Trump real estate empire under threat after fraud ruling; Senate leader urges House to pass funding bill – US politics live

Even a short shutdown would jeopardize the work of potentially thousands of air traffic controllers and other key employees, secretary Buttigieg says

US soldier Travis King, who fled to North Korea in July, is in American custody after being expelled by Pyongyang into China, according to US officials.

North Korea’s KCNA state news agency said King had been expelled after he confessed to illegally entering the country. It said the soldier harboured ill feelings over inhumane treatment and racial discrimination within the US army.

This is genuinely new – I don’t think it’s ever happened before, a president on a picket line. Candidates do it frequently and prominent senators, but not a president.

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Republican contenders gather for key debate with Trump again absent

Seven candidates face off at Ronald Reagan library in Simi Valley, California, with Republican frontrunner again choosing to skip

Seven Republican presidential contenders gathered in California on Wednesday night for the second primary debate of the 2024 election season, but the absence of Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner in the race for the party’s nomination, again loomed large over the event.

Seven candidates qualified for the second debate, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute in Simi Valley, California. Those candidates were Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, the former vice-president Mike Pence, the former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and the North Dakota governor Doug Burgum.

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Republicans pushing for government shutdown ‘stuck on stupid’, says party moderate

Mike Lawler, New York Republican, says ‘colleagues refuse to do what we were elected to do’ as shutdown looms

Republicans pushing for a federal government shutdown are “stuck on stupid”, a party moderate said shortly before one rightwinger reported that the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, would not hold a vote on a bipartisan Senate plan advanced as a way to keep the government open.

“The American people elected a House Republican majority to serve as a check and balance and be able to govern,” Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York, a heavily Democratic state, told CNN.

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Senate finds breakthrough on funding as government shutdown looms

Stopgap deal reached Tuesday is a big step forward, but hard-right House Republicans still show little sign of relenting on budget

The Senate took a significant step on Tuesday to extend government funding beyond the end of the month, with just days left to avoid a shutdown that could force millions of federal employees to go without pay.

In a vote of 77 to 19, the Senate advanced a shell bill that will become a stopgap measure to fund the government through 17 November while directing roughly $6bn toward Ukraine’s war efforts and another $6bn toward disaster relief.

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Senate votes to advance stopgap funding bill to avoid shutdown – as it happened

The 79-page stopgap spending bill would not include any border security measures, a major sticking point for House Republicans

In a major blow to Bob Menendez’s support, Cory Booker, his fellow Democratic senator from New Jersey, says he should resign following his indictment on corruption charges last week.

“I believe stepping down is best for those Senator Menendez has spent his life serving,” said Booker, who supported Menendez when he previously faced corruption charges in 2015.

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Bob Menendez says money found in police search was for personal use – live

Democratic senator says he has withdrawn cash over 30 years and expects to be exonerated of corruption charges

We’re awaiting a press conference from Robert Menendez scheduled for 11.30am, where the Democratic senator will reportedly vow not to leave office and instead run for re-election next year, despite being indicted last week for using his position to assist the government of Egypt.

We’ll follow the press conference live, and let you know what he says.

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‘Full fascist’ Trump condemned after ‘treason’ rant against NBC and MSNBC

Former president vows to investigate TV networks for ‘country-threatening treason’ should he win US election next year

Donald Trump said Comcast, the owner of NBC and MSNBC, “should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason’” and promised to do so should he be re-elected president next year.

In response, one progressive group said the former US president and current overwhelming frontrunner in the Republican 2024 presidential nomination race had “gone full fascist”.

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New Jersey senator Menendez rejects calls from fellow Democrats to resign

Robert Menendez urged to step down after being charged with accepting bribes, including gold bars, in exchange for favors

Several Democrats including his own state governor are calling on their fellow party member Robert Menendez to resign after federal authorities charged the New Jersey US senator and his wife with accepting bribes. However, the defiant senator has rejected those claims and is refusing to step down.

Authorities on Friday revealed charges alleging that Robert and Nadine Menendez illegally accepted gold bars, cash, a luxurious Mercedes-Benz car and other gifts in exchange for favors benefiting three businessmen as well as influencing the Egyptian government.

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Biden and Harris unveil first federal gun violence prevention office, citing 100 people shot and killed daily – live

US president urges action as Kamala Harris says one in five Americans have lost family member to gun violence

Faced with the House stalemate over a government stopgap funding bill, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday set up a path for the Senate to move first on a bill to fund the government beyond 30 September.

Senate aides told the Hill the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) bill could serve as a legislative vehicle to pass a continuing resolution to fund the federal government for a few weeks – but that it will likely not include money for the war in Ukraine or disaster relief.

This is painful. It gives me a headache. This is a very difficult series of missteps by our conference. If you can’t do [the defense bill], what can you do?

At this point, it seems like there are some people playing policy warfare, and I think we need to move our country forward.

For my colleagues, they have to come to a realization: If they are unable or unwilling to govern, others will. And in a divided government where you have Democrats controlling the Senate, a Democrat controlling the White House, there needs to be a realization that you’re not going to get everything you want.

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White House planning for government shutdown after chaos on Capitol Hill

House leaves for weekend without solution to shutdown threat in sight amid hard-right Republican opposition to McCarthy plans

The Republican-led US House of Representatives has all but disappeared for the long weekend after abruptly wrapping up its work on Thursday when the embattled speaker, Kevin McCarthy, failed to advance a stopgap government spending bill, as members continued to clash with just days left to avert a federal shutdown.

The White House on Friday planned to begin telling federal agencies to prepare for a shutdown, AP reported, citing a government official.

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Zelenskiy secures $325m in new US aid even as Republican support wanes

Ukraine president delivers upbeat message on war progress during second White House visit since Russian invasion

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy worked to shore up US support for Ukraine on a whirlwind visit to Washington on Thursday, delivering an upbeat message on the war’s progress while facing new questions about the flow of US dollars that for 19 months have helped keep his troops in the fight against Russian forces.

The Ukrainian leader received a far quieter reception than the hero’s welcome he was given last year from Congress, but also won generally favorable comments on the next round of US aid he says he needs to stave off defeat.

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McCarthy says hard-right Republicans ‘want to burn whole place down’

Conference fails to approve procedural motion to take up defense spending bill as government shutdown looms

The House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was dealt his second humiliating defeat of the week on Thursday, when his conference again failed to approve a procedural motion as members continued to clash over government spending levels with just days left to avert a federal shutdown.

With no clear path forward in Republicans’ negotiations, the House concluded its work on Thursday without any stated plan to reconvene on Friday.

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White House says Republicans turned Garland hearing into ‘circus’ – live

Attorney general is grilled by Trump-aligned lawmakers on House judiciary committee

The judiciary committee’s highest-ranking Democrat Jerry Nadler then got a turn to question Merrick Garland, and asked him what would happen if the FBI was defunded.

“Defund the FBI” has become a rallying cry for extreme rightwing Republicans such as representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz as well as the presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who claim the law enforcement agency has become politicized.

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‘Not accurate’: Republican wrong to say Montana has more bears than people

Expert says Senate candidate Tim Sheehy’s estimate wildly off as there are 1.12 million people in state and ‘nowhere close to that number of bear’

In the compendium of false claims, an offering from Tim Sheehy, a Montana 2024 Republican Senate candidate, is readily disprovable.

In an interview with Breitbart, the former Navy Seal observed that the state, which he referred to as “flyover country”, did not typically have much in political power – a situation that could change with the balance of power in the US Senate races next year.

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Rupert Murdoch often wishes Donald Trump dead, Michael Wolff book says

Media mogul has become ‘a frothing-at-the-mouth’ Trump critic, Fire and Fury author writes in new book, The Fall

Rupert Murdoch loathes Donald Trump so much that the billionaire has not just soured on him as a presidential candidate but often wishes for his death, the author Michael Wolff writes in his eagerly awaited new book on the media mogul, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty.

According to Wolff, Murdoch, 92, has become “a frothing-at-the-mouth” enemy of the 77-year-old former US president, often voicing thoughts including “This would all be solved if … ” and “How could he still be alive, how could he?”

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Rupert Murdoch thought $787.5m Dominion suit would cost Fox $50m, Michael Wolff book says

Trump tell-all author returns with tale of Fox News strife which also includes prediction Ron DeSantis will be Republican nominee

In winter 2022, at a hideaway in St Barts, Rupert Murdoch directed “sudden fury” at Donald Trump, who he thought would lose the 2024 Republican presidential primary to Ron DeSantis, but who the media mogul also said was likely to cost him “fifty million dollars”, through a lawsuit regarding Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.

The lawsuit was filed by Dominion Voting Systems, over Fox News’s broadcast of Trump’s lies. Settled this April, it cost Murdoch considerably more than he predicted: $787.5m, to be precise.

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House Republicans cancel vote on short-term funding measure amid infighting – live

Kevin McCarthy fights rightwing of Republican party over spending deal; House oversight committee aims for first hearing next Thursday, report says

The House will not vote today on a measure to keep the government open past 30 September, amid a split between the chamber’s Republican leadership and a handful of far-right lawmakers that will cause a government shutdown if it is not resolved in 12 days, Punchbowl News reports:

Lawmakers had been scheduled to today vote to approve the rules of debate for the short-term funding measure, but it was unclear if it would have passed.

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Congressional Biden ally dismisses Republicans’ impeachment strategy

Ro Khanna of California threw cold water on House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s capitulation to the hard right over government funding

One of Joe Biden’s key congressional allies has rejected the notion that Republicans can bait the president’s fellow Democrats into embracing an impeachment inquiry as an opportunity for him to be cleared over questions about his son’s business affairs.

“What the American people want is for us to fund government and solve their issues,” the California congressman Ro Khanna said on Fox News Sunday, referring to how some hard-right Republicans have made a Biden impeachment inquiry a condition for them to support new funding that would avoid at least a partial federal government shutdown after 30 September.

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Trump says Republicans ‘speak very inarticulately’ about abortion

Trump talks about democratic principles, ageing politicians and abortion rights in wide ranging NBC interview

Donald Trump grappled with a wide range of contentious issues in an interview with NBC that generated criticism against the network, including his thoughts on democratic principles, abortion rights and ageing politicians.

He also confirmed his interest in choosing Kristi Noem to be his vice-presidential running mate if he wins the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 as he seeks a second term in the White House.

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Texas’s impeached attorney general acquitted by fellow Republicans

Ken Paxton, impeached in May, has been found not guilty of bribery and dereliction of duty and may resume office

After a dramatic impeachment trial that lasted more than a week, Ken Paxton, the ultraconservative Texas attorney general, has been acquitted and will be able to resume his work in elected office.

Paxton, who faced 16 articles of impeachment against him in this trial – involving bribery, dereliction of duty and disregard for official duty – and four more separately, avoided becoming Texas’s highest-ranking elected official to be removed from state office. He quickly issued a statement boasting that, in his case, “the truth prevailed”.

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