Chuck Schumer warned that coming to a bipartisan compromise could be 'hard' as Republicans joined Democrats to advance a $1tn infrastructure bill in the US Senate, remaining in session over the weekend.
The bill represents the biggest spending in decades on American infrastructure including roads, bridges, airports and waterways, in what Joe Biden has called a 'historic investment' in public works.
Continue reading...Democrats demonstrated unity in the US senate as the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin said he would vote in favor of advancing voting rights legislation known as the For the People act to the debate stage.
The Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, denied any voter suppression was happening despite around 400 bills introduced in more than 43 states which could restrict the right to vote. The legislation would remove hurdles to voting.
In the evenly split Senate, Republican votes mean the bill will not garner the necessary 60 votes to advance.
Continue reading...Police bodycam footage showing officers under attack at the US Capitol attack has been released during the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump. Democrat congressman Eric Swalell played footage captured from the officer's perspective showing the crowd attacking police with whatever items were at hand, including crutches and a Trump flag. Swalell also revealed vision showing the evacuation of representatives including Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer being ushered away by security
Continue reading...On the eve of Donald Trump's impeachment trial on a charge of inciting the deadly US Capitol attack, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority and minority leaders, have laid out the framework for the trial. ’All parties have agreed to a structure that will ensure a fair and honest Senate impeachment trial of the former president,’ Schumer said. Each side will have 16 hours to present their arguments and the trial will break on Friday afternoon and resume on Sunday afternoon
Continue reading...The House will transmit the article against the former president on Monday, giving his legal team time to prepare their case
Opening arguments in the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump are set to begin the week of 8 February, with the former president facing charges of inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol.
The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, announced the schedule late Friday after reaching an agreement with Republicans.
Continue reading...The US Senate majority leader said the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, would transmit the article of impeachment on Monday. 'Make no mistake, there will be a trial, Schumer said. 'And when that trial ends, senators will have to decide whether they believe Donald John Trump incited the insurrection'
Continue reading...Senators from both sides of US politics have condemned the violence unleashed on the Capitol building on Wednesday. The vice-president, Mike Pence, described it as 'a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol'. The Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, labelled the Trump supporters as 'goons', 'thugs' and 'domestic terrorists', while Republican Mitt Romney labelled the events 'an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States'
After the Senate voted to move forward with the final vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell spoke on the Senate floor, celebrating the lasting influence of the vote for posterity.
'By tomorrow night, we’ll have a new member of the United States Supreme Court,' he told the chamber.
The Senate voted 51-48 to move forward with the final vote for Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination, and the final vote for her confirmation will take place on Monday
Continue reading...Amy Coney Barrett’s supreme court nomination was advanced by a unilateral Republican vote to the full Senate despite Democrats’ refusal to participate in the Senate judiciary committee hearing for what they called a ‘naked power grab’.
Democratic senators stood outside the Capital and boycotted the vote to install Donald Trump’s third supreme court nominee less than two weeks before the election.
No supreme court nominee has ever been installed so close to a presidential election and, just four years ago, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and senator Lindsey Graham, who now chairs the judiciary committee, said that installing a nominee in an election year would be a shameful defiance of the will of voters
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell called for senators to ‘vote to reject the House abuse of power’ during a speech on Tuesday 4 February before a final vote scheduled for Wednesday afternoon on whether to convict Donald Trump. Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer said that ‘the Republicans refused to get the evidence because they were afraid of what it would show’.
Continue reading...Chuck Schumer has called for John Bolton to testify at Donald Trump's impeachment trial after claims in a book by the president's former national security adviser that Trump tied military aid to Ukraine with his demand to investigate political rival Joe Biden. The Senate minority leader said the revelations in Bolton's book were 'stunning' and that any Republican voting against calling him as a witness would 'be part of the cover-up'.
The US president’s legal team has set out its argument in a three-hour session on the fifth day of the impeachment proceedings against him.
The White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, argued nothing Trump did in withholding aid to Ukraine merited impeachment. The Democrat leader, Chuck Schumer, said the legal team 'did not do a good job'
Chuck Schumer, the US Senate minority leader, said Donald Trump’s defence team appeared 'unprepared, confused and unconvincing' during the first day of debate at the president’s impeachment trial on Tuesday.
All but one Republican voted against the amendments offered by Democrats, which was approved by the Senate on a party line vote in the early hours of Wednesday morning
The US president announced on Wednesday that Iran appeared to be 'standing down' after it launched more than a dozen missiles at Iraqi bases hosting US and coalition troops.
While Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, showed his support for the US president, other world leaders struck a more cautious note. European commission president Ursula von der Leyen called for dialogue to replace the use of weapons.
In Washington, the US Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Americans now feared for their safety.
Continue reading...Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer criticized the White House for its handling of the impeachment inquiry, arguing a Senate trial without witnesses would be the equivalent of a 'cover-up' during a press conference before Congress recessed for Christmas.
'Trials have witnesses,' Schumer told reporters. 'To conduct a trial without the facts is to engage in a cover-up.'
Continue reading...Nancy Pelosi said senior lawmakers witnessed Trump having a 'meltdown' after nearly two-thirds of the House GOP caucus voted to condemn his decision to withdraw US troops from northern Syria. Leaving a White House meeting on the situation in Syria, Senator Chuck Schumer said that Trump was disrespectful to Pelosi, calling her a 'third-rate politician', and alleged Trump had no plan on how to contain Isis now
Continue reading...Following the submission of special counsel Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia investigation findings to the attorney general, William Barr, high-profile senators including Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Chuck Schumer are demanding that the report is made public. Speaking at a rally in San Diego on Friday night, Sanders said: 'Nobody, including the president of the United States, is above the law'
Continue reading...Republican-backed measure would meet Trump’s wall demand while the second would extend funding for closed agencies
The Senate will vote on Thursday on a pair of bills that could end the month-long partial shutdown of the federal government– if passed.
The first bill, a Republican-backed measure, would meet Donald Trump’s demand for a $5.7bn wall along the southern border in exchange for temporary protections for young undocumented immigrants. The second would extend funding for the agencies that are currently closed through to 8 February.
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