Utah senator accuses ex-president of exploiting issue for political gain by directing Republicans to block deal
Donald Trump’s directive to congressional Republicans to not agree to a deal with Democrats on immigration and border control is “appalling”, Mitt Romney said.
“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump,” Romney, the Republican senator from Utah, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
Continue reading...Motion comes after Fulton county district attorney made remarks decrying allegations of affair with one of her deputies
Donald Trump accused on Thursday the Fulton county district attorney of inflaming racial animus to distract from allegations relating to an an affair with one of her deputies, as he joined a motion seeking to disqualify her from prosecuting him for 2020 election interference in Georgia.
The filing, submitted to Fulton county superior judge Scott McAfee, adopted and added to an earlier motion to have the district attorney Fani Willis and her entire office thrown off bringing the case.
Continue reading...Outlook had appeared grim following reports McConnell was walking away, but now lawmakers say text could be released in coming days
Congressional negotiators said a border deal was within reach on Thursday, despite efforts by Donald Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill to derail the talks.
With the fate of US aid for Ukraine hanging in the balance, the outlook for border compromise had appeared grim following reports on Wednesday night that the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, was walking away from a compromise that he suggested could “undermine” Trump’s chances in a November general election against Joe Biden. But by Thursday afternoon, senators involved in the discussions were insisting that the opposite was true: an agreement was in sight and legislative text could be released in the coming days.
Continue reading...Navarro, trade adviser during Trump presidency, convicted over refusal to comply with subpoena from January 6 committee
The former Trump adviser Peter Navarro faces sentencing on Thursday on two counts of contempt of Congress, arising from his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on Congress.
The mandatory minimum sentence is two months in prison, one for each count. Prosecutors in the case, which saw Navarro convicted in federal court in Washington DC in September, asked for 12 months prison time and a $200,000 fine.
Continue reading...‘It was humiliating to watch,’ civil rights leader tells MSNBC after senator appeared with ex-president in New Hampshire
The South Carolina Republican senator Tim Scott’s behaviour around Donald Trump is “humiliating”, the civil rights leader Rev Al Sharpton said.
“It was humiliating to watch what Tim Scott did as a sitting senator,” Sharpton told MSNBC, for which he hosts a show, after Scott appeared with Trump in New Hampshire, where the former president won the Republican presidential primary on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Donald Trump double digit win makes November rematch with Joe Biden more likely, but Haley says ‘this race is far from over’
Eric Bradner at CNN writes that it is difficult to see where a Nikki Haley victory is coming from, despite them promising big spending. He said:
What is not clear is where Haley could actually notch a victory against Trump. She isn’t participating in the Nevada caucuses on 8 February (she will instead be on the state’s primary ballot, which won’t lead to her winning any delegates), and polls in her home state of South Carolina – where the 24 February primary will be the next major showdown – show Trump with a huge lead.
Haley is likely to face immense pressure to depart the race in coming days. She’ll face questions about whether she’ll follow a path similar to Florida Gov Ron DeSantis, who vowed to continue on after his second-place finish in last week’s Iowa caucuses – and then he dropped out days later.
Continue reading...Ex-president in strong position to seize Republican nomination after sweeping first two contests of 2024 primary season
A sweep of the first two nominating contests on the 2024 primary season left Donald Trump in a strong position to seize the Republican party nomination, and made a rematch with Joe Biden even more inevitable.
Trump’s Republican rival, Nikki Haley, vowed to fight on despite her second place finish in New Hampshire, a state where she had hoped for an upset, and her third place finish in the Iowa caucuses. But she faces long odds. There is no precedent for a candidate winning the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary and losing their party’s nomination.
Continue reading...Ex-president follows up his Iowa win with victory over Nikki Haley – and makes threats against his last Republican primary rival
The cruelty is the point.
As Joe Biden acknowledged on Tuesday night, Donald Trump now has the Republican presidential nomination sewn up. But like a Roman emperor or mob boss, Trump used his victory speech in New Hampshire to humiliate his former opponents – and make sinister threats against his last primary rival.
Continue reading...Incumbent refused to campaign in the state and had to rely on write-in campaign powered by his allies and surrogates
Joe Biden has won New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary, even though the incumbent refused to campaign in the state and had to rely on a write-in campaign powered by his allies and surrogates to secure a victory.
Leading up to election day in New Hampshire, much more attention was paid to the Republican presidential primary, in which Donald Trump easily defeated Nikki Haley. But the results of the Democratic primary could provide additional clues about the general election in November.
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Continue reading...Polls open in state’s primary in what may be last chance Republicans have to stop ex-president from securing nomination
New Hampshire held its primary on Tuesday, seen by many as the last chance for Republicans to stop Donald Trump seizing their presidential nomination for a third time, as Nikki Haley chased an upset.
Would New Hampshire voters stand by Trump, the winner in Iowa last week, or would they put Haley in striking distance or even hand her a win?
Continue reading...Shawn Fain, the United Auto Workers president, reaffirms general strike on 1 May 2028, saying ‘members need to come together’
Shawn Fain, the United Auto Workers president, criticized Donald Trump on Monday but declined to back Joe Biden as he reaffirmed plans to lead a general strike in the US in 2028.
Speaking to union members at the UAW national political conference in Washington DC, Fain said it was time for union members to come together.
Reuters contributed reporting
Continue reading...Company removes account of developer saying ChatGPT bot violated policies on political campaigning
OpenAI has removed the account of the developer behind an artificial intelligence-powered bot impersonating the US presidential candidate Dean Phillips, saying it violated company policy.
Phillips, who is challenging Joe Biden for the Democratic party candidacy, was impersonated by a ChatGPT-powered bot on the dean.bot site.
Continue reading...The Florida governor, once billed as Trump without the baggage, ended up making a series of bad gambles
It began in a glitch-filled disaster on Twitter. It ended with a misattributed quotation on X. Just like Elon Musk’s social media platform, efforts to rebrand Ron DeSantis’s US presidential election campaign could not mask its fundamental flaws.
When in May the Florida governor announced his run during a chat with Musk on Twitter Spaces, the platform’s audio streaming feature, there were technical breakdowns that drew comparisons with one of Musk’s space rockets blowing up on the launchpad.
Continue reading...Hard-right Florida governor at one point thought to be future of party ends campaign to be GOP nominee
Ron DeSantis, the hard-right governor of Florida, has ended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination and endorsed Donald Trump.
“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” he said in a statement posted on X. “He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.”
Adam Gabbatt contributed reporting from New Hampshire
Continue reading...Campaign ad, titled Forced, is designed to tie Donald Trump directly to the abortion issue
The Biden re-election campaign rolled out a new campaign ad Sunday, signaling a shift in emphasis to reproductive rights that the White House hopes will carry and define Democrats through the 2024 election cycle.
The campaign ad, titled Forced, is designed to tie Donald Trump directly to the abortion issue almost 18 months after his nominees to the supreme court helped to overturn a constitutional right to abortion enshrined in Roe v Wade, which would have turned 51 this week.
Continue reading...With In Search of the Beloved Community, Raymond Arsenault delivers a fitting tribute to the late Democrat from Georgia
John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community chronicles one man’s quest for a more perfect union. An adventure of recent times, it is made exceptional by the way the narrative intersects with current events. It is the perfect book, at the right time.
Raymond Arsenault also offers the first full-length biography of the Georgia congressman and stalwart freedom-fighter. The book illuminates Lewis’s time as a planner and participant of protests, his service in Congress and his time as an American elder statesman.
Continue reading...On the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade, a sparse crowd of activists brave snow on March for Life in Washington DC
While Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are planning a cascade of ads and events to coincide with the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade, hundreds of anti-abortion activists gathered on the National Mall in Washington DC on Friday in hopes of re-energizing a movement that has repeatedly stumbled since Roe’s overturning.
Originally organized around the goal of overturning the Roe precedent that established federal abortion rights, the March for Life has seen what was once its greatest victory become a political liability. In the 18 months since Roe’s demise, abortion rights supporters have trounced anti-abortion activists in state-level ballot referendums. Yet the march’s message was largely similar to past years: speakers and attendees alike talked about the need to make abortion “unthinkable” rather than just illegal – with scant details on how to make that happen.
Continue reading...Hard-right Republicans ensure chances of more money and weapons for Kyiv hinge on immigration reform negotiations
Joe Biden signed a measure to keep the US government funded on Friday but as Washington shivered under its second major snowfall in a week, the bill did not unfreeze funding for Ukraine.
Hard-right House Republicans, led by the speaker, Mike Johnson, are ensuring the chances of more money and weapons for Kyiv in its fight with Moscow hinge on negotiations for immigration reform.
Continue reading...Eric Swalwell calls for action against Trump ally apparently recorded saying congressman or colleague ‘has to die’
The California Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell has called for the rightwing activist and Trump ally Roger Stone to be prosecuted over an alleged death threat he also made against Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York.
Asked by Scripps News if he wanted Stone to be prosecuted, Swalwell said: “Yes, I absolutely do. I know [the] aim [of the threat] is to not just threaten and in this case take a specific action, but its aim is to silence Donald Trump’s critics.”
Continue reading...The case was automatically frozen after the ex-president appealed judge’s decision to reject his motion to toss criminal charges
The federal judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results indicated on Thursday that the scheduled trial date would not hold as a result of the case being frozen while the former US president appeals to have the charges dismissed.
The US district judge Tanya Chutkan last summer scheduled the trial in Washington DC to start on 4 March – allowing Trump and his team seven months to prepare his defense – and has taken pains to ensure that date would not be delayed.
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