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Tag: national security

  • Congress faces time crunch on government funding and sweeping defense policy bill | CNN Politics

    Congress faces time crunch on government funding and sweeping defense policy bill | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are scrambling to try to fund the government and pass a sweeping defense policy bill before a new Congress is sworn in, but there are signs that both sides have struggled to reach agreement over these key outstanding issues.

    Government funding expires at the end of next week on December 16 – and it appears all but certain that lawmakers will have to pass a short-term extension as they try to reach a broader full-year funding agreement.

    Separately, the House has been expected to take up the National Defense Authorization bill for fiscal year 2023 this week, but it’s not yet clear when a vote will take place amid questions over whether certain controversial policy provisions will be included in the legislation – like eliminating a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for the military. Once the House has passed the bill, it would next have be taken up by the Senate.

    Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell warned on Tuesday that rather than passing a full-year funding bill, lawmakers may have to pass a short-term stop-gap measure to kick the can into early next year. This would set up a huge funding fight and create fears of a government shutdown early in the new Congress, when Republicans will take control of the House and would have to cut a deal with Democrats who run the Senate.

    On government funding legislation, McConnell said: “We don’t have agreement to do virtually anything, which can only leave us with the option of a short-term CR into early next year,” referring to a short-term bill known as a continuing resolution.

    He added: “We don’t even have an overall agreement on how much we’re going to spend, and we’re running out of time.”

    Despite the threat of a stop-gap, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reiterated on Tuesday that senators are “working very hard” to reach a deal to fully fund the government before the upcoming deadline, but acknowledged that “there’s a lot of negotiating left to do.”

    Senate Republican Whip John Thune signaled Tuesday that he doesn’t have a “high level of confidence” both parties will be able to reach a deal on an omnibus government funding bill, as time is running short to pass that massive bill.

    “I don’t have a high level of confidence because I’m looking at the calendar,” the South Dakota Republican said. “It’ll be a very heavy lift, but who knows? I guess I would say is, you know, bring your Yuletide carols and all that stuff here because we may be singing to each other.”

    McConnell complained Tuesday that Democrats were preventing quick passage of the National Defense Authorization Act by trying to add unrelated items at the last minute that Republicans oppose.

    “Senate Democrats are still obstructing efforts to close out the NDAA by trying to jam in unrelated items with no relationship whatsoever to defense. We’re talking about a grab bag of miscellaneous pet priorities,” McConnell said in remarks on the Senate floor.

    “My colleagues across the aisle need to cut their unrelated hostage taking and put a bipartisan NDAA on the floor,” he added.

    Lawmakers released text of an agreement for the NDAA Tuesday night.

    The summary, released by the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it “requires the Secretary of Defense to rescind the mandate that members of the Armed Forces be vaccinated against COVID-19.”

    CNN reported earlier this week that the mandate was likely to be rescinded as part of the defense policy bill.

    In a tweeted statement Tuesday night, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said that “the end of President Biden’s military COVID vaccine mandate is a victory for our military and for common sense.”

    House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said earlier Tuesday that the House was considering eliminating the Covid-19 vaccine mandate for military members in order to gather enough Republican votes to pass the annual defense authorization. Republicans have said they will not support the NDAA with the vaccine mandate in place.

    Hoyer said at his weekly pen and pad with reporters that Democrats were not “willing” to give up the mandate, but that a compromise is required to get the NDAA across the finish line.

    “We’re not willing to give it up. This is not a question of will; it’s a question of how can we get something done? We have a very close vote in the Senate, very close vote in the House. And you just don’t get everything you want,” he said.

    Thune said of the defense policy bill, “I think the ransom the Democrats wanted for stripping the vaccine mandate is a whole bunch of things to include the permitting reform, but also some other things that are just going to be non-starters on our side, and I don’t think we’re going to get in the business of, you know, allowing them to hold us hostage.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • COVID’s lingering impact prompts Real ID deadline extension

    COVID’s lingering impact prompts Real ID deadline extension

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    The deadline for obtaining the Real ID needed to board a domestic flight has been pushed back again, with the Department of Homeland Security citing the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for the slower-than-expected rollout

    The deadline for obtaining the Real ID needed to board a domestic flight has been pushed back again, with the Department of Homeland Security citing the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for the slower-than-expected rollout.

    The deadline to have a Real ID had been May 3, 2023, but DHS announced Monday that it was pushed back two years, to May 7, 2025.

    “This extension will give states needed time to ensure their residents can obtain a REAL ID-compliant license or identification card,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in a news release. “DHS will also use this time to implement innovations to make the process more efficient and accessible. We will continue to ensure that the American public can travel safely.”

    People are getting compliant IDs as they renew driver’s licenses, but DHS said the pandemic resulted in backlogs at state driver’s license offices. Because of the backlogs, many state agencies that issue driver’s licenses automatically extended expiration dates on licenses and ID cards, rather than issuing licenses and cards compliant with the Real ID requirement.

    After the May 2025 deadline, domestic travelers 18 and older on commercial flights must have a Real ID-compliant driver’s license or state photo ID identification card. Real ID also will be required to enter some federal facilities such as military bases.

    The Real ID law was passed by Congress in 2005 on a recommendation from the 9/11 Commission. The new form of ID incorporates anti-counterfeiting technology and uses documentary evidence and record checks to ensure a person is who they claim to be.

    Enforcement has been delayed several times since the original 2008 deadline. Most recently, in April 2021, DHS extended the deadline to May 2023, also citing how COVID-19 made it harder for states to issue new licenses. DHS said in 2021 that only 43% of state-issued driver’s licenses and ID cars were considered Real ID-compliant.

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  • Why the power grid is an ‘attractive target’ for attacks | CNN Politics

    Why the power grid is an ‘attractive target’ for attacks | CNN Politics

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



    CNN
     — 

    The motivation behind an attack on the electrical grid in a North Carolina county remains a mystery.

    But the method – apparently coordinated attacks on multiple substations – exploits a vulnerability that has long been a source of concern for authorities warning about domestic terrorism.

    Just last week the Department of Homeland Security renewed a national bulletin to warn of attacks on critical infrastructure.

    The details of this particular story are only starting to come into view, although Moore County, North Carolina, remains plunged in darkness. The FBI has joined the hunt for answers into how attacks on substations left around 40,000 without power over the weekend.

    In a Sunday news conference, the county sheriff described the attacks as “intentional” and “targeted,” but had no reason why the person or persons involved would choose the place.

    CNN’s Whitney Wild, reporting from Moore County, mentioned online rumors that disrupting a drag show planned for Saturday night may have been the cause of the attack, but authorities have not confirmed that and said no person or group has claimed responsibility.

    What authorities have confirmed is that someone or some people removed a gate at one substation from its hinges. The damage to transformers was apparently caused by gunfire, although it’s not clear what kind of weapon was used.

    Most of the roughly 40,000 people who lost power aren’t expected to get it back until Thursday, according to Duke Energy.

    Mike Cameron is the assistant town manager and fire chief of Southern Pines, North Carolina, which is in Moore County.

    Appearing on CNN on Monday, he said medical calls have increased as people who rely on oxygen and plug-in medical devices struggle.

    In temperatures that have dipped almost to freezing overnight, people have gotten creative to heat their homes, which has led to an increase in calls about house fires.

    There has also been an increase in emergency calls about traffic accidents, “just because our traffic lights are obviously not working,” he said.

    Southern Pines Mayor Carol Haney did not hold back on her message to whoever is responsible for plunging her town into darkness.

    “It is just a horrible, horrible terrorist, in my opinion, act. Cowardly,” she told CNN’s Victor Blackwell on Monday.

    The mayor of Pinehurst, North Carolina, John Strickland, said on CNN that investigators will have to determine if this was a targeted attack by domestic extremists, but he said it was meant to be destructive.

    “This is clearly an act that was intentional, very forceful and an act of vandalism to create a situation where the citizens of Pinehurst and Moore County are lacking heat and other support services at the present time,” he said on “CNN Newsroom.”

    FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital is currently being powered by diesel fuel, according to its president, Jonathan Davis, but elective procedures have been delayed.

    CNN’s chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller said this type of attack has long been feared.

    The American electrical grid is decentralized and controlled by a hybrid of public and private entities.

    “The challenge is most of these places are outdoors, most are in remote areas and most of them are available for attack from a long distance,” Miller said on “CNN This Morning.”

    He also noted there has been an uptick in chatter among various anti-government and ecoterrorist groups who consider attacks on the electrical infrastructure as a way to create chaos in the US.

    In particular, Miller said right wing neo-Nazi groups have suggested creating a chain reaction of attacks to systematically take down the power grid.

    “Their theory is that if you identify the key nodes and you knock out one and they divert power to the next one, and you knock out the next one and the next one, a domino effect can actually start to topple the national grid and plunge the nation into darkness and chaos,” Miller said.

    It’s obviously not clear if this North Carolina attack is anything along those lines, but the Department of Homeland Security has been warning about such attacks for some time.

    Sniper fire hit a Silicon Valley substation in April 2013, when 150 rounds from an assault rifle took out 17 transformers. Workers rerouted power in that case, but repairs to the transformers took nearly a month.

    Miller said that after that incident, power companies and the government undertook a systemic review of grid security and made changes to add more cameras and motion sensors.

    In January 2022, CNN’s Geneva Sands reported on a DHS memo about potential electrical grid threats from extremist groups angry at the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

    Violent extremist groups have identified the electrical grid as a “particularly attractive target,” according to the intelligence bulletin, and have drawn up specific plans.

    In October 2020, the memo noted, White supremacists in Idaho were charged with conspiracy for trying to damage transformers in that area.

    Also, in May 2020 the government charged followers of the Boogaloo movement, which believes there is a civil war coming, for allegedly conspiring to attack a substation in Las Vegas. Their larger goal was to incite riots and violence.

    Unsophisticated small-scale attacks are unlikely to cause the kind of large-scale meltdown that anti-government plotters envision, but they are likely to cause substantial harm and expensive damage – which is precisely what’s happening in Moore County.

    Juliette Kayyem, a CNN analyst and the former assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs at DHS, said on CNN’s “The Lead” that investigators are probably looking at three possible scenarios:

    Foreign attack. She said this seems unlikely, since Moore County is a rural area and not the expected target for a foreign actor.

    Hate crime or domestic terrorism. She noted the lights went out at the drag show, which was organized by a LGBTQ group, just as it began.

    Insider threat. Kayyem noted the knowledge it would take to disable the substations could be a clue.

    “You don’t just drive by these places and know where to shoot,” she said. “(Investigators) will be looking at the potential there was either casing or someone who knew the area, the facilities and knew where to shoot. These aren’t drive-by incidents,” she said.

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  • EXPLAINER: US power grid has long faced terror threat

    EXPLAINER: US power grid has long faced terror threat

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    WASHINGTON — Investigators believe a shooting that damaged power substations in North Carolina was a crime. What they haven’t named yet is a suspect or a motive.

    Whatever the reason, the shooting serves as a reminder of why experts have stressed the need to secure the U.S. power grid. Authorities have warned that the nation’s electricity infrastructure could be vulnerable targets for domestic terrorists.

    Tens of thousands of people lost their electricity over the weekend after one or more people opened fire on two Duke Energy substations in Moore County, which is roughly 60 miles southwest of Raleigh. Nobody has been charged in the shooting as of Monday.

    Here’s a look at what is known about the shooting and why it could have implications across the U.S.

    WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE SHOOTING?

    The outages in North Carolina began shortly after 7 p.m. on Saturday when one or more people opened fire on two power substations in Moore County, the county’s sheriff said. The outages left tens of thousands of people without electricity, and the equipment could take days to repair, according to Duke Energy.

    Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said at a Sunday news conference that authorities have not determined a motive. He said someone pulled up and “opened fire on the substation, the same thing with the other one.” The sheriff said that it appeared gates were breached at both sites. The Pilot newspaper in Southern Pines, North Carolina reported that a wooden post holding up a gate had been snapped at one of the substations and that it was lying in an access road Sunday morning.

    The sheriff noted that the FBI was working with state investigators to determine who was responsible. He also said “it was targeted.”

    “It wasn’t random,” Fields said.

    Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks said that the company has multiple layers of security at each of its facilities but declined to provide specifics. He said that the company has planning in place to recover from events like the shooting and that they are following those plans.

    Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Ruth Clemens said the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has offered support to Duke Energy as it efforts the restoration of power.

    TARGETS FOR EXTREMIST GROUPS

    Federal authorities have warned that the power grid could be a prime target for extremist groups that embrace “accelerationism,” a fringe philosophy that promotes mass violence to fuel society’s collapse.

    In January, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report warned that domestic extremists have been developing “credible, specific plans” to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020. The DHS report warns that extremists “adhering to a range of ideologies will likely continue to plot and encourage physical attacks against electrical infrastructure.”

    The department wrote that attackers would be unlikely to produce widespread, multistate outages without inside help. But its report cautioned that an attack could still do damage and cause injuries.

    Members of white supremacist and antigovernment groups have been linked to plots to attack the power grid. In February, three men pleaded guilty to conspiring to attack U.S. energy facilities. Authorities said they were driven by white supremacist ideologies to “sow mayhem and division among Americans.”

    OTHER ATTACKS

    Fears of an attack on the nation’s electricity infrastructure are nothing new. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered grid operators to increase security following a still-unsolved April 2013 sniper attack on a California electric substation.

    The attack on the Pacific Gas & Electric Company’s Metcalf Transmission Substation in an isolated area near San Jose, California, caused power outages and led to calls for millions of people to conserve energy.

    The attack involved snipping fiber-optic phone lines and firing shots into the PG&E substation. The FBI said at the time that it found no evidence that it was an act of terrorism.

    Former U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, who chaired the Senate Energy Committee in 2014, said at the time that it was fortunate the attack didn’t cause a blackout in Silicon Valley, “the horrors of which could only be imagined.”

    In the wake of that attack, FERC and other agencies recommended utilities to take specific measures to protect vulnerable substations, like adding walls, sensors or cameras. Still, many remain exposed in rural areas of the U.S. And experts have warned for years that taking out a few substations could cause rolling blackouts in the U.S., leaving millions without power.

    A Utah man was arrested in 2016 and later sentenced to federal prison time after he used a rifle to shoot the cooling fins of a substation, rupturing the radiator piping and causing the substation to overheat and fail. Court documents said the man had planned to attack other substations as part of an effort to take down power in a large chunk of the western United States.

    WHAT’S THE CHALLENGE IN PROTECTING THE GRID?

    The vastness of American electricity infrastructure makes it difficult to defend. Power plants and substations like those targeted in North Carolina are dispersed in every corner of the country and connected by transmission lines that transport electricity through farmland, forests and swamps.

    “The grid is massive,” said Erroll Southers, a former FBI official and professor of homeland security at the University of Southern California.

    The targets also present an increasing challenge to secure because attackers don’t always have to get as close as they did in North Carolina in order to do damage, Southers said. With the right rifle, skill and line of sight a sniper could take a shot from as far as 1,500 meters (about 4,900 feet) away.

    Protecting substations against a long range rifle shot is “extremely challenging, if not impossible,” he said.

    Southers said all of these challenges mean that protecting the electricity infrastructure can come down to response and backup systems more than defense. “Those are the kinds of things that you put in place to protect, knowing that you may not be able to stop the rifle shot.”

    ———

    Kunzelman reported from Silver Spring, Maryland.

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  • Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution is a fantasy, but it’s still dangerous | CNN Politics

    Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution is a fantasy, but it’s still dangerous | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump’s call for the termination of the Constitution is his most extreme anti-democratic statement yet and seems oblivious to the sentiments of voters who rejected election deniers in the midterm elections.

    It may also reflect desperation on the part of the former president to whip up controversy and fury among his core supporters in order to inject some energy into a so-far lackluster 2024 White House bid.

    Trump’s comments on his Truth Social network – which should be easy for anyone to condemn – are exposing the familiar moral timidity of top Republicans who won’t disown the former president. But his latest tirade also plays into the arguments of some Republicans now saying that it’s time to move on from Trump’s fixation with the 2020 election.

    And while it is far too early to write off his chances in the 2024 GOP nominating contest, Trump’s behavior since announcing his third presidential bid also suggests his never-ending quest to shock and to fire up his base now means going so far right he ends up on the extremist fringe and almost in self-parody. In the short time he’s been a candidate, he’s expressed support for rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and dined with a White nationalist Holocaust denier.

    Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for Georgia’s Secretary of State Office, chuckled at the incredulity of Trump’s claim about the Constitution when it was described by CNN’s Pam Brown on Saturday.

    “It’s ridiculous, it’s insane, to suspend the Constitution. Come on man, seriously?” said Sterling, a Republican who helped oversee Georgia’s election in 2020, when President Joe Biden carried the state. “I think more and more Republicans, Americans are saying, ‘Ok I am good, I am done with this now, I’m going to move on to the next thing.’”

    The most immediate question raised by Trump’s latest controversy is what it says about a presidential campaign that has been swallowed up by one far-right authoritarian sideshow after another.

    Far from barnstorming the nation, making a case on the economy, health care and immigration or outlining a program for the future, Trump has given comfort to zealots and insurrectionists.

    He hosted Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago last month, at a time when the rapper now known as Ye is in the middle of a vile streak of antisemitism and praising Adolf Hitler. The far-right Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes was at also at that dinner. Trump claimed he didn’t know who Fuentes was but the former president still hasn’t criticized his ideology. Last week, Trump, in a fundraising video, praised the mob that invaded the Capitol in the worst attack on US democracy in modern times, again promoting violence as an acceptable response to political grievances.

    His social media assault on the Constitution appears to be proving the point of the House select committee probing January 6, which has portrayed him as a clear and present danger to American democracy and met on Friday to consider criminal referrals to the Justice Department.

    Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee, tweeted on Sunday: “No honest person can now deny that Trump is an enemy of the Constitution.” Trump’s latest wild social media post could even deepen his legal exposure as the Justice Department seeks evidence of his mindset as it investigates his conduct before the attack on the Capitol.

    Trump’s doubling down on authoritarianism also follows a moment when much of the country, at least in crucial swing states, rejected his 2020 election denialism and anti-democratic chaos candidates he picked for the midterms – with a final test on Tuesday in Georgia’s Senate runoff. It appears to make it even more unlikely that the ex-president, even if he wins the Republican nomination, will be the kind of candidate who could win among the broader national electorate. After all, his message failed in two consecutive elections in 2020 and 2022. And even in the wilder reaches of the GOP, which Trump has dominated since 2015, a call to simply trash the Constitution might seem a stretch – and reflect the former president’s increasing distance from reality.

    One could argue that the most prudent response to Trump’s latest radical rhetoric might be to ignore it and his bid for publicity.

    But even if his idea of crushing the Constitution looks far-fetched, his behavior needs to be taken seriously because of its possible future consequences.

    That’s because Trump remains an extraordinarily influential force in the Republican Party. His acolytes hold outsized power in the new House majority set to take over in January, which they plan to use as a political weapon to promote his restoration in the White House. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy is appeasing this group in an increasingly troubled campaign for speaker. The California Republican also last week shielded Trump over criticism of the Fuentes dinner, saying that while such a person had no place in the party, Trump had condemned him four times – a false claim.

    Furthermore, in an electoral sense, the theory that Republican voters may be willing to move on from Trump – and to find a candidate who may reflect “America First” populism but not dine with antisemites – has not yet been tested. Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen are still broadly accepted among GOP voters – only 24% of whom believe that Biden legitimately won in 2020, according to midterm election exit polls.

    And a GOP primary that includes multiple candidates competing with Trump for the presidential nomination could yet again splinter the vote against the former president and allow him to emerge at the top of a mostly winner-take-all delegate race, a vote that would put a prospective authoritarian who has already tried to dismantle the US system of democracy one step from a return to power.

    Ignoring or downplaying public evidence of extremism and incitement only allows it to become normalized. There is already proof that the ex-president’s rhetoric can cause violence – after he told his supporters to “fight like hell” to save their country on January 6. And the rhetoric of people like West and Fuentes, with whom Trump has associated, risks normalizing odious forces in society that will grow if they are not challenged. Fuentes, after all, has appeared with Republican lawmakers like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – an increasingly influential voice in the House GOP conference.

    Years of norm crushing and acceptance of extremists by the twice-impeached former president never convinced the party to purge him or his views. Were it not for principled, conservative Republicans like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, Trump’s election-stealing effort might have worked in 2020.

    As they work through an intense lame-duck session of Congress, Republican lawmakers are, for the umpteenth time, going to be asked this week about the tyrannical attitudes of the front-runner for their party’s presidential nod.

    One newly elected Republican, Michael Lawler – who picked up a Democratic-held House seat critical to the slim GOP majority – stood up for the Constitution on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

    “The Constitution is set for a reason, to protect the rights of every American. And so I certainly don’t endorse that language or that sentiment,” Lawler told Jake Tapper. “I think the former president would be well-advised to focus on the future, if he is going to run for president again.”

    Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, said he “vehemently” disagreed with Trump’s statement and said his dinner with West and Fuentes was “atrocious” and that voters would take both incidents into consideration.

    But a fellow Ohio Republican, Rep. David Joyce, demonstrated the characteristic reluctance of members of his party to confront an ex-president who remains hugely popular among its grassroots. Regarding the threat to the Constitution, Joyce said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, “You know he says a lot of things but that doesn’t mean that it’s ever going to happen,” adding that it was important to separate “fact from fantasy.”

    Joyce didn’t directly condemn Trump’s rhetoric and said he would support whomever the Republican Party nominates in 2024. The fact that Republicans are open to a potential president – who would be called upon to swear to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution but who has already called for its termination – speaks volumes about how much the GOP is still in Trump’s shadow.

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  • A globally critical chip firm is driving a wedge between the U.S. and Netherlands over China tech policy

    A globally critical chip firm is driving a wedge between the U.S. and Netherlands over China tech policy

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    Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte speaks with U.S. President Joe Biden. The U.S. has been putting pressure on the Netherlands to block exports to China of high-tech semiconductor equipment. The Netherlands is home to ASML, one of the most important companies in the global semiconductor supply chain.

    Susan Walsh | AFP | Getty Images

    Washington has its eyes on the Netherlands, a small but important European country that could hold the key to China’s future in manufacturing cutting-edge semiconductors.

    The Netherlands has a population of just over 17 million people — but is also home to ASML, a star of the global semiconductor supply chain. It produces a high-tech chip-making machine that China is keen to have access to.

    The U.S. appears to have persuaded the Netherlands to prevent shipments to China for now, but relations look rocky as the Dutch weigh up their economic prospects if they’re cut off from the world’s second-largest economy.

    ASML’s critical chip role

    ASML, headquartered in the town of Veldhoven, does not make chips. Instead, it makes and sells $200 million extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines to semiconductor manufacturers like Taiwan’s TSMC.

    These machines are required to make the most advanced chips in the world, and ASML has a de-facto monopoly on them, because it’s the only company in the world to make them.

    This makes ASML one of the most important chip companies in the world.

    Read more about tech and crypto from CNBC Pro

    U.S.-Netherlands talks

    U.S. pressure on the Netherlands appears to have begun in 2018 under the administration of former President Donald Trump. According to a Reuters report from 2020, the Dutch government withdrew ASML’s license to export its EUV machines to China after extensive lobbying from the U.S. government.

    Under Trump, the U.S. started a trade war with China that morphed into a battle for tech supremacy, with Washington attempting to cut off critical technology supplies to Chinese companies.

    Huawei, China’s telecommunications powerhouse, faced export restrictions that starved it of the chips it required to make smartphones and other products, crippling its mobile business. Trump also used an export blacklist to cut off China’s largest chipmaker, SMIC, from the U.S. technology sector.

    President Joe Biden’s administration has taken the assault on China’s chip industry one step further.

    In October, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security introduced sweeping rules requiring companies to apply for a license if they want to sell certain advanced computing semiconductors or related manufacturing equipment to China.

    ASML told its U.S. staff to stop servicing Chinese clients after the introduction of these rules.

    Pressure on the Netherlands to fall in line with U.S. rules continues. Alan Estevez, the under secretary of commerce for industry and security at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Tarun Chhabra, senior director for technology and national security at the U.S. National Security Council, reportedly spoke with Dutch officials this month.

    “Now that the U.S. government has put unilateral end-use controls on U.S. companies, these controls would be futile from their perspective if China could get these machines from ASML or Tokyo Electron (Japan),” Pranay Kotasthane, chairperson of the high-tech geopolitics program at the Takshashila Institution, told CNBC.

    “Hence the U.S. government would want to convert these unilateral controls into multilateral ones by getting countries such as the Netherlands, South Korea, and Japan on board.”

    The National Security Council declined to comment when contacted by CNBC, while the Department of Commerce did not respond to a request for comment.

    A spokesperson for the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it does not comment on visits by officials. The ministry did not reply to additional questions from CNBC.

    Tensions

    Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hailed the “growing convergence in the approach to the challenges that China poses,” particularly with the European Union.

    But the picture from the Netherlands does not appear as rosy.

    “Obviously we are weighing our own interests, our national security interest is of utmost importance, obviously we have economic interests as you may understand and the geopolitical factor always plays a role as well,” Liesje Schreinemacher, minister for foreign trade and development cooperation of the Netherlands, said last week.

    She added that Beijing is “an important trade partner.”

    — CNBC’s Silvia Amaro contributed to this report

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  • Seoul arrests ex-top security official over border killing

    Seoul arrests ex-top security official over border killing

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    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s former national security director was arrested Saturday over a suspected cover-up surrounding North Korea’s killing of a South Korean fisheries official near the rivals’ sea boundary in 2020.

    Suh Hoon’s arrest early Saturday came as President Yoon Suk Yeol’s conservative government investigates his liberal predecessor’s handling of that killing and another border incident the same year, cases that prompted criticism Seoul was desperately trying to appease the North to improve relations.

    Former President Moon Jae-in, who staked his single-term on inter-Korean rapprochement before leaving office in May, has reacted angrily to the investigation into Suh’s actions. Moon issued a statement this week accusing Yoon’s government of raising groundless allegations and politicizing sensitive security matters.

    Judge Kim Jeong-min of the Seoul Central District Court granted prosecutor’s request to arrest Suh over concerns that he may attempt to destroy evidence, the court said in a statement. Suh didn’t answer reporters’ questions about the allegations on Friday as he appeared at the court for a review over the prosecution’s warrant request.

    A previous inquiry by South Korea’s Board of Audit and Inspection concluded that officials from Moon’s government made no meaningful attempt to rescue Lee Dae-jun after learning that the 47-year-old fisheries official was drifting in waters near the Koreas’ western sea boundary in September 2020.

    After confirming that Lee had been fatally shot by North Korean troops, officials publicly played up the possibility that he had tried to defect to North Korea, citing his gambling debts and family issues, while withholding evidence suggesting he had no such intention, the audit board said in an October report.

    Suh also served as Moon’s spy chief before being appointed as national security director two months before the killing. He faces suspicions that he used a Cabinet meeting to instruct officials to delete intelligence records related to the incident while the government crafted a public explanation of Lee’s death.

    Suh is also suspected of ordering the Defense Ministry, National Intelligence Service, and the Coast Guard to portray Lee as trying to defect in their reports on his killing.

    Critics say the Moon government went out of its way to paint Lee as unsympathetic as it tried to appease a nuclear-armed rival with a brutal human rights record.

    In June, the Defense Ministry and coast guard reversed the Moon government’s description of the incident, saying there was no evidence that Lee had tried to defect.

    Moon’s Democratic Party issued a statement criticizing Suh’s arrest, saying suspicions he might destroy evidence were unreasonable since “all the materials are in the hands of the Yoon Suk Yeol government.”

    “The Defense Ministry, Coast Guard, National Intelligence Service and other security-related agencies have made a judgment on the Western Sea incident based on an analysis of information and circumstances,” the party said in a statement. It called the investigation a type of political vendetta.

    Yoon’s government is separately investigating the 2019 forced repatriation of two North Korean fishermen, despite their reported wish to resettle in South Korea.

    In July, the National Intelligence Service filed charges against Suh and his spy chief successor Park Jie-won for alleged abuse of power, destruction of public records and falsification of documents regarding the two cases.

    The agency accused Park, who served as its director until May, of ordering the destruction of intelligence reports on Lee’s death. It accused Suh of forcibly closing an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the 2019 repatriation of the two North Korean fisherman captured in South Korean waters.

    Critics say Moon’s government never provided a clear explanation of why it sent the two escapees back to the North to face possible execution. Moon’s officials described the men as criminals who confessed to murder and questioned the sincerity of their wish to defect.

    Dozens of international organizations, including Human Rights Watch, issued a joint statement accusing Moon’s government of failing to provide due process or to “protect anyone who would be at substantial risk of torture or other serious human rights violations after repatriation.”

    Moon left office with little to show for his engagement efforts with the North and the investigations into the two incidents have further tarnished his legacy.

    Moon met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times in 2018 and lobbied hard to set up Kim’s meetings with former U.S. President Donald Trump as part of efforts to defuse the nuclear standoff and improve inter-Korean ties.

    But the diplomacy never recovered from the failure of the second Kim-Trump meeting in 2019 in Vietnam. Talks collapsed when the sides could not agree on exchanging an end to crippling U.S.-led sanctions against North Korea for steps by the North to wind down its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

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  • South Dakota governor bans state employees from using TikTok on government devices | CNN Business

    South Dakota governor bans state employees from using TikTok on government devices | CNN Business

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    CNN Business
     — 

    South Dakota’s governor signed an executive order on Tuesday banning state agencies, employees and contractors from accessing TikTok on government devices, citing “the growing national security threat” posed by the Chinese-owned social media platform.

    “South Dakota will have no part in the intelligence gathering operations of nations who hate us,” Gov. Kristi Noem said in a press release. “The Chinese Communist Party uses information that it gathers on TikTok to manipulate the American people, and they gather data off the devices that access the platform.”

    The order goes into effect immediately.

    It’s unclear if many, or any, state employees were actively using TikTok on state-owned devices. But with the move, Noem is the latest lawmaker to urge for tougher action to be taken against the popular short-form video app, potentially scoring some political points in the process.

    There has been renewed criticism of TikTok this year, stemming from a Buzzfeed News report in June that said some US user data has been repeatedly accessed from China. The reporting cited leaked audio recordings of dozens of internal TikTok meetings, including one where a TikTok employee allegedly said, “Everything is seen in China.”

    In a response to the report, TikTok previously said it “has consistently maintained that our engineers in locations outside of the US, including China, can be granted access to US user data on an as-needed basis under those strict controls.” A TikTok executive testified before a Senate panel last year that it doesn’t share information with the Chinese government and that a US-based security team decides who can access US user data from China.

    “Because of our serious duty to protect the private data of South Dakota citizens, we must take this action immediately,” Noem said. “I hope other states will follow South Dakota’s lead, and Congress should take broader action, as well.”

    – CNN’s Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report.

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  • Former Trump White House counsel and his deputy testify to Jan. 6 criminal grand jury | CNN Politics

    Former Trump White House counsel and his deputy testify to Jan. 6 criminal grand jury | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy counsel Patrick Philbin testified to a federal grand jury for several hours in Washington, DC, on Friday, indicating the Justice Department had compelled the men to answer more questions in the January 6, 2021, criminal investigation despite challenges from Donald Trump’s legal team.

    The January 6 grand jury activity is the latest indication the investigation – now led by special counsel Jack Smith – has pushed in recent months to unearth new details about direct conversations with the former president and advice given to him after the election.

    Cipollone was first seen entering the grand jury area with his attorney, Michael Purpura, before 9 a.m., and he was there for more than five hours. Purpura has not responded to requests for comment. The grand jury proceedings themselves are confidential.

    Philbin, whom Purpura also represents, headed into the grand jury area just before the lunch hour on Friday, staying until about 4 p.m.

    Thomas Windom and Mary Dohrmann, prosecutors in the January 6 investigation who are now to be led by Smith, were also seen walking in with Cipollone.

    The investigators are looking at efforts to obstruct the transfer of power at the end of Trump’s presidency and have obtained testimony from several administration advisers closest to the former president after the election and as the Capitol was attacked by his supporters.

    CNN previously reported that Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court, who oversees the federal grand juries in Washington, ordered Cipollone and Philbin to provide additional grand jury testimony this month, following up on their testimony in the fall. The judge has repeatedly rejected Trump’s privilege claims in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to people briefed on the matter.

    Philbin and Cipollone were both key witnesses to Trump’s actions in the last days of his presidency. Cipollone repeatedly pushed back on efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and according to a Senate Judiciary Committee report, he and Philbin opposed a proposal to replace the attorney general with someone willing to look into false claims of election fraud.

    Previously, the Justice Department compelled top advisers from Vice President Mike Pence’s office to testify to the grand jury. They had sought to protect Pence in January 2021 from Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the election.

    Earlier this week, Trump White House official Stephen Miller, who worked with Trump on his speech at the Ellipse, had his own day before the grand jury.

    On Thursday, another leg of Smith’s special counsel investigation – into the handling of documents at Mar-a-Lago after the presidency – was active in the courthouse. At least one Mar-a-Lago prosecutor was working in the secret grand jury proceedings, as three aides to Trump, Dan Scavino, William Russell and Beau Harrison, each appeared, according to sources familiar with them. Their attorney declined to comment.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • FBI director raises national security concerns about TikTok

    FBI director raises national security concerns about TikTok

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Chris Wray is raising national security concerns about TikTok, warning Friday that control of the popular video sharing app is in the hands of a Chinese government “that doesn’t share our values.”

    Wray said the FBI was concerned that the Chinese had the ability to control the app’s recommendation algorithm, “which allows them to manipulate content, and if they want to, to use it for influence operations.” He also asserted that China could use the app to collect data on its users that could be used for traditional espionage operations.

    “All of these things are in the hands of a government that doesn’t share our values, and that has a mission that’s very much at odds with what’s in the best interests of the United States. That should concern us,” Wray told an audience at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

    Those concerns are similar to ones he raised during congressional appearances last month when the issue came up. And they’re being voiced during ongoing dialogue in Washington about the app.

    Concerned about China’s influence over TikTok, the Trump administration in 2020 threatened to ban the app within the U.S. and pressured ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S. company. U.S. officials and the company are now in talks over a possible agreement that would resolve American security concerns, a process that Wray said was taking place across U.S. government agencies.

    “As Director Wray has previously said, the FBI’s input is being considered as part of our ongoing negotiations with the U.S. Government,” TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said in an emailed statement. “While we can’t comment on the specifics of those confidential discussions, we are confident that we are on a path to fully satisfy all reasonable U.S. national security concerns and have already made significant strides toward implementing those solutions.”

    TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. The TikTok statement Friday noted that ByteDance is a private company and that “TikTok Inc., which offers the TikTok service in the United States, is a U.S. company bound by U.S. laws.”

    At a Senate hearing in September, TikTok Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas responded to questions from members of both parties by saying that the company protects all data from American users and that Chinese government officials have no access to it.

    “We will never share data, period,” Pappas said.

    ____

    Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

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  • McCarthy demands January 6 committee preserve all records and vows to hold hearings next year | CNN Politics

    McCarthy demands January 6 committee preserve all records and vows to hold hearings next year | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy sent a letter to the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, on Wednesday demanding that it preserve all records and transcripts and vowing to hold hearings next year on the security failures that led to the US Capitol breach.

    After winning the House majority earlier this month, Republicans made it clear they will prioritize investigating President Joe Biden and his administration on a variety of fronts. The latest warning from McCarthy, who is vying to be House speaker, signals that Republicans may also use some of their time in the next Congress attempting to rewrite the narrative of the insurrection.

    “It is imperative that all information collected be preserved not just for institutional prerogatives but for transparency to the American people,” wrote McCarthy, who did not comply with a subpoena to appear before the committee. “The American people have a right to know that the allegations you have made are supported by the facts.”

    Democratic Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House select committee, told reporters Wednesday that he had not seen the California Republican’s letter to the committee, but that the panel planned to preserve everything. He added that McCarthy “had a chance to have members on the committee, he had a chance to come and testify before the committee, so, I think the horse has left the barn.”

    Thompson said, “We will do our work. We will end December 31. If he wants to conduct whatever he wants as speaker, it’s his choice.”

    McCarthy has signaled no interest in creating a Republican-led January 6 select committee, as some on the right have pushed to do. But McCarthy – who is scrambling to lock down speaker votes – is expected to give his members some room to re-litigate the Democrat-led select committee’s investigation. That effort is likely to be housed within existing committees.

    Earlier this year, Republicans on the House Administration Committee sent a similar preservation request to the select committee and also pledged to continue looking into January 6 security failures. The House GOP is planning to release its own report on the topic when the select committee releases its final report before the end of this year.

    Thompson reiterated Wednesday that not only does the panel plan to preserve everything, it’s also set to release as much as possible to the public through its final report as soon as the committee gets the report back from the printer.

    “A lot depends on when we can get it back once we get it to the printer and how that impacts the Christmas holidays,” Thompson said.

    Top House Republicans would much rather put January 6 in the rear view mirror, but McCarthy needs to win over hardline critics and keep former President Donald Trump happy if he wants to become speaker – and that group is eager to undermine the committee’s investigation, which has painted a damning portrait of Trump and his allies.

    Meanwhile, members of the select committee are scheduled to have a key meeting on Friday to discuss its final report as well as the possibility of making criminal referrals, CNN reported earlier Wednesday.

    A subcommittee of members is also expected to provide options to the full committee about a number of pressing issues including how to present evidence of possible obstruction, possible perjury and possible witness tampering as well as potential criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, according to multiple sources familiar with the committee’s work.

    Also under discussion in the Friday meeting will be how to handle the five Republican lawmakers who refused to cooperate with their subpoenas, which includes McCarthy.

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  • Opinion: Why Kevin McCarthy may have the hardest job on Capitol Hill | CNN

    Opinion: Why Kevin McCarthy may have the hardest job on Capitol Hill | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank and advocacy group based in Washington, DC. He is also a former senior policy adviser to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. Follow him on Twitter. The views expressed in this piece are his own. View more opinion on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    Like a treasure hunter who hacks his way to the heart of the jungle only to find an empty chest, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy thought he was on his way to achieving his goal of becoming speaker before a rebellion on his right flank put that dream very much in doubt.

    Currently, House Republicans are expected to hold a narrow majority in the next Congress – 222 seats to Democrats’ 213, if there are no changes to the projected winners. McCarthy, who recently was reelected as GOP leader, will need a majority, or 218, of the House representatives to vote for him on January 3 to become the next speaker.

    That leaves the California Republican with just a handful of votes to spare if he wants to win. And CNN’s Chris Cillizza has already tallied five Republican congressmen who have expressed their unwillingness to vote for McCarthy.

    With enough negotiations, concessions and wheeling and dealing, the most likely scenario is that McCarthy will squeak out just enough votes. But the uncertain start to his potential tenure, and the challenges he faces within his own caucus, reflect both the tumult of trying to lead a legislative body in an anti-institutional age and the fundamental uncertainty of what the Republican Party actually stands for.

    McCarthy, don’t forget, started his career as a reform-oriented “Young Gun,” posing for the cover of the Weekly Standard with fellow GOP wunderkinds (and now-former Reps.) Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Eric Cantor of Virginia. The populist thrust in the party ultimately sidelined the other two, along with the magazine they appeared on, but McCarthy survived – in part by adopting the pose of an America First culture warrior.

    In spring 2021, while Democrats were passing an American Rescue Plan that put billions of dollars into states’ hands and ended up fueling inflation, McCarthy made headlines by reading “Green Eggs and Ham” to protest the Dr. Seuss estate’s decision not to continue publishing six older books due to racial stereotypes. (“Green Eggs and Ham” was not one of the six books in question.)

    McCarthy’s plans for the new Congress are far from ambitious. He boldly announced that each day will start with a prayer and the pledge of allegiance, something Congress already does. He also vowed to have the Constitution read aloud in its entirety – a nice gesture, but one Republicans have done in the recent past with little impact on the work of governing.

    Because the Republican Party struggles to put forward a cohesive governing agenda (McCarthy’s touted Commitment to America was better suited as an attack on President Joe Biden’s administration than a detailed list of proactive agenda items), the matters that have caused some Republicans to rebel against a potential McCarthy speakership may seem picayune.

    He has pledged to seek votes on removing Reps. Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff, both of California, and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota from certain congressional committees, nominally for various violations. But diehard partisans will certainly see it as payback for Democratic actions, such as stripping Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia of her committee assignments – the kind of DC insider red meat that leaves most voters cold.

    Other possible inside-baseball concessions are even more in the weeds. Reps. Bob Good of Virginia and Matt Rosendale of Montana, for example, have spoken about their desire to bring back the legislative maneuver known as the “motion to vacate the chair,” which would allow any member of Congress to seek a vote on removing the House speaker. That procedure, coupled with a razor-thin margin, would leave a future Speaker McCarthy on the proverbial hot seat.

    And many of the more Trump-supporting figures, like Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, who challenged McCarthy for his leadership post, prefer a more MAGA-aligned speaker. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, another “no” vote against McCarthy, has endorsed Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, partly stemming from his frustration that McCarthy had initially said the former president bore some responsibility for the riots on January 6.

    But more moderate Republicans would likely shy away from Jordan as a candidate, and a centrist candidate would be anathema to the more populist wing. So McCarthy’s path to the speaker’s chair may end up being the least objectionable option.

    Without a clear vision of what the Republican Party’s legislative priorities are, McCarthy’s presumptive speakership will mostly consist of oversight. And some aspect of feeding the political base is part of the game. His announced intentions to end proxy voting, which allowed lawmakers to cast their vote remotely, would be the right step, as would fully reopening the Capitol complex to visitors.

    But McCarthy’s travails illustrate how trying to lead in an era when parties and institutions are held captive by an anti-establishment mentality will be a continual exercise in frustration. Base-pleasing moves like investigating the president’s son, Hunter Biden, don’t do anything to solidify Republican support where it is needed – the middle-class suburbs, which voted decidedly against stunts and for normalcy in last month’s midterm elections.

    Fights over legislative committee assignments and empty culture war gestures may suck up political oxygen, but they don’t point the way forward to a more compelling argument for Republican control of Congress. Republicans who can hammer home an agenda that puts parents first, and is laser-focused on reducing crime and inflation, will be more attractive to an electorate that’s soured on MAGA candidates but also signaled displeasure with the Biden administration.

    Either Kevin McCarthy will figure that out, or he’ll be replaced.

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  • Hong Kong publisher Lai faces Security Law in delayed trial

    Hong Kong publisher Lai faces Security Law in delayed trial

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    HONG KONG — Jimmy Lai broke into Hong Kong’s rambunctious media world 30 years ago armed with the belief that delivering information equates with protecting freedom.

    Lai’s own freedom is at stake as he fights charges of endangering national security as former publisher of his now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.

    Already serving a 20-month term for other offenses, the 74-year-old Lai could face up to life in prison if he is convicted under a sweeping National Security Law that Beijing has imposed on the former British colony, silencing or jailing many pro-democracy activists.

    The high-profile trial was to begin Thursday but was postponed due to a request from Hong Kong’s Department of Justice based on its objection over whether Lai’s British lawyer will be allowed to defend him. Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leader John Lee has asked China to issue a ruling that could block veteran barrister Timothy Owen from representing Lai.

    If Beijing intervenes, that would mark the sixth time the Communist-ruled government has stepped in despite its promise to respect Hong Kong’s judicial independence and civil liberties for at least 50 years after China took over from Britain in 1997.

    The Department of Justice has asked for the trial, which will be overseen by three judges, to be suspended pending a decision from Beijing about Lai’s defense lawyer.

    Lai’s legal troubles derailed a stunning career for a man smuggled into Hong Kong from the Chinese mainland at age 12.

    After getting only a primary school education, he started out working in a glove factory and sprinted up the ranks to found the casual clothing chain Giordano in 1981. Following the crackdown on 1989 student-led pro-democracy protests centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, he became an outspoken advocate for democracy, founding Next Magazine the year after.

    Attacks on Giordano by the Chinese government prompted Lai to sell his shares in the business and devote himself to the media world.

    In 1995, Lai launched the Apple Daily, which quickly became one of the city’s top selling newspapers with its sometimes outrageous coverage of politics and celebrities. The publication survived a newspaper price war and expanded into Taiwan in the 2000s.

    Apple Daily pioneered the use of short animated films online to accompany news reports. Its investigative scoops and critical reports on the government attracted a strong following. Apple Daily also adopted a strong pro-democracy stance, often urging readers to join protests.

    Lai participated in mass protests in Hong Kong in 2019, meeting with then-U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss since-withdrawn legislation that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China.

    Opposition to the bill morphed into months of sometimes violent protests as demands for greater democracy in Hong Kong escalated.

    The protest movement, which eventually was snuffed out, lacked any clear leader, but Lai’s high profile made him a target of the authorities.

    Apple Daily denounced the enactment of the National Security Law in June 2020. Lai told The Associated Press that “Hong Kong is dead,” but said he would stay.

    “If I leave, not only do I disgrace myself, I’d discredit Apple Daily, I’d undermine the solidarity of the democratic movement,” he said.

    In August that year, Lai was arrested on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces. More than 200 officers raided the offices of Next Digital, Apple Daily’s parent company. Arrests of its top executives, editors and journalists and the freezing of $2.3 million worth of assets forced the newspaper to shut down in June 2021. It sold a million copies of its final edition.

    In recent hearings, Lai has appeared tanned, possibly due to outdoors time in Stanley Prison — the city’s largest maximum security lockup — and in good spirits. People who have been in touch with him have noted that he is turning to his Roman Catholic faith in prison, with a friend who wished to remain anonymous due to the issue’s sensitivity saying Lai drew the figure of Jesus on the cross in the letters he sent to others.

    Lai is charged with two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one charge of collusion under the National Security Law. His trial is Hong Kong’s first to center on allegations of “collusion with foreign forces.” Lai also was charged with sedition under a colonial-era law that has been used to quash dissent.

    Next month, Lai is due to be sentenced for alleged fraud related to subletting office space to a company he also controlled.

    In an interview in July 2020, Lai seemed unfazed.

    “If I have to go to prison, I don’t mind. I don’t care,” he said. “I cannot worry, because you never know what kind of measures they will take against me.”

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  • Meghan and Harry faced ‘disgusting and very real’ threats, ex-counterterror chief says | CNN

    Meghan and Harry faced ‘disgusting and very real’ threats, ex-counterterror chief says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and her husband Prince Harry faced “disgusting and very real” threats from right-wing extremists, a former counterterrorism police chief has said.

    In an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 News on Tuesday, Neil Basu said the threats against Meghan were serious and credible enough that authorities had assigned teams to investigate them.

    “If you’d seen the stuff that was written, and you were receiving it … you would feel under threat all of the time,” said Basu, who was in charge of royal protection during his time at the Metropolitan Police.

    “People have been prosecuted for those threats,” said the former Met assistant commissioner.

    Since news of her relationship with Prince Harry broke in 2016, Meghan has been subjected to harsh criticism in the British press. In particular, the UK tabloids have faced allegations that their negative coverage of Meghan fueled racist attacks against her.

    The racist bullying on social media became so intense during her first pregnancy that the royal staff was put on high alert, beefing up its own digital presence to filter out hateful comments, including use of the n-word and emojis of guns and knives.

    The couple said that the racial abuse Meghan faced was a major factor that drove them to move to the United States and step back as senior members of the royal family.

    In the couple’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey last year, Prince Harry said he felt the palace was not doing enough publicly to combat the continued racial abuse in the press.

    Harry is currently in a legal dispute with the Home Office regarding the family’s security arrangements when they visit the UK.

    The threats against the royal couple came amid a rise in right-wing extremism in Britain, according to Basu.

    Basu said in his interview that during his tenure, extreme right-wing terrorism was the fastest-growing threat facing the country, going from 6% of the counterterroism department’s workload in 2015 to more than 20% at the time of his departure more than a year ago.

    Basu, who is mixed-race, said he believes the Home Office needs to do more to tackle institutional racism.

    “I’ve been the only non-White face as a chief officer for a very long time,” he said. “I don’t think the Home Office cares about this subject at all.”

    The Home Office said in a statement to CNN that UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman expects police forces in the country to “take a zero tolerance approach to racism within their workplace.”

    “We are actively pushing for a cultural change in the police, including via a targeted review of police dismissals to ensure officers who are not fit to serve can be swiftly removed,” a spokesperson for the Home Office said.

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  • House January 6 committee chairman says panel ‘close to putting pens down’ on final report | CNN Politics

    House January 6 committee chairman says panel ‘close to putting pens down’ on final report | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The chairman of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol said Tuesday that the panel is “close to putting pens down” on its final report, which is slated for release by the end of this Congress.

    “The body of the report is complete and there is general agreement on that,” Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi told reporters.

    The final report, he said, will include eight chapters.

    In addition to focusing on former President Donald Trump’s actions around January 6, the congressman said the final report will “focus on some other issues,” including material the committee has not previously presented. “We are reviewing material on a daily basis,” he said, though he told reporters the panel has largely completed its interviews.

    CNN reported earlier this week that committee members have been in active discussions about what to include in the report, which will effectively serve as the committee’s closing statement. The panel has less than two months before it expires, and members continue to deliberate what the report will contain and how those findings will be presented.

    It is unclear what the committee will do with the thousands of pages of documents and transcribed interviews it has compiled throughout its investigation. Sources said there could even be a digital component to accompany the final written report.

    Thompson said Tuesday that the committee could release “hundreds” of transcripts by the end of its investigation, adding that “the goal is to release as many of the transcripts where we didn’t have prior agreement with the people because of the sensitivity where they are employed.”

    The chairman said he doubts the panel will release its final report by December 16 – the last day Congress is scheduled to be in session before the year’s end – but there is a “good possibility” the report is released by Christmas.

    Whether the panel will issue criminal referrals is “still under consideration,” Thompson said, though any such referrals would be “done separately” from the final report. The panel would not need to hold a business meeting to issue criminal referral, he said.

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  • Hong Kong official warns lockdown protests hurt security

    Hong Kong official warns lockdown protests hurt security

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    HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s security minister on Wednesday warned that the city’s protests against China‘s anti-virus restrictions were a “rudiment of another color revolution” and urged residents not to participate in activities that might hurt national security.

    Chris Tang said some events on university campuses and the city’s streets had attempted to incite others to target China’s central government in the name of commemorating a deadly fire in the country’s far west last week.

    “This is not a coincidence but highly organized,” he told reporters at the legislature.

    Protests erupted in major mainland cities over the weekend after the blaze that killed at least 10 in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, prompted angry questions about whether firefighters or victims trying to escape were blocked by COVID restrictions.

    Crowds angered by severe restrictions called for leader Xi Jinping to step down in the biggest show of public dissent in decades.

    Smaller protests also emerged at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Hong Kong, and Central over the past two days. The participants included mainland Chinese students and residents as well as locals. They held up white papers and chanted slogans such as “No PCR tests but freedom!” and “Oppose dictatorship, don’t be slaves!”

    The gatherings were the biggest in the city in more than a year under rules imposed by Beijing to crush a pro-democracy movement in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory, which has a separate legal system from the mainland.

    Tang alleged that some active members of the widespread rallies in 2019 also took part in the latest Hong Kong events, noting some people planned the recent protests via social media platforms including some “anti-China” sites.

    “I have previously mentioned that we face national security risks. Some people are unwilling to give up and always want to endanger our national security and Hong Kong’s security. This is exactly the situation I am talking about,” he said.

    He said the city has to guard against these risks if residents do not want to return to what happened in 2019.

    The 2019 protests were sparked by a since-withdraw extradition bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China. Critics worried the suspects would disappear into China’s opaque and frequently abusive legal system. Opposition morphed into months of violent unrest in the city as the protesters’ demands widened to include universal suffrage and other democratic aspirations.

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  • Twitter is less safe due to Elon Musk’s management style, says former top official | CNN Business

    Twitter is less safe due to Elon Musk’s management style, says former top official | CNN Business

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    CNN Business
     — 

    Twitter owner Elon Musk’s dictatorial management style risks driving the company headlong into unforced business blunders, content moderation disasters and the degradation of core platform features that help keep vulnerable users safe, according to a former top Twitter official who led the company’s content moderation before abruptly resigning this month.

    The social media company’s botched rollout of a paid verification feature “is an example of a disaster that slipped through” amid the chaos Musk brought to Twitter, and the prospect of further disasters made it impossible to stay, said Yoel Roth, the company’s former head of site integrity, during an onstage interview with the journalist Kara Swisher Tuesday in his first public appearance since quitting Twitter on Nov. 10.

    Roth and other colleagues tried to warn Musk of the “obvious” problems in his plan to offer a verified check mark to any user who paid $8 a month. But Musk charged ahead anyway through sheer force of will, leading to a wave of new impostor accounts posing as major brands, athletes and other verified users that soon forced Twitter to suspend the feature.

    “It went off the rails in exactly the ways that we anticipated,” Roth said.

    The public reflections of a senior Twitter leader who had close contact with Musk in the raw, early days of his ownership of the company — a period marked by internal tumult and a damaging advertiser revolt — provide the latest evidence of a billionaire CEO who leads by his gut at the expense of virtually everyone else.

    There was no explosive confrontation with Musk that led to Roth’s resignation, and the episode involving Twitter’s paid verification feature was only one of many factors that drove Roth’s decision to leave, he said. But the experience exemplified the kind of damage Musk’s freewheeling approach can do, Roth added, likening his final weeks at the company to standing before a leaky dam, trying desperately to plug the holes but knowing that eventually something would get past him.

    In the hour-long interview, Roth warned Musk’s laissez-faire approach to content moderation, and his lack of a transparent process for making and enforcing platform policies, has made Twitter less safe, in part because there aren’t enough staff remaining who understand that malicious actors are constantly trying to game the system in ways that automated algorithms don’t know how to catch.

    “People are not sitting still,” he said. “They are actively devising new ways to be horrible on the internet.”

    He urged Twitter users to monitor the functioning of key safety features such as muting, blocking and protected tweets as early warning signs the platform may be breaking down.

    “If protected tweets stop working, run,” he said.

    For two weeks after Musk closed his purchase of Twitter, Roth presented himself as a voice of stability and calm at the center of a company undergoing dramatic change. Roth knew that by remaining at the company, Musk was using him to help keep advertisers from abandoning the platform. But Roth also suggested that he and others who did not leave Twitter may have been able to influence Musk and keep him from making damaging unilateral decisions, which he had “multiple opportunities” to do.

    Even as he spent his initial days in the new regime battling a “surge in hateful conduct on Twitter” apparently meant to test Musk’s tolerance for racism and antisemitism on the platform, Roth sought to reassure the public that Twitter’s trust and safety work continued unhindered.

    He shared data on the platform’s ongoing enforcement efforts, and downplayed the impact of Twitter’s mass layoffs on its content moderation team, saying the job cuts were less severe in that department compared to the wider organization.

    As late as Nov. 9, Roth spoke alongside Musk during a public Twitter Spaces event intended to persuade advertisers not to flee the platform. In the hour-long session, which was attended by more than 100,000 listeners, including representatives of Adidas, Chevron and other major brands, Roth waxed optimistic about Twitter’s plans to fight hate speech.

    The very next day, Roth abruptly resigned, joining a slew of other senior executives including Twitter’s chief privacy officer and chief information security officer.

    In a subsequent New York Times op-ed, Roth said his reason for leaving came down to Musk’s highly personal and improvisational approach to content moderation. Roth’s essay accused Musk of perpetuating a “lack of legitimacy through his impulsive changes and tweet-length pronouncements about Twitter’s rules.”

    On Tuesday, Roth said the popular narrative that describes Musk as a villain is wrong and doesn’t reflect his own experiences with him. But, he said, Musk surrounds himself with those who rarely challenge him.

    Before Musk took over Twitter, Roth wrote down several commitments to himself that would trigger the decision to quit. One limit, he said — one that was never reached — was that Roth would refuse to lie for Musk. Another limit, one that was ultimately reached and drove his decision to resign, was “if Twitter starts being ruled by dictatorial edict rather than by a policy.”

    Roth’s role at Twitter came under intense scrutiny in 2020 after the company appended a fact-check message to false tweets by then-US President Donald Trump.

    Tweets that Roth sent in 2016 and 2017 that were critical of President Trump and his supporters were dug up and used to argue that Roth and Twitter were biased against the president.

    Among Roth’s tweets was one he wrote on Election Day 2016 that read, “I’m just saying, we fly over those states that voted for a racist tangerine for a reason.”

    Twitter defended Roth at the time, saying, “No one person at Twitter is responsible for our policies or enforcement actions, and it’s unfortunate to see individual employees targeted for company decisions.”

    When Roth was still working at Twitter in October, Musk was asked about Roth’s old tweets.

    “We’ve all made some questionable tweets, me more than most, but I want to be clear that I support Yoel. My sense is that he has high integrity, and we are all entitled to our political beliefs,” Musk tweeted.

    Roth also became the personal face of Twitter, and a target of harassment, after the company decided to suppress a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden, a decision then-CEO Jack Dorsey has since said was a mistake.

    “It’s widely reported that I personally directed the suppression of the Hunter Biden story. That is not true. It is absolutely, unequivocally untrue,” Roth told Swisher on Tuesday.

    Roth did not feel removing the content from Twitter was appropriate, he said, but at the time the story seemed to bear the hallmarks of a hack-and-leak information operation.

    Roth also said Tuesday that, in retrospect, suppressing the Hunter Biden story was a mistake. But he defended Twitter’s other decisions to ban Trump for his activities around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, as well as a personal account belonging to Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and an account belonging to the satirical website Babylon Bee.

    All three cases involved obvious violations of Twitter’s publicly accessible, written policies, Roth said, making them a much clearer case for enforcement.

    Amid the layoffs that have decimated Twitter’s content moderation team, Musk has said he intends to rely much more heavily on crowdsourced fact-checking of tweets to provide context to misleading claims. But Roth said that in doing so, Twitter risks abdicating its responsibility to the public, which should still apply despite it being a private company.

    Policymakers should require platforms to share data with academics and researchers, he said, preempting privately owned platforms such as Twitter from shirking a duty to transparency.

    Asked to give a single piece of advice to Musk going forward, Roth paused for the briefest of moments.

    “Humility goes a really long way,” he said.

    Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    – CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan contributed to this report

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  • Supreme Court hears Texas’ challenge to Biden immigration and deportation policies | CNN Politics

    Supreme Court hears Texas’ challenge to Biden immigration and deportation policies | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Supreme Court on Tuesday will consider the Biden administration’s discretion on removing non-citizens in a challenge brought by two Republican state attorneys general who say the Department of Homeland Security is skirting federal immigration law.

    The case, brought by Texas and Louisiana, is the latest salvo from conservative states who have all but declared war on the Biden administration on immigration and have gone as far as busing undocumented immigrants to Democrat-led states in an effort to raise alarm about the issue.

    At the heart of the dispute is a September 2021 memo from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that laid out priorities for the arrest, detention and deportation of certain non-citizens, reversing efforts by former President Donald Trump to increase deportations.

    In court papers, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar stressed that Congress has never provided the funds to detain everyone, prompting administrations to consider how to prioritize limited funds.

    “Especially given perennial constraints on detention capacity, the Executive retains authority to focus its limited resources on those non-citizens who are higher priorities for apprehension,” she wrote.

    The guidelines call for an assessment of the “totality of the facts and circumstances” instead of the development of a bright-line rule. The government lists aggravating factors weighing in favor of an enforcement action including the gravity of the offense and the use of a firearm, but it also lists mitigating factors that include the age of the immigrant.

    Lawyers for Texas and Louisiana argued that the government lacked the authority to issue the memo because it conflicts with federal law. They point to immigration law that holds that some immigrants “shall” be taken into custody or removed.

    “When Congress required the Executive to act, the Executive lacks the authority to disregard that instruction,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued in court papers. He also charged that the guidelines violate the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that governs how an agency can issue regulations.

    A district court judge blocked the guidelines nationwide. “Using the words ‘discretion’ and ‘prioritization’ the Executive Branch claims the authority to suspend statutory mandates,” ruled Judge Drew Tipton, a Trump appointee on the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas. “The law does not sanction this approach.”

    A federal appeals court declined to issue a stay of the decision, prompting the Biden administration to ask the Supreme Court for emergency relief last July. A 5-4 court ruled against the administration, allowing the lower court’s decision to remain in effect while the legal challenge plays out.

    Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined her three liberal colleagues in dissent without providing any explanation for her vote.

    In his memo, Mayorkas stated that there are approximately 11 million undocumented or otherwise removable non-citizens in the country and that the United States does not have the ability to apprehend and seek to remove all of them. As such, the Department of Homeland Security sought to prioritize those that pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.

    Prelogar noted that the lower court holding against the government “runs counter to longstanding practice spanning multiple administrations” and emphasized that the guidelines are not binding orders compelling action, but instead, are an attempt to utilize available resources while leaving ultimate discretion to the judgment of individual immigration officials.

    “The guidelines simply tell federal officials how to enforce federal law in a field that the Constitution commits to the federal government,” Prelogar wrote.

    As a threshold matter, she urged the justices to dismiss the challenge, arguing that the states don’t have the legal right – or standing – to bring the challenge because they can’t show the necessary direct injury. Prelogar said if the lawsuit were allowed to go forward, any state could sue the federal government about “virtually any policy.”

    In a separate dispute, Arizona, Montana and Ohio also sued the Biden administration. A district court judge issued a nationwide injunction blocking the guidelines, but the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals put that decision on hold.

    “Federal law gives the National Government considerable authority over immigration policy,” the court held. It also expressed skepticism about whether the guidance directly injured the states.

    Paxton argued to the Supreme Court that the states have the legal right to bring the lawsuit because they bear costs related to law enforcement activities as well as health care and education costs of the non-citizens.

    Critics also say that Texas is guilty of “judge shopping” the case at hand by filing it where it had a 100% chance of drawing a Trump-appointed district judge who has previously issued nationwide injunctions concerning other immigration policies.

    “So far, Texas has taken the lead in 29 different lawsuits against the Biden administration, on immigration,” said CNN analyst Steve Vladeck who is a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. In a friend of the court brief filed opposing Texas, Vladeck noted that none of those cases had been filed where the Texas government is located in Austin.

    “This case is the latest battlefield in what has become an all-out war by red state attorneys general against virtually every Biden related policy,” Vladeck said.

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  • Elon Musk claims Apple has ‘threatened to withhold’ Twitter from its app store | CNN Business

    Elon Musk claims Apple has ‘threatened to withhold’ Twitter from its app store | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN Business
     — 

    Elon Musk on Monday claimed that Apple has “threatened” to pull Twitter from its iOS app store, a move that could be devastating to the company Musk just acquired for $44 billion.

    “Apple

    (AAPL)     has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why,” Musk said in one of several tweets Monday taking aim at Apple

    (AAPL)     and its CEO for alleged moves that could undermine Twitter’s business.

    In another tweet, Musk claimed that Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. “Do they hate free speech in America,” he said, in an apparent reference to his oft-stated desire to bolster his idea of free speech on the platform. “What’s going on here [Apple CEO Tim Cook]?” Musk added in a follow-up tweet. He also criticized Apple’s size, claimed it engages in “censorship,” and called out the 30% transaction fee Apple charges large app developers to be listed in its app store.

    The tweetstorm highlights the tenuous relationship between Musk and Apple, which along with Google serves as the major gatekeepers for mobile applications. Long before taking over Twitter, the Tesla CEO said that when the car company was struggling, he considered selling the company to Apple, but that Cook refused to take a meeting with him.

    Removal from Apple’s app store, or that of Google, would be detrimental to Twitter’s business, which is already struggling with a loss of advertisers following Musk’s takeover and a rocky initial attempt at expanding its subscription business.

    Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk’s tweets. The company has previously shown it’s willing to remove apps from its app store over concerns about their ability to moderate harmful content or if they attempt to circumvent the cut Apple takes from in-app purchases and subscriptions.

    In January 2021, Apple removed Parler, an app popular with conservatives, including some members of the far right, from its app store following the US Capitol attack over concerns about the platform’s ability to detect and moderate hate speech and incitement. Parler was returned to Apple’s app store three months later after updating its content moderation practices.

    In its official app store review guidelines, Apple lists various safety parameters that apps must adhere to in order to be included in the store, including an ability to prevent “content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, in exceptionally poor taste, or just plain creepy” such as hate speech, pornography and terrorism. “If you’re looking to shock and offend people, the App Store isn’t the right place for your app,” the guidelines state.

    Various civil society groups, researchers and other industry watchers have raised concerns about Twitter’s ability to effectively moderate harmful content and maintain the platform’s safety following widespread layoffs and mass employee exits at the company. Musk has also claimed he wants to amplify “free speech” on the platform and has begun to restore some accounts that were previously banned or suspended for repeatedly violating Twitter’s rules. Musk himself has shared a conspiracy theory and several other controversial tweets since taking over as Twitter’s owner.

    Musk, long a prolific and antagonistic tweeter, has not let up at all since taking over the company. And what it may have lost in revenue, he has claimed it has made up for in engagement. Part of the strategy appears to be relentlessly taking aim at enemies, either of him personally or of “free speech.”

    In an interview with CBS earlier this month, Cook was asked whether there are any ways in which Twitter could change that would cause Apple to remove it from the app store. “They say that they’re going to continue to moderate and so … I count on them to do that,” Cook responded. “Because I don’t think that anybody really wants hate speech on their platform. So I’m counting on them to continue to do that.”

    In an op-ed published in the New York Times last week, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, who left the company earlier this month, suggested that Twitter had already begun to receive calls from app store operators following Musk’s takeover. Roth said the company’s failure to adhere to Google and Apple’s app store rules could be “catastrophic.”

    And last weekend, the head of Apple’s app store, Phil Schiller, deleted his Twitter account.

    While the state of Apple and Twitter’s relationship is unclear, the iPhone maker was running Black Friday ads on the platform as recently as last Thursday, according to posts viewed by CNN.

    Many companies have pulled back on digital ad spending in recent months as the economy declined, and Twitter has likely always only been a small portion of Apple’s ad budget. Apple’s impact on Twitter, however, could be much more significant, including if Musk succeeds in shifting its core business to being more reliant on subscription revenue, and potentially has to pay a 30% cut to Apple.

    In one tweet Monday, Musk asked his nearly 120 million followers if they know “Apple puts a secret 30% tax on everything you buy through their App Store?” In another tweet, he posted a picture of a highway exit: one lane headed toward “pay 30%,” the other pointed toward “go to war.” An old car labeled “Elon” skidded toward the latter.

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  • These are the end-of-year political showdowns that will help decide America’s future | CNN Politics

    These are the end-of-year political showdowns that will help decide America’s future | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    America is heading for a year-end political collision that will set the stage for showdowns between the new Republican-led House and the Democrats who still wield power in the Senate and White House.

    A fraught coda to the political battles of 2022 will decide who holds the government purse strings and how far the US will go in funding Ukraine’s war with Russia. It will showcase extremism in the incoming GOP-run House and the size of the Democratic Senate majority. And the 2024 presidential campaign is grinding into gear with ex-President Donald Trump stirring controversy on multiple fronts and President Joe Biden pondering a reelection bid.

    In Congress, a lame-duck session will see standoffs that could risk a government shutdown and over the must-lift US government borrowing limit, with grave implications for the economy.

    Meanwhile, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is scrambling to solidify support in his bid to become speaker in January, with a smaller-than-expected incoming majority giving his extreme pro-Trump colleagues extra power.

    And the House January 6 committee is poised to soon unveil its final report on Trump’s negligence and incitement leading up to the US Capitol insurrection. The findings, amid signs of acrimony inside the panel, could further color sentiment towards the ex-president as he seeks to build momentum after an underwhelming 2024 campaign launch – and as powerful donors, as well as prominent Republicans considering their own White House ambitions, are openly castigating Trump for hosting and then failing to disavow White nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. The special counsel probe into his hoarding of classified documents and 2020 election chicanery is also gathering pace.

    Trump is also one of the factors playing into the Georgia Senate runoff election on December 6 that could give Democrats slender breathing room in the chamber or extend the 50-50 split broken only by Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote that made Biden’s agenda so precarious for the last two years.

    These next few weeks will show the country has failed to fully process the trauma of the Trump presidency or to arrive at the sense of normality that Biden promised during the 2020 campaign – even as the two rivals maneuver ahead of a possible rematch in 2024. They will also stress the near impossibility of governing at a time when America is deeply split between two political poles since big questions are likely to get pushed down the road.

    Big issues not solved this December will be pitched into an even more volatile atmosphere by an aggressive GOP-controlled House primed to slam the White House with partisan investigations.

    There’s also the renewed threat of a freight rail strike that could again clog supply lines and fresh Democratic calls for more action on gun control after a tragic new spate of mass shootings. The Democrats have a massive agenda before relinquishing the House but have little political room or time to accomplish it.

    Still, Congress is expected to mark one milestone in the coming weeks. The Senate is expected to vote to codify rights to same-sex and interracial marriage after a procedural vote on the measure earlier in November demonstrated strong bipartisan support.

    Here is what to look out for in the coming weeks.

    Congress must pass a bill to fund the government by December 16 or risk a partial government shutdown. The administration has asked for $37.7 billion in aid for Ukraine, $10 billion for extended efforts to combat Covid-19 and an unspecified amount for disaster relief after hurricanes hit Florida and Puerto Rico.

    Democrats will remain in control of the House until the new Congress in 2023, but a major spending package will also still likely require agreement from 10 Republicans to beat a Senate filibuster. GOP senators are especially skeptical about the administration’s warnings that the US will suffer a relapse in its exit from the pandemic without billions more dollars in funding. And even getting a Democratic majority in the chamber to sign on could be a challenge since West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin could make another stand against another spurt of government spending, especially since he would face a tough race if he decides to run for reelection in 2024.

    There is likely sufficient support for new aid to Ukraine in the Senate, but funding President Volodymyr Zelensky’s war for democracy against Russia is set to become far less routine next year as pro-Trump House members, like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, are vowing to halt aid needed for vital weapons and ammunition. They want the cash sent to reinforce the southern US border instead.

    The most serious showdown of the new Congress could come over raising the government’s borrowing limit that is due to be reached sometime next year. Failure to do so could trash faith in America’s willingness to pay its bills and send shockwaves through the US and global economy.

    McCarthy has already warned he will require spending concessions on key programs in return for allowing the government to borrow more money – a scenario that triggered several damaging fiscal showdowns during the Obama administration.

    To avoid a repeat, Democrats could use the waning days of their control of both chambers to raise the debt ceiling themselves, using a budgetary process known as reconciliation that could bypass a Senate filibuster. But the process is hugely complex, in terms of congressional choreography and time.

    Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said before Thanksgiving that the “best way to get it done, the way it’s been done the last two or three times is bipartisan.” But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell didn’t express much interest in Schumer’s invitation sit down to sort out the issue, saying “I don’t think the debt limit issue is until sometime next year.”

    The House Republican leader has a big problem – finding the votes in the new GOP majority to fulfill his dream of becoming speaker.

    McCarthy staked out a series of hardline positions heading into the holiday in an apparent effort to appease pro-Trump lawmakers after several declared they won’t vote for him. The California lawmaker can afford to lose only a few GOP votes if he wants to be speaker.

    During a trip to the border last week, he warned Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to resign or face possible impeachment next year. And he said he’ll follow through on a threat to throw high-profile Democrats, such as Reps. Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar, off of top committees next year.

    Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Schiff accused McCarthy of adopting extremist positions for his own naked political gain.

    “Kevin McCarthy has no ideology, has no core set of beliefs,” Schiff told CNN’s Dana Bash, saying the top House Republican will do “whatever he needs to do to get the votes of the QAnon caucus within his conference.”

    McCarthy’s struggle to confirm his speakership lies partly in the smaller-than-expected GOP majority following the lack of an expected “red wave” in this month’s election. And it could be a preview of a volatile majority and the extent to which his tenure, if he does win the speakership, will be hostage to the whims of the far-right Freedom Caucus and pro-Trump lawyers who want to use their majority as a weapon against Biden. But McCarthy also has to worry that two years of relentless, partisan investigations could turn off voters and lead them to snatch away the party’s fragile edge in the House in the 2024 election.

    But before the 2024 election gets into full swing, there’s unfinished business from 2022. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker go head-to-head in a runoff on December 6 after neither broke the 50 percent threshold the first time around.

    Former President Barack Obama, who was the most effective Democratic messenger in the midterms, is due to campaign for Warnock on Thursday. Walker’s chances could depend on whether he is able to win over a significant block of Republican voters who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him despite backing Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Walker’s problem is that he’s a protégé of Trump, from whom Kemp kept a good distance.

    After Trump announced his 2024 campaign days after the midterms, Warnock and his supporters started framing the runoff as the first chance for Democrats to stop Trump’s bid to return to the White House. Their argument recalled complaints by many Republicans that Trump’s intervention in two 2020 Senate runoffs in Georgia cost the GOP the chance to control the Senate.

    This might all be about one seat. But holding the Senate 51-49 rather than 50-50 would be huge for Democrats because it would insulate them from the incapacitation of one of their members and could diminish the power of Manchin, who has been a stubborn brake on Biden’s aspirations for two years.

    The former president finds himself under unusual political pressure inside the Republican Party he has dominated since 2015. His backing of several losing, election-denying and unpolished candidates in the midterms angered many key figures in the party. His hosting of Fuentes at the same time as rapper Kanye West at his Mar-a-Lago estate worried Republicans who fear that while he may be a formidable candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, Trump’s empathy for the far-right will again doom him before a national electorate.

    Another potential Republican presidential candidate, outgoing Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, condemned the incident as “very troubling” on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

    “I don’t think it’s a good idea for a leader that’s setting an example for the country or the party to meet with (an) avowed racist or anti-Semite,” Hutchinson said. “You want to diminish their strength, not empower them. Stay away from it.”

    Trump acknowledged the meeting in a Truth Social post, but claimed he knew nothing about Fuentes. He also did not disavow him or his views.

    This latest storm comes as the new special counsel Jack Smith, blasted by Trump as a “political hitman,” gets up to speed on the serious legal challenges facing the ex-president, who’s suffered several recent defeats in court in his bid to delay accountability. Trump’s early declaration of a campaign – apparently to quell the buzz around possible alternative Republican candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – leaves the former president needing a way to create some traction in December and in the early months of the year when he might find it hardest to win political exposure.

    The opening stages of the campaign will begin to answer the central question of Trump’s 2024 run – whether his so far rock solid appeal to the GOP base will counter concerns in the wider party about his broader viability.

    Trump’s decision to jump in the race has also increased scrutiny of whether Biden, who turned 80 earlier this month, will decide to run for reelection. The president was asked by CNN’s Betsy Klein during his holiday vacation in Nantucket how his conversations about 2024 were going with his family.

    “We’re not having any. We’re celebrating,” Biden replied.

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