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  • Takeaways from President Biden’s first impeachment hearing by House Oversight panel | CNN Politics

    Takeaways from President Biden’s first impeachment hearing by House Oversight panel | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    House Republicans kicked off their first impeachment inquiry hearing Thursday laying out the allegations they will pursue against President Joe Biden, though their expert witnesses acknowledged Republicans don’t yet have the evidence to prove the accusation they’re leveling.

    Thursday’s hearing in the House Oversight Committee didn’t include witnesses who could speak directly to Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealing at the center of the inquiry, but the hearing offered Republicans the chance to show some of the evidence they’ve uncovered to date.

    None of that evidence has shown Joe Biden received any financial benefit from his son’s business dealings, but Republicans said at Thursday’s hearing what they’ve found so far has given them the justification to launch their impeachment inquiry.

    Democrats responded by accusing Republicans of doing Donald Trump’s bidding and raising his and his family’s various foreign dealings themselves, as well as Trump’s attempts to get Ukraine to investigate in 2019 the same allegations now being raised in the impeachment inquiry.

    Here’s takeaways from Thursday’s first impeachment inquiry hearing:

    While Republicans leveled accusations of corruption against Joe Biden over his son’s business dealings, the GOP expert witnesses who testified Thursday were not ready to go that far.

    Forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky, one of the GOP witnesses, undercut Republicans’ main narrative by saying there wasn’t enough evidence yet for him to conclude that there was “corruption” by the Bidens.

    “I am not here today to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud or wrongdoing,” Dubinsky said. “More information needs to be gathered before I can make such an assessment.”

    He said there was a “smokescreen” surrounding Hunter Biden’s finances, including complex overseas shell companies, which he said raise questions for a fraud expert about possible “illicit” activities.

    Conservative law professor Jonathan Turley also said that the House does not yet have evidence to support articles of impeachment against Joe Biden, but argued that House Republicans were justified in opening an impeachment inquiry.

    “I want to emphasize what it is that we’re here today for. This is a question of an impeachment inquiry. It is not a vote on articles of impeachment,” Turley said. “In fact, I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment. That is something that an inquiry has to establish. But I also do believe that the House has passed the threshold for an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Biden.”

    Turley said that Biden’s false statements about his knowledge of Hunter Biden’s business endeavors, as well as the unproven allegations that Biden may have benefited from his son’s business deals, were reason for the House to move forward with the impeachment inquiry. (CNN has previously reported that Joe Biden’s unequivocal denials of any business-related contact with his son have been undercut over time, including by evidence uncovered by House Republicans.)

    Turley, a George Washington University Law School professor, has repeatedly backed up Republican arguments on key legal matters in recent years, including his opposition to Trump’s first and second impeachments.

    Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, pushed Turley further on his comments, asking whether he would vote “no” today on impeachment.

    “On this evidence, certainly,” Turley said. “At the moment, these are allegations. There is some credible evidence there that is the basis of the allegations.”

    Witnesses are sworn in before the House Oversight Committee on September 28, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

    House Republicans opened their first impeachment hearing Thursday with a series of lofty claims against the president, as they try to connect him to his son’s “corrupt” business dealings overseas.

    House Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer claimed the GOP probes have “uncovered a mountain of evidence revealing how Joe Biden abused his public office for his family’s financial gain,” even though he hasn’t put forward any concrete evidence backing up that massive allegation.

    Two other Republican committee chairs further pressed their case, including by citing some of the newly released Internal Revenue Service documents, which two IRS whistleblowers claim show how the Justice Department intervened in the Hunter Biden criminal probe to protect the Biden family. However, many of their examples of alleged wrongdoing occurred during the Trump administration before Joe Biden took office.

    Ahead of the hearing, the Republican chairs released a formal framework laying out the scope of their probe, saying it “will span the time of Joe Biden’s Vice Presidency to the present, including his time out of office.”

    The document outlines specific lines of inquiry, including whether Biden engaged in “corruption, bribery, and influence peddling” – none of which Republicans have proved yet.

    The memo included four questions the Republicans are seeking to answer related to whether Biden took any action related to payments his family received or if the president obstructed the investigations into Hunter Biden.

    House Oversight Committee ranking Democratic member Rep. Jamie Raskin speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on September 28, 2023.

    At the close of the hearing Thursday, Comer announced that he was issuing subpoenas for the bank records of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and brother, James Biden.

    The subpoenas will be for Hunter and James Biden’s personal and business bank records, a source familiar with the subpoenas confirmed.

    The subpoenas are not a surprise, as Comer has been signaling his intention to issue the subpoenas for the personal bank records. They show where Republicans will head next in their investigation as they continue to seek evidence to substantiate their unproven allegations about the president.

    Some inside the GOP expressed frustration to CNN in real time with how the House GOP’s first impeachment inquiry hearing is playing out, as the Republican witnesses directly undercut the GOP’s own narrative and admit there is no evidence that Biden has committed impeachable offenses.

    “You want witnesses that make your case. Picking witnesses that refute House Republicans arguments for impeachment is mind blowing,” one senior GOP aide told CNN. “This is an unmitigated disaster.”

    One GOP lawmaker also expressed some disappointment with their performance thus far, telling CNN: “I wish we had more outbursts.”

    The bar for Thursday’s hearing was set low: Republicans admitted they would not reveal any new evidence, but were hoping to at least make the public case for why their impeachment inquiry is warranted, especially as some of their own members remain skeptical of the push.

    But some Republicans are not even paying attention, as Congress is on the brink of a shutdown – a point Democrats hammered during the hearing.

    “I haven’t watched or listened to a moment of it,” said another GOP lawmaker. There’s a shutdown looming.”

    Rep Jim Jordan delivers remarks during the House Oversight Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on September 28, 2023 in Washington, DC.

    Democrats repeatedly pointed out that the Republican allegations about foreign payments were tied to money that went mostly Hunter Biden – but not the to the president.

    “The majority sits completely empty handed with no evidence of any presidential wrongdoing, no smoking gun, no gun, no smoke,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight committee.

    Raskin’s staff brought in the 12,000 pages of bank records the committee has received so far, as Raskin said, “not a single page shows a dime going to President Joe Biden.”

    Raskin also had a laptop open displaying a countdown clock for when the government shuts down in a little more than two days – another point Democrats used to bash Republicans for focusing on impeachment and failing to pass bills to fund the government. The Democrats passed the laptop around to each lawmaker as they had their five minutes to question the witnesses.

    Their arguments also previewed how Democrats intend to play defense for the White House as Republicans move forward on their impeachment inquiry.

    The Democrats needled Republicans for not holding a vote on an impeachment inquiry – one Democrat asked Turley whether he would recommend a vote, which Turley said he would.

    Rep. Jamie Raskin speaks on the Democratic side of the aisle, as the House Oversight Committee begins an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

    House Democrats’ 2019 impeachment of Trump was sparked by Trump’s attempts to push Ukraine to investigate allegations involving Biden and his son’s position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company – some of the same allegations now being probed by the House GOP.

    That led Democrats Thursday to push for testimony from Rudy Giuliani, who as Trump’s personal lawyer sought to dig up dirt on Biden in Ukraine in 2019.

    Twice, the Democrats forced the Oversight Committee to vote on Democratic motions to subpoena Giuliani, votes that served as stunts to try to hammer home their argument that Giuliani tried and failed to corroborate the same allegations at the heart of the Biden impeachment inquiry.

    “I ask the question: Where in the world is Rudy Giuliani?” said Rep. Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, one of the Democrats who forced the procedural vote. “That’s how we got here, ladies and gentlemen. And this committee is afraid to bring him before us and put him on the record. Shame! And the question was raised. What does this have to do with it? It has everything to do with it.”

    In addition to Giuliani, Raskin sought testimony from Lev Parnas, an associate of Giuliani’s who was indicted in 2019. Parnas subsequently cooperated with the Democratic impeachment inquiry, including providing a statement from a top official at Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company, stating, “No one from Burisma had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him.”

    Several Democrats also raised Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who worked in the White House, receiving $2 billion from Saudi Arabia through a company he formed after leaving the White House.

    The Democrats charged that Kushner’s actions were far worse than Hunter Biden’s, because Kushner worked in government, while Biden’s son did not.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Schumer declines to call on Menendez to step down | CNN Politics

    Schumer declines to call on Menendez to step down | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday declined join a growing group of Democrats who are calling on indicted Sen. Bob Menendez to resign his seat, though he did say the New Jersey Democrat’s actions fell “way, way below the standard” of the office.

    “Like you, I was just deeply disappointed, disturbed when I read the indictment,” Schumer said at a news conference on Capitol Hill. “Look, I’ve known Sen. Menendez a very long time. And it was truly, truly upsetting.”

    At least 30 of the members of the Democratic caucus, including members of Schumer’s leadership team have called on Menendez to resign. According to CNN’s count on Wednesday, 21 Democrats and independents who caucus with the Democrats have not called on Menendez to resign, including Schumer and Menendez himself. Three of those who have not called on Menendez to resign sit on the Senate Ethics Committee and therefore will not comment on any issue that may come before their panel.

    “For senators, there’s a much, much higher standard,” Schumer added. “And clearly, when you read the indictment, Sen. Menendez fell way way below that standard. Tomorrow, he will address the Democratic caucus, and we’ll see what happens after that.”

    Menendez is expected to address the Senate Democratic caucus at a closed-door meeting on Thursday, according to Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Mark Warner of Virginia.

    On Wednesday, Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, pleaded not guilty to all corruption-related charges.

    Menendez has been charged with three counts for allegedly taking bribes to use his political power and connections to help the government of Egypt obtain military aid as well as pressure a state prosecutor investigating New Jersey businessmen and attempt to influence the federal prosecution of a co-defendant.

    Co-defendants Jose Uribe and Fred Daibe, entered not guilty pleas as well. A fifth co-defendant, Wael Hana, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday.

    Menendez has said he will not step down. In a public statement Monday, he accused those who “rushed to judgment” of doing so for “political expediency.”

    “I recognize this will be the biggest fight yet,” Menendez said, referencing the legal battle ahead. “But as I have stated throughout this whole process, I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jersey’s senior senator.”

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  • Supreme Court returns for first private meeting of the term amid even more controversy | CNN Politics

    Supreme Court returns for first private meeting of the term amid even more controversy | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    The Supreme Court returns to Washington to face a new term and the fresh reality that critics increasingly view the court as a political body.

    In the wake of a series of controversial decisions made possible by former President Donald Trump’s three nominees, including the seismic reversal of Roe v. Wade, the justices find themselves catapulted into the very center of the political discourse.

    Their opinions feature prominently on the campaign trail, approval ratings have plummeted to new lows and Democrats in Congress are vowing to regulate the third branch in the midst of allegations justices are skirting ethics rules and attacks on the very legitimacy of the court.

    So far, they have struggled to respond. At public appearances they grasp at the promise of judicial independence while sending mixed signals about changes that might be afoot.

    Tuesday, the justices will meet in person for their first closed-door conference of the term.

    Chief Justice John Roberts is at the center of it all.

    How he navigates this term will shape the trajectory of his tenure going forward. Some say he’ll remain on the sidelines, out of the fray. Others say he cannot afford to do so.

    Earlier this year, Roberts declined an invitation to appear before the Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss Supreme Court ethics, citing separation of powers concerns. In May, speaking before an audience in Washington, Roberts said he wanted to assure the public that the court is committed to adhering to the “highest standards of conduct.”

    It was one line in one speech.

    But at the end of June, as controversy continued amid a raft of high-profile decisions that largely broke along ideological lines, Roberts made an unusual choice. In a 6-3 opinion striking down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, the chief strayed from the case at hand.

    He said that it had become a “disturbing feature of some recent opinions to criticize the decisions with which they disagree as going beyond the proper role of government.”

    He appeared to be responding to the dissent penned by Justice Elena Kagan and joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “In every respect, the Court today exceeds its proper limited role in our Nation’s governance,” Kagan began.

    Noting her disagreement, Roberts took the occasion to write, “we do not mistake this plainly heartfelt disagreement for disparagement.” He added: “Any such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country,” he wrote.

    It was unclear if the line was directed at his dissenting colleagues or critics outside of court or both, but it was an unusual digression from a justice who, by definition, lacks an obvious pulpit to defend his branch of government.

    The way forward for Roberts is not obvious.

    Even if he did believe a formal ethics code is necessary, it’s unclear whether he would need a unanimous vote to move forward. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito might, for instance, balk at such a move arguing that it would never satisfy critics whose true goal is to damage the institution.

    Some believe Roberts ultimately will steer clear of the controversy.

    “I don’t see him moving in any direction to encourage further disclosure reforms, and I don’t see Congress as being able to get sufficient traction,” Cate Stetson, a lawyer at Hogan Lovells, said at the Cato Institute earlier this month.

    But if the court does nothing, pressure will continue.

    Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, a Democrat, traveled to the Supreme Court on September 12 as an invited guest to the annual meeting of the Judicial Conference – the policymaking body for the federal courts.

    Sitting next to the chief justice on Roberts’ home turf, Durbin lobbied him to adopt an enforceable code of conduct directed specifically at the justices, according to a source.

    Roberts and others have continuously stressed how difficult it would be to adopt such a code, particularly when it comes to recusal issues.

    In April, all nine justices released a new statement hoping to provide “clarity” to the public about their ethics procedures, noting that they consult a “wide variety of authorities” when addressing specific ethics issues. They noted that while the Judicial Conference has a code of conduct followed by lower court judges, the conference “does not supervise the Supreme Court.”

    The statement outlined complications that distinguish the Supreme Court from the lower courts.

    At the lower court level, for instance, federal judges can substitute for each other if one judge recuses from a case. That’s not true at the high court where only members can hear a dispute.

    The statement did little to appease critics who say the justices can no longer continue to voluntarily follow rules that govern lower court judges. They must, critics say, have a code of conduct that binds them directly.

    Response from the bench

    Some conservatives believe there is no impending judicial crisis. Instead, they say, critics of the court are manufacturing a controversy to delegitimize the institution and staunch the flow of conservative opinions.

    Carrie Severino, president of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, who is also a former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, tweeted recently that the problem is not corruption.

    “The problem is the coordinated campaign by dark money activists, radical politicians, and a willing media to imply there is corruption, undermining the Court’s integrity and selectively smearing the justices they disagree with,” she wrote.

    Alito, who wrote the opinion overturning Roe, has taken a radically different approach than the chief justice.

    In an interview in July that appeared on The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, Alito said forthrightly that Congress should stay out of the Supreme Court’s business.

    “I know this is controversial view, but I’m willing to say it,” he said. “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court – period.”

    Alito said that he marveled “at all the nonsense that has been written about me in the last year” and noted that in the face of a political onslaught he was rejecting the notion that judges and justices “should be mute” and leave it to others to defend them.

    “I’ve said to myself, nobody else is going to do this, so I have to defend myself,” he wrote.

    A month earlier he sought to preempt a ProPublica report that had not yet been published concerning allegations that he should have disclosed luxury travel from 2008.

    Over the summer, other justices were asked about ethics and the court’s legitimacy by friendly questioners at universities and judicial conferences – although they never addressed specifics.

    Unlike Alito, Justice Elena Kagan suggested in August that here was some daylight on the question of whether Congress has a role to regulate the Supreme Court. Last week, she told an audience in Indiana that she thought it would be a “good” idea if the court were to adapt the ethics code used by lower court justices to fit the Supreme Court.

    For her part, Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted that criticism of the court is nothing new. At an appearance before a judicial conference in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, she said that “critiques of the court” are part of its history. Public criticism “comes with the job” she said.

    Justice Brett Kavanaugh had a different message in Ohio saying he was “hopeful” that there would be some “concrete steps” taken soon to address the ethics issue.

    But his sentiment may have been aspirational.

    As the justices grapple with how to respond, they are hampered by an additional factor.

    Change at the high court comes slowly. The court’s unofficial mascot – the tortoise – can be found at the bottom of bronze lampposts on the building grounds. The tortoises are meant to symbolize the slow and steady pace of justice.

    Almost nothing at the high court comes quickly, and the institution is not new to controversy. The justices may decide to ride out the storm.

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  • 3M agrees to pay almost $10 million to settle apparent Iran sanctions violations | CNN Business

    3M agrees to pay almost $10 million to settle apparent Iran sanctions violations | CNN Business



    CNN
     — 

    3M has agreed to pay almost $10 million to settle apparent violations of Iranian sanctions, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control said last week.

    The agency said 3M had 54 apparent violations of OFAC sanctions on Iran. It said between 2016 and 2018, a 3M subsidiary in Switzerland allegedly knowingly sold reflective license plate sheeting through a German reseller to Bonyad Taavon Naja, an entity which is under Iranian law enforcement control.

    It’s the latest of a stream of high-publicity and high-dollar settlements that 3M — which makes Post-It notes, Scotch Tape, N95 masks and other industrial products — has made this year.

    3M has not replied to a request for comment regarding last week’s settlement announcement.

    One US person employed by 3M Gulf, a subsidiary in Dubai, was “closely involved” in the sale, OFAC said.

    The alleged sales occurred after an outside due diligence report, which flagged connections to Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces.

    OFAC notes Iranian law enforcement stands accused of human rights violations both in Iran and Syria.

    The Switzerland subsidiary, known as 3M East, sent 43 shipments to the German reseller even though it knew the products would be resold to the Iranian entity, according to the OFAC.

    OFAC said senior managers at 3M Gulf “willfully violated” sanctions laws and that other employees were “reckless in their handling” of the sales.

    “These employees had reason to know that these sales would violate U.S. sanctions, but ignored ample evidence that would have alerted them to this fact,” OFAC wrote.

    3M voluntarily self-disclosed the apparent violations after discovering the sale hadn’t been authorized, according to OFAC. It said it fired or reprimanded “culpable” employees involved, hired new trade compliance counsel, revamped sanctions trainings and stopped doing business with the German reseller.

    In June, 3M agreed to pay up to $10.3 billion over 13 years to fund public water suppliers in the United States that have detected toxic “forever chemicals” in drinking water.

    3M has faced thousands of lawsuits through the last two decades over its manufacturing of products containing polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which have been found in hundreds of household products.

    3M said that the multi-billion-dollar settlement over PFAS is not an admission of liability.

    A few months later, in August, the company agreed to pay $6 billion to resolve roughly 300,000 lawsuits alleging that the manufacturing company supplied faulty combat earplugs to the military that resulted in significant injuries, such as hearing loss.

    3M also said its earplug agreement was not an admission of liability.

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  • White House strategy on government funding meets serious test this week | CNN Politics

    White House strategy on government funding meets serious test this week | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden and his top aides at the White House plan to hammer away at a blunt message as the US government inches closer to a shutdown this week: A handful of extremist Republicans are entirely to blame for the havoc that would be unleashed across the country.

    For Biden, there’s a lot riding on that message getting through to Americans.

    Biden’s advisers have been assessing for weeks how involved to get in lawmakers’ deliberations to fund the government ahead of the end-of-month deadline, and ultimately decided to take a hands-off approach. The expectation: Should the Republican-led House struggle to reach consensus, they would ultimately shoulder the blame for any disruption.

    “Watch the GOP struggle and force them to govern or be blamed for shutdown,” a Biden administration official said, summing up the strategy.

    The White House is planning to dispatch a number of Cabinet officials this week to help lay out the broad range of ramifications if the government were to shutdown – everything from flight delays to childcare centers shutting down.

    Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will appear at Monday’s White House news briefing to discuss how a government shutdown could hit everything from food programs to loans for farmers, a White House official said.

    “This would stop us in our tracks,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on CNN on Sunday. “A shutdown that would mean service members wouldn’t get paid, coming back to transportation to air traffic controllers who would be working in the towers. They wouldn’t get paid.”

    Over the weekend, White House officials continued to monitor for any signs of movement on Capitol Hill to extend funding for the federal government ahead of the deadline. How to handle a possible shutdown was a key agenda item when White House chief of staff Jeff Zients huddled with senior advisers in the West Wing on Saturday, according to people familiar. But heading into a new work week, Republican members had not put anything realistic on the table, officials said, leaving the White House bracing for what is to come.

    In the days ahead, the president and his allies will repeatedly point to “who’s responsible” for the mess that could unfold, one senior administration official said simply.

    The White House took a similar approach this spring during the debt ceiling negotiations, but not without a seeming hit to Biden. In a CNN poll conducted mid-May, 59% of respondents said the president was not acting responsibly as talks stalled and the government careened toward default. The difference then: Republicans had coalesced around a specific position, passing a bill in the House that reflected their priorities and catching the White House off guard. Negotiations escalated in the weeks that followed, resulting in a deal that set broad guardrails around federal spending for the 2024 fiscal year.

    That deal was supposed to usher in months of in-depth appropriations work that would yield a full-year spending package and avert a government shutdown. Now, the White House says Republicans dropped the ball.

    Speaking over the weekend at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Phoenix Awards Dinner, Biden said it was “small group of extreme Republicans” that was refusing to “live up to the deal” that he had struck months ago with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

    “The president did his job,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked whether the White House would do anything to stave off a shutdown. “This is not something we can fix. The best plan is for House Republicans to stop their partisan political play and not do this to hurt Americans across the country. That’s the plan.”

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  • What happens if you don’t pay your student loans? | CNN Politics

    What happens if you don’t pay your student loans? | CNN Politics


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Student loan payments are due in October for the first time in three-plus years – but for the next 12 months, borrowers will be able to skip payments without facing the harsh financial consequences of defaulting on their loans.

    The Biden administration is providing what it’s called an “on-ramp period” until September 30, 2024. During that time, a borrower won’t be reported as being in default to the national credit rating agencies, which can damage a person’s credit score.

    Think of it as a grace period for missed payments. But interest will still accrue, so borrowers aren’t off the hook entirely.

    Here’s what borrowers need to know:

    Any federal student loan borrower who was eligible for the pandemic-related payment pause, which took effect in March 2020, is eligible for the “on-ramp” period. That includes borrowers with federal Direct Loans, Federal Family Education Loans and Perkins Loans held by the Department of Education.

    Borrowers don’t need to apply for the benefit.

    Normally, a federal student loan becomes delinquent the first day after a payment is missed. Loan servicers will report the delinquency to the three national credit bureaus if a payment is not made within 90 days.

    A loan goes into default after a borrower fails to make a payment for at least 270 days, or about nine months, which can result in further financial consequences.

    A default can further damage your credit score, making it harder to buy a car or house. It could take years to establish good credit again. Borrowers could also see their federal tax refund or even a portion of their paycheck withheld.

    Once in default, the borrower can no longer receive deferment or forbearance and would lose eligibility for additional federal student aid. At that point, the loan holder can also take the borrower to court.

    Because the pandemic payment pause has ended, interest restarted accruing on September 1 after interest rates were effectively set to 0% for three-plus years.

    That means if a borrower misses a payment now, he or she could end up owing more debt over time due to interest.

    As interest builds up, a borrower’s loan servicer may also increase monthly payment amounts to ensure the debt is paid off on time. (This won’t happen to borrowers enrolled in income-driven plans, which calculate payments based on income and family size.)

    And unlike during the pause, a missed payment means that a borrower will miss out on a month’s worth of credit toward student loan forgiveness under certain repayment plans.

    For borrowers enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, for example, each month during the pause still counted toward the 120 monthly payments required to be eligible for debt forgiveness.

    Before missing a payment, it might be worth considering switching into an income-driven repayment plan that could lower monthly payments.

    A new income-driven repayment plan launched this summer, called SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education), offers the most generous terms and will likely offer the smallest monthly payment for lower-income borrowers.

    Under SAVE, a single borrower earning $32,800 or less or a borrower with a family of four earning $67,500 or less will see their payments set at $0.

    Borrowers can apply for a new repayment plan whenever they want, for free, but should allow at least four weeks for the change to take effect.

    Borrowers who fell into default before the pandemic pause started in March 2020 can apply for the Department of Education’s “Fresh Start” program.

    If borrowers use Fresh Start to get out of default, their loans will automatically be transferred from the Department of Education’s Default Resolution Group to a loan servicer and returned to an “in repayment” status, and the default will be removed from their credit report.

    To claim these benefits, log in to myeddebt.ed.gov or call 800-621-3115. The process should take about 10 minutes, according to the Department of Education.

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  • The Fed has a perfect interest rate in mind. Here’s what it is | CNN Business

    The Fed has a perfect interest rate in mind. Here’s what it is | CNN Business

    There’s a star the Federal Reserve is chasing.

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  • Biden unveils a new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention | CNN Politics

    Biden unveils a new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden on Friday unveiled a new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, a step he said was part of an effort “to send a clear message about how important this issue is to me and the country.

    In a speech in the White House Rose Garden, the president detailed his experience traveling to the sites of mass shootings across the country, including after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 as vice president.

    “Anyone who doesn’t think that these kinds of engagements have a permanent effect on young children … these were hardened, tough cops, asking me, could I get them psychiatric help?” he asked, raising his voice.

    An official told reporters on a call Thursday previewing the announcement that the office’s mandate will be twofold – it will be tasked with implementing and expediting last year’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the president’s signature gun legislation, and with finding additional actions within the president’s purview to stem the flow of gun violence.

    The announcement comes just days after a group of congressional Democrats in a letter called on Biden to leverage “the full power of the executive branch” to combat gun violence. In March, a day after a mass shooting left six dead in Nashville, Biden told reporters, “I have gone the full extent of my executive authority to do, on my own, anything about guns.”

    Biden on Friday took the opportunity to tout the steps his administration had taken to address the scourge of gun violence.

    “To date my administration has announced dozens of executive actions to reduce gun violence – more than any of my predecessors at this point in their presidencies, and they include everything from cracking down on ghost guns, breaking up gun trafficking, and so much more,” he said.

    “And last year with the help – with your help I signed into law the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun safety law in almost 30 years. It expanded background checks, expands the use of red flag laws, improves access to mental health services and so much more. This historic law will save lives. It’s a really important first step.”

    Vice President Kamala Harris will head the new office, Biden said.

    Biden said Harris “understands this more than any vice president ever – no, really. That’s not hyperbole, that’s a fact. She’s been on the front lines of this her entire career as a prosecutor, as an attorney general and as a United States senator. Her deep experience will be invaluable for this office.”

    And he thanked the gun safety advocates assembled in the Rose Garden for their work.

    “We’re never going to forget your loved ones, we’re never going to get there unless we remember. You know, I know we will do this because I know you – heroes, heroes proving that even with heavy hearts, you have unbreakable spirits,” he said.

    CORRECTION: This headline and story have been updated to reflect the correct name of the office.

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  • Dallas mayor switches parties to join GOP | CNN Politics

    Dallas mayor switches parties to join GOP | CNN Politics


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announced Friday that he is switching parties and will serve as a Republican-affiliated mayor of the blue-leaning city.

    While the Dallas mayoral office is nonpartisan, Johnson previously served as a Democrat in the Texas legislature. He slammed his former party in an op-ed for Wall Street Journal published Friday, blaming Democratic policies for “exacerbated crime and homelessness.”

    “The future of America’s great urban centers depends on the willingness of the nation’s mayors to champion law and order and practice fiscal conservatism,” Johnson wrote. “Our cities desperately need the genuine commitment to these principles (as opposed to the inconsistent, poll-driven commitment of many Democrats) that has long been a defining characteristic of the GOP.”

    He added: “In other words, American cities need Republicans—and Republicans need American cities.”

    Johnson’s announcement makes him the only Republican among the mayors of the 10 most populous cities in the US.

    Johnson was reelected for a four-year term in May with 93% of the vote after being first elected in 2019. President Joe Biden won Dallas County by more than 30 points in the 2020 election.

    The Texas Democratic Party issued a scathing statement Friday, accusing Johnson of being dishonest with Dallas voters.

    “[T]he voters of Dallas deserved to know where he stood before he ran for reelection as Mayor,” the chair and vice-chair of the party said. “He wasn’t honest with his constituents, and knew he would lose to a Democrat if he flipped before the election.”

    “This feeble excuse for democratic representation will fit right in with Republicans — and we are grateful that he can no longer tarnish the brand and values of the Texas Democratic Party,” they added.

    On the other hand, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott welcomed Johnson’s new party affiliation.

    “Texas is getting more Red every day,” Abbott said in a post on X, the platform previously known as Twitter. “He’s pro law enforcement & won’t tolerate leftist agendas.”

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  • India’s parliament passes landmark bill to reserve a third of seats for women | CNN

    India’s parliament passes landmark bill to reserve a third of seats for women | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    India’s parliament passed a landmark bill Thursday that will reserve a third of its seats in the lower house and state assemblies for women, in a major win for rights groups that have for decades campaigned for better gender representation in politics.

    A total of 215 lawmakers from the upper house voted in favor of the bill, which was introduced by prime minister Narendra Modi’s government in a special parliamentary session on Tuesday. It was approved by the lower house on Wednesday.

    “A historic moment in our country’s democratic journey!” Modi wrote on Twitter after its approval. “With the passing of this bill, the representation of women power will be strengthened and a new era of their empowerment will begin.”

    Six attempts to pass the bill, first introduced in 1996, have failed, at times due to strong disapproval from some lawmakers.

    In India, the world’s largest democracy of 1.4 billion people, women make up nearly half of the country’s 950 million registered voters but only 15% of lawmakers in parliament and 10% in state assemblies.

    Despite being voted through, the implementation of the quota could take years as it depends on the redrawing of electoral constituencies, which will happen after the completion of India’s once-in-a-decade census.

    That huge census project was meant to take place in 2021, but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and has been stalled ever since.

    Nonetheless, the bill’s passage in parliament will be seen as a further boost to Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of national elections next year.

    While India has made progress on women’s issues in recent years, it remains a deeply patriarchal country and has some of poorest participation numbers for women in politics.

    It has, since its independence in 1947, had one female prime minister. India Gandhi served as the country’s leader twice before her assassination in 1984.

    India’s current President, Droupadi Murmu, who was appointed to the position last year became only the second woman to take the seat.

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  • GOP hardliners sink Pentagon bill in another blow for McCarthy | CNN Politics

    GOP hardliners sink Pentagon bill in another blow for McCarthy | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    The House on Thursday has voted down a rule that would have advanced a Defense Department bill, another stumbling block for Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Republican leadership ahead of a looming government shutdown deadline.

    The final vote was 216-212.

    While the specific legislation is separate from a proposal to keep the government funded beyond the present September 30 deadline, the defeat is another sign of divisions within the House Republican Conference, which has been negotiating for days to come up with a plan that can unify GOP House members. This is the third time House Republicans have bucked McCarthy and GOP leadership in a vote on a rule, a traditionally pro forma step that is taken to advance legislation.

    McCarthy emerged visibly frustrated from the House floor while it was in total paralysis as House hardliners tanked another rule, slamming the group for just wanting to “burn the place down.”

    “It’s frustrating in the sense that I don’t understand why anybody votes against bringing the idea and having the debate,” McCarthy told reporters.

    Opposition from hardliners has plagued efforts by Republican leadership to unify behind a plan to fund the government. Days of negotiations have yielded a few apparent breakthroughs, but McCarthy’s Republican opponents have been quick to throw cold water on progress and openly defy the speaker’s calls for unity. McCarthy’s thin margin in the chamber means that in most votes he can only lose four members without any support from Democrats – and absences can raise and lower the majority threshold.

    Late Thursday evening, McCarthy briefed his conference behind closed doors on a new plan to keep the government open – paired with deeper spending cuts and new border security measures – all in an attempt to win over wary members on his right flank. The plan, as outlined by the speaker, would keep the government open for 30 days at a $1.471 trillion spending level, a commission to address the debt and a border security package. Separately, they also agreed to move year-long funding bills at a $1.526 trillion level. That level is below the bipartisan agreement that the speaker reached with the White House to raise the national debt limit.

    As part of the deal, Republicans told CNN on Thursday night that they have the votes to move forward on the yearlong Pentagon spending bill that five conservative hardliners scuttled just Tuesday, with Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Ken Buck of Colorado indicating they will flip to a yes on the rule and will vote to advance the Department of Defense bill Thursday after the speaker came down to the spending levels that Norman had been demanding.

    But Thursday’s vote had five Republican opponents as well – as six Republicans total ended up voting against the rule. Reps. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Matt Rosendale of Montana, Eli Crane of Arizona and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia voted against the bill. House Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole of Oklahoma also eventually changed his vote, casting his vote against the Rule so he could bring it back up for reconsideration. It’s unclear when Republicans may try the vote again.

    Republican leadership has alerted House members they plan to stay in session Friday and Saturday amid the standoff.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • McCarthy privately outlines new GOP plan to avert shutdown, setting up clash with Senate | CNN Politics

    McCarthy privately outlines new GOP plan to avert shutdown, setting up clash with Senate | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy privately outlined to members a new GOP plan to keep the government open on Wednesday after a marathon two-and-a-half-hour GOP conference meeting.

    The California Republican later told reporters that Republican negotiators made “tremendous progress as an entire conference,” following days of GOP infighting and less than two weeks before a government funding deadline.

    “We are very close,” McCarthy said Wednesday evening when asked specifically what progress had been made on the GOP short-term bill. “I feel like just got a little more movement to go there,” he added of the new GOP plan. When asked specifically about the topline numbers, he wouldn’t get into details but said: “We’re in a good place.”

    The plan, as outlined by the speaker, would keep the government open for 30 days at $1.471 trillion spending levels, a commission to address the debt and a border security package. Separately, they also agreed to move year-long funding bills at a $1.526 trillion level. That level is below the bipartisan agreement that the speaker reached with the White House to raise the national debt limit.

    The levels are also far lower than what senators from both parties and the White House are willing to accept, meaning it’s unclear how such a deal would avert a government shutdown. With just 10 days left to fund the government, the new plan sets up a standoff with the Senate over how to keep the government open.

    As part of the deal, Republicans now believe they have the votes to move forward on the yearlong spending bill that five conservative hardliners scuttled just Tuesday.

    GOP Rep. Mike Garcia of California said after Wednesday evening’s conference meeting there is now “a little more clarity” on the path forward.

    “We have a little more clarity as to a potential plan moving forward,” Garcia said, adding, “We are still negotiating that final number and trying to figure out exactly what we can do.”

    Some of the people that were previously opposed now signaled they are supportive. Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Ken Buck of Colorado indicated they will flip to a yes on the rule and will vote to advance the Department of Defense bill Thursday after the speaker came down to the spending levels that Norman had been demanding.

    “Sounds like we’ve got the votes for the rule,” Garcia said, pointing to Buck and Norman as having committed to changing to a “Yes.”

    With McCarthy’s extremely thin margin in the chamber – and Democrats so far united against the GOP proposal – Republican leadership has been negotiating for days to try to win over enough GOP support to pass their legislation.

    When asked about struggling to make progress earlier Wednesday, McCarthy repeated his favorite line, insisting he will never back down from a challenge no matter how messy.

    “I wouldn’t quit the first time I went for the vote for speaker,” McCarthy said, a reference to how he was voted speaker only after 15 rounds and days of voting in January. “The one thing if you haven’t learned anything about me yet, I will never quit.”

    However, an additional potential complicating factor emerged Wednesday night with former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, coming out in opposition to a short-term funding bill as he called on lawmakers to defund the DOJ and the investigations into him.

    McCarthy and his GOP leadership team have been trying to sell the House Republican Conference on unifying behind a plan to fund the government, brokered between the House Freedom Caucus and the more moderate Main Street Caucus over the weekend. But that proposed legislation encountered immediate opposition from more than a dozen far-right Republican lawmakers who wanted deeper spending cuts attached.

    Amid that impasse with conservatives, moderates in the bipartisan House Problem Solver’s Caucus are close to finalizing their own framework on a short-term spending bill that would fund the government for several months at current levels and include Ukraine aid and disaster assistance, according to two sources. Even with Democratic support, that plan would still likely face major challenges – not the least of which is how it would get to the floor before the government runs out of money.

    There are already signs that this alternative plan could face its own strong headwinds – not just with Republicans but with Democrats. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a progressive Democrat from Washington state, told CNN on “Inside Politics” that she wants a “clean” continuing resolution of funds, a sign that progressives may not back some of the border security provisions that the Problem Solvers Caucus members are eyeing.

    House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries met with the House Problem Solvers Caucus earlier Wednesday, and said afterward that they need a bipartisan agreement in line with what was already negotiated in the debt ceiling package.

    “We need to find a bipartisan agreement consistent with what was previously reached,” he said.

    House GOP leadership announced Wednesday night that the House will be in and voting on Friday and Saturday, making official what was expected as the majority struggled to reach an agreement all week.

    The House is expected to pass a rule for the defense appropriations bill Thursday. Assuming the rule passes, the House will then start consideration of the defense bill with final passage expected Friday.

    The thinking would then be to pass the new GOP stopgap plan on Saturday, which is expected to be a full day.

    Members were advised on Tuesday to keep their schedules flexible as weekend votes were possible. Members filtering in and out of Whip Emmer’s office the past two days are insistent that they are making progress, but Rep. Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota told CNN earlier Wednesday that while they are getting closer, they are not close yet.

    Rep. Garrett Graves from Louisiana, who has been in the room for negotiations, had echoed that schedule change and projected Friday and Saturday work.

    “I think we’re going to be here this weekend,” he said.

    When pressed on what exactly they’d be up to and if they’d be able to vote by Saturday, Graves said, “Well, we won’t be having Mardi Gras parties,” indicating they’d be voting.

    Rep. Steve Womack, a Republican from Arkansas who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, lambasted the hardliners, calling it a “breach of duty.”

    “We’ve got a handful of people that are holding the rest of the conference, the majority of our conference kind of held hostage right now and in turn, holding up America,” he told CNN.

    Womack also said this will likely extend into the weekend and that “either it’s gonna be good or it’s gonna be bad.”

    This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

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  • Five Americans back on US soil after release from Iranian detention | CNN Politics

    Five Americans back on US soil after release from Iranian detention | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Five Americans freed from Iranian detention this week returned to US soil early Tuesday following an initial stop in Doha, Qatar, a US official tells CNN.

    Emad Shargi, Morad Tahbaz and Siamak Namazi, along with two Americans who have not been publicly named have arrived in the Washington, DC, area, after they were released Monday as part of a wider deal that includes the US unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian funds.

    The freed Americans will have the option to participate in a Department of Defense Program known as PISA (Post Isolation Support Activities) to help them acclimate back to normal life now that they are back in the United States.

    The return of the five Americans, all of whom had been designated as wrongfully detained, caps a significant diplomatic breakthrough after years of complicated indirect negotiations between the US and Iran, who do not have formal diplomatic ties.

    The group was flown out of Tehran on a Qatari government jet to Doha on Monday, before taking off for the Washington, DC, area to be reunited with their families, according to a senior administration official. Namazi’s mother, Effie Namazi, and Tahbaz’s wife, Vida Tahbaz, who had been previously unable to leave Iran, were also on the flight from Iran to Doha, the official said Monday.

    After a year of indirect negotiations, the deal began to broadly come together in Doha about seven months ago and the first tangible public steps took place about five weeks ago, when four of the Americans were transferred to house arrest. The fifth American was already under house arrest.

    President Joe Biden on Monday celebrated their release “after enduring years of agony, uncertainty, and suffering.” But while the release stood as the latest high-profile deal negotiated by his administration to secure the release of Americans deemed wrongly detained abroad, Biden drew criticism from some Republicans who likened the agreement to a “ransom payment.”

    A senior Biden administration official said Monday that the deal “has not changed our relationship with Iran in any way,” noting the US would still work to hold Iran accountable for its human rights abuses and to constrain its nuclear program.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • That jet the Marines lost? Taxpayers will pay $1.7 trillion for the F-35 program | CNN Politics

    That jet the Marines lost? Taxpayers will pay $1.7 trillion for the F-35 program | CNN Politics

    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    The military losing a fighter jet near Charleston, South Carolina, and asking the public to help find it is a plotline in which “Top Gun” (fighter jets) meets “The Hunt for Red October” (country can’t find its weapons system).

    But the larger story of the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter is like tax dollars meet “The Blob” (unstoppable force consumes everything in its path).

    “How in the hell do you lose an F-35?” wondered Rep. Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican, in a post on social media that speaks for everyone who read the headline about the state-of-the-art military plane that went missing Sunday after its pilot ejected and parachuted to safety.

    “How is there not a tracking device and we’re asking the public to what, find a jet and turn it in?” she continued.

    A more general and important question could be asked of the F-35 program writ large: How in the heck can you spend so much money on a plane that doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to?

    The exact amount of money for a single aircraft like the one that went missing is somewhere around $100 million.

    The entire F-35 program is on track to cost $1.7 trillion over the lifetime of the plane. Trillion. With a “t.”

    CNN’s Oren Liebermann reported the facts of what we know about the missing aircraft on CNN on Monday:

    • The pilot ejected safely and was taken to a hospital.
    • Joint Base Charleston posted a social media plea for information from anyone who might have seen the jet or its remains.
    • The search is focused northwest of Charleston near Lakes Marion and Moultrie.

    But we’re left with so many questions, he told CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

    “Was the transponder working? If not, why wasn’t it working? Why, maybe, had it been switched off? What was the mission it was on? All of this is either under investigation or a question we haven’t gotten an answer to yet.”

    When I asked Liebermann by email how to generally explain the F-35 program, he noted it is the most expensive weapons program in US history.

    For a country that spends a good portion of its income on its military and is known to have the most advanced fighting force on Earth, that’s saying something.

    The F-35 is what’s known as a “stealth” fighter, which means it is supposed to be able to avoid detection by enemies. Maybe a little too stealth.

    But if you watch the glossy Lockheed Martin video at F35.com, the jet is also supposed to be able to communicate with rest of the military, “sharing its operational picture with the ground, sea and air assets.” The video shows the jet beaming information to the ground and satellites.

    The New York Times’ editorial board used the word “boondoggle” to describe the F-35 program in 2021. But it added that the US is essentially stuck with the program.

    Or as CNN’s Zachary Cohen wrote back in 2015, “Is the world’s most expensive weapons program worth it?” Eight years later, the question still applies.

    Many US allies – Canada, Germany, Japan and others – also buy F-35s from Lockheed.

    The F-35, as developed by Lockheed at the request of the US military, was supposed to be the jack-of-all-jets, with versions to do different jobs for the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines.

    The version that went missing over South Carolina – the F-35B – is used by the US Marine Corps and meant to be able to “land vertically like a helicopter and take-off in very short distances,” according to a fact sheet from Lockheed. Another F-35B crashed in 2018, also in South Carolina.

    The Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group, has written extensively on the F-35 and its cost overruns. I asked Dan Grazier, an F-35 expert for POGO, what has gone wrong.

    It all boils down to “failure at the conceptual level,” he told me in an email.

    “The architects of the program attempted to build a single aircraft to meet multiple mission requirements for not just three separate services but also those of multiple countries,” Grazier said, noting the difference between a small and nimble fighter jet and a long-range jet.

    “When someone attempts to design a single aircraft to perform all of these roles, they have to make numerous design tradeoffs that generally results in an aircraft that can sort of do it all, but doesn’t do anything particularly well.”

    The jet has never reached its full operational capability and already needs updates and tweaks, including a new engine. “Every F-35 built until now is nothing more than a very expensive prototype,” Grazier told me.

    “All of them will have to go through an expensive retrograde process in the future when the design is complete to bring them up to something approaching full combat standards.”

    I asked a spokesperson for Lockheed Martin if the company is confident the jets perform as they should considering the taxpayer investment.

    They provided this statement:

    The global F-35 fleet has surpassed more than 721,000 cumulative flight hours and spans 17 nations and three U.S. military services. Since F-35s began flying 17 years ago, there has been one pilot fatality and less than 10 confirmed destroyed aircraft. More than 965 F-35s have been delivered and more than 430,000 sorties completed.

    Diana Maurer is director of defense capabilities and management at the Government Accountability Office, the government’s own watchdog that earlier this year described the F-35 program as “more than a decade behind schedule and $183 billion over original cost estimates.”

    She said pilots frequently report being impressed by the plane’s capabilities. But they also report not being able to fly it often enough.

    Problems getting spare parts, issues with repairs and a reliance on contractors all contribute to the F-35 having a substandard readiness and frequent groundings of the fleet.

    “There’s a variety of reasons why they can’t get these aircraft up in the air as often as they would like,” Maurer said. “And that’s really frustrating from a taxpayer perspective for something that already costs hundreds of millions of dollars a year; cost many, many multiple billions already; and will cost nearly $2 trillion over the life cycle of the program.”

    Grazier said officials at the Pentagon have acknowledged problems with the F-35 that can be applied to the design process in the future. But this is a program that evolved over successive presidencies and with a rotating cast of characters in charge both in Congress and at the Pentagon.

    The system is supposed to have safeguards against extreme cost overruns, but when those warnings were triggered in previous decades, the F-35 program was allowed to barrel forward. And here we are.

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  • Three generations of First Nations men share their views on Australia’s referendum | CNN

    Three generations of First Nations men share their views on Australia’s referendum | CNN


    Brisbane, Australia
    CNN
     — 

    Before Australians last voted in a referendum on First Nations people in 1967, Uncle Bob Anderson set up a table and chair at a tram stop in central Brisbane.

    From his rail-side office, he’d tell anyone who would stop and listen that Australia counted its horses, cows, sheep and goats, but not its Indigenous people. “My question to you is, do you think they should be?” he’d say.

    Some 56 years later, the Ngugi Elder sat on a chair under the hot Brisbane sun on Sunday, his wispy white hair covered in a straw hat, his presence a sign of support for another referendum concerning his people.

    Nearby, thousands of people gathered for “Walk for Yes” rallies in multiple cities around Australia ahead of the October 14 vote.

    On that day, some 17.5 million registered voters will be asked whether Australia should change the constitution to include a permanent body made up of First Nations people to advise the government on matters affecting them.

    Now 94, Anderson says a Yes vote isn’t just important for him but the country.

    “By talking and walking together as a nation and as a society, we will share a common destiny,” he said.

    But less than four weeks out from the vote, polls suggest the split between the supporters and opponents is widening, in favor of no change to the constitution.

    Veteran grassroots Aboriginal activist Wayne Wharton wore the reason for his objections on his T-shirt, as he shouted at Yes supporters on a bridge in central Brisbane.

    “You’re a thief, a liar and a gatekeeper,” he yelled, to a mix of ages and races walking by. “Give back what you stole, give back what you stole, give back what you stole.”

    Aboriginal activist Wayne Wharton delivers his message to supporters at the

    The 62-year-old Kooma man told CNN on the phone that fundamentally people are being asked the wrong question.

    “In a well-meaning country and a country seeking justice, this question would never have been raised or tabled. The question that would have been offered would have been a question about [a] treaty or just occupation,” he said.

    Like Anderson, Wharton remembers the curfews that confined First Nations people to the outskirts of town between sunset and sunrise, the racial slurs hurled at him and his family, the abuse of his ancestors forced to live in missions, and the theft of First Nations children under policies of assimilation that later prompted a national apology.

    Wharton said he wants “liberation, freedom and restitution” delivered through negotiation by the hundreds of Aboriginal nations with people occupying their land.

    “I’ve seen many things change in my 60 years, and as the White bigots that created this continent of privilege die, the next generations have a greater sense of fairness and justice,” Wharton said.

    “I believe in my children’s time a lot of this will be overcome. And that’s why I want to make sure that the door of opportunity is always going to be there for those people when the opportunity comes to create a just occupation, that the mechanism will be there and that it wouldn’t have been hijacked by some desperates in 2023 that changed the constitution.”

    Other First Nations people see it differently, including Nick Harvey-Doyle, who at 31 is half the age of Wharton, and a third of the age of the Aboriginal Elder Anderson.

    From his New York apartment, Harvey-Doyle, an Anaiwan man from New South Wales, co-organized a walk across Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday, attended by more than 350 people, mostly Australians, calling for a Yes vote.

    “I’m from a really small country town that has about 10,000 people and I think there’s about 8,000 Australians in the New York tri-state area. To me, that’s almost essentially a whole country town worth of votes,” he said.

    Nick Harvey-Doyle is studying in New York and is calling for a Yes vote.

    Harvey-Doyle is a former lawyer who is studying at New York University with a Roberta Sykes Scholarship that provides funding for Indigenous students to undertake postgraduate research abroad. Sykes, who died in 2010, was the first Black Australian to study at Harvard, and fought for a Yes vote in the 1967 Referendum.

    That referendum, to count Indigenous people in Australia’s Census figures, passed with over 90% approval.

    Harvey-Doyle implored Australians living overseas to cast their votes to improve the life outcomes for First Nations people, who have lagged behind the country’s non-Indigenous population in heath and welfare statistics for decades.

    “We as Aboriginal people don’t feel like we have carriage over our most intimate and important personal affairs,” he said.

    “I think Aboriginal people do have a different way of life from non-Indigenous people and the current structures and institutions we have in place, don’t always acknowledge that and aren’t always in the best cultural place to service our needs.

    “Actually having a body that exists that is enshrined in the constitution that allows us empowerment, to give advice over our own lives and our own issues is actually super important.”

    More than 350 people walked across Brooklyn Bridge in New York to call for a Yes vote in the Australian Voice referendum.

    According to the Australian Electoral Commission, as of Sunday, more than 96,000 registered voters were outside Australia – including those living abroad and some 58,000 who have notified the commission that they’ll be traveling on October 14.

    While voting is compulsory within Australia, being overseas is considered a valid reason not to vote. More than 100 polling centers will be open worldwide to enable people to vote in person, or they can return a postal ballot. Overseas voting starts early, on October 2.

    To pass, the referendum needs the majority vote across the country, as well as the majority of people in at least four states.

    Indigenous people won’t determine the outcome of this vote – that will be up to millions of other non-Indigenous Australians, some of whom object to Indigenous people being given a special place over others within the constitution, calling the vote “divisive.”

    Wharton says the concept of millions of non-Indigenous voters deciding what’s best for 3% of the population is racist in itself.

    However, Harvey-Doyle says he’s wary of the message a no vote would send in the country and beyond.

    “If we vote No, it says that we are really happy to be apathetic towards the poor life outcomes that some average Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience, and I feel like that goes against what it means to be Australian to give everyone a fair go,” he said.

    “It’ll be a really sad global position for us to put ourselves in, if we do vote No.”

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  • Trump, who paved way for Roe v. Wade reversal, says Republicans ‘speak very inarticulately’ about abortion | CNN Politics

    Trump, who paved way for Roe v. Wade reversal, says Republicans ‘speak very inarticulately’ about abortion | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump, who paved the way for the undoing of federal abortion rights protections, said that some Republicans “speak very inarticulately” about the issue and have pursued “terrible” state-level restrictions that could alienate much of the country.

    While avoiding taking specific positions himself, Trump said in an NBC interview that if he is reelected he will try to broker compromises on how long into pregnancies abortion should be legal and whether those restrictions should be imposed on the federal or the state level.

    “I would sit down with both sides and I’d negotiate something and we’ll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years,” he said.

    The former president targeted GOP primary rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in his criticism of how the Republican party has handled the issue, calling Florida’s six-week ban “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”

    DeSantis’ camp hit back on Sunday, taking aim at the former president for saying he’d be willing to work with both parties on abortion.

    “We’ve already seen the disastrous results of Donald Trump compromising with Democrats: over $7 trillion in new debt, an unfinished border wall, and the jailbreak First Step Act letting violent criminals back on to the streets. Republicans across the country know that Ron DeSantis will never back down,” tweeted spokesperson Andrew Romeo.

    Trump also warned Republicans that the party would lose voters by advancing abortion restrictions without exceptions for cases of rape, incest or risks to the mother’s life.

    “Other than certain parts of the country, you can’t – you’re not going to win on this issue,” he said.

    Trump’s comments made plain the challenge for 2024 Republican presidential primary contenders: trying to balance the priorities of their conservative base, for whom the Supreme Court’s June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade was a victory decades in the making, and those of the general electorate, which has consistently supported abortion rights – most recently in the 2022 midterms and the Wisconsin Supreme Court race this spring.

    Abortion could also be a pivotal issue this fall in Virginia’s state legislative elections, which are widely viewed as a barometer of the electorate’s mood in the lead-up to next year’s presidential election.

    Trump’s appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices paved the way to the reversal of the 1973 decision that guaranteed abortion rights across the United States through the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.

    That reversal left abortion rights up to the states, which has led to a patchwork of laws – including bans on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy in Florida and Iowa, the first state to vote in the GOP presidential nominating process.

    Abortion rights have been a major fault line in the 2024 Republican primary. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, has advocated a federal abortion ban after 15 weeks. DeSantis, Trump’s top-polling rival, has touted the six-week ban he signed into law. However, other contenders, including Nikki Haley, have taken more moderate approaches, warning of the political backlash Republicans could face among the broader electorate by pursuing strict abortion restrictions.

    Trump would not commit to a specific policy preference in the interview. He deflected questions about whether he would support a federal ban – and if so, after how many weeks – or would rather the issue be left to statehouses.

    “What’s going to happen is you’re going to come up with a number of weeks or months, you’re going to come up with a number that’s going to make people happy,” Trump said.

    Trump said he believed it was “probably better” to leave abortion restrictions up to the states instead of trying to pass federal legislation on the issue.

    “From a pure standpoint, from a legal standpoint, I think it’s probably better. But I can live with it either way,” Trump said. “It could be state or could it federal, I don’t frankly care.”

    The intra-GOP debate over abortion took center stage at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition gathering, attended by many of the state’s leading conservative evangelical activists.

    Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, one of the most vocal Trump critics among the GOP contenders, told reporters Saturday in Iowa that Trump has “taken evangelical voters for granted” and is “waffling on important issues.”

    “I think he is looking at the abortion question as not whether it’s going to win evangelical support, but what that’s going to look like down the road, and as he said he wants everybody to like him,” Hutchinson said.

    Asked about federal legislation on abortion, DeSantis continued not to engage on the topic of a national ban, instead pointing to new restrictions in states such as Iowa and Florida.

    “I’ve been a pro-life governor. I’ll be a pro-life president,” DeSantis said. “Clearly, a state like Iowa has been able to move the ball with pro-life protections. Florida has been able to move the ball.”

    Pence reiterated his support for a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy as a minimum, saying, “It’s an idea whose time has come.” He said Trump and other GOP candidates want to relegate the abortion issue to the states, “but I won’t have it.”

    ‘Personal for every woman and every man’

    However, other contenders more focused on the general electorate, including Haley – the former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations – have sought to thread the same needle as Trump.

    Haley on Saturday told attendees at the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Iowa that her beliefs are the “hard truth.” She said pursuing a federal 15-week abortion ban would have “everybody running from us.”

    While Haley opposes abortion, she has emphasized she believes Republicans and Democrats need find a consensus on abortion issues, such as banning later abortions and agreeing not to jail women who get them.

    “This issue is personal for every woman and every man. And we need to treat it that way. I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice any more than I want them to judge me for being pro-life,” she said.

    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on CNN last week that he would be open to signing a federal abortion ban “if it represented consensus,” while admitting the current setbacks to reaching that consensus within the US Senate and across states.

    “I want all of the 50 states to be able to weigh in if they want to, and what their state laws should be, and then let’s see if it’s a consensus,” he said.

    Democrats, meanwhile, are eyeing abortion as one of the most important issues in the 2024 presidential election.

    CNN previously reported that President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign earlier this month made a digital advertising buy highlighting the positions of Trump and other GOP 2024 contenders on the issue.

    “As Donald Trump visits states where women are suffering the consequences of his extreme, anti-abortion agenda, this ad reminds voters in states that have passed some of the most extreme abortion bans of Trump’s key role in appointing conservative justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade,” Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said in a statement to CNN.

    This story has been updated with additional information Sunday.

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  • Why some of Biden’s problems may be overblown at this time | CNN Politics

    Why some of Biden’s problems may be overblown at this time | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. He’s under an impeachment inquiry, his son was indicted in Delaware, inflation seems to be tilting back up, the United Auto Workers went on strike after Biden said they wouldn’t, and the chattering class is talking about him not running for reelection.

    Some of these factors explain why my colleague Zach Wolf wrote that “Biden’s two worst weaknesses were exposed” this past week, and it’s also why I’ve written about the president’s difficulties heading into next year.

    But while Biden clearly has problems – no president with an approval rating hovering around 40% is in good shape – some of his issues appear to be overblown at this time. Here are three reasons why:

    A Washington Post op-ed by columnist David Ignatius that called on Biden not to run for reelection got a lot of play this past week.

    Putting aside whether Biden should or shouldn’t run, the fact is that he is running. A lot of people will point to polls (like those from CNN) showing that a majority of Democrats don’t think the party should renominate him.

    But these surveys only tell you so much. They’re matching Biden against himself and not anyone else. When asked in the CNN poll to name a preferred alternative to Biden, only a little more than 10% wanted someone else and could name a specific person.

    When matched up against the announced Democratic opposition (Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson), Biden is crushing it. He’s over 70%, on average, in recent polling.

    Moreover, Biden’s job approval rating with Democrats hovers around 80%. That is well above the level at which past incumbents have faced strong primary challenges. Those challenges (such as when Ted Kennedy challenged incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980) came at a time when the president had an approval rating in the 50s or 60s among his own party members.

    It is worth analyzing whether the fact that a lot of Democrats don’t think Biden should be renominated masks a larger problem he could face in a general election.

    But Biden’s pulling in more than 90% of Democrats in Fox News and Quinnipiac University general election polling released this past week. In both polls, his share slightly exceeded former President Donald Trump’s among Republicans (though within the margin of error).

    The fact is Biden’s got problems, but worrying about renomination is not one of them.

    From a political point of view, Biden’s connections to his son Hunter have caused the president nothing but heartache. Most voters think Biden did something inappropriate related to his son’s business dealings.

    So, it might naturally follow that House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into the president’s ties to his son’s foreign business deals would be harmful to his political future.

    About 40% of voters, on average, think Joe Biden did something illegal. Most voters don’t.

    Some Republicans are no doubt hoping that Biden’s own troubles will make their likely nominee (Trump), who is under four indictments, look less bad by comparison. A majority of voters, however, think that Trump committed a crime.

    The public doesn’t see the Biden and Trump cases the same way.

    A Wall Street Journal poll from the end of August found that a majority of Americans (52%) did not want Biden to be impeached.

    Republicans will have to prove their case in the court of public opinion.

    It’s conceivable that Republicans will overshoot the mark like they have in the past. The impeachment inquiry into Bill Clinton in 1998 preceded one of the best performances by a president’s party in a midterm election. Clinton’s Democratic Party picked up seats in the House, which has happened three times for the president’s party in midterms over the last century.

    To see how impeachment could turn things upside down for the GOP this cycle, consider independent voters. While the vast majority of independents disapprove of the job Biden is doing as president (64%) in our latest CNN poll, only 39% think he did something illegal.

    An election about a potentially unpopular impeachment would be better for Biden than one about an issue that really hurts him (such as voters seeing him as too old).

    Stop me if you heard this one before: Biden is the president heading into an election, voters are unhappy with the state of the economy, and his party does much better in the elections than a lot of people thought.

    That’s what happened in the 2022 midterms.

    The inflation rate is lower now than it was then, but it’s on the uptick. Voters, both now and then, overwhelmingly disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy. They even say the economy matters more than any other issue, like they did in 2022.

    What none of this data takes into account is that Americans almost always call the economy the top issue, according to Gallup.

    Believe it or not, fewer Americans say the economy is the top problem facing the country now (31%) than they have in either the median (40%) or average (45%) presidential election since 1988.

    If you think about recent presidential elections in which the economy was the big issue (1992, 2008 and 2012), the state of the economy dominated the headlines.

    But as mentioned above, right now, there are a lot of other things going on in the country, as was also the case during the 2022 midterms.

    It’s not as if the economy is helping Biden. I’m just not sure it’s hurting him.

    After all, there’s a reason why Democrats have consistently outperformed the 2020 presidential baseline in special elections this year.

    If things were really that bad for Biden and the Democrats, they’d most likely be losing elections all over the country. That simply isn’t happening at this point.

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  • Florida GOP scraps planned loyalty oath in win for Trump over DeSantis in their shared home state | CNN Politics

    Florida GOP scraps planned loyalty oath in win for Trump over DeSantis in their shared home state | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    The Republican Party of Florida on Friday night scrapped plans to require presidential candidates to sign a loyalty oath, siding with former President Donald Trump over Gov. Ron DeSantis in a proxy war that tested the strength of the two rivals’ support in their home state.

    The party had quietly agreed in May to institute a pledge, mandating candidates promise to endorse the GOP nominee in order to make next year’s primary ballot – a move seen by Trump allies as a maneuver intended to boost DeSantis. Pro-Trump forces in the party, led by state Sen. Joe Gruters, pushed to reverse course Friday, arguing that the state GOP violated national party rules that bar such changes to candidate eligibility requirements within two years of an election.

    Gruters, a former chairman of the Florida GOP, made a motion to remove the language and won out in a voice vote by an “overwhelming” margin, he told CNN.

    “Common sense prevailed at the Republican Party of Florida tonight,” Gruters said.

    The vote by the state GOP’s executive committee took place during the organization’s quarterly meeting in Orlando, an event that should have been a celebration of the party’s recent electoral successes and a chance to lay the groundwork for the campaign to keep Florida red in 2024.

    Instead, the meeting exposed deepening divisions in the state party over its two presidential candidates. The outcome suggests that Trump maintains the upper hand over DeSantis in their shared home state.

    Republican Party of Florida Chairman Christian Ziegler did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    In a statement to CNN after the vote, DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin said, “Once Ron DeSantis secures the party’s nomination, we hope everyone in the field will join him in that fight.”

    “We believe anyone who wants to run for president as a Republican should be willing to pledge their support for our eventual nominee,” Griffin said. “It is surprising that anyone interested in seeing the defeat of Joe Biden in 2024 would disagree.”

    On Friday night, the two 2024 rivals had dueling speeches in Washington, DC, about two miles from each other at separate Christian conservative events. DeSantis at the Pray Vote Stand Summit hosted by the Family Research Council and Trump at the Concerned Women for America Summit, where DeSantis made remarks earlier in the afternoon.

    In August, DeSantis signed the Republican National Committee’s loyalty pledge to support the party’s eventual nominee, one of the requirements to appear on the debate stage. Trump has not signed the RNC’s loyalty pledge.

    On Thursday, Trump told conservative host Megyn Kelly he does not plan to debate his fellow Republicans, pointing to his commanding lead over the 2024 primary field.

    “I don’t see it,” Trump told Kelly. “Why would I do it?”

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  • Americans are feeling gloomier about the economy | CNN Business

    Americans are feeling gloomier about the economy | CNN Business


    Washington, DC
    CNN
     — 

    Americans aren’t feeling gloomy about higher gas prices just yet, but they’re still on edge about inflation and the economy’s direction — and concerns are starting to surface about the possibility of a government shutdown.

    Consumer sentiment tracked by the University of Michigan edged down in September from the prior month by 1.8 points, according to a preliminary reading released Friday.

    “Both short-run and long-run expectations for economic conditions improved modestly this month, though on net consumers remain relatively tentative about the trajectory of the economy,” said the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu in a release. “So far, few consumers mentioned the potential federal government shutdown, but if the shutdown comes to bear, consumer views on the economy will likely slide, as was the case just a few months ago when the debt ceiling neared a breach.”

    Sentiment could start to sour soon, since gas prices are highly visible indicators of inflation. Sentiment fell to its lowest level on record last summer when gas prices topped $5 a gallon and inflation reached a four-decade high. The national average for regular gasoline stood at $3.87 a gallon on Friday, according to AAA, seven cents higher than a week ago and 17 cents higher than the same day last year.

    Consumers’ expectation of inflation rates in the year ahead fell to a 3.1% rate in September, down from 3.5% in the prior month.

    This story is developing and will be updated.

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  • Biden’s two worst weaknesses were exposed this week | CNN Politics

    Biden’s two worst weaknesses were exposed this week | CNN Politics

    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    Two major threats to President Joe Biden’s reelection – his son Hunter’s legal problems and the widely held perception the 80-year-old is too old for reelection – are both causing him major pain this week.

    Hunter Biden was indicted on federal gun charges in Delaware on Thursday, accused of lying about his past drug abuse and violating a gun law when he bought a handgun in 2018, before his father’s presidential campaign. The weapon was later abandoned behind a grocery store by Hallie Biden, the wife of Hunter’s late brother, Beau. Hallie and Hunter were having an affair at the time.

    Read an annotated version of the indictment.

    That sad and sordid family drama of addiction could land the president’s son in prison, although separate investigations on tax evasion and foreign business dealings have not yet led to charges from the Delaware US attorney David Weiss, who was elevated earlier this year to special counsel to guarantee independence from the US Department of Justice.

    While Weiss has found no basis to criminally charge Hunter Biden over his foreign business dealings and no direct connection has been drawn between the son’s business interests and the father’s policy positions, House Republicans plan to dig deep as they look for more evidence during an official impeachment inquiry authorized by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this week.

    The impeachment may never occur, and the years of investigation may not have exposed any wrongdoing by President Biden – but the inquiry will certainly keep Hunter Biden top of mind for voters who may wonder why the president would let his family operate like this.

    Any Democrats who dismiss the effort might recall that McCarthy bragged in 2015 that the exhaustive House investigations focused on Hillary Clinton wounded her politically. At the time, he was talking about investigations into the death of a US ambassador in Benghazi, Libya, while she was secretary of state. The effort by today’s GOP to tie Biden to his son could have a similar effect.

    Even if there is nothing to tie President Biden to the millions of dollars Hunter Biden and other family members made from interests in China, Ukraine and elsewhere, most Americans are not convinced.

    Well more than half the country, 61%, thinks Biden had some involvement in his son’s business dealings while serving as vice president, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS in late August, before the gun-related indictment was handed down but after a previous plea deal fell apart. Most of those people who think the president was involved back then also think the actions were illegal.

    What’s not clear is whether the Hunter Biden issues will be a motivating factor outside the group of voters who already dislike the president. His low job approval rating and concerns about the economy could ultimately be more damaging in an election.

    The public’s perception of his relationship with his son is not even the most concerning element for Biden in the poll. That would be his age.

    “Biden’s age isn’t just a Fox News trope; it’s been the subject of dinner-table conversations across America this summer,” the Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote this week in calling for Biden to step aside ASAP to give someone else a shot at winning the 2024 election.

    Just about a quarter of Americans in CNN’s poll said Biden has the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively, far from a ringing endorsement of a president who brought policy wins back from a trip to Asia last week but left the impression he was confused at a press conference.

    Romney calls on Trump and Biden to ‘stand aside’ for younger candidates

    Only a third of Democrats and Democratic-leaning registered voters in the poll said they think Biden should be the Democrats’ candidate in 2024. Two-thirds want a different candidate, although almost nobody knows who.

    Ignatius had enough of the president’s respect earlier this summer to get an invite to Biden’s state dinner for the Indian prime minister in June. Hunter Biden also attended.

    Ignatius is among the people who effusively say Biden has been a very good president, both “successful” and “effective.”

    “What I admire most about President Biden is that in a polarized nation, he has governed from the center out, as he promised in his victory speech,” Ignatius wrote, adding plaudits for Biden’s domestic accomplishments and foreign policy leadership.

    But Ignatius fears another pairing of Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris “risks undoing his greatest achievement — which was stopping Trump.”

    Among Democratic voters, the most-cited concerns with Biden are his age and the need for someone younger.

    The vast majority of the Democrats interested in a Biden alternative picked “just someone besides Joe Biden.” One of the most-supported specific alternatives, Sen. Bernie Sanders, is older than Biden.

    The lack of confidence in Harris to take up the mantle was evident when CNN’s Anderson Cooper talked Wednesday night to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is running for reelection to Congress but stepped away from her leadership position.

    Cooper asked Pelosi if Harris was the best running mate for Biden.

    “He thinks so and that’s what matters,” Pelosi said, although she did commend Harris for being “politically astute.”

    kamala harris nancy pelosi split

    Anderson Cooper asks Nancy Pelosi twice if she thinks Harris is best running mate for Biden

    Pelosi promised that Democrats are behind Biden, and she does think he’s the best candidate to beat Trump.

    “He has great experience and wisdom,” Pelosi said.

    CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere writes that the Biden campaign is plotting a long-game strategy and that aides blame the media for “what they view as validating concerns about Biden’s age and about Republican claims of Hunter Biden’s corruption by covering those concerns, despite what they argue is a lack of evidence.”

    They are banking, he writes, on a data-focused emphasis on key states to turn the moveable voters away from Trump.

    He lost badly in Iowa and New Hampshire in the 2020 primary, for instance, before riding a wave of support from moderates in southern states to a dramatic upset of multiple younger candidates and those with more committed followings.

    Biden emerged from a crowded pack four years ago. There’s little indication it would make sense for him to open the primary up, as Ignatius suggests, to some of those same people today.

    Ultimately, there is an open question over what this election will be about.

    If it’s about a referendum on an aging president whose fitness worries voters and who allowed his son to make millions in circumstances that raise suspicions even without evidence of wrongdoing, Biden will struggle.

    That said, one of the few things voters might like less is a person who tried to overturn an election.

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