clark demanded that Rosen send Georgia election officials a letter that falsely claimed the justice department had identified fraud – and threatened to push Trump to fire him if he refused.The move to recommend the criminal prosecution of Clark for contempt marks the second such confrontation, after the select committee last month voted unanimously to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress for also ignoring his subpoena in its entirety.Bannon also cited Trump’s directive, first reported by the Guardian, for former aides and advisers to defy subpoenas and refrain from turning over documents, in his refusal to cooperate with the select committee’s investigation.Bannon was indicted on two counts of contempt of Congress by a federal grand jury earlier in November. He has pleaded not guilty and vowed to “go on the offense” against Biden and the select committee.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
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Ilhan Omar airs death threat and presses Republicans on ‘anti-Muslim hatred’
Ilhan Omar airs death threat and presses Republicans on ‘anti-Muslim hatred’Democrat urges House Republican leaders to act after Lauren Boebert ‘jihad squad’ controversy03:46The US politician Ilhan Omar played a harrowing death threat left recently on her voicemail, as she implored House Republican leaders to do more to tamp down “anti-Muslim hatred” in their ranks and “hold those who perpetuate it accountable”.The Democratic Minnesota representative, one of only a handful of Muslim members of Congress, has been the subject of repeated attacks by conservative pundits and some Republicans in Congress, which she says have led to an increase in the number of death threats she receives.Recently a video of the first-term Colorado representative Lauren Boebert calling Omar a member of the “jihad squad” and likening her to a bomb-carrying terrorist went viral.“When a sitting member of Congress calls a colleague a member of the ‘jihad squad’ and falsifies a story to suggest I will blow up the Capitol, it is not just an attack on me but on millions of American Muslims across the country,” Omar said during a news conference on Tuesday. “We cannot pretend this hate speech from leading politicians doesn’t have real consequences.”She then played the voicemail, laden with profanity, racial epithets and a threat to “take you off the face of this fucking Earth”, which she said was among hundreds of such messages she has reported since joining Congress. Omar said the voicemail was left for her after Boebert released another video on Monday criticising her.In the grainy recording, a man can be heard saying: “You will not be living much longer, bitch,” and that “we the people are rising up”. He calls Omar a “traitor” and says she will stand trial before a military tribunal.Omar said: “It is time for the Republican party to actually do something to confront anti-Muslim hatred in its ranks and hold those who perpetuate it accountable.”Boebert’s remarks were the latest example of a Republican lawmaker making a personal attack against another member of Congress, an unsettling trend that has gone largely unchecked by House Republican leaders.A video posted to Facebook last week showed Boebert speaking at an event and describing an interaction with Omar – an interaction that Omar maintains never happened.In the video, Boebert claims that a Capitol police officer approached her with “fret on his face” shortly before she stepped into a House elevator and the doors closed. “I look to my left and there she is, Ilhan Omar. And I said: ‘Well, she doesn’t have a backpack. We should be fine,’” Boebert says with a laugh.Omar called on the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, to “take appropriate action”. But so far McCarthy, who is in line to become Speaker if Republicans retake the majority next year, has been reluctant to police members of his caucus whose views often closely align with those of the party’s base.Boebert initially took steps to ease the situation, apologising last week “to anyone in the Muslim community I offended”. But after declining to apologise directly to Omar during a tense phone call on Monday, which Omar abruptly ended, Boebert again went on the attack.“Rejecting an apology and hanging up on someone is part of cancel culture 101 and a pillar of the Democrat party,” Boebert said in an Instagram video.So far, McCarthy is taking her side. When asked on Tuesday what he would do if Democrats tried to censure Boebert, McCarthy said: “After she apologised personally and publicly? I’d vote against it.”TopicsIlhan OmarDemocratsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
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Republicans boost benefits for workers who quit over vaccine mandates
Republicans boost benefits for workers who quit over vaccine mandatesCritics say decision from legislatures in four states in effect pays people for not getting vaccinated Some Republican states are expanding unemployment benefits for employees who have been fired or quit over vaccine mandates, a move critics say in effect pays people for not getting vaccinated.Celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz set to run for US Senate as RepublicanRead moreFour states – Iowa, Tennessee, Florida, and Kansas – have changed their rules on unemployment to include people who have been terminated or who have chosen to leave their jobs because of their employers’ vaccine policies.The partisan divide is striking, Anne Paxton, staff attorney and policy director for the Unemployment Law Project in Washington state, told the Guardian. “It’s very hard to regard this particular move as being based on anything much more than political reasons.”The development also comes as the new Omicron variant has emerged, triggering concern that the strain could already be inside the US. If so, it would likely see a new spike in infections in America.There are 30 states with Republican-led legislatures that could follow suit. “I would be very surprised if it stopped at this four,” Paxton said. Missouri is contemplating similar laws, while states like Maryland are considering “mitigating factors” around unemployment and vaccine rules.Some Democrat states, on the other hand, have said that leaving a job because of mandates will disqualify former employees from these benefits unless they have demonstrated exemptions.“Partisanship continues to be a sharp dividing line in vaccine attitudes,” the Kaiser Family Foundation reported in October, with 90% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans saying they have gotten at least one dose.Only 5% of unvaccinated workers said they have left a job over mandates, and unemployment is dropping swiftly across the country.Unemployment benefits are not equivalent to full-time wages, Dorit Reiss, professor of law at UC Hastings College of the Law, pointed out. But rules like these may form an incentive against vaccination.“It’s like offering a financial benefit for not vaccinating,” Reiss told the Guardian. “If the person would not get unemployment benefits if they refused to wash their hands at work and were fired over that, they should be treated the same way.”Unemployment law in the United States is governed partly by federal law, but states have latitude to set their own requirements or restrictions, Paxton said.Typically, when employees are fired or they quit because of a business’s policies they aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits, unless they have an exemption for established religious or moral objections, or medical reasons.“Benefits are for people who are unemployed through no fault of their own,” Paxton said. But the interpretation of fault can vary.And in recent weeks, the Republican leaders of these states have signed bills protecting benefits around vaccination mandates, essentially liberalizing unemployment rules around vaccines in conservative states.If states want to change the rules around unemployment benefits for those who clash with employers’ policies, they should change the rules for everyone, Reiss said.“They should pass a law that’s broader that says, ‘Anyone who’s fired for cause gets unemployment benefits anyway.’ And that’s fine. That’s a value judgment, and states can make it,” Reiss said. But “limiting it to vaccines alone, it’s sending a message that vaccines are not important, and that’s a bad message.”There were already marked differences along partisan lines in how states handle unemployment benefits.“The blue states tend to be more generous in their eligibility rules,” Paxton said. “They tend to have higher benefits. And the red states have a tendency to be on the stingy side.”In Florida, for instance, the maximum benefit is set at $275 a week, which is lower than the weekly minimum in Washington.Many Republican-led states also opted to end federal unemployment assistance earlier this year.“They were not trying to help people who were jobless in that respect,” Paxton said. “So it’s hard to take this very seriously as a substantive, well-thought-out policy move in these four states.” Instead, she said, the decision seems to be less about unemployment policy and more about political tools “to aggravate the partisan divide,” Paxton said.Nine states have introduced restrictions on the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees and for federal agencies and contractors.Tennessee and Montana have banned private employers from mandating the vaccines, and seven other states have introduced wide-ranging restrictions on mandates, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. After Florida restricted the rules, for instance, Disney World halted its employee vaccination requirements.When it comes to ending the pandemic, Reiss said, working around mandates like these is “going to make it substantially harder”.TopicsUS politicsCoronavirusRepublicansnewsReuse this content More
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Trump tested positive for Covid few days before Biden debate, chief of staff says in new book
Trump tested positive for Covid few days before Biden debate, chief of staff says in new bookMark Meadows makes stunning admission in new memoir obtained by Guardian, saying a second test returned negative Donald Trump tested positive for Covid-19 three days before his first debate against Joe Biden, the former president’s fourth and last chief of staff has revealed in a new book.Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify before Capitol attack committeeRead moreMark Meadows also writes that though he knew each candidate was required “to test negative for the virus within seventy two hours of the start time … Nothing was going to stop [Trump] from going out there”.Trump, Meadows says in the book, returned a negative result from a different test shortly after the positive.Nonetheless, the stunning revelation of an unreported positive test follows a year of speculation about whether Trump, then 74 years old, had the potentially deadly virus when he faced Biden, 77, in Cleveland on 29 September – and what danger that might have presented.Trump announced he had Covid on 2 October. The White House said he announced that result within an hour of receiving it. He went to hospital later that day.Meadows’ memoir, The Chief’s Chief, will be published next week by All Seasons Press, a conservative outlet. The Guardian obtained a copy on Tuesday – the day Meadows reversed course and said he would cooperate with the House committee investigating the deadly Capitol attack of 6 January.Meadows says Trump’s positive result on 26 September was a shock to a White House which had just staged a triumphant Rose Garden ceremony for supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett – an occasion now widely considered to have been a Covid super-spreader event.Despite the president looking “a little tired” and suspecting a “slight cold”, Meadows says he was “content” that Trump travelled that evening to a rally in Middletown, Pennsylvania.But as Marine One lifted off, Meadows writes, the White House doctor called.“Stop the president from leaving,” Meadows says Sean Conley told him. “He just tested positive for Covid.”It wasn’t possible to stop Trump but when he called from Air Force One, his chief of staff gave him the news.“Mr President,” Meadows said, “I’ve got some bad news. You’ve tested positive for Covid-19.”Trump’s reply, the devout Christian writes, “rhyme[d] with ‘Oh spit, you’ve gotta be trucking lidding me’.”Meadows writes of his surprise that such a “massive germaphobe” could have contracted Covid, given precautions including “buckets of hand sanitiser” and “hardly [seeing] anyone who ha[d]n’t been rigorously tested”.Meadows says the positive test had been done with an old model kit. He told Trump the test would be repeated with “the Binax system, and that we were hoping the first test was a false positive”.After “a brief but tense wait”, Meadows called back with news of the negative test. He could “almost hear the collective ‘Thank God’ that echoed through the cabin”, he writes.Meadows says Trump took that call as “full permission to press on as if nothing had happened”. His chief of staff, however, “instructed everyone in his immediate circle to treat him as if he was positive” throughout the Pennsylvania trip.“I didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks,” Meadows writes, “but I also didn’t want to alarm the public if there was nothing to worry about – which according to the new, much more accurate test, there was not.”Meadows writes that audience members at the rally “would never have known that anything was amiss”.The public, however, was not told of the president’s tests.On Sunday 27 September, the first day between the tests and the debate, Meadows says Trump did little – except playing golf in Virginia and staging an event for military families at which he “spoke about the value of sacrifice”.Trump later said he might have been infected at that event, thanks to people “within an inch of my face sometimes, they want to hug me and they want to kiss me. And they do. And frankly, I’m not telling them to back up.”In his book, Meadows does not mention that Trump also held a press conference indoors, in the White House briefing room, the same day.On Monday 28 September, Trump staged an event at which he talked with business leaders and looked inside “the cab of a new truck”. He also held a Rose Garden press conference “on the work we had all been doing to combat Covid-19”.“Somewhat ironically, considering his circumstances”, Meadows writes, Trump spoke about a new testing strategy “supposed to give quicker, more accurate readings about whether someone was positive or not.”The White House had still not told the public Trump tested positive and then negative two days before.On debate day, 29 September, Meadows says, Trump looked slightly better – “emphasis on the word slightly”.“His face, for the most part at least, had regained its usual light bronze hue, and the gravel in his voice was gone. But the dark circles under his eyes had deepened. As we walked into the venue around five o’clock in the evening, I could tell that he was moving more slowly than usual. He walked like he was carrying a little extra weight on his back.”Trump called aides hours before Capitol riot to discuss how to stop Biden victoryRead moreTrump gave a furious and controversial performance, continually hectoring Biden to the point the Democrat pleaded: “Will you shut up, man? This is so unpresidential.”The host, Chris Wallace of Fox News, later said Trump was not tested before the debate because he arrived late. Organisers, Wallace said, relied on the honor system.The White House had not said Trump had tested positive and negative three days before.Three days later, on 2 October, Trump announced by tweet that he and his wife, Melania Trump, were positive.That evening, Meadows helped Trump make his way to hospital. During his stay, Meadows helped orchestrate stunts meant to show the president was in good health. Trump recovered, but it has been reported that his case of Covid was much more serious than the White House ever let on.TopicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationCoronavirusUS politicsJoe BidenUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More
