Category Archives: US Politics

US election officials face ‘new era’ of violent threats, taskforce chief warns

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John Keller says workers facing onslaught for ‘dutifully and reliably doing their jobs’ as man given 30 months for threats

Election officials across the US are facing an onslaught of unfounded hostility for “dutifully and reliably doing their jobs”, the head of a federal taskforce set up to protect the election community from violent threats said on Monday.

John Keller, who leads the day-to-day efforts of the election threats taskforce, based in Washington, told reporters that the wave of violent threats – unleashed by Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen – amounted to an attack “on the very foundation of our democracy – our elections”.

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Ex-RNC chair Ronna McDaniel: Biden won 2020 election ‘fair and square’

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New NBC hire, who resigned from committee less than three weeks ago, insisted there were still ‘problems’ in how Biden beat Trump

A little more than two weeks after resigning as the chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel admitted Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election over her party’s candidate “fair and square”.

But the newly hired NBC News contributor maintained it was acceptable to also say there were “problems” in the manner that the US president defeated Donald Trump – even after the former president’s supporters translated such sentiments into the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021 that has been linked to nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides.

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Liz Cheney: controversial NBC hire Ronna McDaniel enabled Trump ‘depravity’

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McDaniel ‘facilitated Trump’s corrupt fake elector plot’, says ex-congresswoman as NBC hosts and union group protest

The Republican National Committee chair turned NBC politics analyst Ronna McDaniel “enabled criminality and depravity” in her support for Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former congresswoman Liz Cheney said as controversy swirled over McDaniel’s media role.

“Ronna facilitated Trump’s corrupt fake elector plot and his effort to pressure Michigan officials not to certify the legitimate election outcome,” Cheney, a Republican who was vice-chair of the House January 6 committee, wrote on social media.

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New Jersey’s first lady suspends Senate run: ‘It’s time to unify, not divide’

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Tammy Murphy was campaigning for Bob Menendez’s seat and her exit leaves Andy Kim as clear winner for Democratic nomination

New Jersey’s first lady Tammy Murphy has announced the suspension of her Senate campaign.

In a video message posted to Twitter/X on Sunday, Murphy said: “After many busy, invigorating, and yet challenging months, I am suspending my Senate campaign today. I’ve been genuine and factual throughout. But it is clear to me that continuing in this race will involve waging a very divisive and negative campaign, which I am not willing to do.”

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‘No one’s ever seen a bond this size’: Eric Trump criticises $454m judgment against his father

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New York attorney general, Letitia James, could begin to seize Donald Trump’s assets as soon as Tuesday morning

Eric Trump has come out railing against the $454m fraudulent property valuations judgment against his father Donald Trump, saying bonds the size of the half-a-billion dollar one the former president is being required to put up “don’t exist in this country”.

As a court-imposed deadline ticks down on the former president’s family and their businesses to come up with almost half-a-billion dollars, the 40-year-old executive vice-president of the Trump Organization told Fox News on Sunday that bond issuers laughed when he approached them for that sum.

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Kamala Harris says Israel assault on Rafah ‘would be a huge mistake’

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Top Democrats urge Netanyahu to abandon planned assault days after Israeli leader rejected similar request by Antony Blinken

Senior US Democrats on Sunday increased pressure on Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to abandon a planned offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering.

Two days after a similar call by US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was rejected by the Israeli leader, vice-president Kamala Harris said that the Joe Biden White House was “ruling out nothing” in terms of consequences if Netanyahu moves ahead with the assault.

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Louisiana Democrat wins sheriff’s race do-over after first victory was disputed

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Henry Whitehorn, who won by a single vote in November, will be the first Black sheriff in Caddo county

Months after his disputed one-vote victory in a Louisiana sheriff’s race was tossed by a court, a Democrat was decisively elected over his Republican rival on his second try Saturday.

Henry Whitehorn got 53% of the vote in Saturday’s election in north-west Louisiana’s Caddo parish. He’ll be the first Black sheriff in the parish – which is the word Louisiana uses for county – after defeating John Nickelson, who is white.

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Israel defence chief to head to Washington for Gaza talks

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Yoav Gallant will leave Israel for the US on Sunday amid growing tensions between the allies

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant will leave on Sunday for talks in the United States, the Israeli government said, amid growing tensions between the allies over the war in Gaza.

Gallant will meet with US counterpart Lloyd Austin, US secretary of state Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan “and additional senior officials”, a statement said.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls Israeli Gaza campaign an ‘unfolding genocide’

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The progressive congresswoman also called on the White House to suspend aid to the Israeli military in House speech

Progressive US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the Israeli military campaign in Gaza an “unfolding genocide” in a scathing speech that demanded the Joe Biden White House suspend aid to Israel’s armed forces.

“As we speak, in this moment, 1.1 million innocents in Gaza are at famine’s door,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a speech on the House floor on Friday.

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‘It’ll be bedlam’: how Trump is creating conditions for a post-election eruption

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As the ex-president fans the flames of violence, experts and insiders say November will be a brutal test for US democracy

A bloodbath. The end of democracy. Riots in the streets. Bedlam in the country. Donald Trump has made apocalyptic imagery a defining feature of his presidential election campaign, warning supporters that if he does not win – and avoid criminal prosecution – America will enter its death throes.

The prophecies of doom, repeated ad nauseam at rallies and on social media, have raised fears that the former president is making an electoral tinderbox that could explode in November. While there has been much commentary assessing the implications of a Trump win, some experts warn that a Trump defeat could provide an equally severe stress test of American democracy.

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‘Rotten fruit thrown at you’: Robert Hur speaks out on vitriol after Biden report

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Ex-special counsel speaks to New Yorker about stunning criticism he’s received for doing a duty he felt he owed to the US

The former special counsel who investigated Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents has said he is stunned at “the level of vitriol” that greeted him across the US’s political spectrum after he declined to prosecute the president yet portrayed him in a report as an “elderly man with a poor memory”.

“I knew it was going to be unpleasant” taking on the investigation, Robert Hur told The New Yorker in a lengthy interview Friday, more than a week after he appeared at a congressional hearing in which both Democrats and Republicans heavily criticized him. “But the level of vitriol – it’s hard to know exactly how intense that’s going to be until the rotten fruit is being thrown at you.”

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US politicians exploit loophole to skirt campaign finance rules, study finds

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‘Red-boxing’ allows candidates to coordinate with outside spending groups, Election Law Journal researchers say

A new study published in Election Law Journal reveals politicians’ widespread exploitation of a loophole to skirt the law barring campaigns from coordinating with outside spending groups.

It’s a strategy that takes place not in smoke-filled rooms or encrypted chats, but out in the open.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene files motion to remove House speaker Mike Johnson

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Far-right Republican says motion intended as ‘more of a warning than a pink slip’ and stops short of forcing vote to eject him

The far-right Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor-Greene filed a motion to remove Mike Johnson as House speaker on Friday but did not pull the trigger on a move that would probably pitch Congress into a repeat of chaos seen last October, when the right ejected Kevin McCarthy.

Speaking after Johnson relied on Democratic votes to pass a $1.2tn spending bill and avoid a government shutdown, Greene said her motion was meant as “more of a warning than a pink slip” because she did not want to “throw the House into chaos”.

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Republican House majority to shrink as Mike Gallagher steps down

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Congressman once considered a rising Republican star to leave in April, further weakening party’s slim majority

The Republican majority in the US House of Representatives is set to dwindle further with the early exit of Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, once a rising star of the party.

A former US marine who twice deployed to Iraq, Gallagher, 40, is a relatively moderate voice in party at the mercy of the far right.

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North Carolina schools candidate who called for Obama’s death put on the spot

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Michele Morrow, the far-right Republican running to oversee public schools in the state, said she is facing ‘radical extremists’

A far-right Republican candidate running to oversee public schools in North Carolina decried “extreme agendas that threaten our children’s future”, after being confronted by reporters over tweets in which she called for the executions of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

“Don’t let extreme agendas threaten our children’s future,” Michele Morrow said on social media on Thursday, posting an address in which she said she was “facing the most radical extremist Democrats [that] have ever run for superintendent in the history of North Carolina”.

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Schumer warns of making Israel support ‘partisan’ amid reports he stopped Netanyahu addressing Senate Democrats – live

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Senate majority leader reportedly rejects request from Israeli prime minister to address Senate Democratic caucus

Since being elected speaker of the House last year, the Republican Mike Johnson has emerged as one of Donald Trump’s most prominent defenders on Capitol Hill, and today is no exception – even when it comes to the former president’s recent comment that Jews who vote for Democrats “hate” Israel and their religion.

Asked about it at a press conference, Johnson said he understands where Trump is coming from:

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Texas woman denied abortion decries ‘cruelty’ of Trump 15-week ban proposal

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Amanda Zurawski, who nearly died waiting for procedure, says Trump will inflict ‘chaos’ in remarks released by Biden camp

After Donald Trump voiced support for a 15-week national abortion ban, Joe Biden’s presidential campaign released an angry response from a Texas woman who nearly died due to that state’s anti-abortion measures, enduring a “nightmare” she said Trump created.

“My family has been forever altered by the nightmare that Donald Trump created by overturning Roe,” Amanda Zurawski said.

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‘I need you back’: Biden visits western states in effort to firm up Latino vote

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The president headed to Nevada, Arizona and Texas to appeal to voters, saying that Donald Trump ‘despises Latinos’

Joe Biden is on a three-day western US election campaign swing through Nevada, Arizona and Texas with a focus on personally appealing to Latino voters, saying they are the reason he defeated Donald Trump in 2020 and urging them to help him do it again in November.

“I need you back,” he told several dozen supporters packed into a local Mexican restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona. And in an interview with the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision he blasted Trump as someone whose hardline policies and biased rhetoric are hostile to Hispanic voters.

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US primary elections: Biden and Trump notch wins with surprises in store down ballot

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Nikki Haley gains votes despite dropping out of Republican race as Trump-backed candidate wins Ohio Republican Senate primary

Donald Trump and Joe Biden swept up more delegates in Tuesday’s primary elections as they set their sights on a rematch in November.

Trump and Biden picked up wins in Arizona, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio. Trump also won the Republican primary in Florida, where the Democrats are not holding a primary.

Biden v Trump: What’s in store for the US and the world?
On Thursday 2 May, 8-9.15pm GMT, join Tania Branigan, David Smith, Mehdi Hasan and Tara Setmayer for the inside track on the people, the ideas and the events that might shape the US election campaign. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live

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Biden administration failures drove the fall of Kabul, say top former US generals

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Retired generals Mark Milley and Frank McKenzie, who oversaw evacuation of Afghanistan, said it was poorly planned

The top two US generals who oversaw the evacuation of Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban in August 2021 blamed the Biden administration for the chaotic departure, telling lawmakers on Tuesday that it inadequately planned for the evacuation and did not order it in time.

The rare testimony by the two retired generals publicly exposed for the first time the strain and differences the military leaders had with the Biden administration in the final days of the war. Two of those key differences included that the military had advised that the US keep at least 2,500 service members in Afghanistan to maintain stability and a concern that the state department was not moving fast enough to get an evacuation started.

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