Tag: government organizations – us

Start your week smart: China, Hurricane Roslyn, Boris Johnson, Red Bull, Jan. 6 | CNN

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The 2022 midterm elections are now just weeks away, and with control of both chambers of Congress and dozens of governorships, secretaries of state and attorneys general posts on the line, it’s important to know both how and when to vote in your state. To help you plan your vote, CNN has gathered the deadlines for early in-person voting, absentee/mail-in voting and for voter registration in each of the 50 states leading up to Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Here’s what else you need to know to Start Your Week Smart.

• Chinese leader Xi Jinping has formally stepped into his norm-breaking third term ruling China with an iron grip on power as he revealed a new leadership team today stacked with loyal allies.

• Hurricane Roslyn slammed into Mexico’s Pacific coast as a major Category 3 storm today, bringing dangerous storm surge and flooding to parts of the country, forecasters said.

• Boris Johnson is trying to win enough support to make what would be a stunning comeback as Britain’s prime minister, as senior Conservative politicians declared their support for former finance minister Rishi Sunak. The two men have become the early favorites to replace Liz Truss, who announced her resignation last week.

• Dietrich Mateschitz, the owner and co-founder of the sports drink company Red Bull, has died, the company announced Saturday. He was 78. As well as turning his energy drink into a market leader, the Austrian billionaire also founded one of the most successful Formula One teams in recent history.

• The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol announced on Friday that the panel has officially sent a subpoena to former President Donald Trump as it paints him as the central figure in the multi-step plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Monday

Opening statements are scheduled to begin in the sexual assault trial of disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein in Los Angeles. Weinstein, 70, was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape charges in New York more than two years ago and sentenced to 23 years in prison. In Los Angeles, Weinstein faces multiple sexual assault charges that he pleaded not guilty to last year.

Diwali, the Hindu celebration known as the “Festival of Lights,” also begins on Monday. New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced last week that Diwali will be a public school holiday starting in 2023.

Tuesday

A Moscow regional court has set October 25 as an appeal date for WNBA star Brittney Griner. Griner was sentenced to nine years of jail time in early August for deliberately smuggling drugs into Russia. She was arrested with less than 1 gram of cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport on February 17.

In what has become one of the most closely watched Senate contests in the country, Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman and Republican candidate Mehmet Oz will face each other in a televised debate in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Fetterman, who had a near-fatal stroke more than five months ago, has faced a number of questions about transparency surrounding his health and recovery. Fetterman’s primary care physician released a medical report earlier this month stating that the candidate is “recovering well from his stroke” and “has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.”

Wednesday

Hillary Clinton – former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic nominee for President – turns 75.

Saturday

October 29 is National Cat Day. “Meh,” said cats …

Hear a story of Iranian resistance

In this week’s One Thing podcast, CNN Chief International Investigative Correspondent Nima Elbagir joins us from Northern Iraq, where some Iranian dissidents have fled a brutal crackdown in response to nationwide protests set off by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. We explore if these protests will bring lasting change and hear from one Iranian-Kurdish activist who is now taking up arms across the border. Listen here.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss announces her resignation in front of 10 Downing Street in London on Thursday, October 20.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

a drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday, October 17. A wave of drone attacks pummeled the capital city early Monday as commuters headed to work.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

ended a 15-game losing streak against Alabama. They won 52-49 with a last second 40-yard field goal.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

Mississippi to record lows.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

20th Communist Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday, October 16. Xi is poised to secure a norm-breaking third term in power.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

as it splashes down off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, on Friday, October 14, with European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines and Jessica Watkins. They are returning after 170 days aboard the International Space Station.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

James Webb Space Telescope. It shows a highly detailed view of the Pillars of Creation, a vista of three looming towers made of interstellar dust and gas that’s speckled with newly formed stars. The area, which lies within the Eagle Nebula about 6,500 light-years from Earth, had previously been captured by the Hubble Telescope in 1995, creating an image deemed “iconic” by space observers.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

found him not liable for battery on allegations he picked up actor Anthony Rapp and briefly laid on top of him in a bed after a party in 1986. Jurors deliberated for about an hour and concluded Rapp did not prove that Spacey “touched a sexual or intimate part” of him.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

warned it could take up to six months for the water to recede in the wake of the country’s “unprecedented” flooding.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

expelled from the United States on Monday, October 17.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

deadly drone attacks.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

See last week in 32 photos.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

Check out more moving, fascinating and thought-provoking images from the week that was, curated by CNN Photos.

TV and streaming

The season finale of “House of the Dragon,” the “Game of Thrones” prequel that takes place almost 200 years before the events of its predecessor, airs tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO. (HBO, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.)

“Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities” makes its debut on Netflix Tuesday. The new horror anthology promises “eight tales of terror” curated by the Oscar-winning director of “The Shape of Water.”

“The Good Nurse,” starring Oscar winners Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain, tells the story of an infamous caregiver implicated in the deaths of hundreds of hospital patients. It begins streaming on Netflix Wednesday.

“All Quiet on the Western Front,” based on the classic World War I novel, arrives on Netflix Friday.

Baseball

Four teams remain in the battle to reach the 2022 World Series, which begins on Friday. Later today, the San Diego Padres face the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. On Saturday, the Phillies beat the Padres to take a 3-1 lead in the series. The Houston Astros, meanwhile, play the New York Yankees tonight in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series. Houston leads that series 3-0.

Take CNN’s weekly news quiz to see how much you remember from the week that was! So far, 66% of fellow quiz fans have gotten eight or more questions right. How will you fare?

Christina Aguilera – Beautiful (2022 Version)

‘Beautiful’

A lot has changed about the world in the last 20 years, but Christina Aguilera still thinks you’re beautiful – despite what social media sometimes tells us. Watch the updated version of her “Beautiful” music video released last week that takes aim at the messages often delivered through social media that have negative effects on our body image and mental health. (Click here to view)

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October 23, 2022
Democrats predict an ‘extremely busy’ lame duck. Here’s what’s on the agenda | CNN Politics

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A packed legislative to-do list awaits Congress when it returns to session after the midterms – and Democrats, who currently control both chambers, will face a ticking clock to enact key priorities if Republicans win back the House or manage to flip the Senate in the upcoming elections.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has predicted an “extremely busy” lame duck session – the period of time after the midterms and before a new Congress begins in January.

“We still have much to do and many important bills to consider,” Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor at the end of September. “Members should be prepared for an extremely, underline extremely, busy agenda in the last two months of this Congress.”

The jam-packed agenda for the lame-duck session includes: Funding the government to avert a shutdown before the end of the calendar year, passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, the annual must-pass legislation that sets the policy agenda and authorizes funding for the Department of Defense, as well as a vote in the Senate to protect same-sex marriage and the potential consideration of other key pieces of legislation.

Democrats are still limited in what they can achieve, however, given their narrow majorities in both chambers. With a 50-50 partisan split in the Senate, Democrats lack the votes to overcome the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold – and do not have the votes to abolish the filibuster. As a result, major priorities for liberal voters – like the passage of legislation protecting access to abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade – will still remain out of reach for the party for the foreseeable future.

Government funding is the most pressing priority that lawmakers will confront during the lame duck. The current deadline for the expiration of funding is December 16 after the House and Senate passed an extension to avert a shutdown at the end of September.

Since the funding bill is viewed as must-pass legislation it will likely become a magnet for other priorities that lawmakers may try to tack on to ride along with it. It’s possible that further aid for Ukraine could come up as Ukraine continues to counter Russia’s invasion of the country. While that funding has bipartisan support, some conservatives are balking at the pricey contributions to Ukraine and may scrutinize more closely additional requests from the administration, a dynamic that is dividing Republicans on this key issue.

Democrats also want more funding for pandemic response, but Republicans have pushed back on that request.

One issue that may come up during the government funding effort is money for the Department of Justice investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

A House Democratic aide told CNN that final fiscal year 2023 funding levels have yet to be determined. Justice Department needs and resources are part of this ongoing conversation, but under the leadership of Rep. Matt Cartwright, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice, science, and related agencies, the House bill included $34 million that would allow DOJ to fund these prosecutions without reducing their efforts in other areas.

House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro told CNN in a statement, “I look forward to working with my colleagues on the House and Senate appropriations committees and passing a final 2023 spending package by the December 16th deadline.”

Meanwhile, the Senate has begun work on the NDAA, and is expected to pass the massive piece of legislation during the lame duck. Consideration of the wide-ranging bill could spark debate and a push for amendments over a variety of topics.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa has called for punishing OPEC for its production cut by passing legislation that would hold foreign oil producers accountable for colluding to fix prices – and the senator has said he believes the measure can pass as an amendment to the NDAA. The legislation would clear the way for the Justice Department to sue Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations for antitrust violations.

Senate Democrats will also continue confirming judges to the federal bench nominated by President Joe Biden, a key priority for the party.

A Senate vote to protect same-sex marriage is also on tap for the lame-duck session. In mid-September, the chamber punted on a vote until after the November midterm elections as negotiators asked for more time to lock down support – a move that could make it more likely the bill will ultimately pass the chamber.

The bipartisan group of senators working on the bill said in a statement at the time, “We’ve asked Leader Schumer for additional time and we appreciate he has agreed. We are confident that when our legislation comes to the Senate floor for a vote, we will have the bipartisan support to pass the bill.” The bill would need at least 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster.

Schumer has vowed to hold a vote on the bill, but the exact timing has not yet been locked in. Democrats have pushed for the vote after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, sparking fears that the court could take aim at same-sex marriage in the future.

The Senate could take up legislation during the lame duck in response to the January 6, 2021, attack by a mob of pro-Trump supporters attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Over the summer, a bipartisan group of senators reached a deal to make it harder to overturn a certified presidential election. The proposal would still need, however, to be approved by both chambers. Notably, the Senate proposal has the backing of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican.

“I strongly support the modest changes that our colleagues in the working group have fleshed out after literally months of detailed discussions,” McConnell said at the end of September. “I’ll proudly support the legislation, provided that nothing more than technical changes are made to its current form.”

If the bill passes the Senate, it would also need to clear the House, which in September, passed its own version of legislation to make it harder to overturn a certified presidential election in the future by proposing changes to the Electoral Count Act.

Passing a bill to to restrict lawmakers from trading stocks is a priority for a number of moderate House Democrats – who may continue to push for the issue to be taken up during the lame duck, though whether there will be a vote is still to be determined and other pressing must-pass items like government funding could crowd out the issue. The House did not vote on a proposal prior to the midterm elections.

“It’s a complicated issue, as you can imagine, as a new rule for members they have to follow, and their families as I understand, so I think it deserves careful study to make sure if we do something, we do it right,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told CNN last month.

Meanwhile, it’s not yet clear when exactly the nation will run up against the debt limit and it appears unlikely for now that Congress will act to resolve the issue during the lame-duck session, especially as other must-pass bills compete for floor time. But political battle lines are already being drawn and maneuvering is underway in Washington over the contentious and high-stakes issue.

A group of House Democrats recently sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Schumer calling for legislation to “permanently undo the threat posed by the debt limit” during the post-election lame-duck session. The letter, led by Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, was signed by several prominent House Democrats, including Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

Biden on Friday gave a window into how he’s preparing for a looming political showdown over the debt ceiling, stating unequivocally that he will not relent to Republican lawmakers threatening to send the nation into default if he doesn’t meet their demands, but adding that he doesn’t support efforts from within his own party to abolish the debt limit entirely.

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October 23, 2022
Mystery robocall thanks Democrats in competitive Georgia races for supporting abortion rights of ‘birthing persons’ | CNN Politics

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A political robocall made to tens of thousands of Georgians thanked a vulnerable congressional Democrat and the Democratic nominee for governor for protecting the rights of “birthing persons” to “have an abortion up until the date of birth” – targeting abortion rights tension in the competitive races.

The calls, which used polarizing language popular with Democratic activists, are made to sound like they are in support of Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop and gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams – but Democrats involved in the races allege that the call, uncovered by CNN’s KFile, is the work of Republicans.

The call says it is done by a group called American Values – groups operating under that name or similar ones have said they are not behind the call.

Bishop, who has served in Congress for 30 years, faces Republican Chris West in the race for Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District, one of the only competitive House races in the state.

The Abrams campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which supports Bishop’s race, said they did not pay for the robocall. Bishop’s campaign declined to comment on the record.

The robocall is narrated by a woman who gives her name as Jill and her pronouns as she/her and continues to say people who identify as women are under attack in the state.

“This is Jill, and my pronouns are she/her,” she says. “I’m sure you’ll agree with me that people that identify as women are under attack, not just in Georgia, but throughout our country. Georgia is lucky to have Stacey Abrams and Sanford Bishop fighting for our abortion rights.”

The call goes on to say Bishop and Abrams support abortion until the moment of birth. Abrams has campaigned that she does not believe in any government restrictions on abortion, calling it a medical decision not beholden to “arbitrary” timelines. Bishop has voted in the past to ban late-term abortion procedures, indicating some support for restriction, and has said that abortion should be rare, legal and safe and available in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life or health of a woman.

“While some elected officials are trying to limit abortion rights to six months or even five months after conception, we are so lucky to have Stacey Abrams and Sanford Bishop fighting to protect our right to have an abortion up until the date of birth,” the narrator of the call says. “Would you please take a moment to call Stacey Abrams or Sanford Bishop and thank them for standing up for women’s right to abort their babies up to the point of birth.”

“Government needs to stay out of the reproductive rights of birthing persons,” says the narrator, Jill.

The robocall ends by saying it was “paid for by American Values and not authorized with any candidate or candidate’s committee” – but several groups who operate under that name or similar names denied to CNN they were behind the call. And there is no political action committee registered by that name in Georgia.

The call reached approximately 43,000 phones from Friday October 14 through Sunday October 16, according to data from the anti-robocall app Nomorobo.

The message fails to identify who paid for the call in the introduction and give a call back number, which violates rules from the Federal Communications Commission for autodialed or prerecorded voice political campaign calls.

The October robocall also invites listeners to press one and two to leave a message for Abrams and Bishop, respectively. If a user presses two, they are redirected to Bishop’s Albany district office. But when a user presses one, the call redirects to the private number of the chair for the local Democratic committee, Sandra Sallee. Sallee called the ploy a “dirty” trick in a phone interview and said she was subjected to harassing phone calls.

CNN’s KFile reached out to nearly a dozen active federal PACs with “American Values” in their name. Several PACs told CNN they have never used robocalls for messaging and have no plans to; others did not respond to CNN’s comment request.

“Robocalls are kind of a funny political tactic in so far as they have an almost perfect record of never working,” said Donald Green, a professor of political science at Columbia University.

Green said the “fairly unanimous conclusion” is that they don’t seem to affect voter turnout or vote choice but are often used because they are very inexpensive. He suggested that the tactic could have been used to generate media attention to the race.

“It’s pretty unusual to have something that is kind of, you know, wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing-type tactic,” said Green. “It’s not unheard of in American politics because nothing is unheard of, but it’s rare.”

On Thursday, another mysterious robocall littered with falsehoods was made to Georgia voters with a similar modus operandi, but this time it solely targets Bishop.

“Congressman Bishop is the only candidate with 100% rating with Planned Parenthood and will defend the right to an abortion up to nine months. Do not let Republican Chris West win,” a female narrator says.

According to data from Nomorobo, this robocall reached 41,000 phones and there is some overlap between the recipients of this call and the one targeting Abrams and Bishop.

The call failed to disclose who was behind it at the beginning and end of the call. When CNN tried to call the number, an automated message said that “this number is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.”

In a statement to CNN, Abrams’ campaign spokesperson Alex Floyd said, “This disgusting and false attack is a new low for the right wing — and comes as misrepresentations and outright lies that have become a feature of the Kemp campaign. Stacey Abrams has been clear about her support for limitations on abortion in line with Roe and Casey. Now it’s time for Brian Kemp to clearly condemn this false robocall and start answering Georgians’ questions about his extreme anti-choice record.”

Abrams, who once opposed abortion rights, said last month that abortion is “a decision that should be made between a woman and her doctor. That viability is the metric. And that if a woman’s health or life is in danger, then viability extends until the time of birth, but women do not make this choice lightly.”

Abrams added that no one believes there should not be a limit, but that “the limit should not be made by politicians who don’t believe in basic biology or, apparently, basic morality.”

A spokesperson from the Kemp campaign, Tate Mitchell, said they were not responsible for the robocalls.

The Bishop campaign declined to comment to CNN.

The DCCC said through spokesperson Monica Robinson, “This misleading robocall – paid for by a shady outside interest group – is what desperation smells like. Resorting to lies to win an election is proof that Chris West can’t win honestly or on his own merits. If West has any integrity at all, he’ll denounce these robocalls and call on his special interest backers to stop lying to Georgians.”

Bishop, a 15-term moderate Democrat, has in the past advocated and voted for some late-term abortion restrictions, and recently reiterated his support for abortion rights. “These personal health care choices should ultimately rest with a woman, her God and her doctor—not with politicians in 50 different state legislatures,” Bishop said in a statement after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

West’s campaign did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

This is not the first time a robocall spouting specious claims has occurred in Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District in this election cycle.

In June, the local newspaper the Ledger-Enquirer reported that robocalls were being sent to households in the district that appeared to be affiliated with Republican candidate Jeremy Hunt’s campaign, but the underlying message was meant to drive support away from Hunt, a Black former Army captain.

One June robocall noted it was time to “celebrate Black independence” and “modernize” the Republican party by supporting Hunt. “We can leave the old ways of the Republican Party in the past and build our party back better,” the narrator said, a nod to Biden’s “Build Back Better” slogan. “No more attacks on our capital, no more divisive language from a former President.”

That robocall also did not identify who paid for it, and both Hunt and West accused the other’s campaign and the super PACs supporting them of sending the call.

One PAC that supported Hunt in that primary is called “American Values First,” a name partially invoked in the October robocall targeting Bishop and Abrams.

American Values First is one of the PACs CNN reached out for comment to ask if they are responsible for the October robocall. The treasurer and spokesperson for the PAC, Joel Riter, said that the PAC had nothing to do with the robocalls and has not spent any money in the race for the general election.

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October 22, 2022
CDC director tests positive for Covid-19 | CNN

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Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday.

Walensky is experiencing mild symptoms and is up to date on her Covid-19 vaccines, according to a statement released by the agency. Walensky received an updated Covid-19 booster in September.

“Consistent with CDC guidelines, she is isolating at home and will participate in her planned meetings virtually,” the agency said. “CDC senior staff and close contacts have been informed of her positive test and are taking appropriate action to monitor their health.”

Covid-19 cases have been falling as the United States moves into fall. However, experts say cases may begin to climb as they have during the past two pandemic winters – especially as several new coronavirus variants begin to gain traction.

The CDC recommends that people who have recently recovered from a Covid-19 infection wait to get boosted at least until the illness has passed and a person is no longer contagious. The CDC says a person “may consider delaying your vaccine by 3 months from when your symptoms started.”

Getting infected can act like a booster, and studies have shown that people have a relatively low risk of getting sick again for about three months after they recover.

People may not want to wait as long as three months if Covid-19 levels are high in the community or they have a reduced immune function, CNN has reported.

The CDC signed off on the updated booster shots from Pfizer and Moderna on September 1.

Pfizer/BioNTech’s updated vaccine is a 30-microgram dose authorized for people 12 and older. Moderna’s updated vaccine is a 50-microgram dose authorized for people 18 and older.

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October 22, 2022
Washington Post: Some documents seized at Mar-a-Lago contained sensitive secrets about Iran and China | CNN Politics

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Documents containing highly sensitive intelligence about Iran and China were among those recovered by the FBI from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

Disclosure of the documents’ contents could expose US intelligence-gathering methods, people familiar with the matter told the Post. At least one of the documents describes Iran’s missile program and others described highly sensitive intelligence involving China.

The Post’s sources characterized the documents as among the most sensitive recovered by the FBI since it began its investigation of the former President and his aides into the potential mishandling of classified information.

A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment to the Post on Friday morning.

The people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Post said many of the more sensitive documents taken to the resort are analysis papers that do not contain sources’ names, though they can still provide insight to foreign adversaries. Some of the documents are only available to the highest-level officials in the US government, such as the President or Cabinet members.

CNN has reported that since the FBI search in August, the US intelligence community has restarted work on both the classification review and the so-called damage assessment related to Trump’s storage of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago.

The damage assessment is a long-term analytic product that will study what the risk would be to US national security if the material stored at Mar-a-Lago were to be exposed. The classification review is designed to review each document to establish that its classification markings are current.

On Thursday, CNN reported that Trump’s legal team is weighing whether to allow federal agents to return to the former President’s Florida residence, and potentially conduct a supervised search, to satisfy the Justice Department’s demands that all sensitive government documents are returned, sources tell CNN.

In private discussions with Trump’s team as well as court filings, the Justice Department has made clear that it believes Trump failed to comply with a May subpoena ordering the return of all documents marked as classified and that more government records remain missing.

Some in Trump’s inner circle aren’t convinced there are any remaining government documents, after the FBI seized nearly 22,000 pages when they executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in August.

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October 22, 2022
Jan. 6 rioter who brought guns onto US Capitol grounds sentenced to 5 years in jail | CNN Politics

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A January 6 rioter who carried two loaded handguns onto US Capitol grounds during the insurrection was sentenced to 60 months in jail on Friday after pleading guilty to assaulting an officer that day and unlawfully carrying a firearm.

Mark Mazza, 56, entered the Capitol grounds armed with two handguns, one of which – a revolver called the “Judge” loaded with shotgun shells and hollow point bullets – he lost on the lower west terrace just outside the building.

After losing the gun, Mazza joined the mob in a tunnel leading inside the Capitol, a scene where police were brutally attacked for hours by rioters armed with bats, poles, chemical spray, and the officer’s own weapons.

During the attack, Mazza – still armed with his second pistol, according to prosecutors – took a baton from one officer and used it against him.

“This is our f***ing house!” Mazza yelled after attacking the officer, according to his plea agreement. “We own this house! We want our house! Get out of the citizens of the United States’ way!”

Dressed in a forest green prison jumpsuit, Mazza told Judge James Boasberg on Friday that he “got caught up in the mob mentality that I never anticipated.”

“I’m not quite the monster” the government “painted me as,” Mazza added, saying that he had never intended to fight police that day and left the tunnel as soon as he realized what he was doing was wrong. Mazza also claimed that he assisted other officers outside of the tunnel.

“The tale you have to tell is a familiar one,” Boasberg told Mazza, adding that “it was the decisions people like you made (to) assault the Capitol in what was a true insurrection.”

Boasberg added he was “alarmed” Mazza had brought two firearms with him and that, while Mazza claimed he was only armed because he heard Washington, DC, was the “murder capital,” the mall and Capitol building are not dangerous areas.

Before being sentenced, Mazza again asked for mercy, telling the judge he was still “hoping I’m going to see my parents again.”

Mazza will also have to pay a fine of $2,000 in restitution for damage done to the Capitol.

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October 21, 2022
January 6 committee announces it has sent a subpoena to former President Donald Trump | CNN Politics

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The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol announced on Friday that the panel has officially sent a subpoena to former President Donald Trump as it paints him as the central figure in the multi-step plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The committee issued the subpoena to try to compel Trump to sit for a deposition under oath and to provide documents. The panel is ordering Trump turn over documents by November 4 and “one or more days of deposition testimony beginning on or about November 14.” Unlike with previous subpoena announcements, the committee released the entire subpoena it sent to Trump along with the documents it is requesting.

While it is not clear if Trump will comply with the subpoena, the action serves as a way for the committee to set down a marker and make clear they want information directly from Trump as the panel investigates the attack.

“As demonstrated in our hearings, we have assembled overwhelming evidence, including from dozens of your former appointees and staff, that you personally orchestrated and oversaw a multi-part effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and to obstruct the peaceful transition of power,” the committee wrote in its letter.

The panel summarizes what it presented in its hearings to demonstrate why it believes Trump “personally orchestrated and oversaw” the plan.

Trump and his legal team have been discussing how to respond to the subpoena, a source familiar with the situation told CNN, stressing that no firm decisions had been made. Trump has tapped lawyers Harmeet Dhillon and Jim Trusty to take the lead on responding to the subpoena.

The former president posted a lengthy response criticizing the committee on Truth Social after members voted unanimously to subpoena him but did not say whether he would comply. Trump also recently shared a Fox story on Truth Social that claimed he “loves the idea of testifying.” But Trump could also fight the subpoena in court, and such a legal challenge would likely outlast the committee’s mandate.

In its subpoena, the committee specifically demands Trump turn over any communications, sent or received during the period of November 3, 2020, to January 20, 2021, with over a dozen of his close allies who have emerged as key players in the broader plan to overturn the 2020 election.

The committee also notes that it wants Trump to testify about his interactions with several individuals, including people on the same list, who invoked their Fifth Amendment rights when questioned by the committee about their dealings with the former President.

The House committee latest public hearing, where members voted to subpoena him, served as a closing argument to the American public ahead of the midterm election that Trump is at the center of the multifaceted plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“It is our obligation to seek Donald Trump’s testimony,” the panel’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said ahead of the subpoena vote during the hearing.

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice chairwoman of the committee, said during the hearing that seeking Trump’s testimony under oath remains “a key task” because several witnesses closest to the former President invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to their interactions with Trump.

“We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion” Cheney said, referring to Trump.

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October 21, 2022
Steve Bannon to be sentenced for contempt of Congress | CNN Politics

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Former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon appears in Manhattan Supreme Court on Oct. 4 to set a motion schedule and possible trial dates for a corruption case.
Curtis Means for DailyMail/Pool

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon will be sentenced on Friday after a federal jury found him guilty of contempt of Congress in July for defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

Federal prosecutors want Bannon be sentenced to six months in prison and be fined $200,000 — harsher than the minimum sentence of 30 days in jail, according to federal law. Bannon is seeking probation and is asking for the sentencing to be delayed pending his appeal.

Here are the key things to know about the case and conviction:

The verdict: After nearly two days of hearing evidence and witness testimony, the jury reached a unanimous verdict on the two contempt charges in less than three hours.

Bannon smiled as the verdict was read, looking back and forth between the courtroom deputy and the foreperson. Bannon’s team did not mount a defense during the trial, and he did not take the stand. Speaking to reporters after the conviction, his attorney David Schoen said they planned to appeal the verdict, calling it a “bullet-proof appeal.”

In a Justice Department news release touting the conviction, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves said that the “subpoena to Stephen Bannon was not an invitation that could be rejected or ignored.”

Why the conviction matters: It was a victory for the House Jan. 6 select committee as it continues to seek the cooperation of reluctant witnesses in its historic investigation. It was also a victory for the Justice Department, which is under intense scrutiny for its approach to matters related to the Jan. 6 attack.

Bannon is one of two uncooperative Jan. 6 committee witnesses to be charged so far by the Justice Department for contempt of Congress. Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro was indicted by a grand jury last month for not complying with a committee subpoena and has pleaded not guilty.

Why the committee wanted Bannon’s cooperation: In demanding his cooperation, the committee pointed to Bannon’s contacts with Trump in the lead-up to the Capitol assault, his presence in the so-called war room of Trump allies at the Willard Hotel in Washington the day before the riot, and a prediction he made on his podcast before the riot that “all hell” was going to “break loose.”

The role of executive privilege in the case: When the House committee was demanding his cooperation, Bannon’s lawyer claimed that Trump’s stated assertions of executive privilege prevented Bannon from testifying or producing arguments — an argument the committee roundly rejected. Lawmakers noted that Bannon had for years not been a government official and pointed to their interest in topic areas not involving conversations with Trump.

At the trial, however, Bannon’s arguments about executive privilege were not a central focus — even as his lawyers found ways to bring attention to the issue. They did so in the face of rulings from the judge deeming it largely irrelevant, under appellate precedent, to the elements of the contempt crime.

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October 21, 2022
Covid-19 vaccines will be on the 2023 vaccine schedule, but that doesn’t mean they’re required in schools | CNN

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CNN
—

Covid-19 vaccines will be part of recommended immunization schedules in 2023 for both children and adults, after a unanimous vote by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

That doesn’t make the vaccines mandatory for anyone, a point that was emphasized in a discussion before Thursday’s vote. The board members addressed concerns from the public that adding Covid-19 vaccinations to the schedule would force schools to require the shots.

“We recognize that there is concern around this, but moving Covid-19 to the recommended immunization schedule does not impact what vaccines are required for school entrance, if any,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, a committee member and director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Indeed, there are vaccines that are on the schedule right now that are not required for school attendance in many jurisdictions, such as seasonal influenza. Local control matters, and we honor that. The decision around school entrance for vaccines rests where it did before, which is with the state level, the county level and at the municipal level, if it exists at all. They are the arbiters of what vaccines are required, if any, for school entry. This discussion does not change that.”

In fact, Covid-19 vaccines are explicitly banned from being included in school mandates in at least 20 states. Only California and the District of Columbia have announced that Covid-19 shots will be among mandated vaccinations for students, but those mandates were not implemented for this school year.

It’s been nearly a year since eligibility for the Covid-19 vaccine was expanded to include everyone in the US 5 and older, but coverage among children still lags behind that of adults. Even as these vaccines and the related mandates have become highly politicized over the course of the pandemic, experts say vaccine hesitancy among parents isn’t new.

Although the Covid-19 shot will not become mandatory for school, all 50 states do have laws requiring specific vaccines for students – most of which include shots for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTaP) and varicella.

Uptake for these vaccines, mandated by schools long before Covid-19, fell during the pandemic.

In the 2020-21 school year, vaccination coverage for kindergarteners fell to less than 94% – dropping below the overall target of 95% that was set as an objective by the US Department of Health and Human Services in the Healthy People project for the first time in six years.

A CNN analysis of the latest CDC data suggests that students in states with stricter school vaccine requirements are more likely to have their shots.

All school immunization laws grant exemptions to children for specific medical reasons. But 44 states and Washington, DC, also grant religious exemptions, and 15 states allow philosophical or moral exemptions for children, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

According to the CNN analysis, states that were stricter with exemptions were much more likely to still meet the 95% coverage target. In the 2020-21 school year, an average of about 96% of kindergarten students had their MMR vaccine in states that allowed only medical exemptions, compared with 92% of students in states that also allowed philosophical or moral exemptions.

The full effect of the pandemic on children’s routine vaccination rates isn’t clear: It will be another few months before the CDC shares national data for compliance rates for mandatory vaccinations in the 2021-22 school year, and schools are in the midst of outreach and programming to ensure that as many students as possible will continue through the 2022-23 school year up to date on their vaccines.

Correcting the drop in vaccination coverage in students will probably depend more on better access to care, information and outreach – and school vaccine mandates can help.

With many people who are hesitant, it’s “because of something they’ve heard or something they’ve read,” said Dr. Jesse Hackell, a pediatrician who co-authored a clinical report about countering vaccine hesitancy in 2016. “Most people [who are hesitant] have a very free-floating worry about vaccines. It’s not specific in most cases.”

A small share of parents – about 2% or 3% – are adamantly opposed to vaccines, and that rate has stayed mostly consistent over the years, said Hackell, who is also chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine.

Overall vaccination coverage fell among kindergarteners in the 2020-21 school year, but the share of students who had an exemption also declined from 2.5% to 2.1%, according to CDC data. The rate has changed by less than 1 percentage point over the past 10 years.

About 3% of kindergarteners in the US – about 120,000 students – were considered to be out of compliance with mandatory vaccines in the 2020-21 school year.

“Mandates may not do anything to those people who would pull their kids out of public school,” Hackell said. “But the vast majority of parents are not opposed. They’re hesitant, or they’re uncertain. And when there’s pressure to do it for another reason, such as getting your kid into school, they come around.”

Responsibility for enforcing vaccine mandates falls to the education system, and practices vary by state. Some students are ultimately turned away because they aren’t up to date, but most states offer provisional enrollment periods that allow kids to stay in school if they are in progress with at least one shot in a series or evidence of an upcoming appointment.

According to the CDC, “school officials may prefer to keep students in school where they have access to education, safe supervision, nutrition, and social services while working with parents or guardians to get children vaccinated.”

And many states do their best to help students stay up to date on their immunizations, with vaccination drives and direct followup with parents.

“I think that the drop in the past year or two is partly pandemic-related,” Hackell said. “What we’re seeing, I think, is a little bit of a disparity between kids who have a medical home and have a private [doctor] versus kids who get their immunizations from a public source” like a school clinic.

Mississippi is an impressive example of finding ways to keep child vaccination rates high, Hackell says. Public schools are the only option for many in the state, where poverty rates are higher than anywhere else in the US.

Despite the large public need and additional resource struggles that the pandemic brought, 99% of kindergarteners in Mississippi met required vaccination coverage in the 2020-21 school year – better than any other state, according to the CDC.

“They’ve done a tremendous job at that,” Hackell said, and it demonstrates the power of mandates. Mississippi is strict with exemptions – one of just six states allowing medical reasons only – and just 0.1% of kindergarteners were exempt in the 2020-21 school year.

Hackell says he would be most concerned if he sees a sustained drop in vaccination rates for highly transmissible diseases, especially measles and polio. And he’s worried about pockets of low vaccination rates in certain communities.

Schools are public spaces with a level of control, and 95% vaccination coverage is a goal with intent.

“We know it’s never going to be 100% because there are some people who cannot medically be vaccinated. But if you have 95%, that means in any given school classroom of 30 kids, there might be one unvaccinated kid. And so if that child brings a case of something into the class, there’s nobody else to give it to,” he said. “It stops there with one case.”

And when it comes to adding Covid-19 vaccines to the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule, the focus is still on public health – not on adding another requirement.

“I’ve had parents who come in my office, and I say, ‘What are you here for?’ And they say, ‘Well, we’re here for vaccines so that our kids can go to school.’ And I’ve said, ‘OK, I understand that, but really I’m not vaccinating so you can go to school, I’m vaccinating because I want to prevent serious disease and death in your kids,’ ” Dr. Matthew Daley, an ACIP member and senior investigator with the Institute for Health Research at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, said at Thursday’s advisory meeting.

“And the fact that there’s a school immunization requirement helps because it brought you into the office, but that’s not my goal. My goal is to prevent serious disease.”

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October 20, 2022
Biden’s quiet campaign season brings him back to familiar territory in Pennsylvania | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

When President Joe Biden visited Pennsylvania on Thursday, he touted infrastructure investments that helped rebuild a collapsed bridge and raised campaign cash away from cameras with the state’s Democratic Senate candidate.

Where he didn’t appear was a campaign rally stage.

Three weeks before November’s elections, Biden’s visit to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia neatly demonstrated a political strategy focused on promoting his agenda and talking with donors rather than headlining stump speeches alongside vulnerable Democrats.

He has been a frequent visitor to Pennsylvania, where Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman holds a narrow lead in his race against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz in the US Senate race. Trading his trademark sweatshirt and basketball shorts for a dark suit and tie, Fetterman greeted Biden at the airport alongside his wife.

“You’re gonna win!” Biden said as he shook the candidate’s hand.

Biden has visited the commonwealth nine times this year, including Thursday’s visit, and 18 times since he became president.

“I’m a proud Delawarean, but Pennsylvania’s my native state. It’s in my heart. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to be part of rebuilding this beautiful state,” Biden said. “My Grandfather Finnegan from Scranton would really be proud of me now.”

Still, despite the fondness, Biden’s visit was relatively low-key for a presidential stop weeks ahead of a critical midterm contest. He did not hold a rollicking campaign rally, opting for a smaller profile event with several dozen officials and workers from the bridge project.

Biden’s approach borne out of political reality: While many of Biden’s accomplishments have been well-received by voters – and, in some cases, embraced by Republicans who voted against them – Biden himself remains unpopular and some Democrats continue to keep their distance as the midterm contests grow near.

Departing the White House on Thursday, Biden bristled when asked why more Democrats weren’t joining him for political events.

“That’s not true,” Biden said. “There have been 15. Count, kid, count.”

Later, as he and Fetterman dropped by a Primanti Bros. sandwich shop near Pittsburgh, he told reporters he’d been requested to visit Nevada and Georgia, two states with tight Senate races.

“We’re trying to work it out now,” he said. “I don’t know where I’m going. I’ve got about 16, 18 requests around the country.”

Over the past weeks, Biden has worked to expand his list of achievements using executive power, including pardoning low-level marijuana offenders, canceling some student loan debt, reducing the cost of hearing aids and declaring a World War II training site a national monument.

This week alone, he promised to sign a bill enshrining abortion rights into law if Democrats gain seats, outlined billions of dollars to invest in domestic battery manufacturing and released another 15 million barrels of oil from the nation’s strategic reserves as he works to bring down gas prices.

Biden denied the oil announcement was politically motivated.

“I’ve been doing this for how long now? It’s not politically motivated at all,” he said. “It’s motivated to make sure that I continue to push on what I’ve been pushing on.”

Yet the timing of the release nonetheless came as Biden’s party looks with growing concern at the prospect of losing its congressional majorities next year, and the White House searches for steps to appeal to Americans.

In Pittsburgh, the President spoke at the Fern Hollow Bridge, a four-lane steel span that collapsed into a snowy ravine in January. Biden happened to be visiting the city that day to speak about infrastructure, and the presidential motorcade made a detour to view the damage.

“A complete catastrophe was avoided but it never should have come to this,” Biden said on Thursday. The President noted how quickly the bridge was bring rebuilt and said that while it wasn’t funded by his bipartisan infrastructure law, it was completely funded by the federal government.

Biden said that “God willing” the bridge will be completely open in December, telling the audience: “I’m coming back to walk over this sucker.”

Biden was joined by a slew of top Pennsylvania elected officials, most notably Fetterman, who is locked in one of the most closely watched midterm contests. Biden is also scheduled to join Fetterman later on Thursday for a fundraiser in Philadelphia.

While the bridge’s reconstruction wasn’t directly funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law, a White House official said funding from the law allowed Pennsylvania’s Transportation Department “to move funds quickly to support this project, without having to slow down or interfere with other projects in the pipeline.”

The rebuilding was funded through $25.3 million in federal funding appropriated to Pennsylvania in Fiscal Year 2021, the White House official said.

The law allocated $40 billion toward bridge projects over five years. Since last October, repairs or replacements have begun on more than 2,400 bridges through funding from the infrastructure law, according to the White House.

That measure has emerged as a central talking point for Biden during this year’s midterms. Candidates who might think twice about holding a political rally with Biden have seemed eager to appear alongside him at official events heralding improvements on rail lines, airport terminals or bridges. The President has hammered Republicans who voted against the bill but have nonetheless taken credit for projects made possible by the $1.2 trillion law.

In planning Biden’s recent travel, including political events and official White House duties, his advisers have taken into account the sensitive political reality that some Democratic candidates in tough races would prefer he not visit their district or state in the final stretch to the midterms.

But one Democratic official familiar with the White House’s thinking said an important overarching dynamic is that even the candidates who would rather not appear alongside Biden are still eager to run on his legislative accomplishments, describing it as a “halfsies” situation.

“There are some campaigns that don’t want him to physically campaign in his state,” the official said. “But – people are running on his agenda.”

Given the string of legislative victories that Biden’s party scored in the first half of the Biden administration – including the bipartisan infrastructure bill – even the events that are technically billed official White House business are effectively no different from political events these days, that official noted.

“Every event is political now,” they said.

Biden remains eager to visit key battlegrounds, according to his aides. Earlier this year, he voiced some frustration that more Democrats weren’t lining up to use him on the campaign trail.

Now, Biden has settled into a midterm push that has him traveling mostly to states he won in 2020 while avoiding certain marquee races where his presence could be a drag on Democratic candidates.

Other Democrats appear more welcome. Former President Barack Obama will hold campaign rallies for Democrats in Atlanta, Detroit and Milwaukee in the days before the elections. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont democratic socialist, will visit battleground states on a tour targeted to younger voters.

The White House is working closely with the Senate and House campaign committees and will send the President where he could be helpful, aides said, and will avoid traveling to areas where nationalizing the race would be seen as a detriment to candidates.

The logistics of presidential travel also complicate some travel, aides said, because campaigns must help foot the expensive costs of Air Force One.

Still, at similar stages in their terms, Obama and former President Donald Trump were engaging in more traditional campaign-style events for candidates ahead of midterm elections, despite questions about dragging down candidates.

Both saw their party lose unified control of Congress in their first midterm elections, a historical precedent Biden hopes to break – even as he avoids big political events.

The White House has defended Biden’s travel plans, insisting he is traveling “nonstop” and intends to visit states “where he is needed” in the run-up to the vote.

Still, in the weeks ahead of the midterms, Biden continues to spend most weekends at his homes in Delaware, including last weekend in Wilmington and this weekend in Rehoboth Beach.

On Friday, he’ll stop at Delaware State University to tout his efforts at student debt forgiveness, before heading to his beach house. This week, the debt relief program Biden announced earlier this year went online, with millions applying to have some or all of their loans forgiven.

In one of his previous trips to campaign in Pennsylvania, on Labor Day, Biden appeared before a small crowd with Fetterman at a union picnic in Pittsburgh. When the two men emerged from the union hall together, Fetterman raised his arms and pumped his fists.

But when Fetterman spoke ahead of Biden, he used the opportunity to lambast his Republican opponent for owning multiple homes – without mentioning the President at all.

During a 15-minute private meeting beforehand, Fetterman pushed Biden to begin the process of rescheduling marijuana, one of his top issues.

A few weeks later, the White House said Biden would issue pardons for federal simple marijuana possession offenses and task members of his administration to “expeditiously” review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law, the first step toward potentially easing a federal classification that currently places marijuana in the same category as heroin and LSD.

Biden himself has only mentioned the decision in passing. But Fetterman hailed the move and was quick to cite his conversation with Biden after the White House made the announcement.

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October 20, 2022
The Fed isn’t about to back down from its inflation fight | CNN Business
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A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.

London
CNN Business
—

Twelve days from now, the Federal Reserve will meet again, and expectations for the central bank’s next moves are firming up. The consensus among investors: Persistently hot inflation means the Fed will need to continue with its string of aggressive interest rate hikes, which is unprecedented in the modern era.

What’s happening: Markets see a 99% probability that rates will rise by another three-quarters of a percentage point, reaching a range of 3.75% to 4%.

A hike of that magnitude is now “a given,” Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist for LPL Financial, told clients on Wednesday. “Concern is now focused on December, and whether the Fed is prepared to transition to smaller rate hikes.”

That’s up from a 60% probability one month ago. So what changed?

Inflation, mainly. The US Consumer Price Index rose 8.2% in the year to September after rising 8.3% annually in August. While CPI peaked at 9.1% in June, that reading was still uncomfortably elevated and higher than economists had expected.

The 6.6% annual uptick in shelter costs was of particular concern. It takes longer for housing expenses to come back down than some other categories, since renters tend to sign leases for 12-month periods. The monthly rise in core services costs (excluding energy) was the largest gain in three decades.

The data underscored the need for the Federal Reserve to stay tough — while a strong jobs report for September will deliver confidence the central bank can do so without causing undue harm to the US economy.

Fed officials have said as much. In an interview with Reuters on Friday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said inflation had become “pernicious,” which means that “frontloading” larger rate hikes is logical.

The market impact: The S&P 500 kicked off the week with a 3.8% rally before dropping 0.7% on Wednesday. It’s still plodding along in a bear market, about 23% below its January peak. So long as the Fed signals its intention to keep the pressure on, boosting the odds of a US recession, volatility is expected to persist.

Even relatively solid corporate earnings may not be sufficient to change the direction.

“So far, the results are decent, but they’re being compared to consensus estimates that have been persistently lowered since early summer,” noted strategists at Charles Schwab.

Tesla

(TSLA) posted a solid quarter of earnings and record revenue, but now says it will likely fall short of its target for a 50% growth in the number of cars it sells this year.

Quick rewind: As recently as July, the company said it was still aiming for a target of 50% growth from the 936,000 cars it delivered in 2021.

But with two quarters of disappointing deliveries caused by supply chain issues and Covid-related shutdowns in China, that goal has looked increasingly out of reach, my CNN Business colleague Chris Isidore reports.

CEO Elon Musk said that the electric carmaker is not struggling with demand.

“We expect to sell every car that we make, for as far in the future as we can see,” he said on a call with analysts on Wednesday.

Instead, the company said it would “just” miss its target due to complications with delivery of cars from its factories to customers at the end of the year.

Shares are down 5% in premarket trading on Thursday. They’ve dropped 37% year-to-date, compared to a 22.5% fall in the S&P 500.

“This quarter was not roses and rainbows,” said Dan Ives, tech analyst for Wedbush Securities. “Competition is increasing. There are some logistical challenges.”

America’s business leaders are becoming more pessimistic. The Conference Board recently reported a slide in its CEO confidence index, which it said had hit levels not seen “since the depths of the Great Recession.”

Of the 136 CEOs who were surveyed, 98% said they were preparing for a US recession over the next 12 to 18 months — and 99% said they were bracing for a recession in Europe.

Notably, the business community is not being quiet about its concerns.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tweeted Tuesday that “the probabilities in this economy tell you to batten down the hatches.”

He was responding to a clip of an interview with Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, who told CNBC that “it’s a time to be cautious.”

“You have to expect that there’s more volatility on the horizon now,” Solomon said. “That doesn’t mean for sure that we have a really difficult economic scenario. But on the distribution of outcomes, there’s a good chance that we have a recession in the United States.”

American Airlines

(AAL), AT&T

(T), Dow, Nucor

(NUE) and Quest Diagnostics

(DGX) report results before US markets open. CSX

(CSX), Snap

(SNAP) and Whirlpool

(WHR) follow after the close.

Also today:
Initial US jobless claims for last week post at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Existing home sales for September follow at 10 a.m. ET.
Coming tomorrow: Earnings from American Express and Verizon.
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October 20, 2022
‘People are just hitting their heads against the wall’: Democrats fret another Johnson win | CNN Politics

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Rhinelander, Wisconsin
CNN
—

Tom Nelson can hardly believe it.

In just a matter of two months, Democrats went from expecting to knock off the unpopular GOP incumbent, US Sen. Ron Johnson, to seeing their party’s nominee, Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, scrambling to catch up.

Already, the finger pointing has begun.

“The national party did him a grave disservice by not closing the gap, by not being a stopgap measure in August and September to hit Johnson hard on good, effective negative ads, at the same time building up Mandela,” Nelson, a local county executive from central Wisconsin and former Senate Democratic candidate, told CNN. “The national party has totally failed us, and so it’s gonna come down to Wisconsin Democrats.”

Of possibly seeing Johnson, 67, win a third Senate race, Nelson said, “People are just hitting their heads against the wall. How do we let this happen?”

Over the summer, Barnes’ top Democratic opponents dropped out, clearing the way for him to win the primary and fully shift to attacking Johnson. Yet Barnes’ slim lead collapsed in September, when Republicans spent nearly $6 million more than Democrats on the air slamming Barnes primarily on crime. In August, a Marquette Law School poll of likely voters showed Barnes leading Johnson 52-45. By early October, those numbers reversed.

What’s happening in Wisconsin resembles Democratic struggles across the country. They’ve seen their leads evaporate in key House and Senate races as outside money floods in to hammer Democrats over crime and inflation, while they’ve tried to rail against Republicans over their opposition to abortion rights. In several key battleground states – Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida – GOP candidates and groups spent roughly $25 million more than their Democratic counterparts on air in September alone, according to data from AdImpact, which tracks ad spending.

In states like Wisconsin, the outside money has forced Barnes to go on defense, and air several ads accusing Johnson of lying in the attack ads.

Many of his supporters believe that is not enough.

“Oh, I’m terrified,” said Mary Hildebrand, a voter here in this small northern Wisconsin town. “His campaign seems to be faltering,” she said of Barnes.

In an interview, Barnes dismissed the polls showing him down in the race. Democrats are heartened that the same Marquette pollster tested a larger universe of voters – registered voters – and found the race there essentially a dead heat.

“Polls go up, polls go down,” Barnes, 35, told CNN. “The reality is we’re showing up, talking to everybody.”

“All they can do is try to distort my record and try to make people live in fear,” he added, rejecting the notion that he was caught flat-footed. “But that’s not what this is about. It’s about making sure that people know better is possible.”

Democrats have already reserved $2 million more in ads than Republicans in the final three weeks of the campaign, according to AdImpact. And officials with Democratic outside groups – namely the Senate Majority PAC and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee – reject the criticism that their ad campaigns have been ineffective.

“Wisconsin is one of the top Senate battlegrounds because voters in the state are tired of Ron Johnson looking out for himself at their expense,” said Amanda Sherman Baity, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has ramped up its spending since the August 9 primary and has spent over $4.8 million in the race so far, including a $1 million ad buy coordinated with the Barnes campaign.

Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and its affiliated group have been on the air since May, having dropped $22 million in the state, with $6.2 million planned in the final three weeks.

“We have just under three weeks left to defeat Johnson and defend our Democratic Senate majority—that’s what we’re focusing on, and we strongly encourage our fellow Democrats to do the same,” said Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Veronica Yoo.

On the air, Republicans have had a near singular focus, hammering Barnes for violent crime and for previously advocating for shifting police funding to other social services in the community. Outside groups like Wisconsin Truth PAC and the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, have said he supports “defunding” the police, a slogan he rejects.

Of the GOP attacks, Marilyn Norden, a voter in northern Wisconsin, said: “They seem to be working. Yes, I’m very concerned.”

After a speech at a packed diner here in Oneida County, Barnes defended himself, telling reporters that the issue is personal for him since he’s lost friends to gun violence. He said he wants “fully funded” schools and “good-paying jobs,” and to prevent “dangerous weapons” from getting in the hands of criminals. He said that Johnson “is only playing politics with our safety.”

“Nobody is asking about interviews from six years ago, people are asking why Ron Johnson continues to leave them behind,” he told CNN when asked about recent reports he spoke out against police brutality on RT, a Kremlin-backed network, in 2015 and 2016.

Barnes is attempting to be the first Black person to become a US senator from Wisconsin, and his supporters see a racial component to the attacks.

“These ads have gone from crime ads to just blatant racism,” Nelson said. “This is something that Wisconsin has never seen before.”

Barnes’ attacks have mostly focused on the accusations that Johnson enriched himself while in office, an accusation the GOP senator rejects, and over his support for banning abortion.

Asked why he hasn’t focused on other issues during his paid media campaign – namely Johnson’s downplaying of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, and sowing doubt over the Covid-19 vaccine – Barnes said there was plenty of controversy to choose from.

“We actually have focused on January 6th to an extent, but the reality is there are many different fronts to address Ron Johnson’s failures,” Barnes told CNN. “And it’s important for us to highlight where Ron Johnson has failed people right at home and at the dinner table.”

Johnson has remained behind closed doors this week. His campaign refused to disclose his campaign schedule this week or make him available for an interview. But he has appeared on Fox this week, including pleading for donations during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show Tuesday night. The Barnes and Johnson campaigns have each spent over $23 million so far on the race, but the lieutenant governor outraised the senator last quarter, $19.5 million to $11.6 million.

“I think so many people think this is won,” Johnson said to Hannity. “My fundraising is weaker. I rely on your audience.”

There are signs that Democrats are broadening their attacks. The Senate Majority PAC and End Citizens United launched Wednesday a new ad featuring a retired Madison police officer calling out Johnson for describing the January 6 attack on the Capitol as largely a “peaceful protest.” On Tuesday, SMP aired another ad attacking Johnson on China, for working to sweeten a tax break for companies connected to his donors and himself, and for his anti-abortion rights position.

At a speech here on Tuesday, Barnes attacked Johnson for not supporting federal legislation to codify same-sex marriage, for at one point facilitating an effort to contest the 2020 election and for later downplaying the January 6 riot.

Johnson’s supporters in the ultimate swing state have twice sent him to the Senate, drawn to his brash attitude, businessman background and conservative values. The Wisconsin Republican has also benefited from running in election cycles when the political environment favored his party, first in the 2010 tea party wave, then in 2016 as Donald Trump stunned the world and narrowly took Wisconsin on his way to the White House, and now in 2022, when inflation and a deteriorating economy threatens Democrats’ control of Congress.

Andy Loduha, Republican party chairman here in Oneida County, said Barnes doesn’t understand the economic issues that have come to the forefront of the race.

“I think abortion is another example of how the Democrats don’t really have anything to run on,” said Loduha. “They’re running on emotional issues like abortion, but they don’t want to try to touch inflation, crime, drugs.”

Wisconsin Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki is frustrated with the Democratic bedwetting, even though he said recognized the “tough national political environment.”

“I just think there’s too many Democrats wringing their hands and thinking this thing is like gone or on its way to being gone,” Zepecki said. “Guys, run through the tape. You’re right there, despite the f***ing onslaught that Barnes had to weather … And he’s still right there.”

Asked if she believed Barnes would win, Wisconsin Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, who ran against Barnes before dropping out, told CNN, “If there’s one thing we know about Wisconsin, it’s we live by close elections, and we never press our luck.”

To get there, Barnes will be campaigning next week in Milwaukee with former President Barack Obama, in a bid to energize voters. But there are no plans yet to campaign with the current President, Joe Biden, whose unpopularity remains a liability here.

Asked if Biden should run for reelection, Barnes told CNN: “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. We still gotta get through November 8, 2022.”

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October 19, 2022
EXCLUSIVE: Trump considers allowing federal investigators to search Mar-a-Lago again | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

Donald Trump’s legal team is weighing whether to allow federal agents to return to the former President’s Florida residence, and potentially conduct a supervised search, to satisfy the Justice Department’s demands that all sensitive government documents are returned, sources tell CNN.

In private discussions with Trump’s team as well as court filings, the Justice Department has made clear that it believes Trump failed to comply with a May subpoena ordering the return of all documents marked as classified and that more government records remain missing.

Some in Trump’s inner circle aren’t convinced there are any remaining government documents, after the FBI seized nearly 22,000 pages when they executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in August.

The possibility of allowing federal officials to return to Trump’s property – likely with Trump’s own lawyers present – is just one option on the table as the Trump team grapples with how best to protect the former President from legal jeopardy. No firm decisions have been made while sources familiar with the situation say Trump’s legal team is continuing to weigh how accommodating or adversarial they should be toward the Justice Department.

“It’s a risk to invite a DOJ lawyer to lunch let alone back to Mar-a-Lago,” said a person close to Trump.

In the throes of multiple legal battles and hoping to alleviate some of the pressure he is facing, Trump has recently signaled to aides and allies that he is open to a less adversarial approach toward the Justice Department – one that might swiftly resolve the records issue after weeks of contentious court proceedings, according to people familiar with the situation.

The approach comes even as Trump continues to indulge legal theories that the records he took with him at the end of his presidency are his personal property, an argument his team is making in court and that he first heard from conservative judicial activist Tom Fitton.

“The general belief in Trump World is that this is much ado about nothing and the sooner we get past it the better,” said a person close to Trump, adding that the former President has told allies he “wants to move on.”

Trump’s compliance with the grand jury subpoena potentially poses a distinct legal risk amid legal wrangling over whether the former President mishandled classified documents he retained after leaving the White House. In earlier court filings, prosecutors claimed that Trump’s team had not fully complied with a subpoena served in May and “efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”

At least some of the battle to secure their return has been playing out behind the scenes in a court proceeding that is under seal, according to people familiar with the situation. One potential resolution could involve the Justice Department asking a judge to issue an order compelling the Trump team to work with DOJ to arrange for another search.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Sources close to Trump said that the former President has become more amenable to the cooperative approach being advocated by some of his more experienced lawyers, including former Florida Solicitor General Chris Kise, who joined his legal team following the FBI search in August. Kise had faced headwinds from Trump and some of his more aggressive advisers.

Trump has favored a more pugilistic approach, even accusing federal investigators at one point of planting evidence during their search at Mar-a-Lago – a claim he has never substantiated in court.

As the midterm election draws closer and Trump grapples with his next political move, he and allies are eager for some relief from his web of legal troubles.

“He is worn down,” one source close to the former President said. “Getting one thing off his plate” would help him move forward.

A spokesperson for Trump declined to comment.

Among the complicating factors has been Trump’s personal views on the document dispute. He initially claimed that his team had been fully cooperative with investigators and insisted on social media “ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS ASK,” for documents to be returned. Trump has since argued, on social media and in court filings, that the Mar-a-Lago documents are his property. “I want my documents back!” the former President said in early October.

As recently as last Thursday, Trump complained to donors at a roundtable at Mar-a-Lago that federal investigators “got to see everything” when they searched his residence and were conducting a “complete sham” investigation, according to a person familiar with his comments.

Trump has continued to complain to advisers and allies that he is being treated unfairly and different than past presidents, multiple sources said.

Some Trump allies also worry that the legal jeopardy lawyers currently face could grow worse the longer the records issue drags on.

Trump lawyer Christina Bobb had to hire her own lawyer after signing an attestation in June which declared that Trump’s team had conducted a “diligent search” to comply with the Justice Department’s subpoena and returned all documents with classified markings. Bobb, who was Trump’s custodian of records at the time, recently told federal investigators in a voluntary interview that the attestation had been drafted by another Trump lawyer, Evan Corcoran, for her to sign. A source with knowledge of the event said Bobb was rushed to Mar-a-Lago to sign the attestation, but she insisted on first adding a line that her knowledge was “based upon the information that has been provided” to her.

Two months later, the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, recovering thousands of additional government documents, including more than 100 with classified markings.

Corcoran has insisted to colleagues that he does not believe he faces any legal risk and has not hired a lawyer, according to sources familiar with his situation.

A third Trump lawyer, Boris Epshteyn, had his cellphone seized by the FBI last month and has testified in front of a Georgia grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

In her conversation with federal investigators, Bobb also discussed Epshteyn, said a source briefed on the matter.

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October 19, 2022
US government seeks court injunctions against six e-cigarette manufacturers as FDA steps up enforcement | CNN

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The US Department of Justice took legal action against six e-cigarette manufacturers Tuesday, seeking permanent injunctions against the manufacturers on behalf of the US Food and Drug Administration. The flurry of complaints marked the first time the FDA has taken this step against e-cigarette manufacturers to enforce its premarket review requirements for new tobacco products.

The six manufacturers failed to submit the necessary premarket applications for their e-cigarette products “and have continued to illegally manufacture, sell, and distribute their products, despite previous warning from the FDA that they were in violation of the law,” the FDA said in a statement.

“Today’s enforcement actions represent a significant step for the FDA in preventing tobacco product manufacturers from violating the law,” said Brian King, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. “We will not stand by as manufacturers repeatedly break the law, especially after being afforded multiple opportunities to comply.”

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires that companies submit applications to the FDA and get them approved before manufacturing, selling or distributing new tobacco products. Companies that had products on the market before this provision took effect still had to submit applications.

The FDA says it issued nearly 300 warning letters between January 2021 and September 9, 2022, for failure to submit applications, and most of those companies have removed their products from the market. This month, the agency sent a warning letter to the maker of Puff Bar products, which are especially popular among young people, for operating without a marketing authorization order. In June, the agency ordered e-cigarette giant Juul Labs to remove its products from the market, but a court blocked that ban, so those products are still available.

Advocates have criticized the FDA as too slow to act on a majority of the premarket applications. In May, the agency announced that it would not finish reviewing all the premarket applications from e-cigarette companies until June 2023, nearly two years past its court-ordered deadline to make a decision about those products.

Erika Sward, assistant vice president for national advocacy for the American Lung Association, said Tuesday’s actions send “a very important message to manufacturers that that they need to follow the law.”

“This is a monumental first step forward for FDA and DOJ, and we are really encouraged by this action,” she said. “I’m really pleased that this is the kind of step forward. This is what FDA needed to do from the beginning, and we’re very pleased to see this.”

Sward credited King, who was named director of the Center for Tobacco Products in July, with providing the impetus for the increased actions.

“We are very hopeful that this indicates that FDA and DOJ will take more of these steps against other recalcitrant manufacturers,” she said. “And we also very much hope the manufacturers get the message that under Dr. King’s leadership, this is a different Center for Tobacco Products.”

The complaints were brought against manufacturers that the FDA alleges continued to make and distribute nicotine products even after they were warned that they were in violation of the law. According to the court filings, the six manufacturers all received warning letters from the FDA informing them that they were manufacturing tobacco products that lacked the required approval.

Several of the defendants also participated in teleconferences with the FDA after receiving the warning letters, the government said. Some of the manufacturers allegedly told the agency that they would cease manufacturing and distributing the nicotine products in question, but follow-up inspections showed that the products were still being manufactured and sold, according to the complaints.

“These cases are an important step in stopping the illegal sale of unauthorized electronic nicotine delivery system products,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, who leads the DOJ’s Civil Division, said in a statement. “The Department of Justice will continue to work closely with FDA to stop the distribution of illegal, unauthorized tobacco products.”

The six companies named in Tuesday’s court filings are Morin Enterprises Inc., doing business as E-Cig Crib, in Minnesota; Soul Vapor LLC in West Virginia; Super Vape’z LLC in Washington; Vapor Craft LLC in Georgia; Lucky’s Convenience & Tobacco LLC, doing business as Lucky’s Vape & Smoke Shop, in Kansas; and Seditious Vapours LLC, doing business as Butt Out, in Arizona. The companies have not yet responded to CNN’s requests for comment.

“Mr. King seems delighted to kick in the doors of small businesses but turns a blind eye to the millions of Americans who rely on nicotine vaping to quit cigarettes,” Amanda Wheeler, president of the American Vapor Manufacturers Association, said in a statement. “The ongoing result is countless people being driven back to smoking.”

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October 18, 2022
French company to pay nearly $778 million as part of plea deal to US charge of providing support to ISIS | CNN Politics

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A French cement company admitted Tuesday to making millions of dollars of payments that supported ISIS and another terrorist organization as part of an effort to maintain its operations in Syria as the civil war escalated.

The company, Lafarge SA, is paying a financial penalty of nearly $778 million and pleaded guilty to a US federal count of conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and another terrorist organization as part of a deal with the US Justice Department.

It is an unprecedented corporate prosecution under the material support of terrorism law, according to the Justice Department. The company pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday.

The cement company entered a revenue sharing scheming with ISIS and the al-Nusrah Front that produced millions for the terrorist groups, according to court filings from the plea deal the Justice Department reached with Lafarge.

“Lafarge made a deal with the devil,” US Attorney Breon Peace, of the Eastern District of New York, said at a press conference after the court proceedings.

Lafarge and Lafarge Cement Syria – a dormant subsidiary that is also a defendant in the prosecution – entered the conspiracy with “the explicit purpose of incentivizing ISIS to act in a manner that would promote LAFARGE’s and LCS’s security and economic interests,” court documents said.

Payments that the companies made through intermediaries to the terrorist groups amounted to approximately $5.92 million. When Lafarge evacuated the cement plant in 2014, ISIS took over the plant and sold the cement it had produced for roughly $3.2 million, according to the Justice Department.

“The defendants paid millions of dollars to ISIS, a terrorist group that otherwise operated on a shoestring budget – millions of dollars that ISIS could use to recruit members, wage war against governments and conduct brutal terrorist attacks worldwide,” Breon said.

The court filings quote several emails and other documents from the company shedding light on the scheme, which revolved around a cement plant Lafarge was running in Syria.

Among the communications was an August 2013 email from one executive to two other executives, in which the executive said that, “It is clear that we have an issue with ISIS and al Nusra and we have asked our partner” – referring to an intermediary – “to work on it.”

A November 2013 agreement between ISIS and LSC, written on a document with ISIS letterhead, laid out a deal for ISIS to let trucks access the company’s cement factory for 400 Syrian pounds per truck, according to the new filings.

“Relatedly, an ISIS vehicle pass dated April 26, 2014, and bearing ISIS’s letterhead and stamp, allowed LCS employees ‘to pass through after the required work. This is after they have fulfilled their dues to us,’” the court submissions said.

A July 2014 email from one executive to two others referred to the revenue-sharing scheme as a “cake” to be shared: “We have to maintain the principle that we are ready to share the ‘cake,’ if there is a ‘cake,’” the email said, according to the new filings.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that the executives sought to conceal the scheme by using personal, rather than company, emails to communicate about it. The executives also falsified documents to suggest that the company had terminated its relationship with an intermediary who was working with ISIS, according to the new filings.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Tuesday that “corporate criminals” had “joined hands” with terrorists.

“In its pursuit of profits, Lafarge and its top executives not only broke the law, they helped finance a violent reign of terror that ISIS and al-Nusrah imposed on the people of Syria,” Monaco said.

The executives who participated in the scheme were located in France and countries in the Middle East, according to the DOJ’s investigation, and it did not involve employees of the company based in the United States. The conduct ended before the completion of Lafarge’s acquisition by Holcim, its current parent company, the court filings said.

“Lafarge SA and LCS have accepted responsibility for the actions of the individual executives involved, whose behavior was in flagrant violation of Lafarge’s Code of Conduct. We deeply regret that this conduct occurred and have worked with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve this matter,” the company said in a statement.

The company’s dealings with the terrorist group were the subject of an internal investigation several years ago. At the conclusion of that probe, the corporation said that employees of a legacy company were paying off intermediaries without regard to the identity of the groups involved in order to keep operations running and the plant safe as violence escalated in the region.

“[T]he combination of the war zone chaos and the ‘can-do’ approach to maintain operations in these circumstances may have caused those involved to seriously misjudge the situation and to neglect to focus sufficiently on the legal and reputational implications of their conduct,” Lafarge Holcim, as the company is now known, said in a public statement in 2017.

Magali Anderson, a top executive at Lafarge, pleaded guilty on behalf of the company.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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October 18, 2022
Four takeaways from Utah’s only Senate debate | CNN Politics

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Evan McMullin, the independent challenging Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, said in their only debate Monday night that Lee’s actions around the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol were “a betrayal of the American republic.”

Lee, meanwhile, said he accepted that President Joe Biden in 2020 had won the presidency in the “only election that matters – the election held by the Electoral College.” The senator defended his actions that day, pointing to his votes to certify states’ Electoral College results.

Their clash came on the day elections officials in Utah began mailing ballots to voters.

McMullin describes himself as conservative but has said he would caucus with neither party if he defeats Lee. He is attempting to unite a coalition of Democrats, independents and anti-Donald Trump Republicans – and he got an assist this spring when Utah Democrats opted to endorse him rather than field their own candidate. But in Utah, even that coalition might not be enough. Trump won 58% of the vote there in 2020.

McMullin’s entrance into politics came in an effort to serve as an antidote to Trump. He ran for president as an independent against Trump in 2016. He drew 22% of the vote in Utah, well behind Trump’s 46% and Hillary Clinton’s 27%. Among those who voted for McMullin in 2016 was Lee, who said at the time that it “was a protest vote.”

Here are four takeaways from their Monday night debate:

McMullin’s sharpest attacks on Lee came after a moderator raised the topic of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

“You were there to stand up for our Constitution. But when the barbarians were at the gate, you were happy to let them in,” McMullin said.

Lee pointed out that ultimately, he accepted the Electoral College vote.

“Yes, there were people who behaved very badly on that day. I was not one of them. I was one of the people who tried to dismantle that situation,” Lee said.

McMullin, meanwhile, said Lee only voted to accept states’ electoral votes after no other plan to keep Trump in office materialized.

“You voted to certify the election in the last moment,” McMullin said. “In the same way that someone knows that a plot that’s not quite working out ought to abandon it, that’s what you did.”

McMullin repeatedly cited text messages reported by CNN in April between Lee and Trump’s then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in which the two communicated about efforts to overturn Biden’s victory for weeks.

In early December 2020, Lee began texting Meadows about the idea that states could submit alternate slates of pro-Trump electors to Congress on January 6. Lee ultimately voted to certify states’ electoral votes.

McMullin said Lee was working “to keep a president who had been voted out of office, according to the will of the people, in power despite the will of the people.”

He pointed to Lee’s November 7, 2020, texts to Meadows asking him to help Sidney Powell – one of the most prominent attorneys fronting lawsuits that supported Trump and made accusations of widespread election fraud – get access to Trump.

He mocked the pocket Constitution that Lee carries, telling the senator that it is “not a prop for you to wave about and then when it’s convenient for your pursuit of power, to abandon without a thought. That’s what you’ve done with that.”

Lee shot back: “I disagree with everything my opponent just said, including the words ‘but,’ ‘and’ and ‘the.’ An information-free, truth-free statement – that’s something of a record.”

“There is absolutely nothing to the idea that I ever would have supported or ever did support a fake electors plot,” Lee said. “Nothing. Not a scintilla of evidence suggesting that. Yet you continue to suggest that with a cavalier, reckless disregard for the truth.”

In an effort to cast Lee as extreme, McMullin invoked Utah’s other GOP senator: Mitt Romney.

Criticizing Lee’s approach to fiscal measures, McMullin said he “routinely votes against bills that would improve water infrastructure.”

“Meanwhile, Senator Romney has worked hard and consistently over the last three years,” McMullin said. “He works with Republicans and Democrats, Senator Lee, to deliver for Utah. And he voted in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that you voted against. And now tens of millions of dollars have already been directed to Utah to improve our water infrastructure.”

Lee responded: “Yeah, I voted against that bill – a bill that spent well over a trillion dollars more than we have on all sorts of things that weren’t appropriately federal.”

Romney has stayed out of the race.

Lee, in an appearance last week on Fox, made a plea directed at Romney: “Please get on board. Help me win reelection,” he said. The move seemed designed less to win over Romney than to rile up Lee’s conservative base.

Trump followed Lee’s pleas to Romney with a statement in which he called McMullin “McMuffin” and said that Lee was being “abused, in an unprecedented way” by Romney.

Lee said he was “thrilled” with the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had made abortion legal nationwide. He said he believes states should decide how to regulate abortion.

“This is where it should remain, because it’s within the states that we can achieve the most consensus and protect the most babies,” Lee said.

McMullin, meanwhile, sought to find a middle ground on abortion rights, saying that he opposes “abortion on demand” but also opposes state legislation to force young rape victims to carry their pregnancies to term.

“Some of these bills that I see being passed around the country are extreme,” McMullin said.

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October 18, 2022
Trump’s company charged Secret Service ‘exorbitant’ hotel rates to protect the first family, House committee report says | CNN Politics

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The Trump Organization charged the Secret Service “exorbitant rates” – upwards of $1.4 million over four years – to protect the former President and his family at properties they owned, according to documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Monday.

The committee found that the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service “excessive nightly rates on dozens of trips” as high as $1,185 per night despite claims by the former President’s company that federal employees traveling with him would stay at those properties “for free” or “at cost.”

“The exorbitant rates charged to the Secret Service and agents’ frequent stays at Trump-owned properties raise significant concerns about the former President’s self-dealing and may have resulted in a taxpayer-funded windfall for former President Trump’s struggling businesses,” the panel’s chairwoman, New York Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, wrote in a letter to the service’s director on Monday.

When he was president, Trump traveled frequently to properties his company ran as businesses, including Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. While he was there, some agents and officers stayed in rooms at those properties, though others rented rooms at nearby hotels.

Charging his protective detail for lodging at his own properties was a controversial practice when Trump was in office and has continued in his post-presidency.

Maloney also notes that her committee has been seeking a full accounting of the Secret Service’s expenditures at Trump-owned properties for more than two years but still has not received complete information on nightly rates or the total amount the agency spent, which “appears to exceed $1.4 million of taxpayer money.”

The committee is still seeking records from the Secret Service, noting the panel is looking at potential legislation to prevent “presidential self-dealing and profiteering, as well as to curb conflicts of interest by ensuring that future presidents are prevented from exercising undue influence on Secret Service spending.”

In a statement, Eric Trump said that “any services rendered to the United States Secret Service or other government agencies” at Trump-owned hotels “were at their request and were either provided at cost, heavily discounted or for free.”

The committee said the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service more than the government rate at least 40 times from January 2017 to September 2021.

One of those times was in March 2017 when the Trump Organization charged a nightly rate of $1,160 to stay at the Trump hotel in Washington, DC, to protect Eric Trump, who was promoting a golf tournament at the Trump National Golf Club. According to the General Services Administration’s website, the per diem rate was $242 in March 2017 in Washington, DC.

In a statement, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the agency has received the letter from the committee but didn’t discuss the specific details.

“Safeguarding our protectees is part of the agency’s zero fail mission and our absolute highest priority. Protective details must always be within arm’s reach of a protective 24 hours a day and that requires us to travel to where they travel,” Guglielmi said.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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October 17, 2022
Kanye West to acquire conservative social media platform Parler | CNN Business

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Kanye West is acquiring Parler, the alternative social media platform favored by many conservatives.

Parler’s parent company announced the deal on Monday morning, saying West had made “a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again.”

The acquisition comes after West, who has legally changed his name to Ye, had his account temporarily locked by Twitter this month over an antisemitic tweet.

Exact terms of the Parler deal weren’t disclosed, though Parler said it must still enter into a definitive agreement with West and expects to close in the fourth quarter. Parler’s parent, Parlement Technologies, would remain involved by providing technical services and cloud support.

Buying Parler could make West the latest celebrity owner of a social media platform after former President Donald Trump’s bid to win over conservatives with Truth Social and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s proposed acquisition of Twitter. It also highlights how a small group of wealthy men, some of whom were banned or suspended themselves for incendiary remarks, are looking to own social media platforms in an effort to bolster what they call “free speech.”

“In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” West said in a release by Parler.

As part of the announcement, Parler linked to West’s account on the platform, which appeared to have launched simultaneously. As of early Monday, the account had roughly 500 followers.

For Ye, the deal comes during a particularly controversial period. West has made headlines in recent weeks for wearing a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt in public and defending his use of the slogan — a phrase the Anti-Defamation League has linked to white supremacy groups — as “funny” to Fox News host Tucker Carlson. After the shirt incident, the apparel company Adidas this month said it was reviewing its partnership with West. In September, West also said he was abandoning a two-year partnership with the clothing retailer Gap.

Speaking on CNN Monday, Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO, called Parler a “haven” of hate.

Parler was founded in 2018 and saw rapid growth surrounding the 2020 election. Billing itself as a loosely moderated free-speech haven, the app became popular with conservative politicians and media figures, peaking at an estimated 2.9 million daily users, according to the market research firm Apptopia. But since then, its fortunes have dimmed, with Parler’s estimated daily user count slipping to just 40,000, Apptopia told CNN on Monday. (Twitter, by comparison, has more than 237 million daily active users.)

In the weeks following the Jan. 6 riots, Parler was removed from both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store for what the companies said was a failure to adequately moderate violent rhetoric on the platform. Documents provided to the House committee investigating the Capitol riots have shown how the Secret Service was aware of posts on Parler that suggested the possibility of violence surrounding that day. Separately, Parler has written to Congress claiming that lawmakers’ interest in the app’s role in the riots has been intended to “scapegoat” the app.

Parler has since been restored to both app stores after making changes to its content moderation practices.

Parler has faced more competition in recent months as the burgeoning right-wing digital media ecosystem has expanded. Truth Social launched in February on Apple’s app store, and was approved for Google’s app store on Oct. 13. Truth Social saw a spike of downloads last week due to its appearance on the Google Play Store, Apptopia said, and before then had been hovering at 144,000 daily active users.

Musk’s move to buy Twitter, if the deal goes through, also has the potential to upend Parler and similar services. Musk has repeatedly called for eliminating permanent bans and rethinking Twitter’s approach to content moderation, which could once again make the much larger platform a home for some of the users who jumped to small services like Parler.

It could also effectively mean that Musk and Ye, who are said to be friends, are now competing with each other. After Ye’s antisemitic tweet sparked an outcry, Musk tweeted: “Talked to ye today & expressed my concerns about his recent tweet, which I think he took to heart.”

One week later, Ye’s deal to buy Parler was announced.

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October 17, 2022
Arizona Attorney General’s office asks for federal investigation of conservative nonprofit True the Vote | CNN Politics

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The Arizona Attorney General’s office has asked for a federal investigation related to potential violations of the Internal Revenue Code by the conservative nonprofit True the Vote, which claims to be trying to expose voter fraud.

An investigator in Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office, Reginald Grigsby, said in a letter that the group has “raised considerable sums of money alleging they had evidence of widespread voter fraud” but has failed to provide any evidence to its office, despite publicly indicating they had shared the information with law enforcement agencies.

“Given TTV’s status as a nonprofit organization, it would appear that further review of its financials may be warranted,” the letter, released on Friday, reads in a striking move for an office overseen by a Republican. Brnovich had sought to win over former President Donald Trump and his supporters in his unsuccessful bid for the nomination for Senate earlier this year.

Grigsby detailed three meetings representatives from the attorney general’s office had with Catherine Engelbrecht, who founded the Texas-based nonprofit, and Gregg Phillips, who is a contracted partner.

The meetings were spread out over a year – the first took place in June 2021 and the following two occurred in April and June of this year. Grigsby said prior to each meeting, Engelbrecht and Phillips said they would provide the attorney general’s office with information to support their claims of voter fraud but they never provided any so-called evidence.

In a statement, True the Vote called the letter “false” and said it “smacks of retribution for the AG’s own decision to ignore suspicious voting activity.” The statement also countered that its hard drive of data is “available to any law enforcement agency which issues a lawful subpoena for the data” and said that it “has documentary records of correspondence with the State of Arizona and the FBI, detailing the evidence and its limitations.”

In its letter, the attorney general’s office stated that it had requested the information by electronic and US mail and by leaving voicemails after the latest in-person meeting, but it did not indicate whether it had formally subpoenaed the data.

An IRS spokesperson told CNN, “Due to privacy regulations, the IRS will not comment on the status of an individual or organization.”

True the Vote and Engelbrecht have advanced claims of election-fraud for years. But the group recently gained new prominence through the film, “2000 Mules” produced by conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. It claims “mules” were used to illegally collect and deliver ballots to drop boxes in key states in the 2020 election.

True the Vote has said it purchased cellphone geo-tracking data to identify devices that went repeatedly near drop boxes and certain nonprofits ahead of the election to advance the argument that illegal ballot harvesting occurred in key swing states.

Multiple fact-checkers have debunked those claims. And in testimony that aired during a hearing of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, former Attorney General William Barr called the film’s premise flawed.

The film has been touted by Trump and some Trump-aligned candidates. Earlier this year, the former President hosted a screening of the film at Mar-a-Lago, his waterfront Florida resort and home.

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October 17, 2022
Herschel Walker defends use of ‘honorary’ sheriff’s badge in Georgia Senate debate | CNN Politics

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Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker defended pulling out a sheriff’s badge during Friday’s closely watched debate in Georgia, telling NBC in an interview that aired on Sunday it was “a legit,” but honorary badge from his hometown sheriff’s department.

Walker had pulled out the badge during a discussion over support for police – in a move that was admonished by the debate moderators and led to widespread mockery from Democrats.

“This is from my hometown. This is from Johnson County from the sheriff from Johnson County, which is a legit badge,” Walker told NBC’s Kristen Welker in a clip from the interview.

A CNN fact check found Walker has never had a job in law enforcement. He has publicized a card showing that he was at some point after 2004 named an “honorary agent” and “special deputy sheriff” in Cobb County, Georgia – titles that do not confer arrest authority.

The contest between Walker and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is one of the most important Senate races in the country, representing a key state Democrats must hold to have any chance to keep control of the Senate next year. The race has recently been rocked by allegations that Walker paid for a woman’s abortion and encouraged her to have another one – allegations the Republican has repeatedly denied and that CNN has not independently confirmed.

A survey released earlier this month, which was conducted after the allegations emerged, found Warnock with 52% support among likely voters to 45% for Walker, about the same as in a mid-September poll.

During Friday’s debate, Walker had accused Warnock of calling officers “names” and caused “morale” to plummet, but the Democrat cited a false claim from Walker that he had previously served in law enforcement.

“One thing that I haven’t done is I haven’t pretended to be a police officer and I’ve never, ever threatened a shootout with police,” Warnock said, alluding to a more than two-decade-old police report in which the Republican discussed exchanging gunfire with police.

“Everyone can make fun,” Walker said in the NBC interview, arguing that the badge means he has “the right to work with the police getting things done.”

Walker, however, later admitted it was an “honorary badge” and pushed back against the idea, which NBC’s Welker read from a National Sheriffs’ Association statement, that such badges should be left in a “trophy case.”

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October 17, 2022