Category Archives: US Congress

Joe Manchin expected to skip Biden event as he weighs leaving Democrats

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US Democratic senator will reportedly miss anniversary of Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s landmark climate legislation

The West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin is expected to skip a prominent White House celebration of one of Joe Biden’s signature legislative achievements, NBC reported, as he considers leaving his party – and perhaps running for president himself.

Next week, the Biden administration will celebrate the first anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a healthcare, climate and tax reform package Joe Biden hailed on signing as “the biggest step forward on climate ever”.

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Donald Trump expects indictment ‘any day now’ in 2020 election subversion case – as it happened

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The blog is now closed, but you can read more about Donald Trump’s swirling legal peril here.

A judge in Georgia turned down an attempt by Donald Trump to stop Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state. Over the weekend, Willis said she could announce charges in the case anytime between now and the first day of September. Meanwhile, a former business partner of Hunter Biden reported for an interview with the Republican-led House oversight committee, as the GOP toys with the idea of starting impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden when they return from their August recess.

Here’s what else has happened today:

Trump is in a historically good position to win the Republican presidential primary, CNN concludes.

At a weekend rally in Pennsylvania, Trump called for stopping aid to Ukraine until the government helps prove alleged corruption by the Biden family.

Ron DeSantis’s once-promising presidential campaign is suffering from both Republican defections and his own missteps.

Trump is not only in a historically strong position for a nonincumbent to win the Republican nomination, but he is in a better position to win the general election than at any point during the 2020 cycle and almost at any point during the 2016 cycle.

No one in Trump’s current polling position in the modern era has lost an open presidential primary that didn’t feature an incumbent. He’s pulling in more than 50% of support in the national primary polls, i.e., more than all his competitors combined.

What should arguably be more amazing is that despite most Americans agreeing that Trump’s two indictments thus far were warranted, he remains competitive in a potential rematch with President Joe Biden. A poll out last week from Marquette University Law School had Biden and Trump tied percentage-wise (with a statistically insignificant few more respondents choosing Trump).

The Marquette poll is one of a number of surveys showing Trump either tied or ahead of Biden. The ABC News/Washington Post poll has published three surveys of the matchup between the two, and Trump has come out ahead – albeit within the margin of error – every time. Other pollsters have shown Biden only narrowly ahead.

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Republican congressman rebuked by senators for swearing at young pages

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Bipartisan disapproval for Derrick Van Orden, who yelled and cursed at school-age Senate helpers during late-night Capitol tour

A freshman Republican congressman from Wisconsin yelled and cursed at high school-aged Senate pages during a late-night tour of the Capitol this week, eliciting a bipartisan rebuke from Senate leaders.

Derrick Van Orden, who represents western Wisconsin’s third district, used a profanity to describe the young pages as lazy and another to order them off the floor of the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday night, according to PunchBowl News. The pages were lying down to take photos, according to the publication.

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Republican investigation into Biden ‘rising to the level of impeachment inquiry’ – live

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The House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, seems ready to get on board with far-right lawmakers calling for impeachment

Donald Trump is, of course, seeking the Republican presidential nomination, and on Saturday plans to hold a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania – a city he owes money to.

As the Erie Times-News reports, Trump never repaid the city more than $35,000 for costs related to an October 2018 rally he held in the city, much of which went to pay for police and other city services necessitated by the then-president’s visit. Despite that, the city will seek reimbursement from the Trump campaign for whatever expenses result from his rally this week, mayor Joe Schember told the paper.

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House Republicans pass defense bill, setting up clash on abortion policy

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Senate must now consider bill to fund US military containing amendments on abortion, transgender healthcare and diversity

The Republican-led House of Representatives on Friday approved a huge defense bill that includes amendments overturning the Pentagon’s policies on covering abortion services for the military, healthcare costs for transgender service members and diversity initiatives – setting up a historic clash with Democrats and the Biden administration that could imperil spending on the armed forces.

The amendments, pushed by the GOP’s right flank with the support of the speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, represent the latest instance of conservative lawmakers using their influence in Congress’s lower chamber to attempt to change Joe Biden’s policies on a range of issues that chiefly animate the Republican base.

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Supreme court’s student loan decision ‘usurps Congress’s authority,’ says Democrat

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Ro Khanna of California said he will support another relief plan that Joe Biden is proposing under the Higher Education Act

The US supreme court’s decision to strike down Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan late last week “usurped the authority of Congress”, Democratic House representative Ro Khanna said on Sunday.

Khanna, of California, argued that if anyone thought Biden was unduly empowered by the legislation which the president used to issue the debt relief program, “then the solution is Congress can repeal the … act”.

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George Santos: two people who guaranteed $500,000 bail to be revealed

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Guarantors’ aided Republican congressman after he was charged with fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds

The identities of two people who guaranteed George Santos’s $500,000 bail after the Republican congressman was charged with 13 counts of fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds were set to be revealed on Thursday.

Earlier this week, a federal judge in Long Island, New York, set 12pm ET as the time for the guarantors’ identities to be released.

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Biden signs debt ceiling bill after months-long standoff, avoiding default

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Kevin McCarthy, the House speaker, secured a number of cuts on federal spending, with the borrowing limit suspended until 2025

Joe Biden signed a bill on Saturday to suspend the US debt ceiling, ending a months-long standoff with the Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, and averting a federal default that could have upended the world economy.

Economists warned that a default could have caused the US unemployment rate to double while significantly damaging gross domestic product.

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Joe Biden hails ‘big win’ as bipartisan debt ceiling bill reaches his desk

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Compromise package to suspend debt ceiling passed US Senate late on Thursday with 63 votes to 36

The bipartisan bill to solve the US debt ceiling crisis just days before a catastrophic and unprecedented default was on its way to Joe Biden’s desk on Friday as the US president prepared to address the nation and hailed “a big win for our economy and the American people”.

The compromise package negotiated between Biden and the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, passed the US Senate late on Thursday.

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Biden falls on stage at air force academy ceremony; Senate blocks student relief program – live

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US president took a tumble at the end of a ceremony honoring air force graduates in Colorado; White House vows to use veto

Supreme court justices on Thursday took aim at pharmacies who overcharge the government for prescription drugs, their unanimous ruling reopening a pathway for legal action by individuals seeking to protect taxpayers’ money.

The case involves “whistleblowers” ostensibly acting for the government, whom a lower court said could not sue pharmacies claiming their own “objectively reasonable” reading of the law allowed them to overbill federal health programs including Medicare and Medicaid.

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House begins vote on debt ceiling bill amid resistance – live

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Moderate Republicans have touted the historic cuts while Democrats present the deal as a crucial compromise

Mike Pence is expected to launch his 2024 presidential bid within the next two weeks, The Messenger reports.

In a screenshot of an email sent by former Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to delegates of the Georgia Republican Party, Lake wrote:

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US debt ceiling: Republican hard-right vows to sink deal hours before vote expected

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Freedom caucus has attacked House leader Kevin McCarthy’s deal with Joe Biden to raise the debt ceiling before the default deadline of 5 June

Members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus have attacked the proposed spending cuts in the debt ceiling bill as woefully inadequate, and vowed to oppose the legislation when it hits the floor.

“We had the time to act, and this deal fails – fails completely,” Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, chair of the Freedom Caucus, said on Tuesday. “We will do everything in our power to stop it and end it now.”

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McCarthy insists Republican support for debt deal ‘easy’ despite vocal opposition

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House speaker says he isn’t worried the agreement will fail as prominent rightwinger Chip Roy calls it a ‘turd sandwich’

The Republican speaker of the US House, Kevin McCarthy, insisted on Tuesday that supporting the debt ceiling deal would be “easy” for his party and it was likely to pass through Congress despite one prominent rightwinger’s verdict that the proposed agreement is a “turd sandwich”.

Amid loud denunciations from the Republican right and also from closer to the centre, McCarthy said he was not worried the agreement would fail, or that it would threaten his hold on the speaker’s gavel.

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US political leaders push for lawmakers’ support on debt ceiling deal

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Some members of Congress question if they received enough concessions in Biden and McCarthy’s agreement

US political leaders appeared bullish on Monday that they can sell a bipartisan compromise debt ceiling deal to enough mainstream lawmakers – overcoming boisterous criticism from left and right – urgently enough to avert a first-ever national default on the $31.4tn the US owes creditors.

Despite a lot of diplomacy and even arm-twisting still to come on Capitol Hill in the next few days, Joe Biden left the White House to head to Delaware on Monday afternoon smiling and teasing reporters as he took questions, while the first lady, Jill Biden, waited on the lawn.

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Biden hails debt ceiling deal and urges lawmakers to pass agreement

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President says deal struck with Kevin McCarthy protects ‘historic economic recovery’ but it needs approval from a divided Congress

Joe Biden has said a bipartisan deal to raise the $31.4tn US debt ceiling and avoid a default is ready to move to Congress and urged lawmakers to pass the agreement he struck with Kevin McCarthy.

“This is a deal that’s good news for ... the American people,” the president said at the White House on Sunday night after a call with McCarthy to put the final touches to a tentative deal struck the previous day. “It takes the threat of catastrophic default off the table, protects our hard-earned and historic economic recovery,” he said.

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Biden and McCarthy hold debt ceiling talks amid signs a deal is close

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Default deadline pushed to 5 June as work requirements for food aid recipients reportedly emerge as final sticking point

President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy held a phone conversation on Saturday evening, according to a person familiar with their plans, amid signs that a deal in the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations was close to being struck.

McCarthy said earlier on Saturday that he was making “progress” in negotiations on raising the federal government’s debt ceiling, as the nation faced risk of default in little more than a week.

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House speaker McCarthy says ‘I see the path’ to debt ceiling deal with Democrats – as it happened

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Republican gives positive remarks to reporters as 11 Democratic senators sign letter to Biden urging him to use 14th amendment to avoid default

Eleven Democratic senators have signed a letter to Joe Biden urging him to consider invoking the 14th amendment to prevent the United States from defaulting if the debt ceiling is not raised.

The letter, which first became public yesterday, was signed by Democrats Tina Smith, Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, Ed Markey, Mazie Hirono, Peter Welch, Richard Blumenthal, Jack Reed, Sheldon Whitehouse, John Fetterman and Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

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House Republicans sidestep effort to expel George Santos from Congress

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Members voted along party lines to refer a resolution to remove the lying congressman to the House ethics committee

Republicans successfully sidestepped an effort to force them into a vote to expel George Santos, the New York representative, from Congress, which could have narrowed their already slim four-seat majority.

The House voted along party lines, 221-204, to refer a resolution to expel the congressman to the House ethics committee, with Santos himself joining his Republican colleagues in voting to do so.

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Son of jailed Hong Kong media tycoon condemns UK government ‘weakness’

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Sebastien Lai, son of Jimmy, also criticises Vatican over failure to hold China to account over human rights abuses

The British son of the jailed Hong Kong media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has criticised Britain and the Vatican for failing to speak out strongly against the crackdown on dissent in the Chinese territory.

At a Washington event about the human rights situation in Hong Kong, Sebastien Lai said self-censorship in the former British colony was the anticipated result of the national security crackdown there, but the “hypocrisy” of some governments trying to trade with China was unexpected.

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Republicans and Democrats deadlocked as US debt ceiling deadline nears – live

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Joe Biden will veto a border security proposal introduced by Republicans controlling the House of Representatives, the White House has announced.

The GOP last week introduced the Secure the Border Act of 2023, their attempt to break the long-running deadlock in Washington over reforming America’s immigration system. House speaker Kevin McCarthy says it would improve technology deployed to monitor the United State’s southern and northern borders and increase the number of Border Patrol officers, while also satisfying rightwing priorities such as restarting construction of Donald Trump’s border wall.

The Administration strongly supports productive efforts to reform the Nation’s immigration system but opposes H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023, which makes elements of our immigration system worse. A successful border management strategy must include robust enforcement at the border of illegal crossings, deterrence to discourage illegal immigration, and legal pathways to ensure that those in need of protection are not turned away to face death or serious harm.

The Biden-Harris Administration’s approach to border management is grounded in this strategy – expanding legal pathways while increasing consequences for illegal pathways, which helps maintain safe, orderly, and humane border processing. However, the Administration is limited in what it can achieve by an outdated statutory framework and inadequate resources, particularly in this time of unprecedented global movement. H.R. 2 does nothing to address the root causes of migration, reduces humanitarian protections, and restricts lawful pathways, which are critical alternatives to unlawful entry.

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