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      Republican civil war: what's the party’s future after the US Capitol attack?

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      The motives that drove a pro-Donald Trump mob to attack Congress last Wednesday ranged from hazy to proudly hateful. But the actions of certain ambitious Republican officeholders in the days leading up to the tragedy were not clouded by confusion.Trump may have lost the election, but his movement was on the march, and for politicians hoping someday to succeed Trump as president, that meant an opportunity was afoot.With Trump now finally accepting he will leave office, the future leadership of his movement is increasingly up for grabs, with a ragtag band of senators, congressman, Trump family members – and Trump himself – already jostling for the position.Whether anyone apart from the president is able to successfully ride the tiger of racism, nihilism and grievance politics that carried Trump to near-re-election after four years of American chaos and hundreds of thousands of preventable pandemic deaths is an open question.It also might be an irrelevant question, if Trump decides to stage a 2023-24 stadium tour doubling as a new presidential campaign.“Absent disqualification, the 2024 GOP presidential nomination remains his if he wants it,” tweeted Dave Wasserman, Congress editor of the Cook Political Report.But with Trump gone, for the moment, after years of rock-like reign over the Republican party, powerful currents of political ambition and realignment have swirled into the vacuum.Longtime Trump loyalists, chief among them the vice-president, Mike Pence, have suddenly broken with the president over his fight to reverse the election result. Mick Mulvaney, the former chief of staff and special envoy to Northern Ireland whose loyalty helped Trump escape conviction in the impeachment scandal, resigned over the Capitol riot debacle, saying: “I can’t do it. I can’t stay.”Two firebrand conservative senators, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, went the other direction, taking up Trump’s cause – only to see their campaign result almost immediately in the death of a police officer and four others, and the vandalization of the US Capitol.A third young senator with designs on the presidency, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, blasted his plotting colleagues “who, for political advantage, were giving false hope to their supporters”, he said. The Republican old guard, meanwhile, in the guise of Mitt Romney, who has actually run for president – twice – accused his colleagues of being “complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy”.Even the former Republican House speaker John Boehner, who since his 2015 retirement has mostly limited his commentary on politics to tweeted pictures of himself mowing his lawn, said the Grand Old party (GOP) was in trouble.“I once said the party of Lincoln and Reagan is off taking a nap,” Boehner wrote on Thursday. “The nap has become a nightmare for our nation. The GOP must awaken.”For certain Republicans, the violent and deadly near-sacking of the Capitol on Wednesday by white supremacists and other Trump sympathizers seemed to be only the second most disturbing event of the week.The night before, Republicans had lost two runoff US senate elections in Georgia, a state that until 2020 had not voted for a Democrat for president for 30 years. The two Georgia losses meant that Republicans lost control of the Senate – and leader Mitch McConnell lost his majority.“Emotions [are] running high among McConnell-aligned Republicans,” National Journal columnist Josh Kraushaar reported, “after [the] reality of what transpired in Georgia settled in. May be the heat of the moment, but mood is for declaring war on Team Trump.”A former McConnell chief of staff and campaign manager, Josh Holmes, was quick to knock down the idea.“A lot of emotions. People are angry,” Holmes replied on Twitter to Kraushaar. “Nobody is declaring war on anything. We’ll get through this.”But even the people with money, whose interests McConnell has expertly defended, grew agitated at the mess Trump had made.“This is sedition and should be treated as such,” Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, an influential business trade group, said. “The outgoing president incited violence in an attempt to retain power, and any elected leader defending him is violating their oath to the constitution and rejecting democracy in favor of anarchy.” The chiefs of multiple Wall Street banks echoed the sentiment.That is not even to mention the cavalcade of Republicans who had long since broken with Trump, who piled on the president after the Capitol was sacked. The conservative columnist George Will said: “The three repulsive architects of Wednesday’s heartbreaking spectacle” – Trump, Hawley and Cruz – “will each wear the scarlet ‘S’ of sedition.” The conservative National Journal declared: “Trump must pay.” Matt Drudge’s web ite ran the sarcastic banner “Thanks, Donald”. The National Review hailed “Trump’s final insult”. A second former Trump chief of staff, John Kelly, joined those calling for his immediate removal from office.The Republican cross-currents do not mean that the party will not find direction in time to win back the Senate, plus the House, in 2022 – or to win the presidency in 2024, whether with Trump’s name on the ticket or tattooed on the nominee’s forehead.But Trump’s role in the party, and the politics, has never been to introduce order, except when that means that everybody falls behind him. For now, everybody is doing the opposite: falling out. More

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      in US Politics

      Pelosi says House will proceed with efforts to remove Trump 'with urgency'

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      The House is prepared to launch impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump as early as this week if Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet refuse to remove him from office for his role in inciting a mob that carried out a deadly assault on the seat of American government.
      The House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, delivered the ultimatum in a letter to colleagues on Sunday night that described the president as an urgent threat to the nation.
      On Monday, the House will move forward with a non-binding resolution that calls on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, and strip Trump of his presidential authority. If the measure fails to receive unanimous support, as is expected, the House will vote on the resolution on Tuesday. Pence, Pelosi said, would have “24 hours” to respond.
      Next, Pelosi said the House “will proceed with bringing impeachment legislation to the floor.” Though she did not specify an exact timeline, top Democrats have suggested the House could begin proceedings as soon as midweek, with a Senate trial delayed – possibly for months – so as not distract from Joe Biden’s agenda.
      Quick guide Impeaching Trump
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      Will Trump be impeached for a second time? Yes. Congressman Ted Lieu has said most Democrats in the House have signed on to articles of impeachment accusing the president of having “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions” that are due to be introduced on Monday. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on board.
      Is Trump heading to the Senate for trial? It seems so. A House majority will send the articles to the upper chamber, and it is hard to see any Democrats deserting their party. Some Republicans have also said the president needs to go.
      Can the Senate try Trump so close to Joe Biden’s inauguration? Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has indicated that it can, although the narrow timeframe means the earliest a trial could be held would be after inauguration day, 20 January, when Trump will be out of power. The wait may be longer, however: on 10 January, House whip James Clyburn, who is close to Biden, indicated that Democrats may not send articles to the Senate until it has confirmed the new president’s cabinet nominees – a vital process.
      Will he be convicted? Unlikely. Conviction in the Senate requires a two-thirds majority. The chamber is split 50-50, and though some Republicans have either said Trump should go or indicated sympathy for impeachment, nowhere near enough seem likely to cross their own supporters by voting against the president to whom the party remains overwhelmingly loyal.
      So what happens if he gets off again? Barring a presidential pardon – which Trump may try to give to himself, a move most scholars doubt will work – once out of the White House Trump will be vulnerable to federal prosecution over acts in office. State investigations, including those under way in New York, can proceed and business creditors will circle.  Martin Pengelly

      Photograph: Brian Snyder/X90051

      “In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” she wrote. “As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action.”
      Pelosi noted urgency was required because Trump was due to leave office on 20 January.
      She explained that the resolution called on Pence “to convene and mobilize the cabinet to activate the 25th amendment to declare the president incapable of executing the duties of his office.”

      Jake Sherman
      (@JakeSherman)
      🚨NEW … ⁦@LeaderHoyer⁩ is asking for consent for the 25th amendment bill tomorrow. And then the House will move to impeach trumpHere’s ⁦@SpeakerPelosi⁩ letter to her Dem colleagues. pic.twitter.com/CubXVVvgli

      January 10, 2021

      Under the procedure, the vice president “would immediately exercise powers as acting president,” she wrote.
      On Sunday, Pelosi told 60 Minutes Trump was “a deranged, unhinged, dangerous president of the United States,” adding that he has done something “so serious that there should be prosecution against him”.
      Pence is not expected to take the lead in forcing Trump out, although talk has been circulating about the 25th amendment option for days in Washington.
      Earlier it had been speculated that House Democrats could try to introduce articles of impeachment as early as Monday.
      One touted strategy was to condemn the president’s actions swiftly but delay an impeachment trial in the Senate for 100 days. That would allow President-elect Biden to focus on other priorities as soon as he is inaugurated 20 January.
      Jim Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat and a top Biden ally, laid out the ideas on Sunday as the country came to grips with the siege at the Capitol by Trump loyalists trying to overturn the election results.
      “Let’s give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running,” Clyburn said.
      The push by House Democrats came after the office of the Colorado Democratic representative Jason Crow released a readout of a call in which army secretary Ryan McCarthy “indicated that [the Department of Defense] is aware of further possible threats posed by would-be terrorists in the days up to and including Inauguration Day”.
      According to the readout, McCarthy said the Pentagon was “working with local and federal law enforcement to coordinate security preparations” for 20 January.
      Crow, a former US army ranger, said he had “raised grave concerns about reports that active duty and reserve military members were involved in the insurrection” and asked that “troops deployed for the inauguration … are not sympathetic to domestic terrorists”. The readout said McCarthy agreed and said he was willing to testify publicly in the coming days.
      On Sunday Republican senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania joined colleague Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in calling for Trump to “resign and go away as soon as possible.”
      “I think the president has disqualified himself from ever, certainly, serving in office again,” Toomey said. “I don’t think he is electable in any way.”
      Murkowski, who has long voiced her exasperation with Trump’s conduct in office, told the Anchorage Daily News on Friday that Trump simply “needs to get out.” A third Republican, Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, did not go that far, but on Sunday he warned Trump to be “very careful” in his final days in office.
      Corporate America began to tie its reaction to the Capitol riots by tying them to campaign contributions.
      Citigroup said it would be pausing all federal political donations for the first three months of the year. Citi’s head of global government affairs, Candi Wolff, said in a Friday memo to employees, “We want you to be assured that we will not support candidates who do not respect the rule of law.”
      House leaders, furious after the insurrection, appeared determined to act against Trump despite the short timeline.
      Another idea being considered was to have a separate vote that would prevent Trump from ever holding office again. That could potentially only need a simple majority vote of 51 senators, unlike impeachment, in which two-thirds of the 100-member Senate must support a conviction.
      The Senate was set to be split evenly at 50-50, but under Democratic control once Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and the two Democrats who won Georgia’s Senate runoff elections last week are sworn in. Harris would be the Senate’s tie-breaking vote.
      The FBI and other agencies are continuing their examination of the circumstances of the insurrection, including allegations that Pentagon officials loyal to Trump blocked the deployment of national guard troops for three hours after officials called for help.
      “We couldn’t actually cross over the border into DC without the OK and that was quite some time [coming],” the Republican governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, told CNN.
      “Eventually I got a call from the secretary of the army, asking if we could come into the city, but we had already been mobilising, we already had our police, we already had our guard mobilised, and we were just waiting for that call. More

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      in US Politics

      Schwarzenegger rebukes Trump and compares Capitol riot to Kristallnacht

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      Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a stinging rebuke of Donald Trump on Sunday, comparing the riot at the US Capitol which the president incited to Kristallnacht, the night in November 1938 when Nazi thugs attacked Jewish Germans and their property, a harbinger of horrors to come.
      He also compared American democracy to a weapon he wielded onscreen in the loincloth of Conan the Barbarian nearly 40 years ago, saying: “Our democracy is like the steel of this sword. The more it is tempered, the stronger it becomes.”
      Trump supporters broke into the Capitol on Wednesday after the president told them to “fight like hell” in support of his attempt to overturn election defeat by Joe Biden. Five people died, including a Capitol police officer who was hit with a fire extinguisher and a rioter shot by law enforcement.
      Authorities have made numerous arrests, among them one man charged with bringing firearms and explosives to Washington and another who allegedly threatened to kill House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Chants of “Hang Mike Pence” were heard and one rioter was seen carrying plastic “zip tie” handcuffs, suggesting plans to kidnap lawmakers.
      Trump, who will leave office on 20 January, now faces a second impeachment.
      As a two-term governor of California as well as the star of the Terminator franchise and other action classics, Schwarzenegger maintains a presence and a voice in Republican politics. He has clashed with Trump before.
      On Sunday, in a video posted to social media and scored to rousing classical music, the 73-year-old said he “would like to say a few words to my fellow Americans and to our friends around the world about the events of recent days”.
      “I grew up in Austria and was very aware of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass,” he said. “It was a night of rampage against the Jews carried out [by] the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys [a quasi-fascist group of Trump supporters].”
      “Wednesday was the Day of Broken Glass right here in the United States. The broken glass was in the windows of the United States Capitol. But the mob did not just shatter the windows of the Capitol. It has shattered the ideals we took for granted. They did not just break down the doors of the building that housed American democracy. They trampled the very principles on which our country was founded.”
      On Sunday it was reported that another officer had died, though it was not immediately clear if the death was related to the Capitol riot.
      Schwarzenegger described a traumatic childhood in post-war Austria, the son of a police officer who joined the Nazi party.
      “I have seen firsthand how things can spin out of control,” Schwarzenegger said. “I know there is a fear in this country and all over the world that something like this could happen right here. I do not believe it is.
      “But I do believe that we must be aware of the dire consequences of selfishness and cynicism. President Trump sought to overturn the results of an election. And a fair election. He sought a coup by misleading people with lies. My father and our neighbours were misled also with lies. I know where such lies lead.
      “President Trump is a failed leader. He will go down in history as the worst president ever. The good thing is he soon will be as irrelevant as an old tweet.”
      Schwarzenegger appealed to Americans’ patriotism and commended lawmakers who regathered after the assault on the Capitol to confirm Biden’s victory, despite objections from 147 Republican representatives and senators. More

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      in US Politics

      Vogue's Kamala Harris cover photos spark controversy: 'Washed out mess'

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      Vogue magazine became embroiled in a “whitewashing” controversy on Sunday when it tweeted photographs of its February cover star, Kamala Harris.Two images of the US vice-president-elect were released. One, a full-length shot in front of what appeared to be a glossy pink silk drape, drew the ire of social media critics.One user called it a “washed out mess of a cover”. “Kamala Harris is about as light skinned as women of color come and Vogue still fucked up her lighting,” the observer wrote.Others criticized Vogue’s editor-in-chief. “What a mess up,” wrote New York Times contributor Wajahat Ali. “Anna Wintour must really not have Black friends and colleagues. I’ll shoot shots of VP Kamala Harris for free using my Samsung and I’m 100% confident it’ll turn out better than this Vogue cover.”Last year, Wintour apologized to staff members in a letter for “mistakes” in publishing photographs and articles seen as insensitive to minorities.“Vogue has not found enough ways to elevate or give space to Black editors, writers, photographers, designers, and other creators,” Wintour wrote. “We have made mistakes too, publishing images or stories that have been hurtful or intolerant. I want to take full responsibility for those mistakes.”Vogue denied to the New York Post it had lightened Harris’s skin after the shoot, but the assurance failed to quell the wave of disapproval.“The pic itself isn’t terrible as a pic. It’s just far, far below the standards of Vogue. They didn’t put thought into it. Like homework finished the morning it’s due,” the LGBTQ activist Charlotte Clymer tweeted.Vogue has not confirmed which of the two photographs it will use for its print cover, or if it will publish both. Each image was shot by Tyler Mitchell, who was 23 when he came to prominence photographing Beyoncé for Vogue in 2018.According to the Post, Harris and her team had control over her clothes, hair and makeup. She chose her own casual black jacket and pants and a pair of Converse Chuck Taylor boots for one photo, a powder blue Michael Kors pantsuit for the other.Harris’s appearance on the Vogue cover is likely to attract the attention of Donald Trump, who complained last month that his model wife, first lady Melania Trump, had not graced a single magazine cover in his four years in the White House, having been snubbed by “elitist snobs” in the fashion industry.The previous first lady, Michelle Obama, featured in numerous fashion shoots, including the cover of Vogue in December 2016. More

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      in US Politics

      House lawmakers may have been exposed to Covid-19 during Capitol riot

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      House lawmakers may have been exposed to someone testing positive for Covid-19 while they sheltered at an undisclosed location during the Capitol riot by a violent mob loyal to Donald Trump.The Capitol’s attending physician notified all lawmakers on Sunday of the virus exposure and urged them to be tested. The infected individual was not named.Dr Brian Moynihan wrote that on Wednesday, “many members of the House community were in protective isolation in the large room – some for several hours” and “individuals may have been exposed to another occupant with coronavirus infection”.Dozens of lawmakers were whisked to the secure location after pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, breaking barricades to roam halls and offices and ransack the building.Some members of Congress huddled for hours in the large room, while others were there for a shorter period.Some lawmakers and staff were furious after video surfaced of Republicans not wearing their masks in the room during lockdown.Newly elected Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a presidential ally aligned with the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory, was among those Republicans not wearing masks.No further details were provided on which person has tested positive for the virus. More

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      in US Politics

      Police officer crushed in doorway by rioters during Capitol breach – video

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      This is the moment a police officer was crushed in a doorway after rioters stormed the US Capitol building. The clip captures the moment a large group of rioters heaved against police trying to prevent them from entering the Capitol building. Police have confirmed that more charges against rioters have been made. By Saturday, prosecutors had filed 17 cases in federal district court and 40 in District of Columbia superior court for offences ranging from assaulting police officers to entering restricted areas, stealing federal property and threatening lawmakers
      Police arrest more Capitol rioters as details of violence and brutality emerge More

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      in Elections

      'Find the fraud': details emerge of another Trump call to Georgia officials

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      While election officials in Georgia were verifying signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in one metro Atlanta county, Donald Trump pressed a lead investigator to “find the fraud” and said it would make the investigator a national hero.The December call, described by a person familiar with it, is yet another link in the chain of the extraordinary pressure campaign waged by the US president on state officials as he sought to overturn the results of the November election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.It is one of at least three phone calls, held over the course of a month between early December and early January, where Trump sought help from high-level Georgia officials in subverting the election – only to be rebuffed each time. Trump lost to Biden in Georgia by 11,779 votes.The call to the investigator preceded Trump’s call on 2 January to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, where he asked election officials to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s win in the state. It occurred as election officials were conducting an audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in Cobb County.The audit, which reviewed more than 15,000 signatures, found no cases of fraud. The Georgia bureau of investigation helped conduct the signature audit.Trump and his allies have for months made false claims about Georgia’s signature verification process for absentee ballots and about the results of the November election. Among other things, they demanded an audit of the signature matches.The White House had no immediate comment. The call was first reported on Saturday by the Washington Post, which said it was withholding the name of the investigator, who did not respond to requests for comment, because of the risk of threats and harassment directed at election officials.Various election officials across the country and Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, have said there was no widespread fraud in the election. Raffensperger and other officials in Georgia have repeatedly disputed Trump’s false claims about the election and said it was conducted freely and fairly.Congress certified Biden’s electoral college win early on Thursday – hours after a violent throng of pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol.During another call in early December, Trump pressed Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, to order a special session of the state legislature to subvert Biden’s victory. Kemp refused.Trump repeatedly lashed out at Raffensperger and Kemp, both fellow Republicans, and others he saw as standing in his way of overturning the election loss.In last week’s call with Raffensperger, Trump urged the secretary of state to change the certified results. “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said. “Because we won the state.”Raffensperger said in response: “President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits, and we’ve had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. We don’t agree that you have won.”Legal experts said the call raised questions about possible election law violations by Trump, and several Democrats in the state have called for an investigation to be opened. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump is being pelted in the stocks now – but don’t bet against him wriggling free

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      The chances of seeing the outgoing president in an orange jumpsuit are low – even as the potential charges mount up fastLock him up! Echoing Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chant against Hillary Clinton, many Americans appear keen on jailing their president after his criminally reckless incitement of last week’s mob-driven, amateur-hour insurrection in Washington.His harshest critics would despatch him forthwith to a federal penitentiary or mental institution. Yet despite fears that an unstable Trump poses a security threat in his final 10 days in office, he is unlikely to be forced out. It’s just not that easy, politically or legally. Continue reading… More