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  • Biden admin announces new weapons assistance package for Taiwan | CNN Politics

    Biden admin announces new weapons assistance package for Taiwan | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The US on Friday announced a new weapons package for Taiwan valued at up to $345 million, a move that is likely to anger Beijing at a time when the US has been attempting to reset its relationship with China.

    This package marks the first time the US has transferred equipment to Taiwan under what’s known as Presidential Drawdown Authority, allowing the US to pull the weapons and other stocks directly from Defense Department inventories. Just like many of the weapons deliveries to Ukraine, this process accelerates the transfer of inventory.

    It’s unclear what weaponry or equipment will be in the drawdown package – the announcement did not detail its contents, as such announcements often do with Ukraine aid packages.

    Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Martin Meiners said the package “includes self-defense capabilities that Taiwan will be able to use to build … to bolster deterrence now and in the future.” He added that the systems include “critical defensive stockpiles, multi-domain awareness, anti-armor and air defense capabilities.”

    Meiners said that the administration will continue to review the kind of equipment Taiwan will need for self-defense and assess the best authority to meet those requirements moving forward.

    “Obviously the US has not changed our policy on Taiwan,” Meiners said. “We are committed to the One China policy [and] the Taiwan relations act.”

    Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense expressed gratitude to the US for its “firm security commitment to Taiwan” in a statement Saturday.

    “Taiwan and the US will continue to work closely on security issues to ensure the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait as well as the status-quo,” the statement read.

    In previous instances, the US has allowed Taiwan to purchase weapons from the US, a process that takes more time, instead of delivering the equipment directly from US inventories.

    Taiwan’s most recent purchase, which took place last month, included $332.2 million of 30mm ammunition and related equipment, as well as $108 million of logistics support.

    The Taiwan Economic and Cultural Representative Office declined to comment.

    In early May, the island’s defense minister, Chiu Kuo-Cheng, said Taiwan was in talks with the US for a fast-tracked $500 million weapons package. The package, he said at the time, would make up for delays in the delivery of other weapons, some of which had been diverted to fulfill the urgent needs of Ukraine.

    A week later, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers that a “significant” security package would be coming “soon” for Taiwan, part of the $1 billion Congress had authorized in drawdown authority for Taipei.

    But the package was delayed, in part because of an accounting error that forced administration officials to recount the value of the equipment provided to Taiwan.

    “This is the first time we have done a Taiwan PDA,” a senior administration official said earlier this month, “and it has taken a bit longer than we would normally expect.”

    At the same time, the Biden administration pursued diplomatic progress with Beijing, trying to reopen frozen lines of communication and restart dialogue.

    In June, Secretary of State Antony Blinken became the first top US diplomat to visit Beijing in five years. Blinken, who canceled a previous visit to Beijing after a Chinese spy balloon made its way across the continental United States, said the two countries had made progress toward improving and stabilizing relations between the two superpowers. His visit was a litmus test for whether the governments, increasingly at odds over Taiwan as well as over China’s actions in the Indo-Pacific, could prevent relations from further deteriorating.

    In a sign of progress, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited Beijing in early July.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Republican lawmaker calls TikTok ‘an immediate threat’ and calls for app to be banned | CNN Politics

    Republican lawmaker calls TikTok ‘an immediate threat’ and calls for app to be banned | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington said Sunday that TikTok represents “an immediate threat” from China and called for the short-form video app to be banned in the US.

    The chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Congress should pass a data privacy law and ban TikTok in the US after the company’s CEO Shou Chew testified in front of her committee on Thursday.

    McMorris Rodgers said Chew’s testimony “made clear” that TikTok is a threat to the US.

    “What the hearing made clear to me was that TikTok should be banned in the United States of America to address the immediate threat and we also need a national data privacy law,” McMorris Rodgers told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

    The Republican lawmaker cited TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, being connected to China as evidence of the national security risk.

    While many nations have imposed bans on official government devices out of national security concerns, there is currently no public evidence the Chinese government has spied on people through TikTok.

    The company told CNN in a statement, “The best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent US-based protection of US user data and systems with robust third-party monitoring, vetting and verification, which we are already implementing.”

    On Sunday, McMorris Rodgers responded to criticism from TikTok users, many of whom mocked lawmakers for their lack of familiarity with the app and questioned why Congress would spend time regulating social media. She noted the rare bipartisan agreement on the national security risks the app presents.

    “I would say there is an immediate threat via TikTok from the Chinese Communist Party. That is the reason that I believe we need to ban TikTok immediately. It is a national security threat,” McMorris Rodgers said. “It united Republicans and Democrats on the committee as to the urgent need for us to take action.”

    Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, also shared concerns over the app’s connection to China on Sunday.

    “At the end of the day, TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, and by Chinese law, that company has to be willing to turn over data to the Communist Party or, one of my bigger fears, we have 150 million Americans on TikTok, average of about 90 minutes a day, and how that channel could be used for propaganda purposes or disinformation by the Communist Party,” Warner said in an interview with CBS News.

    McMorris Rodgers also emphasized the need to pass a national data privacy law to restrict all social media platforms from collecting user data, including those based in the US.

    “We need to take action whether it’s TikTok, big tech or other data brokers to restrict the amount of data that they’re collecting to begin with,” she said.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Manchin: Americans want a ‘reasonable, responsible middle’ | CNN Politics

    Manchin: Americans want a ‘reasonable, responsible middle’ | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Sen. Joe Manchin declined to say Sunday whether he would run on a centrist presidential ticket but the moderate West Virginia Democrat said Americans were sick of the political division in the country.

    “We cannot basically have a divided country, and we cannot withstand that,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” in an interview with Dana Bash. “There’s a movement going on that people want, to bring the extremes back to the sensible and reasonable, responsible middle.”

    Manchin would not respond when asked by Bash if he would consider running for president on a ticket of the business-friendly centrist group No Labels, which is seeking to get on the presidential ballot in all 50 states.

    Manchin, who holds a pivotal vote in the narrowly divided Senate, has refused to say whether he thinks President Joe Biden deserves a second term in office. He has also been critical of certain aspects of the president’s agenda, and last week he called on Biden to negotiate on the debt ceiling instead of pursuing “an ideological agenda.”

    Manchin, who is up for reelection next year, told NBC News on Sunday that any decision about his political future would be made at the end of the year.

    “My filing date is January 15 in 2024, and I will make my decision maybe a little bit before that, but not until the end of the year, I can assure you,” he said.

    The Democrat would rank among the most vulnerable senators this cycle if he chooses to run for a third full term in deep-red West Virginia – a state former President Donald Trump won by nearly 40 points in 2020.

    Asked about Trump’s recent indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, Manchin said that “no one is above the law” but also that “no one should be targeted by the law, especially through the political process.”

    “So we’ll just wait and see next week. I hope they are very thorough in the job they do, and basically people should have faith in this judicial system of ours,” the senator told Bash.

    Manchin said he did not believe the former president was being targeted but added, “You have to remove all doubt. You have to make sure – cross every ‘T,’ dot every ‘I’, as they say.”

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  • Inside the furious week-long scramble to hunt down a massive Pentagon leak | CNN Politics

    Inside the furious week-long scramble to hunt down a massive Pentagon leak | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Jack Teixeira, wearing a green t-shirt and bright red gym shorts with his hands above his head, walked slowly backward toward the armed federal agents outside his home in North Dighton, Massachusetts, who took him into custody on charges of leaking classified documents.

    The carefully choreographed arrest of the 21-year-old Air National Guardsman stood in stark contrast to the Biden administration’s scramble one week earlier to deal with the fallout from the revelation that highly classified documents had been sitting publicly on the internet for weeks.

    Those leaked documents, which appeared to catch the Biden administration flat-footed, disclosed a blunt US intelligence assessment of the war in Ukraine, as well as details revealing US intelligence collection on allies.

    The Biden administration raced to determine the identity of the leaker who had posted pictures of folded-up documents online, to understand the full scope of what had been leaked and to soothe allies who were varying degrees of angry that their secrets had spilled out for the world to see.

    While the suspected leaker has been arrested, the administration’s damage assessment is still ongoing. It remains unclear whether the full extent of the impact of the leaks is known, as details from additional classified documents continued to be published throughout the week – even on Friday morning, the day after his arrest.

    Inside the Pentagon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley was “pissed” at the leak and “deeply concerned” about its national security implications, a US official told CNN. The Defense Department has been holding daily meetings on the leak since Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was first briefed last Thursday.

    The episode represents the most egregious disclosure of classified documents in years. The leaked documents have exposed what officials say are lingering vulnerabilities in the management of government secrets, even after agencies overhauled their computer systems following the 2013 Edward Snowden leak, which revealed the scope of the National Security Agency’s intelligence gathering apparatus.

    It is unlikely, however, that those safeguards would have prevented the most recent leak, sources said. “All classified systems have multiple levels of risk controls, but a determined insider will find the weak points over time,” said a former US official.

    The Pentagon has already taken steps to clamp down on who can access sensitive classified material, while Austin has ordered a review over access to classified documents. And Congress is vowing to investigate exactly what happened and why the US intelligence community failed to discover its secrets were sitting on a public internet forum for weeks.

    In a statement acknowledging the extent of the problem that the leaks exposed, President Joe Biden said Friday that he had directed both the military and intelligence community to “take steps to further secure and limit distribution of sensitive information.”

    “This is a breakdown,” Chris Krebs, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, told CNN. “There’s no question that there will be a lot of introspection inside the intelligence community and across the government of where were those breakdowns? How do we ensure that we tighten that system of military discipline that that was referred to earlier to ensure that these things do not happen?”

    According to charging documents unsealed on Friday, Teixeira allegedly began posting classified information on the Discord server in December 2022.

    Teixeira is believed to be the head of obscure invite-only Discord chatroom called “Thug Shaker Central,” multiple US officials told CNN, where information from the classified documents was first posted.

    One of the users on the Discord server told FBI investigators that Teixeira began posting photographs of documents that appeared to be classified in January 2023, according to the affidavit unsealed Friday after Teixeira was arraigned.

    Investigators wrote in the affidavit that at least one of the documents that described the status of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, including troop movements, was classified at the TS-SCI level, meaning it contains top-secret, sensitive compartmentalized information.

    “The Government Document is based on sensitive U.S. intelligence, gathered through classified sources and methods, and contains national defense information,” the affidavit states.

    Teixeira, an airman first class stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base, was assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing, which is a “24/7 operational mission” that takes in intelligence from various sources and packages it into a product for some of the most senior military leaders around the globe, a defense official said.

    His job was not to be the one packaging the intelligence for those senior commanders, but rather to work on the network on which that highly classified intelligence lived. For that purpose, the official said Teixeira would be required to have a TS/SCI clearance, in the instance that he was exposed to that level of intelligence.

    “It’s not like your regular IT guy where you call a help desk and they come fix your computer,” the official said. “They’re working on a very highly classified system, so they require that clearance.”

    CNN has reviewed 53 documents that were posted on social media sites, which include US intelligence assessments of Ukrainian and Russian forces, as well as details about other countries providing weapons to Ukraine and other intelligence matters. The Washington Post has reported on an additional tranche of documents from the server.

    The photos showed crumpled documents laid on top of magazines and surrounded by other random objects, such as zip-close bags and Gorilla Glue, suggesting they had been hastily folded up and shoved into a pocket before being removed from a secure location.

    A Discord user told investigators that Teixeira had become concerned “he may be discovered making the transcriptions of text in the workplace, so he began taking the documents to his residence and photographing them,” according to the affidavit.

    Four Discord users active in a different Discord chatroom where the documents later appeared told CNN they began circulating on Thug Shaker. Another user who was in the Thug Shaker chatroom told CNN they saw the original posts of classified documents but declined to speak further about them.

    While the documents were being shared on Discord, there’s no indication that the US intelligence community was aware they were on the internet. Discord servers are typically small, private online communities that require an invitation to join.

    On April 6, The New York Times first reported on the leaked documents and the Pentagon having launched an investigation into who may have been behind the leak.

    The investigation into finding the leaker quickly moved into the hands of the Justice Department, while the Pentagon investigation focused on a damage assessment of the leaks themselves.

    But the number of leaked documents continued to grow in the hours and days that followed the initial disclosure, revealing new intelligence assessments on everything from South Korea’s hesitance to provide the US weapons that might be sent to Ukraine to intelligence suggesting Egypt planned to supply rockets to Russia.

    US diplomats were forced to deal with the fallout. Seoul said it would hold “necessary discussions with the US” following the leak.

    The documents that were leaked appear to be part of a daily intelligence briefing deck prepared for the Pentagon’s senior leaders, including Milley, the top US military general. On any given day, the slides in that deck can be properly accessed by hundreds, if not thousands, of people across the government, officials said.

    Last Friday’s announcement of a Justice Department investigation underscored just how high a priority the leak was considered.

    By Monday, FBI agents from Washington to California to Boston were combing through evidence, conducting interviews and tracking volumes of computer data that within days pointed to Teixeira. They worked with Army CID investigators experienced in classified document probes.

    Anthony Ferrante, a former FBI agent, said that the “first few hours are critical” in a case like the Discord leaks as investigators rush to preserve digital evidence before it becomes harder to find online or vanishes altogether.

    FBI agents likely worked backward from the initial Discord posts to build a profile of the leaker, combing through his other online accounts to “put a human behind a keyboard,” Ferrante, who is now global head of cybersecurity at FTI Consulting, told CNN.

    Even though Teixeira emerged quickly as the most obvious suspect, counterintelligence agents trained in uncovering foreign spies looked through Teixeira’s background to try to find any sign that he could be working with a foreign intelligence service.

    The FBI agents’ work was made more urgent because the trove of documents had set off a media frenzy and reporters found ready interviews among members of Teixeira’s Internet social circle.

    On Monday, the FBI interviewed a user of the Discord chatroom where the classified information had been posted, according to the affidavit. That person told investigators that a user who went by “Jack” and said he was in the Air National Guard was the server’s administrator.

    A day earlier, the investigative news outlet Bellingcat posted an interview with a member of that same chatroom.

    On Wednesday, a day before Teixeira’s arrest, the FBI obtained records from Discord that included the subscriber information of the server’s administrator, which had Teixeira’s name and address, according to the affidavit.

    By day 5 of the FBI’s search, agents believed they had enough to charge Teixeira, and they began surveilling him.

    In a different scenario, without the intense public attention, agents might have watched him for weeks to see if he was meeting anyone suspicious or if he had accomplices.

    Instead, they moved to make an arrest Thursday, as news helicopters flew above.

    Teixeira was charged under the Espionage Act with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal of classified information and defense materials. He will next appear on Wednesday in federal court in Massachusetts.

    For the Biden administration, the episode has already prompted the Pentagon to begin to limit who across the government receives its highly classified daily intelligence briefs, amid lingering questions over why a 21-year-old junior Air National Guardsman had access to such classified information – and why it wasn’t discovered more quickly.

    Austin and Milley spent time on the phone speaking with US allies and partners around the world regarding the sensitive intelligence and top-secret documents suddenly thrust into the public sphere. Those conversations were expected to continue through the end of the week, another US official said.

    Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman was tapped to lead the diplomatic response to the leaked US intelligence documents, according to a US official familiar with the matter.

    Biden was continually briefed on the state of the investigation while abroad, as well as the efforts of his top officials to engage with allies over the leaked information, officials said. Behind the scenes, that effort was a reality that loomed over a deeply personal and important foreign trip for Biden, one official acknowledged. 

    Still, the leaks didn’t arise when Biden met Wednesday with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a Five Eyes intelligence sharing ally.

    Biden publicly downplayed the significance of the leak when he made his first comments on the matter. “I’m concerned that it happened, but there is nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence,” Biden told reporters Thursday.

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  • Fox News’ defamation battle isn’t stopping Trump’s election lies | CNN Politics

    Fox News’ defamation battle isn’t stopping Trump’s election lies | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The defamation clash between Fox News and a small election services firm, due to go to trial this week, represents the most significant moment yet in which those who disseminated former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen must answer for conduct that is still poisoning American democracy.

    Dominion Voting Systems alleges the conservative network promulgated the ex-president’s conspiracy theories, including about its voting machines, to avoid alienating its viewers and for the good of its bottom line.

    The trial had been scheduled to open Monday but the judge announced Sunday evening it’d be delayed until Tuesday. The reason was not immediately clear. But The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch, reported that Fox had made a late push to settle the dispute out of court, citing people familiar with the matter.

    The drama expected to play out in a Delaware courtroom represents an extraordinary moment in modern American history because it could show how truth has been tarnished as a political currency and highlight a right-wing business model that depends on spinning an alternative reality. And yet, it remains unclear whether Trump – the primary author of the corrosive conspiracies that the 2020 election was fraudulent – will end up paying a significant personal or political price.

    The idea that Trump’s claims – echoed by his aides and allies on Fox and sometimes by the channel’s personalities – had any merit will not even make it to first base in the trial. In one remarkable development during pre-trial hearings, presiding Superior Court Judge Eric Davis ruled that jurors did not even need to decide one key issue: whether Fox’s claims about Dominion were true.

    “The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Davis wrote, in a ruling last month that significantly narrowed the network’s avenues to mount a defense.

    The epic case now turns on an attempt by Dominion to prove the legal standard for defamation that Fox must have known (or strongly suspected) it was lying about the issues at hand at the time and that it acted with “actual malice.”

    Though he vigorously denies breaking any laws, the former president appears to face the possibility of indictment in probes into his attempt to overturn President Joe Biden’s election victory by a district attorney in Georgia and by special counsel Jack Smith into his conduct in the lead-up to the US Capitol insurrection. And the many layers of Trump’s democracy-damaging behavior were catalogued in interviews and public testimony taken by a House select committee when Democrats controlled the chamber last year.

    But the falsehood of a corrupt election still forms the bedrock of Trump’s 2024 campaign to win back the White House. Millions of Trump’s supporters have bought into the idea that he was illegally ejected from office on the premise that he really won in 2020.

    It’s also questionable whether viewers of conservative media will hear much about the trial and get sufficient information that might convince them to change their minds about 2020.

    Trump’s insistence that the election was stained by fraud is giving some senior Republicans nightmares as they try to rebound from his loss in 2020 and work through their disappointment at the lack of a “red wave” in the last year’s midterms, despite winning the House.

    As Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp put it on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, the ex-president is forcing his party to keep looking in the rearview mirror and hampering its effort to look to the future.

    One core argument in court will likely be trying to show that Fox believed that telling the audience inconvenient truths was bad for business – a factor that drove right-wing media in 2020 and still holds true today. Proof of this can be seen in the way the Republican Party remains unwilling to anger its base voters two years on. While many top party leaders have signaled they want to move on from Trump, the only part of the GOP that has power in Washington – the House Republican majority – has made repeated efforts to shield Trump from accountability over the 2020 election and to distort what actually happened on January 6, 2021.

    But the court proceeding against Fox – like the constitutional process that assured a transfer of power between Trump and Biden, albeit one marred by violence – shows that the country’s instruments of accountability remain intact, despite Trump’s efforts.

    Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, deny wrongdoing. They’ve argued that their conspiracy theory-filled broadcasts after the 2020 election were protected by the First Amendment and that a loss in the case would be a devastating blow to press freedoms.

    But the run-up to the trial has been a catalog of embarrassments and reversals for both the network and the broader premise that there is anything to Trump’s false claims.

    The judge, for instance, observed last week in pre-trial hearings that there were well established and accepted limits on First Amendment rights.

    “To go up there and say, ‘What Fox did was protected by the First Amendment,’ it’s half the story. It’s protected by the First Amendment if you can’t demonstrate actual malice,” he said.

    Texts and emails between Fox personalities and managers, and depositions released by Dominion, suggest that privately, some at the channel dismissed Trump’s claims but amplified them amid growing fears that telling the truth might force viewers to turn elsewhere.

    For example, Murdoch emailed Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott telling her that rival conservative network Newsmax needed to be “watched.” In another message, Fox anchor Tucker Carlson told his colleague Laura Ingraham, “Our viewers are good people and they believe [the election fraud claims].”

    Fox has accused Dominion of cherry picking damaging quotes and texts ahead of the trial. But the evidence that has emerged suggests that Fox’s desire to cater to the beliefs of its viewers, even with untrue information, is closely allied to Trump’s own approach and reflects the way in which the Republican Party has been loath to antagonize the ex-president’s supporters.

    From the opening hours of his presidency, Trump made clear he would create an alternative vision of reality that his supporters could embrace and that would help him subvert the rules and conventions of the presidency. The angry exhortations by Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, in January 2017 that his boss had attracted the biggest inauguration crowd in history seemed at the time bizarre and absurd. But in retrospect, they were the first sign of a daily effort to destroy truth for Trump’s political benefit, which eventually morphed into lies about a stolen election that convinced many of the ex-president’s supporters. The culmination of all this was the mob attack by his supporters on Congress on January 6, 2021, during the certification of Biden’s victory.

    The idea that the Fox defamation trial might actually play a role in purging lies about the 2020 election seems far-fetched because the power of his falsehoods has survived many previous collisions with the truth. Although multiple courts in multiple states threw out Trump’s cases alleging election fraud after the 2020 election, the idea that the election was stolen still undermined faith in American democracy among his supporters. Only 29% of Republicans in a CNN/SSRS poll published in July 2022 had confidence that US elections truly represent the will of the people.

    This is, perhaps, not surprising. Because when he was in office, Trump made no secret of his strategy, telling the world in a moment of candor how he operated.

    “Stick with us. Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news,” he said in a directive to his supporters at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City in 2018. “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

    Five years on, Trump is still at it.

    “We won in 2016. We won by much more in 2020 but it was rigged,” Trump said in the first big rally of his campaign in Waco, Texas, at the end of March.

    The fact that Trump continues to spread such falsehoods – and that many in the Republican Party remain unwilling to challenge him – irks some party leaders who watched as Trump’s handpicked candidates, who touted his election lies as the price of his endorsement, flamed out in swing states in last year’s midterm elections.

    Georgia’s Kemp warned, for example, that constantly bringing up 2020 would create another political disaster for his party.

    “I think any candidate, to be able to win, is to talk about what we’re for, focus on the future, not look in the rearview mirror,” Kemp told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday.

    “If you look in the rearview mirror too long while you’re driving, you’re going to look up, and you’re going to be running into somebody, and that’s not going to be good.”

    Yet the fact that Trump, according to many polls, remains the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024 and is still wildly popular with conservative grassroots voters suggests that it will take far more than a courtroom display to restore the truth about 2020.

    And the GOP will likely be looking in the rearview mirror for some time to come.

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  • Reporters’ notebook: An intensely personal trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau | CNN Politics

    Reporters’ notebook: An intensely personal trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    This week, we traveled to Poland to help commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when Jews revolted against their Nazi oppressors, who had forced them to live behind barbed wire walls in horrific conditions.

    We also participated in the March of the Living, an annual two-mile walk from the Auschwitz concentration camp to Birkenau, where Nazis brought Jews from all over Europe to be starved, humiliated, terrorized and murdered in gas chambers.

    For both of us, this trip was intensely personal.

    I thought I knew what was in store for me visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau. I had been there some years back when I was working on a report for CNN about my family history – I’m the child of Holocaust survivors. I had heard my parents, both Polish Jews, speak of their painful experiences surviving the war. But I never knew my grandparents because all four of them were rounded up by the Nazis and killed during the Holocaust.

    But this time was different. As our expert guide showed us the Auschwitz gas chamber, I mentioned that I had learned a few years earlier that my dad’s parents were killed at Auschwitz. Our guide said that Polish Jews were largely killed in the very gas chamber we were standing in. He pointed out the gas chamber and the adjacent crematorium, where their bodies were burned and the remains then discarded in a pit. It was the first time I realized that I was standing right where my paternal grandparents had been murdered. Tears came to my eyes.

    My father had told me much about my grandparents, Isaac and Chaya Blitzer. They were very religious and truly wonderful people who had lived and raised their six children nearby. I wish I had known them.

    I never knew my mother’s parents, Wolf and Chaya Zylberfuden, either. My mom always spoke so lovingly of them. They were rounded up elsewhere in Poland and sent to a labor camp, where they were forced to make ammunition for Nazi soldiers. The conditions there were awful, and they soon died of typhoid fever, which was spreading around the area.

    I proudly carry the names of my two grandfathers – Wolf Isaac Blitzer.

    And now a new generation is carrying on the lessons of the Holocaust. At the annual March of the Living, thousands of people – Jews and non-Jews, young and old – come from all around the world to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp to honor and remember those who were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. They also come to learn and then to educate others about the horrors of the Holocaust.

    On this visit, I learned more and deepened my understanding of what my grandparents, parents and their siblings endured during the Holocaust. And as I did, I kept thinking about how important it is for all of us to educate ourselves about this horrible history to make sure we never forget. It is especially vital today in light of increasing antisemitism and Holocaust denialism. As the child of Holocaust survivors, it is hard to comprehend that there are truly evil people out there spreading lies that none of this ever happened.

    That’s why I was so moved by what I saw during our visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

    I had never been to Auschwitz before. I was never actually sure that I wanted to visit this place that represented the depths of hell for the 1.1 million people murdered by the Nazis there, including my own great-grandparents.

    I am now so glad that I went.

    Since I was a little girl, I have heard about the horrors of the Nazi atrocities, not just from the history books but also from my own grandfather Frank Weinman, who along with my grandmother Teri Vidor Weinman, were among the few to escape.

    They miraculously got to America in October 1941, thanks to Frank’s brother Charles, who was living in Chicago and had convinced his boss to put up the exorbitant sums of money the America government then required for Jewish refugees like my grandparents to get US visas to flee Nazi persecution.

    Grandma Teri and her family were Hungarian Jews, and her parents, Rudolph and Matilda Vidor, along with her sister Magda, were safe from Hitler’s wrath until 1944, when he invaded Hungary.

    Before visiting Auschwitz, I knew that they had been killed there.

    But having our expert guide tell my brother David and me exactly where and how was numbing.

    We saw a freight train exactly like the one they were shoved into with little to no water or food, traveling for days from Hungary to camps in Nazi-occupied Poland. We stood on the train tracks the Germans built to bring them into Auschwitz-Birkenau.

    The main railway building is pictured on the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on January 25, 2021.

    We saw what was left of what was likely the gas chamber where they were murdered and informed that because of their ages – both were in their 50s and not considered strong enough for hard labor – they probably were killed within a hour of arriving.

    It was a lot to take in, and it will take a while for my brother and me to process it all.

    But for both of us, our immediate takeaway was one of defiance – that our mere existence is proof that Hitler did not succeed in his quest to annihilate our family just because we are Jews.

    For years, not knowing exactly when or how her parents were killed, my Grandma Teri chose April 19, the day of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, to say Kaddish, the Jewish prayer recited on the anniversary of a loved one’s death.

    This week, my brother and I got to say Kaddish just steps from where they died.

    May their memory be a blessing.

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  • North Dakota governor signs law banning nearly all abortions in the state | CNN Politics

    North Dakota governor signs law banning nearly all abortions in the state | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Republican Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota signed a near-total abortion ban bill into law Monday.

    Senate Bill 2150, which passed in the state’s legislature last week, defines abortion as “the act of using, selling, or prescribing any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance, device, or means with the intent to terminate the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman.”

    The law is one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the US and only allows exceptions for rape or incest within the first six weeks of pregnancy.

    Exceptions are permitted in the case that the procedure is “deemed necessary based on reasonable medical judgment which was intended to prevent the death or a serious health risk to the pregnant female.”

    Efforts to treat an ectopic or molar pregnancy would also be permissible at any stage of pregnancy under the law.

    Abortion rights activists have furiously objected to similar bans, saying most women do not know they are pregnant at six weeks.

    The bill joins other GOP-led legislation aimed at restricting abortion access that has become law in a post-Roe v. Wade world. Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Texas have also passed six-week abortion bans, sparking legal challenges.

    North Dakota’s new law follows a legal battle over a 2007 trigger law that was blocked by a district judge last year.

    The state’s Supreme Court upheld that ruling in March.

    The trigger abortion ban was set to take effect last August and would have made it a felony to perform an abortion in the state but it did allow exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

    With the trigger ban on pause, North Dakota law had allowed abortion up until 20 weeks or more post-fertilization.

    In a statement to CNN, Burgum said SB 2150 “clarifies and refines existing state law which was triggered into effect by the Dobbs decision and reaffirms North Dakota as a pro-life state.”

    Physicians who violate the new law could be charged with a felony. In addition, an abortion can’t be performed until a woman is offered the opportunity to see an “active ultrasound” at least 24 hours before the scheduled procedure.

    Any physician who fails to comply could face a misdemeanor charge.

    Last week, Burgum signed a bill banning gender-affirming care for most minors with the possibility of a felony for health care professionals who provide it.

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  • Florida GOP lawmakers clear path for DeSantis to run for president without resigning | CNN Politics

    Florida GOP lawmakers clear path for DeSantis to run for president without resigning | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida lawmakers gave final passage Friday to a measure that clears a path for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to run for president without resigning from his current job.

    The provision, which was anticipated, would tweak a Florida law – known as “resign to run” – that currently requires candidates in the state seeking higher office to give up their elected post once they qualify for the ballot. The legislation approved Friday exempts “any person seeking the office of President or Vice President of the United States” from the resign-to-run law.

    The provision was tacked on to a sweeping election bill that passed the House in a 76-34 vote, sending it to DeSantis for his signature. The package had passed the Senate on Thursday 28-12. Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers.

    “I can’t think of a better training ground than the state of Florida for a future commander in chief,” Republican state Rep. Tyler Sirois said.

    The change would eliminate a dispute that has not been previously resolved. The law says that “no officer may qualify as a candidate for another state, district, county, or municipal public office” without resigning from their current office. However, it leaves unclear at what point that would apply to a presidential candidate – when they file paperwork to run, when they qualify for the ballot in any state or just in Florida, or when they are nominated by their party.

    Democrats overwhelmingly objected to the provision, saying DeSantis should not be able to govern the country’s third-largest state while also campaigning nationwide for the White House.

    “This is not just a clarification, this is an intentional move to curry favor,” state Sen. Shevrin Jones said Thursday. “You’re not doing this because it’s the right thing to do. You’re doing it because you can.”

    DeSantis has not officially declared that he is running for president, but he is widely expected to do so in the weeks after state lawmakers conclude their legislative session. The last day of the session is May 5.

    This is not be the first time that Florida lawmakers have voted to amend the resign-to-run law to help clear a path for a governor to reach the White House. In 2007, the law was changed to remove the requirement for federal candidates. It was widely seen as a move to assist then-Gov. Charlie Crist, who was in the mix as a potential running mate on the 2008 GOP presidential ticket.

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  • Three GOP appointees, including 2 from Trump, will hear the next phase of major abortion pill case | CNN Politics

    Three GOP appointees, including 2 from Trump, will hear the next phase of major abortion pill case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The New Orleans-based appeals court panel that will oversee the next stage in the blockbuster legal challenge to the availability of medication abortion drugs is made up of three Republican appointees, including one Trump nominee who has called abortion a “moral tragedy.”

    Circuit Judges James Ho and Cory Wilson, both Trump nominees, will hear the oral arguments on May 17, alongside Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, an appointee of George W. Bush.

    The lawsuit was brought by anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations who allege the US Food and Drug Administration broke the law when it approved the medication abortion drug mifepristone more than two decades ago.

    Last month, US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk agreed with their arguments and ruled that the approval of the drug should be suspended. 

    However, his ruling was put on hold by the Supreme Court on April 21 and it will remain on hold until the case goes back to the high court, regardless of how the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals rules on the merits.

    Ho, a former Texas solicitor general, is considered one of the most conservative and strident members of the 5th Circuit, having described abortion as a “moral tragedy” in a 2018 concurring opinion.

    In a 2019 concurring opinion, Ho also said that a trial judge’s ruling – which struck down a 15-week abortion ban and which was affirmed by the 5th Circuit under the then-standing Roe precedent – displayed “an alarming disrespect for the millions of Americans who believe that babies deserve legal protection during pregnancy as well as after birth, and that abortion is the immoral, tragic, and violent taking of innocent human life.”

    The 5th Circuit is considered one of the most conservative in the country has consistently ruled against the Biden Justice Department.

    Wilson earlier this year wrote a majority circuit opinion that said that a federal law that bars gun ownership by people under domestic violence was unconstitutional.

    Elrod penned an opinion last month that struck down the federal ban on bump stocks, which are attachments that essentially allow shooters to fire semiautomatic rifles continuously with one pull of the trigger.

    The medication abortion case is another hugely consequential case to go through the circuit. Mifepristone – the drug being targeted in the lawsuit – is the first pill in the two-pill regimen for terminating a pregnancy. Medication abortion makes up more than half of all abortions obtained in the United States.

    In filings last week, the Justice Department told the 5th Circuit that Kacsmaryk’s conclusions that the drug was unsafe rested “on a series of fundamental errors.”

    “While FDA justified its scientific conclusions in multiple detailed reviews, including a medical review spanning more than 100 pages and assessing dozens of studies and other scientific information, the district court swept the agency’s judgments aside by substituting its own lay understanding of purportedly contrary studies, offering demonstrably erroneous characterizations of the record,” the DOJ’s filing said. 

    The department’s opponents in the case will file a response later on Monday.

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  • ‘Significant risk’ for debt default in early June, CBO reinforces | CNN Politics

    ‘Significant risk’ for debt default in early June, CBO reinforces | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    There is a “significant risk” that the federal government will no longer be able to pay all its obligations in the first two weeks of June if the debt limit remains unchanged, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday.

    The forecast reinforces both Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s estimate and the agency’s earlier warning that House Republicans and President Joe Biden may only have a few weeks to address the debt ceiling or unleash global economic and financial upheaval. Talks are underway between White House and congressional staffers.

    Predicting just when the nation hits the so-called X-date, when a default would occur, is uncertain because of the timing and amount of revenue Treasury collects and the bills it has to pay.

    If government collections wind up being enough to keep Treasury’s coffers flush through early June, then it’s likely the government won’t default at least until the end of July, the CBO said. The agency will get another injection of funds from second quarter estimated tax payments, which are due June 15, and from an “extraordinary measure” that becomes available at the end of that month.

    About $25 billion in pay or benefits for active-duty members of the military, civil service and military retirees, veterans and recipients of Supplemental Security Income is sent out on the first day of the month, according to the CBO.

    Interest payments are made around the 15th day and on the last day of the month. May’s mid-month payment is expected to be roughly $50 billion, per the CBO. End-of-month payments range from $10 billion to $16 billion over the past half year.

    If the nation runs out of cash and extraordinary measures to satisfy all its obligations, which has never happened, it’s unknown how Treasury would react. Some payments could be delayed. These include paychecks for federal employees and contractors, as well as the military. Also, many other government payments could be affected, including funding for food stamps and federal grants to states and municipalities for Medicaid, highways, education and other programs.

    However, payments to Social Security recipients and benefits covered under Medicare Part A, largely hospital care, are financed by trust funds. The Treasury obtains cash to make those payments by borrowing, but the disbursements lower the funds’ balances, which are held in the form of Treasury securities, the CBO said.

    Because of that reduction, the payments have little net effect on the total amount of debt subject to the borrowing cap, the agency said.

    The entitlements’ trust funds may allow Treasury to continue making these payments on time, said Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

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  • The man behind ChatGPT is about to have his moment on Capitol Hill | CNN Business

    The man behind ChatGPT is about to have his moment on Capitol Hill | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    For a few months in 2017, there were rumors that Sam Altman was planning to run for governor of California. Instead, he kept his day job as one of Silicon Valley’s most influential investors and entrepreneurs.

    But now, Altman is about to make a different kind of political debut.

    Altman, the CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind viral chatbot ChatGPT and image generator Dall-E, is set to testify before Congress on Tuesday. His appearance is part of a Senate subcommittee hearing on the risks artificial intelligence poses for society, and what safeguards are needed for the technology.

    House lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are also expected to hold a dinner with Altman on Monday night, according to multiple reports. Dozens of lawmakers are said to be planning to attend, with one Republican lawmaker describing it as part of the process for Congress to assess “the extraordinary potential and unprecedented threat that artificial intelligence presents to humanity.”

    Earlier this month, Altman was one of several tech CEOs to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris and, briefly, President Joe Biden as part of the White House’s efforts to emphasize the importance of ethical and responsible AI development.

    The hearing and meetings come as ChatGPT has sparked a new arms race over AI. A growing list of tech companies have deployed new AI tools in recent months, with the potential to change how we work, shop and interact with each other. But these same tools have also drawn criticism from some of tech’s biggest names for their potential to disrupt millions of jobs, spread misinformation and perpetuate biases.

    As the CEO of OpenAI, Altman, perhaps more than any other single figure, has come to serve as a face for a new crop of AI products that can generate images and texts in response to user prompts. This week’s hearing may only cement his stature as a central player in AI’s rapid growth – and also add to scrutiny of him and his company.

    Those who know Altman have described him as a brilliant thinker, someone who makes prescient bets and has even been called “a startup Yoda.” In interviews this year, Altman has presented himself as someone who is mindful of the risks posed by AI and even “a little bit scared” of the technology. He and his company have pledged to move forward responsibly.

    “If anyone knows where this is going, it’s Sam,” Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, wrote in a post about Altman for the latter’s inclusion this year on Time’s list of the 100 most influential people. “But Sam also knows that he doesn’t have all the answers. He often says, ‘What do you think? Maybe I’m wrong?’ Thank God someone with so much power has so much humility.”

    Others want Altman and OpenAI to move more cautiously. Elon Musk, who helped found OpenAI before breaking from the group, joined dozens of tech leaders, professors and researchers in signing a letter calling for artificial intelligence labs like OpenAI to stop the training of the most powerful AI systems for at least six months, citing “profound risks to society and humanity.”

    Altman has said he agreed with parts of the letter. “I think moving with caution and an increasing rigor for safety issues is really important,” Altman said at an event last month. “The letter I don’t think was the optimal way to address it.”

    OpenAI declined to make anyone available for an interview for this story.

    The success of ChatGPT may have brought Altman greater public attention, but he has been a well-known figure in Silicon Valley for years.

    Prior to cofounding OpenAI with Musk in 2015, Altman, a Missouri native, studied computer science at Stanford University, only to drop out to launch Loopt, an app that helped users share their locations with friends and get coupons for nearby businesses.

    In 2005, Loopt was part of the first batch of companies at Y Combinator, a prestigious tech accelerator. Paul Graham, who co-founded Y Combinator, later described Altman as “a very unusual guy.”

    “Within about three minutes of meeting him, I remember thinking ‘Ah, so this is what Bill Gates must have been like when he was 19,’” Graham wrote in a post in 2006.

    Loopt was acquired in 2012 for about $43 million. Two years later, Altman took over from Graham as president of Y Combinator. The position allowed Altman to connect him with numerous powerful figures in the tech industry. He remained at the helm of the accelerator until 2019.

    Margaret O’Mara, a tech historian and professor at the University of Washington, told CNN that Altman “has long been admired as a thoughtful, significant guy and in the remarkably small number of powerful people who are kind of at the top of tech and have a lot of sway.”

    During the Trump administration, Altman gained new attention as a vocal critic of the president. It was against that backdrop that he was rumored to be considering a run for California governor.

    Rather than running, however, Altman instead looked to back candidates who aligned with his values, which include lower cost of living, clean energy and taking 10% off the defense budget to give to research and development of future technology.

    Altman continues to push for some of these goals through his work in the private sector. He invested in Helion, a fusion research company that inked a deal with Microsoft last week to sell clean energy to the tech giant by 2028.

    Altman has also been a proponent of the idea of a universal basic income and has suggested that AI could one day help fulfill that goal by generating so much wealth it could be redistributed back to the public.

    As Graham told The New Yorker about Altman in 2016, “I think his goal is to make the whole future.”

    When launching OpenAI, Musk and Altman’s original mission was to get ahead of the fear that AI could harm people and society.

    “We discussed what is the best thing we can do to ensure the future is good?” Musk told the New York Times about a conversation with Altman and others before launching the company. “We could sit on the sidelines or we can encourage regulatory oversight, or we could participate with the right structure with people who care deeply about developing A.I. in a way that is safe and is beneficial to humanity.”

    In an interview at the launch of OpenAI, Altman explained the company as his way of trying to steer the path of AI technology. “I sleep better knowing I can have some influence now,” he said.

    If there’s one thing AI enthusiasts and critics can agree on right now, it may be that Altman clearly has succeeded in having some influence over the rapidly evolving technology.

    Less than six months after the release of ChatGPT, it has become a household name, almost synonymous with AI itself. CEOs are using it to draft emails. Realtors are using it to write iistings and draft legal documents. The tool has passed exams from law and business schools – and been used to help some students cheat. And OpenAI recently released a more powerful version of the technology underpinning ChatGPT.

    Tech giants like Google and Facebook are now racing to catch up. Similar generative AI technology is quickly finding its way into productivity and search tools used by billions of people.

    A future that once seemed very far off now feels right around the corner, whether society is ready for it or not. Altman himself has professed not to be sure about how it will turn out.

    O’Mara said she believes Altman fits into “the techno-optimist school of thought that has been dominant in the Valley for a very long time,” which she describes as “the idea that we can devise technology that can indeed make the world a better place.”

    While Altman’s cautious remarks about AI may sound at odds with that way of thinking, O’Mara argues it may be an “extension” of it. In essence, she said, it’s related to “the idea that technology is transformative and can be transformative in a positive way but also has so much capacity to do so much that it actually could be dangerous.”

    And if AI should somehow help bring about the end of society as we know it, Altman may be more prepared than most to adapt.

    “I prep for survival,” he said in a 2016 profile of him in the New Yorker, noting several possible disaster scenarios, including “A.I. that attacks us.”

    “I try not to think about it too much,” Altman said. “But I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to.”

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  • No. 2 Senate Republican to endorse Tim Scott for president | CNN Politics

    No. 2 Senate Republican to endorse Tim Scott for president | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, plans to endorse South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, according to two sources familiar with the plans.

    Scott, who has already filed his candidacy with the Federal Election Commission, will formally kick off his campaign Monday in North Charleston, South Carolina, and Thune is expected to deliver the opening prayer at the event, the sources said.

    Thune had previously encouraged Scott to enter the contest, pushing him to visit the early-voting state of Iowa and telling CNN in March that his colleague would be “a great candidate.”

    “He’s really well thought of and respected,” Thune said. “I think he’d be a really interesting candidate for president in a field that … could be fairly open.”

    Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, joins a growing GOP field looking to challenge President Joe Biden as he seeks a second term.

    Former President Donald Trump is making a third run for the White House. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who appointed Scott to his Senate seat a decade ago, launched her campaign in February. Others in the GOP race include former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and talk radio host Larry Elder.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is also expected to enter the contest this week.

    Scott launched a presidential exploratory committee in April, emphasizing his evangelical faith, his race and his experience growing up as the son of a single mother. He defined his personal ethos as one of “individual responsibility” and said his approach to politics was guided by the belief that the US is “the land of opportunity and not the land of oppression.”

    Thune isn’t the only Republican who has spoken positively of Scott’s strengths in a presidential race. Speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” on Sunday, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy called Scott a “pretty formidable candidate.”

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  • House passes bill to block Biden’s student loan forgiveness program | CNN Politics

    House passes bill to block Biden’s student loan forgiveness program | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The Biden administration’s one-time student loan forgiveness program is facing a fresh threat from House Republicans while it awaits a ruling from the Supreme Court about whether the proposal can take effect.

    The House voted Wednesday to pass a resolution seeking to block the forgiveness program as well as end the pandemic-related pause on federal student loan payments.

    Two Democrats, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, joined Republicans in voting for the bill.

    The proposed forgiveness program, which promises up to $20,000 in federal student debt relief to millions of low- and middle-income borrowers, was halted by lower courts late last year before any student debt was canceled. The pause on payments, which has been in place since March 2020, is set to end later this year.

    President Joe Biden has pledged to veto the Republican-led resolution if it passes in both the House and Senate. The administration said that the resolution would “weaken America’s middle class.”

    “The president’s plan is a good one. It’s a popular one. And it will help prevent borrowers from default when loan payments restart this summer,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre earlier Wednesday.

    But Republicans argue that the student loan forgiveness program is unlawful and shifts the cost of the debt to taxpayers who chose not to go to college or already paid off their student loans. Blocking the program could reduce the deficit by nearly $320 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

    “President Biden’s so-called student loan forgiveness programs do not make the debt go away, but merely transfer the costs from student loan borrowers onto taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars,” said Rep. Bob Good, a Republican from Virginia, in a statement released when he introduced the resolution in March.

    Even though Biden has pledged to veto the bill, votes in the House and Senate could force more moderate members of the Democratic Party to take a public stance regarding the student loan forgiveness program. Some lawmakers have been critical of the proposal in the past.

    The Senate has yet to schedule a vote on the resolution, but nearly all of the 49 Republican senators have signed on as sponsors.

    Republican lawmakers introduced their joint resolution in late March, using the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to roll back regulations from the executive branch without needing to clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate that is necessary for most legislation.

    If the student loan forgiveness program is allowed to move forward, individual borrowers who made less than $125,000 in either 2020 or 2021 and married couples or heads of households who made less than $250,000 a year could see up to $10,000 of their federal student loan debt forgiven.

    If a qualifying borrower also received a federal Pell grant while enrolled in college, the individual is eligible for up to $20,000 of debt forgiveness.

    While the debt relief would help borrowers with student loans now, the program wouldn’t change the cost of college in the future – and some critics argue that it could even lead to an increase in tuition.

    In February, the Supreme Court heard two legal challenges to Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. One was filed by six Republican-led states, and the other was brought by two student loan borrowers who did not qualify for the full benefits of the program. The individuals are backed by the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative organization.

    The lawsuits argue that the Biden administration is abusing its power and using the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext for fulfilling the president’s campaign pledge to cancel student debt.

    The White House has said that it received 26 million applications before a lower court in Texas put a nationwide block on the program in November, and that 16 million of those applications have been approved for relief.

    No debt has been canceled yet. But if the Supreme Court allows the program to take effect, it’s possible the government moves quickly to forgive those debts.

    If the justices strike down Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, it could be possible for the administration to make some modifications to the policy and try again – though that process could take months.

    The Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling in late June or early July.

    Biden has extended the pause on federal student loan payments several times. Accounts have been frozen and most federal borrowers have not been required to make a payment for more than three years.

    But the pause is set to end later this year. The Biden administration has tied the restart date to the litigation over the separate student loan forgiveness program. Payments are set to resume 60 days after the Supreme Court issues its ruling or 60 days after June 30, whichever comes first.

    But the Biden administration has also made some lesser-known but potentially longer-lasting changes to the federal student loan system.

    New rules set to take effect in July could broaden eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which is aimed at helping government and nonprofit workers. And a new income-driven repayment plan proposal is meant to lower eligible borrowers’ monthly payments and reduce the amount they pay back over time. Parts of that new repayment plan are expected to go into effect later this year.

    The Department of Education has also made it easier for borrowers who were misled by their for-profit college to apply for student loan forgiveness under a program known as borrower defense to repayment, as well as for those who are permanently disabled.

    Altogether, the Biden administration has approved more than $66 billion in targeted loan relief to nearly 2.2 million borrowers.

    This headline and story have been updated with additional information.

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  • How every senator voted on the debt ceiling bill | CNN Politics

    How every senator voted on the debt ceiling bill | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Senate voted late Thursday on a bill to suspend the country’s debt limit through January 1, 2025 following weeks of contentious negotiations on the legislative deal between the White House and Republicans.

    The bill is now on its way to President Joe Biden for approval, and once signed, it will avert what could have been an economic catastrophe and the first time the US would have defaulted on its debt. (Biden is scheduled to address the nation about the legislation Friday night.)

    The Senate vote was 63 to 36. Take a look at how every member of the Senate voted on its final passage.

    Members of the Democratic Caucus

    1. Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin

    2. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado

    3. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut

    4. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey

    5. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio

    6. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington

    7. Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland

    8. Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware

    9. Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania

    10. Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware

    11. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada

    12. Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois

    13. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois

    14. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California

    15. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York

    16. Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire

    17. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico

    18. Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado

    19. Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii

    20. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia

    21. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona

    22. Sen. Angus King of Maine

    23. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota

    24. Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico

    25. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia

    26. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey

    27. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut

    28. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington

    29. Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia

    30. Sen. Alex Padilla of California

    31. Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan

    32. Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island

    33. Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada

    34. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii

    35. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York

    36. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire

    37. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona

    38. Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota

    39. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan

    40. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana

    41. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland

    42. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia

    43. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia

    44. Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont

    45. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island

    46. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon

    Members of the Republican Conference

    47. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas

    48. Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota

    49. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa

    50. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa

    51. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky

    52. Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota

    53. Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma

    54. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas

    55. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah

    56. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska

    57. Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota

    58. Sen. Todd Young of Indiana

    59. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota

    60. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina

    61. Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas

    62. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia

    63. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine

    Members of the Democratic Caucus

    64. Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts

    65. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon

    66. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

    67. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania

    68. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont

    Members of the Republican Conference

    69. Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming

    70. Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee

    71. Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana

    72. Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama

    73. Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina

    74. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana

    75. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas

    76. Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho

    77. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas

    78. Sen. Steve Daines of Montana

    79. Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska

    80. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina

    81. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri

    82. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi

    83. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin

    84. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana

    85. Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma

    86. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah

    87. Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming

    88. Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas

    89. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky

    90. Sen. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska

    91. Sen. Jame Risch of Idaho

    92. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida

    93. Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri

    94. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida

    95. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina

    96. Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska

    97. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama

    98. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio

    99. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi

    Not Voting

    100. Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee

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  • Conservative House floor blockade ends but GOP tensions persist | CNN Politics

    Conservative House floor blockade ends but GOP tensions persist | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The House advanced a slate of bills Tuesday afternoon, bringing a floor blockade to an end after a tentative agreement was reached between Speaker Kevin McCarthy and hardline conservatives who had brought the chamber floor to a halt in retaliation over how GOP leadership handled the debt ceiling deal.

    The stalemate is at an end for now, but tensions continue to erupt in the House Republican conference, including from moderates frustrated and angry at conservatives for halting floor action.

    The floor blockade also showed how a relatively small faction of conservatives can derail or hold hostage McCarthy’s agenda – and the hardliners have made clear they reserve the right to use every tool available to them to potentially make life harder for GOP leadership in the future.

    With the stalemate over at least for now, the House held votes Tuesday evening, including passing a measure to block a pistol brace regulation and failing to override a presidential veto on a measure to overturn a DC policing bill aimed at accountability and reform.

    Multiple members leaving the speaker’s office on Monday said the hardline conservatives agreed to end the blockade while they continue discussions with McCarthy about future spending decisions and a new “power-sharing agreement,” though they said the exact details are still being worked out and did not say whether they would ever be made public or put into a written statement.

    But even with the news that House action will proceed, frustration among moderates over the blockade was on full display Tuesday morning during a closed-door GOP conference meeting.

    GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Minnesota slammed the House Freedom Caucus blockade of the House floor in a heated, expletive-laden speech during the closed-door meeting, according to multiple sources in the room.

    Orden got up at the mics and said his daughter is dying of cancer, and yet he still “shows up to work every f—ing day,” and complained that he has been trying to introduce bills to save lives, specifically a train bill, but “it’s not shit that gets on Fox News.”

    Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas then responded and said he also has constituents he represents and that he came to Washington to shrink government. Roy declined to comment on the interaction after the meeting, but did defend his efforts to hold up the floor in exchange for more concessions from McCarthy.

    Some members were happy Van Orden spoke up during the meeting, as they have been frustrated that a small band of hardliners have been able to hold things up.

    Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and Tom McClintock of California also stood up to blast the hardliners for holding the floor hostage and warned that the House GOP cannot be controlled by a small faction.

    House GOP leadership has attempted to downplay the issues within the conference.

    McCarthy was asked by CNN about the drama inside the meeting and he called it “a little bit of fun.”

    When CNN pressed House GOP Whip Tom Emmer on internal conference dynamics given the House has not voted in a week following the action by House Freedom Caucus, he said that “communication and respect” are key to moving forward with a unified conference.

    The hardline conservatives who have held up legislative action have done so in protest of the deal McCarthy struck with President Joe Biden to raise the nation’s borrowing limit last month. Conservatives wanted the debt ceiling deal to cut more federal spending than it did, and several far-right members of McCarthy’s conference accused him of reneging on commitments he made to them in private in order to win the speakership in January.

    After the meeting, Roy wouldn’t comment on the specific comments Van Orden made, but when asked by CNN to respond to frustrations from his colleagues over the floor standstill said, “Well, my experience in life is that the more Congress is open more than American people should be nervous. But the first five months this year we were united doing good things, and it’s my aim to get us back into that row boat.”

    Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon said, “there was a little bit of slugging going on,” as he exited the meeting, but noted that 95% of the conference is on McCarthy’s side.

    House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar and Vice Chair Ted Lieu blasted House Republicans for shepherding through what they called a week of “chaos” in the lower chamber.

    “We haven’t voted for about a week because the Republicans lost control of the House floor,” Lieu said. “So we had all this chaos, the forced shut down.”

    This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

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  • Buttigieg says Supreme Court case was designed for ‘clear purpose of chipping away’ at LGBTQ equality | CNN Politics

    Buttigieg says Supreme Court case was designed for ‘clear purpose of chipping away’ at LGBTQ equality | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Sunday slammed the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of a Christian web designer in Colorado who refuses to create websites to celebrate same-sex weddings out of religious objections, saying the case was designed “for the clear purpose of chipping away” at LGBTQ equality.

    “It’s very revealing that there’s no evidence that this web designer was ever even approached by anyone asking for a website for a same-sex wedding,” Buttigieg, the first out Cabinet secretary confirmed by the Senate, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

    The Supreme Court’s conservative majority, in a 6-3 opinion, ruled Friday for Lorie Smith, the Colorado web designer, on free speech grounds, with Justice Neil Gorsuch writing, “All manner of speech – from ‘pictures, films, paintings, drawings, and engravings,’ to ‘oral utterance and the printed word’ – qualify for the First Amendment’s protections.”

    Smith said in court filings that a man had inquired about her services for his same-sex wedding. But as CNN previously reported, the man in question says that he never reached out to Smith – and that he’s straight and married to a woman.

    “There’s something in common between this Supreme Court ruling and what we’re seeing happening in state legislatures across the country, which is kind of a solution looking for a problem,” Buttigieg said Sunday. “In other words, sending these kinds of things to the courts and sending these kinds of things to state legislatures for the clear purpose of chipping away at the equality and the rights that have so recently been won in the LGBTQ+ community.”

    Two contenders for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination took a different stance on the Supreme Court ruling in separate interviews Sunday on “State of the Union.”

    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the decision “protects all of our First Amendment rights,” adding that “the government doesn’t have the right to tell a business the nature of how they need to use their expressive abilities.”

    Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd acknowledged that the ruling made him “uncomfortable because we’re protecting speech that I don’t agree with. And I don’t agree with an anti-LGBTQ sentiment.”

    “But we have to be protecting the speech even if we don’t like or agree with the speech. That’s a foundational element in our country,” Hurd said.

    In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested that the court’s decision in the Colorado case would be more far-reaching.

    “The decision’s logic cannot be limited to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” she wrote.

    “The decision threatens to balkanize the market and to allow the exclusion of other groups from many services,” Sotomayor said, adding that “a website designer could equally refuse to create a wedding website for an interracial couple, for example.”

    Christie pushed back Sunday on that characterization.

    “What Sonia Sotomayor … was saying in her opinion was that … this decision could be used to deny people of LGBTQ backgrounds the ability to access this business. That’s simply not true,” he told Bash.

    “They can access this business. They just can’t force the owner to do something that is against her personal religious beliefs. And so, if they want to come in and they want a web design for their business, they want a web design for a charity, they want a web design for anything else that they’re doing, they could certainly do that,” he added.

    Meanwhile, Buttigieg was asked about a recent video shared by a campaign Twitter account for Ron DeSantis’ 2024 presidential bid that attacked rival Donald Trump over his past promises to protect LGBTQ rights and highlighted measures championed by the Florida governor to curb such protections.

    After cautioning that he was “going to choose my words carefully, partly because I’m appearing as secretary, so I can’t talk about campaigns,” Buttigieg said the bigger issue when sees such videos was: “Who are you trying to help? Who are you trying to make better off?”

    “I just don’t understand the mentality of somebody who gets up in the morning thinking that he’s going to prove his worth by competing over who can make life hardest for a hard-hit community that is already so vulnerable in America,” the secretary said.

    The DeSantis campaign has come under criticism for marking the end of Pride Month by re-posting the video from the DeSantis War Room Twitter account. Both Christie and Hurd on Sunday also criticized the sharing of the video.

    In response to the online criticism, Christina Pushaw, the rapid response director for the DeSantis campaign, said Pride Month was “unnecessary, divisive, pandering.”

    “Opposing the federal recognition of ‘Pride Month’ isn’t homophobic,” Pushaw said in a tweet. “We wouldn’t support a month to celebrate straight people for sexual orientation, either.”

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  • Prosecutors say they plan to bring felony charges against man arrested with weapons in Obama’s DC neighborhood | CNN Politics

    Prosecutors say they plan to bring felony charges against man arrested with weapons in Obama’s DC neighborhood | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Federal prosecutors on Thursday said they plan to file felony charges against the man who was arrested last week with firearms in former President Barack Obama’s Washington, DC, neighborhood and accused of threatening several politicians.

    Taylor Taranto, who had an open warrant for his arrest related to charges stemming from his involvement in the US Capitol riot, was arrested last week after claiming on an internet livestream the day before that he had a detonator.

    Taranto has been in police custody since his arrest, and during a hearing Thursday to determine whether he’ll continue to be detained pending his trial for the riot charges, federal prosecutors said they plan to add federal felony charges to the case.

    The prosecutors did not say when exactly they would bring the additional charges. Taranto is currently only facing four misdemeanor charges related to his conduct on January 6, 2021.

    Taranto will continue to remain in custody pending a decision on his detention, federal magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui ordered Thursday.

    Faruqui said he is currently in contact with pretrial services in Washington state, where Taranto is believed to have lived recently, to see if Taranto could be supervised by a third-party custodian instead of being held in detention. Pretrial services informed the judge it could take up to a week to evaluate the case.

    Taranto is set to have another detention hearing next Wednesday.

    On Wednesday, prosecutors provided fresh details on Taranto’s online activity before his arrest and threats he made toward prominent politics in recent weeks.

    The government said in a detention memo that Taranto made threats against House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin. Earlier in June, Taranto and several others entered an elementary school near Raskin’s home, with Taranto live-streaming the group “walking around the school, entering the gymnasium, and using a projector to display a film related to January 6,” according to the filing.

    Taranto stated that he specifically chose the elementary school due to its proximity to Raskin’s home and that he is targeting Raskin because “he’s one of the guys that hates January 6 people, or more like Trump supporters, and it’s kind of like sending a shockwave through him because I did nothing wrong and he’s probably freaking out and saying s*** like, ‘Well he’s stalking me,’” the filing said.

    “Taranto further comments, ‘I didn’t tell anyone where he lives ‘cause I want him all to myself,’ and ‘That was Piney Branch Elementary School in Maryland…right next to where Rep. Raskin and his wife live,’” the memo said.

    On June 28, according to prosecutors, Taranto made “ominous comments” on video referencing McCarthy, saying: “Coming at you McCarthy. Can’t stop what’s coming. Nothing can stop what’s coming.”

    After seeing those “threatening comments,” law enforcement tried to locate Taranto but weren’t successful, prosecutors said.

    The following day, on June 29, “former President Donald Trump posted what he claimed was the address of Former President Barack Obama on the social media platform Truth Social,” prosecutors wrote in their memo. “Taranto used his own Truth Social account to re-post the address. On Telegram, Taranto then stated, ‘We got these losers surrounded! See you in hell, Podesta’s and Obama’s.’”

    “Shortly thereafter, Taranto again began live-streaming from his van on his YouTube channel. This time, Taranto was driving through the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington D.C.,” prosecutors said.

    Prosecutors said Taranto parked his van and began walking around the neighborhood and that because of the “restricted nature of the residential area where Taranto was walking, United States Secret Service uniformed officers began monitoring Taranto almost immediately as soon as he began walking around and filming.”

    Secret Service agents approached Taranto, prompting him to flee, according to the filing, but he was apprehended and arrested.

    The government told the judge that among the items found in Taranto’s van were a “Smith and Wesson M&P Shield” and a “Ceska 9mm CZ Scorpion E3.” They also found “hundreds of rounds of nine-millimeter ammunition, a steering wheel lock, and a machete,” as well as signs, a mattress and other indications Taranto was living in the van.

    This story has been updated with additional details Thursday.

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  • A top House Republican backs Biden’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, while a prominent Democrat disagrees | CNN Politics

    A top House Republican backs Biden’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, while a prominent Democrat disagrees | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A top House Republican said Sunday he agreed with the Biden administration’s contentious decision to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine as part of a new military aid package, while a prominent progressive Democrat said the US risks “losing our moral leadership” over the move.

    House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, and Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, made their remarks in separate interviews with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

    McCaul said the weapons “would be a game-changer” in the war in Ukraine, noting that “Russia is dropping with impunity cluster bombs” on Ukrainian territory.

    “All the Ukrainians and (President Volodymyr) Zelensky are asking for is to give them the same weapons the Russians have to use in their own country against Russians who are in their own country,” he said. “They do not want these to be used in Russia.”

    ‘That’s crossing a line’: Democrat responds to Biden’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine

    The munitions, also known as cluster bombs, spread shrapnel that is designed to kill troops or take out armored vehicles such as tanks, but they also scatter “bomblets” across large areas that can fail to explode on impact and can pose a long-term risk to anyone who encounters them, similar to landmines.

    Over 100 countries, including the UK, France and Germany, have outlawed the munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the US and Ukraine are not signatories to the ban – a point that McCaul emphasized on Sunday.

    CNN previously reported that President Joe Biden mulled over the decision before approving the weapons transfer on Friday.

    Biden said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that it was a “difficult decision” but he was ultimately convinced to send the controversial weapons because Kyiv needs ammunition in its counteroffensive against Russia.

    US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC on Sunday that the administration was “mindful of the concerns about civilian casualties” but reiterated that Ukrainian forces plan to use the cluster munitions to “defend their own territory, hitting Russian positions.”

    National security adviser Jake Sullivan sought Sunday to downplay any concern that Biden’s decision would present any “fracture” with allied countries that oppose the use of such weapons ahead of the president’s high-stakes trip to Europe.

    “We have heard nothing from people saying this cast doubt on our commitment, this cast doubt on coalition unity or this cast doubt on our belief that the United States is playing a vital and positive role as leader of this coalition in Ukraine,” he told reporters traveling with Biden en route to London.

    Lee, however, told CNN that cluster bombs “should never be used. That’s crossing a line.”

    “They don’t always immediately explode. Children can step on them,” she said. “The president’s been doing a good job managing this war, this Putin aggressive war against Ukraine. But I think that this should not happen.”

    Asked by Tapper if the US could be engaging in war crimes by providing the weaponry, Lee said, “What I think is that we … would risk losing our moral leadership because, when you look at the fact that over 120 countries have signed the convention on cluster munitions saying that they should never be used, they should never be used.”

    The remarks underscore the sensitivity surrounding cluster munitions, which US forces began phasing out in 2016 because of the danger they pose to civilians.

    Another Democrat, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, said Sunday he appreciated that the Biden administration “grappled with the risk and reached agreements with the Ukrainian military” about the use of the munitions but he has “real qualms” about the decision.

    “There is an international prohibition. And the US says, ‘But here is a good reason to do something different.’ It could give a green light to other nations to do something different as well,” Kaine said.

    Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, welcomed the sending of cluster munitions to Ukraine but said the US was taking “too long” to supply weapons to the country.

    “The best thing we can do now is to step up,” Barrasso told Fox News. “It just does seem to me there is so much delay in the activity of this administration and ultimately getting to Ukraine what they need.”

    Lee and McCaul also diverged Sunday on the chaotic 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has reemerged as a topic after the recent release of a State Department report that found that both the Trump and Biden administrations’ decisions to pull all US troops from Afghanistan had detrimental consequences.

    “I don’t believe the (Biden) administration deserves any blame for this,” Lee said.

    “We have to remember that Donald Trump made this agreement with the Taliban. Secondly, the Trump administration literally gutted our State Department and our diplomatic corps. I believe that the State Department and those who were involved in the end of the Afghanistan war, which should have happened before then, I believe, did the best they could,” Lee said.

    McCaul called the report “damaging” and said the entire ordeal was a “huge foreign policy blunder.”

    The report was publicly released on June 30, more than a year after the 90-day review of the evacuation was completed and includes findings around the tumultuous final weeks of the US presence in Afghanistan, as well as several recommendations for improvement moving forward.

    The Biden administration’s frenzied withdrawal after 20 years of US involvement has come under immense scrutiny by predominantly Republican lawmakers. However, accusations about who was responsible for the chaotic final weeks have fallen largely along party lines, with Republicans pointing fingers at the Biden administration and Democrats, including the White House, casting blame on the Trump administration for the deal that set the US withdrawal into motion.

    Asked on June 30 about the report and whether he admitted there were “mistakes during the withdrawal,” Biden noted that he had vowed that al Qaeda “wouldn’t be there.”

    “I said we’d get help from the Taliban,” the president said. “I was right.”

    McCaul on Sunday said the president’s response was “devoid of reality.”

    “It’s a little bit eerie that a president of the United States would … be so disillusioned about what’s happening on the ground in Afghanistan, the idea that al Qaeda is gone,” the Texas Republican said. “He just really wants to sweep Afghanistan under the rug.”

    Since retaking control of Afghanistan, the Taliban has rolled back decades of progress on human rights.

    According to a recent report by United Nations experts, the Taliban has committed “egregious systematic violations of women’s rights,” by restricting their access to education and employment and their ability to move freely in society.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Harris accuses ‘so-called leaders’ of pushing propaganda and waging culture wars in fiery Florida speech | CNN Politics

    Harris accuses ‘so-called leaders’ of pushing propaganda and waging culture wars in fiery Florida speech | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Vice President Kamala Harris went headfirst into flashpoint culture war issues Friday when she slammed Florida Republicans for the state Board of Education’s newly approved set of standards for teaching Black history, accusing “so-called leaders” of pushing propaganda and willfully misleading children.

    It’s the latest example of Harris acting as a rapid response voice for the administration, quickly deploying around the country in the immediate aftermath of a controversial vote or law being passed to offer forceful pushback of moves taken by state Republicans on guns, abortion and education. On Wednesday, the Florida Board of Education approved a new set of standards for how Black history should be taught in the state’s public schools, sparking criticism from education and civil rights advocates who said students should be allowed to learn the “full truth” of American history.

    “We know the history. And let us not let these politicians who are trying to divide our country win” Harris said in her fiery high-profile speech. “They are creating these unnecessary debates. This is unnecessary to debate whether enslaved people benefited from slavery. Are you kidding me? Are we supposed to debate that?”

    Harris said that she was concerned Republicans want to “replace history with lies.” She highlighted new standards, which, according to a document posted to the state’s Department of Education website, require instruction for middle schoolers to include “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

    It is the latest development in the state’s ongoing debate over African American history, including the education department’s rejection of a preliminary pilot version of an Advanced Placement African American Studies course for high school students, which it claimed lacked educational value. The White House has spoken out forcefully against book bans and other steps to remove elements of American history from school curricula, and the issue was included in Biden’s reelection announcement video in April.

    The president’s advisers view the issue as one that can galvanize Democrats in next year’s elections, and Harris’ presence in the state at the epicenter of boiling culture wars seeks to present Harris and Biden as the safeguards against extremist steps that could limit freedoms and speech.

    On her eighth trip to Florida since taking office, Harris criticized the state’s governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis – though not by name – in what has become a clear strategy to increase the Biden administration’s engagement with the Republican. That strategy has been bolstered by polling and research showing Americans opposed to banning books that include information on slavery and other issues.

    DeSantis hit back Friday, accusing Harris and Democrats in a tweet of spreading lies “to cover for their agenda” and telling reporters in Utah that the vice president’s criticism of Florida’s Board of Education was “absolutely ridiculous.”

    Earlier in the day, the former California attorney general had adopted a prosecutorial cadence to shine light on the Biden administration’s efforts to stand as a safeguard against what she called a national agenda by extremists to claw back rights.

    “These extremists, so-called leaders should model what we know to be the correct and right approach if we really are invested in the well-being of our children. Instead, they dare to push propaganda to our children. This is the United States of America. We’re not supposed to do that,” she said.

    Harris made the point that American allies and enemies abroad know the history of slavery in the US but these proposals, she alleged, would leave children from the US without that same knowledge.

    “That’s building in a handicap for our children that they are going to be the ones in the room who don’t know their own history with the rest of the world,” she said.

    On the standards themselves, Harris described the atrocities of slavery in detail, reciting how children were ripped from their mothers’ arms and were treated as less than human.

    “So, in the context of that, how is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities, that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization,” Harris questioned.

    Asked by CNN about the benchmark, DeSantis deflected, saying he “wasn’t involved.”

    “You should talk to them about it. I didn’t do it. I wasn’t involved in it,” the governor said.

    Pressed further, DeSantis said: “I think that they’re probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into, into doing things later in life. But the reality is, all of that is rooted in whatever is factual. They listed everything out. And if you have any questions about it, just ask the Department of Education.”

    Harris has spent the summer months traveling the country to speak out in support of freedoms she and Democrats believe are under attack by Republicans, including abortion and the right to learn. The vice president has appeared in front of base Democratic voters that include Black voters, women and young people to deliver her message.

    Friday’s last-minute trip to Florida – it was only scheduled on Thursday night – marks the second time this year she’s delivered high-profile remarks in the Sunshine State meant to condemn Republican attacks on rights. Harris told the mainly Black crowd in Jacksonville’s historic LaVille neighborhood that the administration was listening and quickly responding to their concerns.

    “You are not alone,” Harris said.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Exclusive: Trevor Reed is expected to make a full recovery after being wounded in Ukraine | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: Trevor Reed is expected to make a full recovery after being wounded in Ukraine | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former US Marine Trevor Reed is expected to make a full recovery after being wounded in battle approximately two weeks ago serving alongside Ukrainian forces fighting Russia, a source close to Reed told CNN.

    Reed is currently receiving medical care in Germany after being evacuated there by MediCare Hubs Kyiv, a German NGO, and FRIDA Ukraine, an Israeli NGO.

    Reed first traveled to Ukraine on November 1 to fight the invading Russian forces, doing so strictly as a volunteer with no affiliation with the US government, the source said.

    Reed, who spent nearly three years wrongfully detained in Russia, told friends and family he was motivated to fight by seeing the depths of Russian oppression firsthand as a prisoner, the source said, adding that Reed said he was honored to serve alongside Ukrainian fighters.

    After Reed’s unit successfully pushed back against Russian forces and recaptured about 2 km of land near Bahkmut, the source said, Reed was wounded along with others in his unit. As opposed to what US government sources told another media outlet, Reed did not step on a land mine. He was injured by shrapnel which he got in both his legs.

    He is “recuperating quickly and hopes to be home soon,” the source said.

    The source says that Reed and his family hope the news media can respect their desire for privacy as Reed recovers from his wound. He will tell his story when the time is right, the source tells CNN.

    Reed was freed from Russian detention in a high-profile prisoner swap in April 2022.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a news conference Tuesday in Tonga said that Reed’s fighting in Ukraine “shouldn’t have any effect” on ongoing negotiations aimed at freeing two Americans who remain wrongfully detained in Russia: Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich.

    “As I’ve noted before, even with countries where we have profound differences, and almost by definition, countries that are arbitrarily detaining or unlawfully detaining Americans are usually countries with which we have profound differences, we manage to find ways to bring Americans home,” Blinken said.

    Another US official noted that “of course” they were concerned about the negative implications that Reed’s situation would have on negotiations, but stressed that the two issues are wholly separate.

    State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel and another US administration official stressed that Reed “was not engaged in any activities on behalf of the US government.”

    “And as I indicated, we have been incredibly clear warning American citizens, American nationals not to travel to Ukraine, let alone participate in fighting,” Patel added.

    “Since the beginning of this war, we have warned that US citizens who traveled to Ukraine, especially with the purpose of participating in fighting there, that they face significant risks including the risk of capture or death or physical harm,” he said.

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