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  • Nevada GOP Senate candidate raised money to help other candidates — the funds mostly paid down his old campaign’s debt instead | CNN Politics

    Nevada GOP Senate candidate raised money to help other candidates — the funds mostly paid down his old campaign’s debt instead | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown created a political action committee to “help elect Republicans” but most of its funds were spent paying down debt from his failed previous campaign. The group donated less than 7% of its funds to the candidates it was set up to support, according to campaign finance records – a move one campaign finance expert likened to using the PAC as a “slush fund.”

    Brown formed the Duty First PAC in July 2022, saying the organization would help Republicans take back Congress. A month earlier, Brown lost the Republican Senate primary to Adam Laxalt after raising an impressive $4.4 million for his upstart campaign, but his campaign was left with more than $300,000 in debt.

    Now Brown is running again in Nevada as a top recruit of Senate Republicans.

    A former Army captain, Brown made lofty promises when launching his PAC, Duty First.

    “With your support, we will: Defeat the socialist Democrats. Help elect Republicans who believe in accountability to the Constitution and service to the people. Stand with the #DutyFirst movement, chip in with a grassroots contribution today,” he said in a tweet announcing the PAC.

    “We’ll ensure that the socialist agenda of the Democrats does not win in November, and the Republicans continue to be held accountable to defending our Constitution and defending our conservative principles. The country’s counting on us,” Brown said in an accompanying video for the PAC’s launch in July 2022.

    Since then, the PAC raised a small amount – just $91,500 – and used the majority of their money – $55,000 – to repay debt from Brown’s failed campaign for Senate, which Brown had transferred over. Campaign finance experts told CNN this falls into a legal gray area.

    Of the $90,000 spent so far, just $6,000 made its way to five Nevadan Republican candidates’ committees. An additional payment for $1,000 was listed as going directly to congressional candidate Mark Robertson as a contribution but lists the amount as being directly paid to the candidate at his home – not to his committee.

    Instead, the Duty First PAC made over a dozen debt payments. A combined $23,000 was spent on website and software services used by Brown’s Senate campaign. Another $11,275 went towards paying down the failed campaign’s credit card, with an additional $3,000 spent on credit card interest fees.

    Duty First paid off over $1,200 in credit card debt accrued at a country club near where Brown previously lived in Dallas, Texas, and ran for the state house in 2014. A spokesman for the Brown campaign said in an email to CNN the “facility fee” charges were for a fundraiser “hosted by supporters of Sam’s campaign.”

    The most recent FEC filing shows Brown is now trying to dispute over $80,000 in remaining debt from the previous campaign, which the spokesman said “will be resolved in due course.” A majority of the disputed debt owed is for direct mail services used by Brown’s previous campaign.

    Duty First PAC is also responsible for eventually repaying Brown $70,000 that he personally loaned his committees.

    The spokesperson for Brown’s campaign defended the PAC’s spending.

    “The PAC promised to support conservative candidates in Nevada, and it did exactly that by donating to every Republican candidate in Nevada’s federal races during the 2022 general election,” they said.

    According to a CNN analysis of Duty First PAC’s FEC filings, of all the money raised, less than 7% went to candidates. When considering Brown’s personal loans, debt the PAC took on from Brown’s campaign, and expenditures, fewer than 2% of the PAC’s funds went towards candidates in 2022

    The money not spent on debt went to a variety of consulting and digital marketing expenses. The PAC spent $1,090 on a storage unit, more than it donated to the winning campaign of Republican Rep. Mark Amodei.

    Despite this, Brown played up his PAC’s donations to candidates in interviews and in posts on social media.

    “I have pledged to help defeat the Democrats in Nevada,” he added in an email, announcing the launch of the PAC.

    The PAC’s donations were from grassroots donors, who typically donated $50 or less.

    Just a day before the 2022 midterm election, Brown announced donations to several candidates running for office in Nevada.

    Records with the FEC show the 2022 donations to House candidates were made on October 31, while the donation to Laxalt’s Senate campaign was made in early September.

    “The Duty First PAC proudly supports conservatives fighting for Nevada,” he said in a tweet after making the donations on November 7, 2022. “This past week, we donated funds to the four Republicans working to take back the House. Join us in supporting them right now!”

    Later, following the 2022 midterms in a late November interview on a local Nevada radio station, Brown played up the PAC’s work and said it would continue to work between election cycles.

    “Duty First is here to kind of work between the cycles, so to speak and help candidates who are running,” Brown said. “In fact this cycle, you know, we had raised money and supported all of our Republican federal candidates, Adam Laxalt, as well as the four Congressionals.”

    “And so, it’s our way of pushing back against the Democrat agenda and their representation,” Brown said. “But, also, it gives Duty First supporters and people that believe in our mission, a sort of platform to remind Republicans what we’re about.”

    Campaign finance experts CNN spoke to said Brown marketing the Duty First PAC as a way for people to financially support conservative candidates was a “creative way” for Brown to pay off old campaign debts behind the scenes.

    “It creates a situation where contributors to a PAC may think that PAC is doing one thing, which is supporting political candidates, when in fact what it’s doing is being used to pay off long standing debts from a previous campaign,” said Stephen Spaulding, vice president of policy at Common Cause and former advisor to an FEC commissioner.

    Since the FEC has not issued an advisory opinion that would “apply to that candidate and any other candidate that has a very similar situation,” Spaulding said transferring debts between campaign committees and PACs is a gray area in campaign finance law. In Brown’s case, his candidate committee was rolled into a PAC, Sam Brown PAC, that was associated with his candidacy, which the campaign finance experts agree is a common maneuver for candidates. But what struck the experts as odd was that Brown terminated the Sam Brown PAC, and transferred his outstanding loans and debts to the Duty First PAC.

    Brown’s 2024 candidate committee, Sam Brown for Nevada, is an entirely new committee with its own FEC filings, despite having the same name as his previous committee. This committee, formed in July 2023, is not affiliated with the Duty First PAC, nor is it obligated to pay off the remaining $271,000 in previous campaign debt and loans.

    “Unfortunately, Sam Brown, like too many other politicians, has given almost no money to other candidates and, instead, has used his PAC as a slush fund,” said Paul S. Ryan, executive director at Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation. “Many donors would understandably be upset if they learned their money wasn’t used to help elect other candidates like Brown – the reason they made their contributions,” he added.

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  • House Judiciary Committee expected to launch inquiry into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis | CNN Politics

    House Judiciary Committee expected to launch inquiry into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee is expected to open a congressional investigation into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as soon as Thursday, a source tells CNN – the same day former President Donald Trump is slated to surrender at the county jail after being charged for participating in schemes to meddle with Georgia’s 2020 election results.

    The committee is expected to ask Willis whether she was coordinating with the Justice Department, which has indicted Trump twice in two separate cases, or used federal dollars to complete her investigation that culminated in the fourth indictment of Trump, the source added. The anticipated questions from Republicans about whether Willis used federal funding in her state-level investigation mirrors the same line of inquiry that Republicans used to probe Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who indicted Trump in New York for falsifying business records to cover up an alleged hush money scheme.

    Meanwhile, Georgia Republicans could launch their own state-level investigation into Willis’ probe, according to GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has spoken to top officials in the state about a potential probe. She has also been pushing for a congressional-led inquiry into Willis, who has previously dismissed GOP accusations accusing her of being partisan and consistently defended her investigation.

    “I’m going to be talking to (House Judiciary Chair) Jim Jordan, (House Oversight Chair) Jamie Comer, and I’d like to also ask (Speaker) Kevin McCarthy his thoughts on looking at doing an investigation if there is a collaboration or conspiracy of any kind between the Department of Justice and Jack Smith’s special counsel’s office with the state DA’s,” Greene told CNN. “So, I think that could be a place of oversight.”

    It all amounts to a familiar playbook for House Republicans, who have been quick to try to use their congressional majority – which includes the ability to launch investigations, issue subpoenas and restrict funding – to defend the former president and offer up some counter programming amid his mounting legal battles. But they’ve also run into some resistance in their extraordinary efforts to intervene in ongoing criminal matters, while there are questions about what jurisdiction they have over state-level investigations.

    As their target list on behalf of Trump grows, House Republicans are also cranking up the heat on their own investigations into the Biden family.

    Just this week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy vowed to move ahead with an impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden after the House returns from August recess if the Biden administration does not turn over more documents and information related to the Republican led investigations related to Hunter Biden – the strongest sign yet that House Republicans are poised to launch an impeachment inquiry of the president.

    A McCarthy spokesperson did not respond to CNN’s request for comment to elaborate on the speaker’s remark that opening an impeachment inquiry hinged on whether committees received the “bank statements, the credit card statements and other” documents they were asking for.

    House Oversight chair James Comer has subpoenaed six banks for information regarding specific Biden family business associates, received testimony from Hunter Biden’s associates and reviewed hundreds of suspicious activity reports related to the Biden family at the Treasury Department. The Kentucky Republican has not yet subpoenaed bank records from Biden family members themselves. He boasted in June on Fox Business that “every subpoena that I have signed as chairman of the House Oversight Committee over the last five months, we’ve gotten 100% of what we’ve requested, whether it’s with the FBI, or with banks, or with Treasury.”

    The House Judiciary chair, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, just subpoenaed four individuals involved in the Hunter Biden criminal probe and has requested a number of documents and interviews pertaining to special counsel David Weiss’ ongoing criminal investigation.

    There is still some skepticism among more moderate Republicans, however, about whether they should be trying to intervene in ongoing investigations and whether an impeachment inquiry is warranted.

    Behind the scenes, members of the House Judiciary panel, who would help oversee an impeachment inquiry, have recently been discussing how all signs are pointing towards the House launching one in short order.

    “We had even some of our more moderate members saying that the oversight wasn’t serious if the next step wasn’t an impeachment inquiry,” Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a top Trump surrogate and Judiciary panel member, told CNN about a recent committee call. “There was great interest among my Judiciary colleagues to really include and involve everyone in the conference. There’s a real desire to get everyone on board and go through the evidence with those who might remain skeptical.”

    Trump’s allies have called for Congress to expunge Trump’s two previous impeachments, a move that has sparked pushback by many even among House Republicans.

    Greene, who spoke with McCarthy on Tuesday, said she doesn’t think the votes are there yet for expunging Trump’s previous two impeachments, even as the former president continues to promote the idea on Truth Social. But she said, “I think the impeachment inquiry looks very, very good.”

    “He is spending the recess talking about it constantly,” Greene added of McCarthy. “I really feel strongly that that’s something that’s going to happen.”

    Even before Trump’s indictment in Fulton County his congressional allies were laying the groundwork to take aim at Willis and broader election laws.

    GOP Rep. Russell Fry of South Carolina introduced a longshot bill earlier this year to give current and former presidents and vice presidents the ability to move their civil or criminal cases from a state court to a federal court as the investigation in Fulton County was ongoing. Fry introduced the bill shortly after Trump was indicted by Bragg on more than 30 counts related to business fraud.

    The Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fry’s bill, is examining ways to move this bill forward and schedule a markup, two sources familiar with the process told CNN.

    Fry, who tweeted shortly after the Fulton County indictment that the outcome underscores the need for his bill, said in a statement to CNN, “these rogue prosecutors shouldn’t be able to wield unwarranted power and target our nation’s top leaders for their political agendas.”

    Separately, the House Committee on Administration has been working on a conservative election integrity package that Republicans are calling “transformative,” but Democrats frame as “designed to appease extremist election deniers.”

    Republicans argue the bill gives states the tools to strengthen voter integrity, implement selection reforms in Washington, DC, and protects conservatives’ political speech. Democrats, meanwhile, contest the legislation attacks the freedom to vote, burdens election workers and creates less transparency in elections.

    One of the nine hearings that Republicans held on the bill, which recently passed out of committee and is ready for a floor vote in the House, was held last month in Atlanta.

    The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, accused Republicans of playing defense for Trump through the field hearing, which Republicans have said was not the case.

    “One might ask, why are we here in Georgia? The answer is simple. We’re here because in 2020, Joe Biden won and Donald Trump lost. There was no widespread voter fraud in Georgia, there were no suitcases full of fake ballots, no voting machines changed any votes. In fact, we know of only one possible crime that took place, because it was recorded on tape,” Morelle said.

    Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have also accused their Republican counterparts of coinciding the release of key interview transcripts with days consumed by Trump’s legal woes, according to a recent memo released by Democratic committee staff.

    An Oversight Committee spokesperson said in a statement to CNN, “to be clear, there was absolutely no connection between the transcript releases and anything else covered in the news.”

    The types of moves Republicans made on behalf of Trump in the wake of the Fulton County indictment are not necessarily new. After Trump was indicted by the Department of Justice in two separate cases, Greene called for Congress to defund Smith’s office, who is overseeing the two federal indictment cases, and House Freedom Caucus members issued a statement Monday that they would not support even a short-term government spending bill that does not address what they see as the weaponization of the Department of Justice.

    Gaetz recently introduced a resolution to censure and condemn the judge presiding over Trump’s federal indictment in the 2020 election subversion case.

    Despite the partisan back and forth, Trump’s Capitol Hill allies remain unfazed. But, not all Republicans have bought into the Trump defensive strategy.

    “Nobody is paying attention other than the people who are obsessed with Trump,” a senior Republican lawmaker told CNN.

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  • RFK Jr. is polling high for an independent. But it may not last | CNN Politics

    RFK Jr. is polling high for an independent. But it may not last | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce Monday that he is dropping out of the Democratic presidential primary and will run as an independent. The move would come after Kennedy’s calls for a debate with President Joe Biden went nowhere and with Biden continuing to hold a 50-point advantage in primary polling.

    But while Kennedy’s bid for the Democratic nomination was largely inconsequential, he could play a big role as an independent candidate in determining the winner of the general election.

    The polling on an independent run by Kennedy is limited, but the data we do have suggests he would start out as one of the strongest third-party or independent candidates this century.

    A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this past week among likely voters finds former President Donald Trump at 40%, Biden at 38% and Kennedy at 14% in a hypothetical November 2024 matchup. The 2-point difference between Biden and Trump looks a lot like other surveys we’ve seen and is well within the margin of error.

    But from a historical perspective, the 14% for Kennedy is quite unusual. Consider Gary Johnson, the 2016 Libertarian nominee for president. Like this cycle, the two major party nominees in 2016 (Democrat Hillary Clinton and Trump) were unpopular. Johnson, though, appears to never have hit 14% in any poll when matched up against Clinton and Trump.

    Indeed, I can’t find any instance of an eventual third-party or independent candidate getting to 14% in a national poll since Ross Perot in the 1996 cycle.

    Now, the chance of Kennedy garnering 14% of the vote next November is not high. Non-major-party candidates almost always fade down the stretch.

    We can see this, again, by using the Johnson example from 2016. The former New Mexico governor polled at 4% or above in every national poll before September 2020 that met CNN’s standards for publication. He averaged 8% of the vote in those polls and frequently registered in the double digits.

    Johnson ended up getting a mere 3% come Election Day.

    And he isn’t alone. At one point in the 1992 campaign, independent Perot led both major-party nominees; he ultimately ended up a distant third. Independent John Anderson was often polling in the 20s in national surveys of the 1980 election, before getting less than 7% that November.

    We obviously don’t know if or how much Kennedy’s polling might change between now and the election. Still, even if he ends up with the same level of support as Johnson, it could make a big difference.

    At the moment, Biden and Trump are close in the national polls. Some surveys have Biden slightly ahead. Others give Trump the edge. The same is true in swing states like Pennsylvania, where Biden and Trump are within the margin of error of each other.

    If Kennedy takes disproportionately from either Biden or Trump, it could tip the balance of the election.

    The question, therefore, is: Which one of them should fear a Kennedy candidacy more?

    The answer is far from clear at this early stage. Although Kennedy has so far been running in the Democratic primary, his favorability ratings are far higher among Republicans. He was just announced as a speaker at an upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference event, after all.

    Still, most of Kennedy’s admirers on the GOP side also hold a favorable view of Trump, according to a Quinnipiac University poll from last month. It’s tough to see Trump-supporting Republicans voting for Kennedy, even if they like him too.

    When you drill down to Democrats (and independents who lean their way) and Republicans (and GOP-leaning independents) who don’t hold a favorable view of their party’s front-runners, Kennedy is about equally liked. His favorability rating among this group of Democrats is 31%, while it’s 32% among this group of Republicans.

    In the Ipsos poll of a potential general election, Kennedy got 12% from Republicans and 9% from Democrats. This isn’t a big difference, but you could see it helping Biden in a very close election.

    The Ipsos poll also found that when an unnamed third-party candidate is matched up against Biden and Trump, Biden comes in with 43% to Trump’s 42%. That 1-point deficit for Trump (within the margin of error) is worse for him than his 2-point lead (again, within the margin of error) when Kennedy is included instead of a generic third-party candidate. Kennedy’s presence on the ballot could therefore benefit Republicans a tad more.

    One thing that does seem true from the Ipsos and Quinnipiac data is that among voters who either didn’t vote in 2020 or aren’t likely to vote this time around, Kennedy has better net favorability ratings and trails the front-runners by a narrower margin.

    This means Kennedy could drive up voter turnout but still not affect the election outcome.

    The race between Biden and Trump is so close, though, that I’m not sure either side wants to risk a Kennedy candidacy potentially taking votes away from them.

    We’ll see what happens over the next 13 months.

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  • Why Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis are both itching to debate each other | CNN Politics

    Why Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis are both itching to debate each other | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Joe Biden’s aides and Sean Hannity agree on this: They both would like to see Gavin Newsom debate Ron DeSantis.

    Everyone involved knows how odd it would be to have the California governor, who is seen as a potential future Democratic presidential candidate but is very adamantly not one currently, debating the Florida governor, who launched his Republican presidential run in the spring with the air of a front-runner but has seen his campaign stall through the summer months.

    DeSantis has gone from starting out as a worrisome contrast for some Biden aides to a monthlong campaign reboot, with his own advisers fretting they may not be able to turn his political fortunes around and looking for high-profile opportunities for him to stand out. Newsom has gone from inspiring eye rolls and suspicion from many in and around the White House a year ago to coordinating with Biden aides as he attempts to goad the Republican into more problems.

    The debate, which Newsom agreed to almost on a lark after the Fox News host pressed him, and later DeSantis, on camera to agree to an event he would host – has the two governors with very different interpersonal styles fencing over debate rules and logistics, dates and locations.

    “Boy,” Newsom said in an exclusive interview with CNN as he embraced his trolling of his Florida counterpart, “if I was running his campaign, I would be quietly asking, ‘What did you just do, Gov. DeSantis? Why did you agree to this? We have other things we should be doing, more important things, than debating this guy out there in California.’”

    Responding to the DeSantis team’s proposal for a live debate audience and to substitute a two-minute-long video for opening statements, Newsom said he was not impressed.

    “No notes, no holds barred, no parameters. Just make sure we both have equal time and see where it goes, see where it takes us. No games, no shows, no videos, no cheering sections. Just an honest back-and-forth comparing, contrasting visions,” the California governor said. “And he can defend his rhetoric and record and vision, and I’ll do my best to defend mine and promote Joe Biden.”

    A topic Newsom said he is ready to discuss includes what he called the “ruthlessness” of Republicans attacking presidential son Hunter Biden, a friend of his for years and now the subject of a special counsel investigation.

    “Some of the stuff that the way the right has mocked someone with substance abuse, addictions and other demons, it sickens me to my core as a father,” Newsom said. “They’re having a difficult time debating the success of this administration, as well as the CHIPS and the infrastructure bills, the investments that are coming in, the unemployment rate dropping.”

    Newsom said he was surprised when DeSantis told Hannity in an interview that he would accept the debate.

    DeSantis was not surprised. A person close to the Republican’s campaign told CNN that the governor had fully expected the topic to come up in the interview.

    The day after the interview aired, DeSantis’ campaign emailed donors a short memo touting its eagerness for the debate, pointing to statistics about crime rates and population growth and insisting that “California embodies American decline, while Florida is the blueprint for the Great American Comeback.”

    “Ron DeSantis is debating Gavin Newsom to highlight the choice facing American voters next year. The left wants America to follow the path of California’s decline – Ron DeSantis wants to reignite the American Dream, restore sanity, and ensure our nation’s best days are ahead,” reads the memo, obtained by CNN.

    A DeSantis aide pointed to the candidate telling NBC that he thought “it would be a good debate” and that he was eager to lay out a “very different approach to crime, very different approach to illegal immigration, and very different approach to taxes, government regulation.”

    The DeSantis campaign declined to comment further on the matter.

    Newsom knows he makes the perfect boogeyman for Republicans – the high-taxing, gun-banning, Covid lockdown-proselytizing California governor with the slicked-back hair, who first got famous in 2004 for going against state law and issuing gay marriage licenses when he was mayor of San Francisco.

    For Newsom, the whole point of the debate proposal is the asymmetric warfare. He isn’t running for president. He doesn’t have to worry about how this comes off to voters in Iowa or New Hampshire or anywhere else. He’s catering to a Democratic base and social media ecosystem that throws money and adds followers whenever a punch is thrown – like the $85,000 that went into the Biden campaign off an email Newsom sent to his email list announcing that DeSantis had accepted the debate.

    And if the debate does happen, all Newsom sees is upside. Best case: He embarrasses DeSantis, adding to the doubts over whether his presidential campaign can survive. Worst case: He is the one who gets embarrassed, and DeSantis gets his moment – but against someone who isn’t running for president and can absorb blows that otherwise might have landed on Biden.

    The day before DeSantis accepted the Newsom debate, for example, Vice President Kamala Harris dismissed his invitation for a public session head-to-head over the new Florida middle-school curriculum, which includes a mention of slaves developing certain skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit.” A spokesperson for Harris did not respond to a question about what she thought of Newsom’s actions, but, at a fundraiser on Saturday, she said, “Let us not be distracted by an undebatable point, such as whether the enslaved people benefited from slavery.”

    Or Newsom could just keep poking DeSantis for not agreeing to a debate.

    Being “the reelected, term limited governor of California, he feels an enormous degree of freedom to go out and fight these fights, because someone’s got to do it,” said a Newsom adviser.

    DeSantis had wanted his big debate moment to be about taking on Donald Trump, not Newsom.

    But the governor has been unable so far to coalesce support from Republicans as Trump’s poll numbers continue to rise – a fact he’ll be reminded of later this month when he is joined on a Milwaukee debate stage by at least six other candidates, with Trump in the midst of a weekslong will-he-or-won’t-he tease about whether he will participate.

    DeSantis’ campaign also severely underestimated how Trump’s multiple indictments would galvanize Republicans and overshadow the GOP race, leaving other contenders straining for attention.

    Rather than entering the fall in a position of strength, DeSantis has limped through the summer. His team now acknowledges internally it botched a chance to consolidate support at a time when Trump has barely campaigned. Support has stalled, several donors have publicly expressed concern and withheld additional resources for now, and the campaign has frantically shed expenses after overextending on payroll and event costs. Last week, in the latest overhaul, he replaced his embattled campaign manager with his gubernatorial office chief of staff, who had already been a key adviser.

    What, in any other context, would have likely been an unimaginable sideshow, the debate with Newsom started looking like the rare chance for a breakout, a high-upside gamble for DeSantis, according to the source close to the campaign. If nothing else, it would put DeSantis in front of Fox News’ audience of Republican primary voters without Trump or anyone else in the field.

    “Right now, Trump is dominating the news, and this is a way to get in front of Republicans,” the source said. “With Trump sucking up so much oxygen, this is a way to get back some of the oxygen.”

    Last July, Newsom flew to Washington largely so he could tell then-White House chief of staff Ron Klain and first lady Jill Biden that he really meant what he had first said publicly to CNN: He was not going to run against the president despite his talk about how Democrats needed to be fighting harder than Biden appeared to be doing and despite breezing across the White House driveway with his suit jacket tossed over his shoulder as concerns circulated about the president’s age.

    When Klain, long a Newsom booster, walked him around the West Wing to introduce him to other aides, several did not do much to mask their disinterest.

    But after

    Biden made his reelection plans clear    , it became easier for his loyalists to warm to the governor. Some still see Newsom as mugging for attention, but they have stayed in close contact, including giving the green light when Newsom’s team alerted them that he wanted to do a one-on-one interview with Hannity and push for the debate with DeSantis.

    If it happens, a Biden campaign aide said, “from our perspective, we’ve got one of our most high-profile surrogates going on Fox for 90 minutes, advocating not for his own policies and not for his own candidacy, but for the president. That’s a net positive.”

    Asked about the turnaround, Klain – now an informal outside adviser to Biden’s reelection campaign – told CNN that “the president and his team are grateful for all the things the governor does to advance their shared agenda.”

    A Newsom aide told CNN the coordination – between emails he has put his name on and in-person events – has produced almost $3 million in fundraising for Biden since April, which makes up about 4% of the reelection campaign’s total fundraising to date. Emails with Newsom’s name on them generate some of the highest response rates, according to people familiar with the fundraising. The Biden campaign declined comment on the fundraising.

    Newsom said he knows that many people will see his actions as an attempt to stay relevant. Advisers say he clams up even privately when talk turns to a possible future presidential run, and the governor told CNN that positioning for 2028 is a “trivial consideration.”

    He said he is driven by not wanting to have any regrets about not being involved – and if that means an ongoing series of debates with other Republicans after DeSantis, he’d be ready.

    “To the extent these presidential candidates want a debate, I’m happy to debate them,” Newsom said. “And if that’s where they feel they can get their best bang for the buck as they run for president, fine by me, and I’ll have the president’s back.”

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  • Large US tech companies face new EU rules | CNN Business

    Large US tech companies face new EU rules | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The world’s largest tech companies must comply with a sweeping new European law starting Friday that affects everything from social media moderation to targeted advertising and counterfeit goods in e-commerce — with possible ripple effects for the rest of the world.

    The unprecedented EU measures for online platforms will apply to companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Snapchat and TikTok, among many others, reflecting one of the most comprehensive and ambitious efforts by policymakers anywhere to regulate tech giants through legislation. It could lead to fines for some companies and to changes in software affecting consumers.

    The rules seek to address some of the most serious concerns that critics of large tech platforms have raised in recent years, including the spread of misinformation and disinformation; possible harms to mental health, particularly for young people; rabbit holes of algorithmically recommended content and a lack of transparency; and the spread of illegal or fake products on virtual marketplaces.

    Although the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) passed last year, companies have had until now to prepare for its enforcement. Friday marks the arrival of a key compliance deadline — after which tech platforms with more than 45 million EU users will have to meet the obligations laid out in the law.

    The EU also says the law intends “to establish a level playing field to foster innovation, growth and competitiveness both in the European Single Market and globally.” The action reinforces Europe’s position as a leader in checking the power of large US tech companies.

    For all platforms, not just the largest ones, the DSA bans data-driven targeted advertising aimed at children, as well as targeted ads to all internet users based on protected characteristics such as political affiliation, sexual orientation and ethnicity. The restrictions apply to all kinds of online ads, including commercial advertising, political advertising and issue advertising. (Some platforms had already in recent years rolled out restrictions on targeted advertising based on protected characteristics.)

    The law bans so-called “dark patterns,” or the use of subtle design cues that may be intended to nudge consumers toward giving up their personal data or making other decisions that a company might prefer. An example of a dark pattern commonly cited by consumer groups is when a company tries to persuade a user to opt into tracking by highlighting an acceptance button with bright colors, while simultaneously downplaying the option to opt out by minimizing that choice’s font size or placement.

    The law also requires all online platforms to offer ways for users to report illegal content and products and for them to appeal content moderation decisions. And it requires companies to spell out their terms of service in an accessible manner.

    For the largest platforms, the law goes further. Companies designated as Very Large Online Platforms or Very Large Online Search Engines will be required to undertake independent risk assessments focused on, for example, how bad actors might try to manipulate their platforms, or use them to interfere with elections or to violate human rights — and companies must act to mitigate those risks. And they will have to set up repositories of the ads they’ve run and allow the public to inspect them.

    Just a handful of companies are considered very large platforms under the law. But the list finalized in April includes the most powerful tech companies in the world, and, for those firms, violations can be expensive. The DSA permits EU officials to issue fines worth up to 6% of a very large platform’s global annual revenue. That could mean billions in fines for a company as large as Meta, which last year reported more than $116 billion in revenue.

    Companies have spent months preparing for the deadline. As recently as this month, TikTok rolled out a tool for reporting illegal content and said it would give EU users specific explanations when their content is removed. It also said it would stop showing ads to teens in Europe based on the data the company has collected on them, all to comply with the DSA rules.

    “We’ve been supportive of the objectives of the DSA and the creation of a regulatory regime in Europe that minimizes harm,” said Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs and a former deputy prime minister of the UK, in a statement Tuesday. He said Meta assembled a 1,000-person team to prepare for DSA requirements. He outlined several efforts by the company including limits on what data advertisers can see on teens ages 13 to 17 who use Facebook and Instagram. He said advertisers can no longer target the teens based on their activity on those platforms. “Age and location is now the only information about teens that advertisers can use to show them ads,” he said.

    In a statement, a Microsoft spokesperson told CNN the DSA deadline “is an important milestone in the fight against illegal content online. We are mindful of our heightened responsibilities in the EU as a major technology company and continue to work with the European Commission on meeting the requirements of the DSA.”

    Snapchat parent Snap told CNN that it is working closely with the European Commission to ensure the company is compliant with the new law. Snap has appointed several dedicated compliance employees to monitor whether it is living up to its obligations, the company said, and has already implemented several safeguards.

    And Apple said in a statement that the DSA’s goals “align with Apple’s goals to protect consumers from illegal and harmful content. We are working to implement the requirements of the DSA with user privacy and security as our continued North Star.”

    Google and Pinterest told CNN they have also been working closely with the European Commission.

    “We share the DSA’s goals of making the internet even more safe, transparent and accountable, while making sure that European users, creators and businesses continue to enjoy the benefits of the web,” a Google spokesperson said.

    A Pinterest spokesperson said the company would “continue to engage with the European Commission on the implementation of the DSA to ensure a smooth transition into the new legal framework.” The spokesperson added: “The wellbeing, safety and privacy of our users is a priority and we will continue to build on our efforts.”

    Many companies should be able to comply with the law, given their existing policies, teams and monitoring tools, according to Robert Grosvenor, a London-based managing director at the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal. “Europe’s largest online service providers are not starting from ground zero,” Grosvenor said. But, he added: “Whether they are ready to become a highly regulated sector is another matter.”

    EU officials have signaled they will be scrutinizing companies for violations. Earlier this summer, European officials performed preemptive “stress tests” of X, the company formerly known as Twitter, as well as Meta and TikTok to determine the companies’ readiness for the DSA.

    For much of the year, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton has been publicly reminding X of its coming obligations as the company has backslid on some of its content moderation practices. Even as Breton concluded that X was taking its stress test seriously in June, the company had just lost a top content moderation official and had withdrawn from a voluntary EU commitment on disinformation that European officials had said would be part of any evaluation of a platform’s compliance with the DSA.

    X told CNN ahead of Friday’s deadline that it was on track to comply with the new law.

    Analysts anticipate that the EU will be watching even more closely after the deadline — and some hope that the rules will either encourage tech platforms to replicate their practices in the EU voluntarily around the world or else drive policymakers to adopt similar measures.

    “We hope that these new laws will inspire other jurisdictions to act because these are, after all, global companies which apply many of the same practices worldwide,” said Agustin Reyna, head of legal and economic affairs at BEUC, a European consumer advocacy group. “Europe got the ball rolling, but we need other jurisdictions to win the match against tech giants.”

    Already, Amazon has sought to challenge the very large platform label in court, arguing that the DSA’s requirements are geared toward ad-based online speech platforms, that Amazon is a retail platform and that none of its direct rivals in Europe have likewise been labeled, despite being larger than Amazon within individual EU countries.

    The legal fights could present the first major test of the DSA’s durability in the face of Big Tech’s enormous resources. Amazon told CNN that it plans to comply with the EU General Court’s decision, either way.

    “Amazon shares the goal of the European Commission to create a safe, predictable and trusted online environment, and we invest significantly in protecting our store from bad actors, illegal content, and in creating a trustworthy shopping experience,” an Amazon spokesperson said. “We have built on this strong foundation for DSA compliance.”

    TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.

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  • Federal court strikes down Alabama congressional map after legislature snubbed Supreme Court | CNN Politics

    Federal court strikes down Alabama congressional map after legislature snubbed Supreme Court | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal court blocked a newly drawn Alabama congressional map on Tuesday because it didn’t create a second majority-Black district as the Supreme Court had ordered earlier this year.

    In a unanimous decision from a three-judge panel, which had overseen the case before it reached the Supreme Court, the judges wrote that they were “disturbed” by Alabama’s actions in the case.

    The state had snubbed the Supreme Court’s order – a surprise 5-4 decision in June – that the maps should be redrawn. White voters currently make up the majority in six of the state’s seven congressional districts, although 27% of the state’s population is Black.

    “We are deeply troubled that the State enacted a map that the State readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires,” wrote the judges, two of whom were appointed by former President Donald Trump.

    Alabama officials on Tuesday filed notice that they are appealing the ruling.

    “While we are disappointed in today’s decision, we strongly believe that the Legislature’s map complies with the Voting Rights Act and the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court,” the office of Alabama Attorney General Steven Marshall said in a statement. “We intend to promptly seek review from the Supreme Court to ensure that the State can use its lawful congressional districts in 2024 and beyond.”

    Alabama officials also asked the three-judge court to freeze its opinion invalidating the congressional map but said they will formally ask the Supreme Court for a stay on Thursday.

    This redistricting battle – and separate, pending litigation over congressional maps in states such as Georgia and Florida – could determine which party controls the US House of Representatives after next year’s elections. Republicans currently hold a razor-thin majority in the chamber.

    The three federal judges overseeing the Alabama case on Tuesday ordered a special master to submit three proposed maps that would create a second Black-majority district by September 25.

    The panel wrote that it was “not aware of any other case” in which a state legislature had responded to being ordered to a draw map with a second majority-minority district by creating one that the state itself admitted didn’t create the required district.

    “The law requires the creation of an additional district that affords Black Alabamians, like everyone else, a fair and reasonable opportunity to elect candidates of their choice,” and Alabama’s new map, they wrote, “plainly fails to do so.”

    JaTaune Bosby Gilchrist, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, which has been fighting the case, praised the ruling: “Elected officials ignored their responsibilities and chose to violate our democracy. We hope the court’s special master helps steward a process that ensures a fair map that Black Alabamians and our state deserve.”

    This summer, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, had affirmed an earlier decision by the three-judge panel and ordered the state to redraw congressional maps to include a second majority-Black district or “something quite close to it.”

    The Supreme Court’s surprise decision in Alabama – coming after the right-leaning high court has chipped away at other parts of the Voting Rights Act in recent years – has given fresh hope to voting rights activists and Democrats that they could prevail in challenges to other maps they view as discriminating against minorities.

    But the new map approved by Alabama’s Republican-dominated legislature – and signed into law by GOP Gov. Kay Ivey – in July created only one majority-Black district and boosted the share of Black voters in a second district from roughly 30% to nearly 40%.

    The pending cases center on whether GOP state legislators drew congressional maps after the 2020 census that weakened the power of Black voters in violation of Section 2 of the historic Voting Rights Act.

    Republicans control all statewide offices in Alabama and all but one congressional seat. The single Black-majority congressional district is represented by Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, the state’s first Black woman elected to Congress.

    Alabama officials have argued that the map as redrawn by state lawmakers was aimed at maintaining traditional guidelines for congressional redistricting, such as keeping together communities of interest. And they have signaled that they hope to sway one of the Supreme Court justices who sided with the majority in June.

    The state’s briefs before the three-judge panel referenced a concurring opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh – one of the two conservatives who sided with the liberal justices on the high court to vote against the original Alabama map – that questioned whether “race-based redistricting” can “extend indefinitely into the future.”

    The lower-court judges weren’t convinced by the state’s arguments.

    They wrote that after reviewing the concurrence, as well as a part of the Supreme Court’s ruling which Kavanaugh didn’t join, “We do not understand either of those writings as undermining any aspect of the Supreme Court’s affirmance; if they did, the Court would not have affirmed the injunction.”

    The judges also rejected Alabama’s argument that drawing a second Black-majority district would unconstitutionally constitute “affirmative action in redistricting.”

    “Unlike affirmative action in the admissions programs the Supreme Court analyzed in [this year’s affirmative action case], which was expressly aimed at achieving balanced racial outcomes in the makeup of the universities’ student bodies, the Voting Rights Act guarantees only ‘equality of opportunity, not a guarantee of electoral success for minority-preferred candidates of whatever race,’” the panel wrote.

    “The Voting Rights Act does not provide a leg up for Black voters – it merely prevents them from being kept down with regard to what is arguably the most ‘fundamental political right,’ in that it is ‘preservative of all rights’ – the right to vote.”

    Earlier, in a letter to state lawmakers, Marshall had argued that a separate Supreme Court ruling in June – after the high court’s Alabama redistricting decision came down – that ended affirmative action in college admissions meant that using a map in which “race predominates” would open up the state to claims that it was violating the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Pence intensifies attacks on Trump as GOP primary heats up | CNN Politics

    Pence intensifies attacks on Trump as GOP primary heats up | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday intensified his attacks on his former boss, hitting former President Donald Trump over everything from his abortion messaging to comments about the war in Ukraine.

    “When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he promised to govern as a conservative. For four years, we did govern as conservatives, but, today, Donald Trump makes no such promise,” Pence told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

    “He’s embracing the politics of appeasement on the world stage, walking away from our role as leader of the free world. He’s willing to ignore the debt crisis facing Americans. And he wants to marginalize the right to life,” Pence said.

    The comments from Pence represent a significant escalation in his campaign attacks on Trump. While the former Indiana governor has repeatedly denounced Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021, he has been more cautious about going after the Republican front-runner on other issues.

    Asked about Trump’s comments to NBC that he would get Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a room and “have a deal worked out,” Pence said: “Look, the only way this war would end in a day, as my former running mate says, is if you let Vladimir Putin have what he wants, which, frankly, other candidates for the Republican nomination are advocating as well.”

    Pence similarly sought to distance himself from Trump on abortion at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition’s fall banquet Saturday night. Speaking to a friendly crowd of evangelical conservatives, Pence reiterated his support for a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy as a minimum, saying, “It’s an idea whose time has come.” Pence said Trump and other GOP candidates want to relegate the abortion issue to the states, “but I won’t have it.”

    And earlier this month, Pence called on his party to turn away from what he described as a growing threat of populism led by Trump and “his imitators.” The former vice president said that Trump often sounds “like an echo” of President Joe Biden and that Trump was ignoring a coming US debt crisis.

    The stream of attacks comes as Trump continues to hold what has proven to be an unshakeable position atop the Republican field of candidates vying to take on Biden next year, according to a CNN poll released earlier this month.

    More than 4 in 10 in the potential GOP primary electorate say they have definitely decided to support Trump for the nomination (43% are definite Trump backers, 20% are firmly behind another candidate, and 37% have no first choice or say they could change their minds).

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  • John King is going all over the map in 2024. What he’s learned so far | CNN Politics

    John King is going all over the map in 2024. What he’s learned so far | 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
     — 

    You’re more likely to read about people in the aggregate in this newsletter – how groups are affected by something the government is doing and how polls suggest those groups feel about it.

    CNN’s John King is looking at the 2024 presidential race from the other side in his new “All Over the Map” project. Building relationships with individuals in key states, he plans to chart how their opinions shift over the course of the campaign.

    He’s filed reports from Iowa and New Hampshire so far:

    I talked to King to hear what he’s learned so far. Our conversation, conducted by phone and edited for length, is below.

    WOLF: What are you finding when you talk to people out in the country?

    KING: This is how I started covering politics 106 million years ago. It’s just at this moment in the country where you have this weird combination of polarization and disaffection and a lot of people who are in the middle who would be moderate Republicans or true independents or centrist Democrats are just disgusted and they’re sitting out.

    The people who are sitting out are empowering the extremes, and they know it, but they just can’t stomach national politics. So they vote for mayor and they vote for governor and sometimes they vote for Senate and Congress, but even that pisses them off. So it’s just a weird time.

    WOLF: What I really like in these reports is the nuance of people’s opinions. They don’t fit into the buckets that we create for them here in Washington. How do you find people who will talk to you? I’ve talked to other reporters who have trouble doing that.

    KING: It can be hard sometimes. We’re doing this a number of ways. Some of these are through people I know. The fishermen in New Hampshire we found through a woman I met years ago who’s part of an advocacy group for these independent small fishermen …

    They’re interesting because they’re young, they’re Republican-leaning, they’re really hardworking, blue-collar people. People that when I started doing this – 35 years ago was my first campaign – they were Democrats.

    Michael Dukakis only won 10 states in 1988, but he won West Virginia and Iowa. Farmers and coal miners and fishermen and people who work with their hands were Democrats then. And they are more and more Republicans now.

    The idea here is to build relationships with them all the way through next November and hopefully beyond. But in the 2024 campaign context, we’re not going in to get people at a rally to say, “Are you for (former President Donald) Trump or are you for (President Joe) Biden? Are you for (former South Carolina Gov. Nikki) Haley or are you for (Florida Gov. Ron) DeSantis?”

    We care about that, but I care much more about how they got there. Have they always been there? And again, in all caps in boldface to me is the question: why?

    WOLF: You talk to a solar panel salesman who backs Trump and a commercial fisherman, who you just mentioned, who says Republicans are for the working man. What motivates people whose livelihoods are directly related to climate change to back Republicans who are largely opposed to having any government involvement with doing anything about it?

    KING: That part’s fascinating. Chris Mudd is the solar panel guy in Iowa and Andrew Konchek is one of the fishermen in New Hampshire. And to your point, our business makes the mistake – and the candidates, the politicians and the parties way too often make the mistake – of trying to put people in their lanes and in their boxes. And guess what, everybody is different. It’s a cliche, but it’s true.

    So Chris Mudd – his family has an advertising business that employs just shy of 100 people in Cedar Falls, Iowa. It’s an anchor of the community, especially in a part of the country where you’ve had a lot of economic turmoil in the last 25 years, manufacturing disappearing. These guys are heroes in their communities. They are employers.

    Then he started the spinoff solar installation business, and he admits straight up his business benefits – and quite significantly – from the Biden green energy tax credits. And yet, he says, he would take his chances without them because he thinks that money should be redirected to the border wall. That Trump should finish his border wall.

    It’s not just immigration. It’s American sovereignty and the border. And so he’s willing to take an economic hit for his business. He thinks it would survive, but he would take a hit because immigration, American security, comes first to him.

    The fisherman, on the other hand, wants to stay on the water. He came to Trump in 2016 because Trump was a newcomer, he was the insurgent. He loves the policies. In Andrew’s case, he does not like the tweets. He does not like the chaos. Prefers Trump would talk more about the future, not the past.

    But his industry is in decline. And he says Trump is for less regulation – so they won’t be regulating the fishing industry as much – and he knows Trump hates wind energy farms, and he thinks the biggest immediate threat to his job, two or three years down the road, is a plan to build all these wind turbine farms off the coast of New Hampshire and off the coast of Maine.

    And he thinks they’re gonna kill his business. So he’s for Trump because he wants to pay his mortgage.

    WOLF: You talk to another guy in New Hampshire who’s switching from Trump to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The conventional wisdom would be that Kennedy would pull from Biden’s support because he is, at least technically, a Democrat. What is happening there?

    KING: So that to me is fascinating on a couple levels. No. 1, Lucas was a Trump 2016 primary voter in New Hampshire. He quickly got turned off by the chaos. He was not for Trump in 2020. He went third party. But he’s a Republican-leaning guy who likes Trump’s policies. Does not like the Trump performance art, I’ll call it.

    You would think he’d be looking for another Republican in this campaign, but he gets all the way over to Robert Kennedy.

    A buddy of his, a crew mate, gave him a Joe Rogan podcast with Bobby Kennedy on it. And Kennedy is talking about how years ago, he helped these fishermen who were being hurt by industrial pollution when he was at the National Resources Defense Council.

    So what was he thinking here? They don’t trust politicians. Politicians promised to help them all the time, and in their view, they never do. So here’s a guy who’s running for president, who actually helped people who do what he does. Done. That’s it. Right?

    Yes, he knows there’s a lot of other controversy about Robert Kennedy. He says there’s going to be controversy about any politician. Here’s a guy who has helped people just like him.

    WOLF: You talked about a couple of people just now who don’t like the Trump noise or chaos, but CNN ‘s latest polling – we just had one in New Hampshire. Trump leads there. He leads in Iowa, according to polling there. What does your reporting on the ground suggest is behind the fact that none of these many Trump challengers have caught on?

    KING: Well, one of the issues is just that there are so many of them. The numbers are part of it, without a doubt. But a lot of these Republicans also view Trump as kind of an incumbent. And to a degree, he also benefits from the cynical effort to convince so many Republicans that he didn’t lose last time, even though we all know he did.

    If you look at our New Hampshire poll, even a lot of Republicans who support the other candidates think Trump is the strongest general election candidate. That’s helping him. I think the bigger part there is just that the base is loyal to him.

    He can be beat. Six in 10 Republicans in New Hampshire want somebody else, but there are 10 other people running and the support is fractured. Until you have a singular alternative, there’s no way to beat Trump.

    The only thing I would add to that is what several Trump voters in New Hampshire (told us). They’re planning to vote for him, make no mistake, but they say it’s not as exciting. It’s not the same as it was in 2015 and 2016, when he was new, when that hostile takeover was so dramatic and to many Republicans so exciting.

    The establishment didn’t think so, but a lot of Republican voters found it very exciting. Trump is not the new guy anymore. And in some ways, he’s the new establishment. That doesn’t mean his people aren’t loyal, but in the back of their mind, there does seem to be a little bit of, “I’m open to some change.”

    WOLF: Joe Biden didn’t win either Iowa or New Hampshire in the 2020 primaries. And for a complicated and very strange Democratic reason, he may not take part in those contests this year. His nomination is probably a foregone conclusion, but what did you hear from Democrats in those states?

    KING: I want to be a little careful here because we haven’t spent a ton of time with Democrats. The project’s going to expand over the next 13, 14 months, through the election.

    The biggest question right now is can Trump be stopped and who is the Republican nominee going to be? So that’s where we have put 75, 80% of our energy and focus. Doesn’t mean when we go into the states, we’re not meeting and talking to Democrats, but I would be more careful about taking the anecdotal reporting we get from six, eight, 10, 12 voters and projecting it out.

    I will say that a number of Democrats ask us, “Do you think there’s any chance he doesn’t run still?” Or they will share their own worries that there will be some event that will force him to not run again.

    The age thing is a nagging thought for Democrats. Age, or is he up to the job might be a better way to put it. Does he have the stamina for another term? That’s lingering.

    You don’t see any evidence that there’s anybody – no Democrat is running who has a serious chance or anything like that. We’re going get to the swing states as we go forward. I have a number of questions about whether key pieces of the Biden coalition are energized for any number of reasons.

    Sometimes you hear this age, stamina, up-to-the-job question. Other times you hear, if you talk to organizers and activists, that some of the people absolutely critical to the Democratic coalition – blue-collar Black workers, blue-collar Latino workers – are still feeling it from inflation, don’t feel like the economy’s bounced back.

    Those are things to cover as we go forward. I would not make any big sweeping findings in my reporting on the Democrats so far. I’ve got more questions than I have answers.

    WOLF: Let me tweak that a little bit. Separating you from these reporting trips, as somebody who’s covered so many presidential elections, what could be the potential effect of the president not taking part in the first two contests?

    KING: New Hampshire is very parochial. There are a lot of Democrats there who are, forgive my language, but pissed off at him. I think he could be “embarrassed” in New Hampshire.

    Now, does it have any lasting meaning? Let’s see what happens.

    The president did something, actually, that’s pretty courageous. I do not remember one cycle where there hasn’t been at least a conversation about, “Is it time to change this Iowa and New Hampshire thing?”

    The Iowa electorate is 90% White. The New Hampshire electorate is 90% White. The numbers are even higher than that if you look at the Republican electorate. They’re overwhelmingly White states. They do not reflect the diversity, both from an ethnic perspective and even an economic perspective, of the Democratic Party.

    This conversation comes up every four years in both parties. Are you gonna change it? Biden had the guts to do it. The cynic would say he did it for the reasons you mentioned – that he lost Iowa and New Hampshire, and he’s lost them before. That wasn’t the first time and so he wanted a new way. He wanted the Biden way.

    Of course that’s one of the reasons he did it. Because he has more success in South Carolina. He has a history. So he has tilted the Democratic playing field to his favor. A bad number in New Hampshire might be embarrassing, but I think they’ve actually more protected themselves than exposed themselves by doing it this way.

    My bigger question is does the way they’ve changed the Democratic (process) actually mask weaknesses? If there’s a weakness in Democratic enthusiasm, if there’s a turnout problem, they need to get a handle on that as soon as possible.

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  • America’s political turmoil hampers its capacity to lead through yet another global crisis | CNN Politics

    America’s political turmoil hampers its capacity to lead through yet another global crisis | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A weekend of terror in Israel has sharpened already grave questions about the capacity of the politically fractured United States to lay out a unified and coherent response to a world spinning out of its control.

    When the House of Representatives descended into chaos last week, many Republicans, Democrats and independent experts warned that anarchy raging in US politics sent a dangerous message to the outside world. But no one could foresee just how quickly the paralysis in Washington would test the country’s reaction to a major global crisis.

    The horrific Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, which have killed hundreds of people and shattered the country’s sense of security, thrust the Middle East to the precipice of a new era of violence and instability. This followed a period of relative calm and after US presidents spent years trying to extricate American forces from the region.

    Israel’s response to the carnage caused by a major Iranian proxy raises the possibility of a wider regional war that would further destabilize the global order already rocked by the war in Ukraine and China’s flagrant challenges to Western power.

    A situation this dangerous requires a calm, united and thoughtful US response, supported across the political spectrum. But the turmoil in America’s politics – plagued by internal extremism, threats to democracy and the hyperpoliticization of foreign policy – means it will be an impossible task to bring the country together at a perilous moment.

    Swift efforts by lawmakers to quickly register support for Israel and to rush extra aid to its government could be hampered by the collapse of the Republican Party’s ability to govern in the House after the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week by his party’s extreme elements.

    And the US is also facing an unprecedented election season. A president with low approval ratings confronting questions about his advanced age could go up against a potential Republican nominee who could be an indicted felon by Election Day. This means, at best, the United States will spend the coming months preoccupied by its own political plight. At worst, the world’s superpower guarantor of democracy could actually worsen global disruption and instability.

    Republican front-runner Donald Trump rushed to exploit the crisis for his political gain, accusing President Joe Biden of causing the conflict because of “weakness.”

    “Joe Biden betrayed Israel, he betrayed our country. As president, I will once again stand with Israel,” Trump said.

    Foreign policy issues rarely decide US elections. But the danger for Biden and the opening for Trump is that yet another crisis abroad could foment an idea that the world is in turmoil, American power is weakening and Biden is hapless. At home and abroad, chaos is Trump’s friend as he seeks to foment the classic conditions that benefit aspiring autocrats promising strongman rule.

    Fractured American governance doesn’t simply pose a material issue for Israel and for Ukraine, whose US lifeline as it battles Russia’s unprovoked invasion is now in extreme jeopardy due to far-right Republicans. The spectacle also suggests to US enemies – including Iran, the main supporter of Hamas, and Russia and China – that the US is hopelessly divided and may struggle to wield power to safeguard its interests.

    “It wasn’t my idea to oust the speaker. I thought it was dangerous,” Rep. Michael McCaul, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “I look at the world and all the threats that are out there, and what kind of message are we sending to our adversaries when we can’t govern, when we’re dysfunctional, when we don’t even have a speaker of the House?

    “How does Chairman Xi in China look at that when he says democracy doesn’t work?” the Texas Republican added. “How does the Ayatollah look at this, knowing that we cannot function properly? And I think it sends a terrible message.”

    US sends a message of chaos and weakness

    The shuttered House created a particularly damaging symbol of the US – and the democratic system of governance it promotes around the world – in disarray. The Biden administration has the capacity to send immediate military aid to Israel, whose government has asked Washington for JDAM precision-guided munition kits and more interceptors for the Iron Dome air defense system as Hamas rockets rain down on Israeli cities. But any delay in seating a new speaker and creating a functioning majority in the House could have serious consequence.

    Republican Rep. Michael Lawler, who faces a tough reelection in a New York district that Biden would have carried in 2020 under its new lines, warned that the chaos in the House needs to end. “Given the situation in the Middle East with one of our closest allies in the world, it is critical that we bring this to a close expeditiously,” Lawler told CNN’s Dana Bash. “And so, I think it is imperative, frankly, that this nonsense stop, that Kevin McCarthy be reinstated as speaker,” Lawler added.

    Republicans left town after ousting McCarthy last week, and are expected to try to choose between Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who has the backing of Trump, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise this week. But given the demands of extremists in the GOP conference, the complications of a tiny majority and the fact it took McCarthy a marathon 15 rounds of balloting to win the job in January, there is no guarantee that strong, new Republican leadership will quickly emerge.

    While there is crossparty consensus over supporting Israel in the House, the US response to another murderous assault on a vulnerable democracy – Ukraine – threatens to be derailed by America’s viciously polarized politics in a way that could seriously erode Washington’s global leadership.

    Right-wing Republicans who back Trump are echoing the former president’s opposition to further US aid and ammunition to Ukraine. While there is still a majority in favor of such measures in the House and the Senate, any future Republican speaker will likely have to pass aid packages with the help of Democratic votes – the very scenario that caused McCarthy’s fall as he tried to head off a damaging government shutdown (even though that stopgap funding bill did not include Ukraine aid, as the White House had wanted).

    Already, the political showdown over Ukraine is causing deep concern in Kyiv that it will be unable to continue its fight against Russia in the current form without the more than $20 billion in assistance that the Biden administration has requested.

    In a broader sense, the possibility that a populist, nationalist wing of the Republican Party under Trump could desert a democracy under attack from Russia – and therefore reward the aggression of an autocrat who shaped his worldview as a member of the KGB – threatens to not just shatter the logic of decades of US foreign policy, but to fundamentally change the US’ role in the world and the values on which its allies believed they could depend.

    The politicization of global crises is not just confined to Israel or Ukraine. A Chinese spy balloon that wafted over US soil this year caused an extraordinary outburst of Republican fury toward Biden, which threatened to tie the president’s hands when managing the critical issue of US relations with the Pacific superpower.

    A growing sense abroad that America’s political problems are limiting its ability to lead globally could also have a devastating effect on its power. This can only play into the hands of enemies in Beijing, Moscow and Tehran, who have all sought to influence US elections, according to US intelligence agencies, and all have strong geopolitical incentives in seeing American democracy fail.

    The extraordinary and sudden Hamas attack on Israel – which has been compared to the September 11 attacks in the United States, and in terms of per capita casualties was far more bloody – falls into the category of tragedies that could change the world.

    Aside from the awful human toll – now also being felt by Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where hundreds have perished in the initial Israel reprisal attacks on the infrastructure of Hamas – the onslaught will have far-reaching strategic consequences that will be felt in the US.

    If evidence is found that Iran directly plotted the attack with Hamas, there will be huge pressure on the Israelis to respond by directly confronting the Islamic Republic, at the risk of sparking a wider regional conflagration that could draw in the United States.

    The attacks and their fallout are also almost certain to disrupt the effort, in which the US is a key player, to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and allied Arab states. Such an agreement would fundamentally reshape the region and further isolate Iran – a logical reason why it could have had an interest in perpetrating the Hamas assault. US officials are still trying to establish how, if at all, Iran was involved.

    The horror in Israel presents Biden with another fearsome foreign policy crisis as he contemplates his reelection bid – alongside the war in Ukraine and a rising confrontation with China.

    It comes at a moment of political vulnerability for the administration as it seeks to explain why it made a deal to release US prisoners from Iran that resulted in the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds. The Iranian government can use the funds only to buy humanitarian and medical supplies. The deal took place far too recently for such money to be used to finance this attack. But such subtleties don’t count for much in an election year, as multiple Republican presidential candidates accused the president of funding Iranian terror.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday tried to defuse the political impact of the agreement. “Not a single dollar has been spent from that account. And, again, the account is closely regulated by the US Treasury Department, so it can only be used for things like food, medicine, medical equipment,” he insisted on “State of the Union.”

    But, in a political sense, it only matters that enough Americans believe what the Republicans are saying is true.

    GOP hopeful Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, for instance, implied Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that funds that Iran may not have to spend on medicine because of the hostage deal could now be spent on terror.

    “Secretary Blinken is just wrong to imply that this money is not being moved around as we speak,” Haley said, although her argument is undercut by the fact that Iran’s clerical regime has rarely seemed to prioritize the humanitarian needs of its people while building up a huge state military complex.

    Another 2024 candidate, GOP Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, went even further, accusing Biden – who has been one of the strongest Washington supporters of Israel in half a century in politics – of being “complicit” in the attacks.

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  • Fox executives encourage Trump to participate in first GOP presidential primary debate | CNN Politics

    Fox executives encourage Trump to participate in first GOP presidential primary debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday dined with top Fox executives at his Bedminster golf club, during which Fox News president Jay Wallace and the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, encouraged him to participate in the first presidential debate the network is hosting later this month, two sources with knowledge told CNN.

    Trump, who earlier in the evening had been indicted for a third time, did not commit to participating in the debate, which will take place in Milwaukee.

    Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The New York Times first reported on the dinner.

    Trump has privately and publicly floated skipping either one or both of the first two Republican presidential primary debates, and pointed to his commanding lead in the polls as one reason he is hesitant to share the stage with his GOP challengers.

    “Why would we debate? That would be stupid to go out there with that kind of lead,” one Trump adviser previously told CNN. However, not all of Trump’s allies feel this way. Some worry that an absent Trump would give an opportunity for a lower tier candidate to have a breakout moment.

    Trump’s dinner comes after RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and David Bossie, who is in charge of the debate committee, visited Trump at Bedminster in recent weeks to encourage him to participate, according to a Trump adviser. Trump was also noncommittal on his plans during this meeting.

    Over the last year, Trump has trashed Fox News and Rupert Murdoch, the Fox Corporation chairman and controlling shareholder of the company, for not being sufficiently supportive of him.

    Murdoch, who privately holds disdain for Trump, attempted early on in the 2024 campaign to shine a bright light on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis while casting the former president on the sidelines. The hope appeared to be to seduce the Fox News audience into falling for another Republican candidate.

    But the DeSantis campaign has struggled since it officially got off the ground this year. Last month, Murdoch debuted a new Fox News lineup comprised of pro-Trump propagandists, a move that seemed to acknowledge Trump’s likely selection as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.

    Trump has also sharply criticized the way in which Murdoch has approached his legal problems, blasting the right-wing media mogul for not doubling down on his lies while in court.

    Trump tried to call into Fox News after his supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, but the network refused to put him on air, according to court filings from Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation case against the company.

    Still, Fox has amplified Trump’s lies about the validity of the 2020 election, even though Murdoch has said he did not believe Trump’s false statements, according to damning private messages revealed in the Dominion case. Murdoch floated the idea of having his influential hosts appear together in prime time to declare Joe Biden as the rightful winner of the election. Such an act, Murdoch said, “Would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election stolen.”

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  • Here’s what DeSantis, Christie and other Trump 2024 rivals are saying about the Georgia indictment | CNN Politics

    Here’s what DeSantis, Christie and other Trump 2024 rivals are saying about the Georgia indictment | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump’s biggest detractors in the 2024 Republican presidential race offered mixed reactions Tuesday to the former president’s indictment by a Georgia grand jury.

    Trump has remained defiant in the face of the new charges against him and 18 others stemming from their efforts to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat. He now faces four separate indictments at the same time that he’s running for president as the front-runner for the GOP nomination.

    Two rivals argued that the charges Trump faces in Fulton County are similar to the election interference charges brought by federal special counsel Jack Smith in Washington, and said the federal case should take precedence.

    Here’s what Trump’s 2024 GOP opponents are saying about the latest indictment:

    Christie told Fox News that he is “uncomfortable” with what he views as an “unnecessary” indictment from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

    “I think that this conduct is essentially covered by the federal indictment,” he said. “I would have less of a problem with this if she decided, ‘OK, I’m not going to charge Donald Trump here, because he has been charged for, essentially this conduct, by Jack Smith.’”

    However, Christie said the Fulton County prosecution of Trump’s close allies, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, was “more defensible” because they “have not been charged at the federal level” like Trump has.

    Christie defended the timing of Willis’ indictment, saying that Trump’s decision to run in 2024 was “not an excuse” for the justice system to stop operating.

    “I think all of these judges in the end will make decisions based upon the reasonable availability of all the witnesses and everyone else,” he said.

    Later, in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Christie was asked whether Willis might have brought charges against Trump because he wouldn’t be able to shut down the state case and pardon himself if he is elected president again in 2024, Christie said, “I don’t think that’s the prosecutor’s job. The prosecutor’s job is to look at how do you administer justice in this case.”

    He said Republican voters should ask themselves, “Is someone out on bail in four jurisdictions really our best chance to beat Joe Biden?”

    “Are we really going to continue to act as if this is normal conduct? It’s not,” he said.

    Hutchinson, who has long called for Trump to drop out of the race because of his conduct, said the latest indictment further strengthens his belief that the former president should not be seeking the 2024 GOP nomination.

    But much like Christie, he said he believes Willis may be stepping outside her jurisdiction, given the federal charges Trump faces.

    “Generally, state cases are deferential to the federal cases that have been brought, and I think you can make the case that Georgia should have been deferential because there’s overlap there as well, but it is what it is,” Hutchinson said.

    Another strident Trump critic, Hurd said in a statement that Trump’s latest indictment was “another example of how the former president’s baggage will hand Joe Biden reelection if Trump is the Republican nominee.”

    “This is further evidence that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election and was ready to do anything it took to cling to power,” Hurd said. “It’s time we move beyond dealing with the former president’s baggage. The Republican Party needs a leader who isn’t afraid of bullies like Trump.”

    The tech entrepreneur was sharply critical of the charges Trump faces in Georgia.

    At a NewsNation town hall Monday night, Ramaswamy said he hadn’t read the details of the indictments but painted the multiple investigations into Trump in multiple jurisdictions as an effort to negatively impact the former president’s chances of winning the 2024 election.

    “These are politicized persecutions through prosecution,” Ramaswamy said. “It would be a lot easier for me if Donald Trump were not in this primary, but that is not how I want to win this election. The way we do elections in the United States of America is that we the people – you all – get to decide who governs, not the federal police state.”

    DeSantis, Trump’s top-polling primary rival who has criticized the prosecution of the former president, told New England reporters Tuesday that the Georgia indictment is an example of the “criminalization of politics.”

    “They’re now doing an inordinate amount of resources to try to shoehorn this contest over the 2020 election into a RICO statute, which was really designed to be able to go after organized crime, not necessarily to go after political activity,” the governor told WMUR at a news conference, referring to a racketeering charge brought against Trump. “And so, I think it’s an example of this criminalization of politics. I don’t think that this is something that is good for the country.”

    DeSantis later told reporters in New Hampshire that he thinks Trump is currently leading in the 2024 GOP primary in polls in part because of how Republican voters have responded to the indictments.

    “Clearly, there’s been a change in some of the polling since the Alvin Bragg case was brought,” DeSantis said in reference to the indictment brought by the Manhattan district attorney against Trump related to an alleged hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. “I think that’s just irrefutable.”

    Much like DeSantis, Scott, rather than criticizing Trump’s actions, lambasted the prosecution of the former president.

    “We see the legal system being weaponized against political opponents,” the senator told reporters Tuesday at the Iowa State Fair. “That is un-American and unacceptable.”

    Scott said he hopes to “restore confidence and integrity” to the legal system if he were to become president.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • As young conservatives try to get climate on the agenda in 2024, denial takes the spotlight instead | CNN Politics

    As young conservatives try to get climate on the agenda in 2024, denial takes the spotlight instead | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    During this week’s Republican primary debate on Fox News, a young voter notably asked about the climate crisis: How would these presidential candidates assuage concerns that the Republican Party “doesn’t care” about the issue?

    The question was all but unavoidable after weeks of extreme, deadly weather. Global temperature records have been shattered, extreme heat has soared off-the-charts in the US and the Maui wildfire death toll continues to climb.

    What followed the question was one of the night’s most chaotic exchanges, demonstrating the challenge some conservatives face in getting climate policy on the 2024 GOP agenda, even as extreme weather takes its toll on millions of people across the country.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the leader of a state that has been thrashed by deadly extreme weather in recent years, refused the moderators’ show-of-hands question on whether climate change is caused by humans. He used the moment to deride the media and President Joe Biden’s response in Maui.

    Then 38-year-old Vivek Ramaswamy – notably the youngest candidate on stage – called the “climate change agenda” a “hoax,” an answer that elicited intense boos from the audience.

    A majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents – 55% – say human activity is causing changes to the world’s climate, according to a recent Washington Post/University of Maryland poll. It also found a majority of Americans and Republicans say their area has been impacted by extreme heat in the past five years.

    But connecting the dots between climate and extreme weather is proving a more partisan issue. The poll found there are deep divides between Republicans and Democrats on the question of whether human-caused climate change is contributing to extreme weather: just 35% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they think climate change is a major factor in extremely hot days, compared with 85% of those who lean Democrat.

    After the debate, a prominent conservative climate group said Ramaswamy tried to clarify his position.

    “He came to our after-party and he blatantly told us that he believes climate change is real,” Benji Backer, founder of the American Conservation Coalition, told CNN. “So, he changed his position again.”

    Asked by CNN on Friday whether he believes climate change is real, Ramaswamy responded, “Climate change has existed as long as the Earth has existed. Manmade climate change has existed as long as man has existed on the earth.” In an email, Ramaswamy’s campaign spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told CNN the candidate does believe climate change is real, but policies to address it “have little to do with climate change and more to do with penalizing the West as a way to achieve global ‘equity.’”

    Yet for Republicans working to make climate policy more mainstream in the GOP, Ramaswamy’s language at the debate echoed a climate crisis-denying candidate who wasn’t onstage, former President Donald Trump. Trump has called climate change itself a “hoax” and falsely claimed wind turbines cause cancer.

    “The fact that he chose the word hoax, to me, he’s emulating what President Trump had said before,” Heather Reams, president of conservative nonprofit Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, told CNN. Reams, who was sitting in the audience in Milwaukee, noted that Ramaswamy calling the “climate change agenda” a hoax didn’t go over well in a room full of Republicans.

    “The whole place booed him, so it wasn’t well received,” Reams said. “Hearing booing was actually heartening to hear that the party is really moving on, they’re seeing the economic opportunities that can be had for the United States being a leader in lowering emissions.”

    Ramaswamy’s response was an attempt to go after the older GOP voting base in the primary, Backer said. It’s the kind of audience that Fox News has historically played to when it hosts climate deniers on some of its shows or casts doubt on the connection between extreme weather and the climate crisis – but Backer said the fact the network even asked this question “just shows that the pendulum is shifting.”

    Backer warned Ramasway’s response to the question risks alienating younger conservative voters who are increasingly concerned about climate impacts.

    “I’ve in two presidential elections and I’ve never voted for a Republican president in my life, because I don’t vote for climate deniers,” Backer said, adding that climate denial “is the way of the past.”

    Several Republican presidential candidates have said they believe climate change is real and caused by human activity – a shift from previous elections.

    Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley acknowledged its reality but said foreign nations, including India and China, bear larger responsibility for addressing it. Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum have all engaged frequently with conservative groups, Reams and Backer said.

    “I think that Nikki Haley provided a very clear, very positive response,” Danielle Butcher Franz, CEO of the American Conservation Coalition, told CNN. “We need to see more responses like that in the Republican Party. I think it’s important that we show the conservative environmental movement is here to stay.”

    Backer warned that Ramaswamy and other candidates risk losing young voters if they continue to engage in climate denial – or anything that sounds remotely like it.

    “There’s a lot of Republicans leading on this, but the narrative is that we don’t care,” Backer said. “And if we nominate another person who doesn’t care, young people are not going to forget that. There’s not going to be a lot of baby boomers in 20 years, so you better start thinking about the next generation.”

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  • Bob Menendez remains defiant amid bribery charges and calls to resign | CNN Politics

    Bob Menendez remains defiant amid bribery charges and calls to resign | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey remained defiant on Monday after being indicted on bribery charges at the end of last week, saying he believes he will be exonerated as he responded to some of the specific charges and evidence outlined by prosecutors.

    Menendez’s comments come amid a flurry of calls for his resignation – including from his own party and from his Senate colleagues. On Monday, Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Peter Welch of Vermont became the latest Democrats in the chamber call on Menendez to step down, joining Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman.

    In a statement delivered to reporters, Menendez offered some of his first public defense against some of the evidence discovered by investigators during their search of his home, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, which he argued he had on hand for emergencies and described as an “old-fashioned” habit derived from his family’s experience in Cuba.

    “For 30 years, I have withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash from my personal savings account, which I have kept for emergencies, and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba,” said Menendez. “Now this may seem old fashioned, but these were monies drawn from my personal savings account based on the income that I have lawfully derived over those 30 years.”

    According to the indictment, searches of Menendez’s home and safe deposit box that federal agents conducted in 2022 turned up nearly $500,000 in cash, including in envelopes inside jackets emblazoned with Menendez’s name. Prosecutors say some of the envelopes had the fingerprints or DNA of one of the business contacts from whom the senator is accused of taking bribes.

    Menendez has been charged with three alleged crimes, including being on the receiving end of a bribery conspiracy. The conspiracy counts also charge his wife and three people described as New Jersey associates and businessmen.

    The group is accused of coordinating to use Menendez’s power as a US senator to benefit them personally and to benefit Egypt.

    On Monday, Menendez defended his record as it relates to Egypt, saying, “If you look at my actions related to Egypt during the period described in this indictment, and throughout my whole career, my record is clear and consistent in holding Egypt accountable for its unjust detention of American citizens and others, its human rights abuses, its deepening relationship with Russia, and efforts that have eroded the independence of the nation’s judiciary, among a myriad of concerns.”

    Menendez has been called upon to resign by a growing list of prominent Democrats – including the New Jersey governor and six members of the state’s congressional delegation. Rep. Andy Kim announced Saturday plans to challenge Menendez in the Democratic primary next year should Menendez run again for his US Senate seat.

    And on Monday, Brown and Welch joined Fetterman to become the second and third Senate Democrats to call for Menendez to step down.

    “Senator Menendez has broken the public trust and should resign from the U.S. Senate,” said Brown, who is running for reelection next year.

    Welch said in a statement later in the day that “the shocking and specific allegations against Senator Menendez have wholly compromised his capacity to be that effective Senator,” adding: “I encourage Senator Menendez to resign.”

    Fetterman, who first called for Menendez’s resignation over the weekend, will return $5,000 in donations his campaign received from Menendez’s political action committee, according to the Pennsylvania Democrat’s office.

    The New Jersey senator has denied wrongdoing and pushed back on calls to resign.

    On Monday, Menendez accused those who “rushed to judgment” of doing so for “political expediency.”

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

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces independent run for president, ending Democratic primary challenge to Biden | CNN Politics

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces independent run for president, ending Democratic primary challenge to Biden | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Environmental lawyer and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Monday his independent candidacy for president, officially ending his effort to defeat President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary in favor of a long-shot general election bid.

    “I’m here to declare myself an independent candidate for president of the United States,” Kennedy said in remarks in Philadelphia.

    Kennedy’s announcement comes after several weeks of speculation about his future in the 2024 field. CNN previously reported Kennedy met with the chair of the Libertarian Party earlier this year to discuss their common beliefs. And last week, a super PAC supporting Kennedy’s presidential campaign released the results of a poll they conducted testing Kennedy’s strength in a hypothetical three-way race between Biden and former President Donald Trump.

    The campaign will host a series of events in Texas, Florida and Georgia later this month, a campaign official told CNN, pledging to travel “everywhere” in the lead-up to next year’s general election. The official said the campaign is confident they’ll gain ballot access in every state ahead of November 2024.

    Independent and third-party candidates have struggled in the past to garner substantial support in presidential elections. In 1992, Texas businessman Ross Perot mounted one of the most successful independent presidential candidacies in recent history, which ended with him receiving 8% of the vote in the general election that was ultimately won by Bill Clinton.

    On Monday, Kennedy acknowledged the unsuccessful history of independent presidential campaigns but said he’s optimistic about his chances.

    “Today, we turn a new page in American politics. There have been independent candidates in this country before, but this time it’s going to be different. Because this time, the independent is gonna win,” he said.

    Mark Gorton, co-founder of American Values 2024, the super PAC supporting Kennedy’s campaign, said the candidate will need to prove viability to voters by consistently increasing his support in the polls in order to have a realistic chance of winning the election. He feels they’ve “got a shot” to pull off a historic upset.

    “I think it’s very important that Bobby a year from now be polling at the very least in the mid-to-high 30s in order to be seen as viable as anyone,” Gorton told CNN. “We need to be getting 1%, 1.5% of the electorate each month, but that’s a doable task.”

    Kennedy’s campaign as an independent could further complicate a general election race that’s already expected to be closely contested. A Reuters/Ipsos poll of a hypothetical three-way race between Biden, Trump and Kennedy conducted last week among likely voters found 14% of voters supported Kennedy, with 40% supporting Trump and 38% supporting Biden. With over a year until the general election, it’s unclear whether the Kennedy campaign can translate that level of support into votes in November 2024. Kennedy said he hopes to win the election by pulling in both Biden and Trump supporters.

    “They say my impact is only going to draw votes from the other candidates. The Democrats are frightened that I’m gonna spoil the election for President Biden, and the Republicans are frightened that I’m gonna spoil it for President Trump,” he said. “The truth is, they’re both right. My intention is to spoil it for both of them.”

    “Voters should not be deceived by anyone who pretends to have conservative values. The fact is that RFK has a disturbing background steeped in radical, liberal positions,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that criticized Kennedy over his positions on China, guns, the environment and abortion. “… A RFK candidacy is nothing more than a vanity project for a liberal Kennedy looking to cash in on his family’s name.”

    Trump’s allies and advisers have been building opposition research against Kennedy, intending to go on the offensive and paint Kennedy as a “liberal parading in conservative’s clothing,” one adviser told CNN, pointing to his past record as an environmental activist.

    Kennedy first launched his campaign to defeat Biden in the Democratic primary in April and frequently visited early primary states like New Hampshire and South Carolina. But his efforts did little to sway Democratic primary voters, with just 9% of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire expressing support for Kennedy in a CNN/University of New Hampshire poll released in September.

    The Republican National Committee issued a statement just prior to Kennedy’s announcement, characterizing him as “just another radical, far-left Democrat.”

    Kennedy is the son of former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy. Some of his siblings issued a joint statement on Monday, calling his decision to run against Biden in a general election “dangerous to our country.”

    “Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment. Today’s announcement is deeply saddening for us. We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country, ” Rory Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Joseph P Kennedy II and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend said in a statement.

    A lifelong Democrat prior to announcing his run as an independent, Kennedy acknowledged his and his family’s long history with the Democratic Party and called the decision to disavow the party “very painful.” But he said he wants to fight against the two-party system, which he says has failed to provide Americans with viable options for the presidency. He criticized Biden’s age and competency as well as Trump’s ongoing legal troubles as a symptom of a corrupt political process.

    “That’s what two-party politics has given us, and that’s why we need to pry loose from the hammerlock of the corrupt powers in Washington, DC, and make this nation ours again.”

    The crowd of supporters in Philadelphia received Kennedy warmly, particularly when he discussed his plans to create a “tamper-proof election system” while expanding voting rights and called for the US “to pull our nation back from the brink of war with Russia.” A staunch anti-war advocate, Kennedy notably did not address the outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas over the weekend. Prior to Kennedy’s remarks, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a friend and informal adviser to Kennedy, spoke about the war and called for a moment of silence for victims in Israel.

    When asked by CNN following the event about Kennedy not mentioning Israel and Hamas in his remarks, Boteach dismissed the oversight and said his involvement in the event spoke loudly about Kennedy’s stance toward Israel.

    “I think that was very brave of him and showed tremendous solidarity that he asked a rabbi who’s his close friend. You know, he moved away from the political figures who could have introduced him and endorsed him,” Boteach said. “The fact that I’m the one that introduced him, I think said it all.”

    Kennedy’s lack of mention of Israel’s war with Hamas comes after he received criticism from Jewish groups in July after he falsely claimed during a dinner in New York City that “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” people are “most immune” to Covid-19. Kennedy strongly pushed back against the accusations of antisemitism from those groups.

    Kennedy has never held public office but has inspired a small contingent of supporters drawn to his advocacy against public health mandates and the influence of money on decisions made by government and private corporations. Kennedy founded Children’s Health Defense, an organization that regularly spreads anti-vaccine misinformation, and has promoted anti-vaccine conspiracy theories at campaign events.

    Attendees at Monday’s event spanned the ideological spectrum, with conservatives, liberals and independents all gathering in Philadelphia for the announcement.

    Walter Rodriguez, a teacher from New Jersey who identifies as an independent, said he plans to support Kennedy if he’s on the ballot in his home state. Otherwise, he said, he doesn’t plan to vote at all.

    “I’m excited about the energy they bring to the table as a candidate, and I think some of the things that he’s talking about are things that I identify with,” Rodriguez said. “Not relying so much on central control of everything, pharmaceuticals, politics. So the fact that he’s declaring himself as independent today, that is the right way to go.”

    Karl Hagstrom came to Philadelphia from Westchester County, New York. He said he supported Trump in 2016 and 2020, but said he plans to support Kennedy in 2024. He said he’s drawn to Kennedy because he feels the political outsider can bring unity to the country, unlike Trump, who he said has been too divisive.

    “Just the constant insanity, the tweeting, the negativity, the just out-of-left field reactions to things. It’s not sustainable, it’s not something that can bring people together,” Hagstrom said.

    Sarah Shulman drove to the event with a group of supporters from the Boston area. A practicing pediatrician, Shulman attended Kennedy’s Democratic campaign launch event in Boston in April and said Kennedy’s anti-corruption message and his position on vaccines inspired her to support him. She said she voted for Biden in 2020 and has never considered supporting a Republican but has felt disconnected from Biden’s message since he took office.

    “He’s speaking our language,” Shulman said of Kennedy. “A Democrat, somebody in the liberal mind that’s compassionate, caring, who also is making sense.”

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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  • A moment of reckoning for gerrymandering | CNN Politics

    A moment of reckoning for gerrymandering | CNN Politics

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



    CNN
     — 

    Americans’ reckoning with their own democracy extends beyond the looming presidential election to a much more local level.

    There are new details about how the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court issued its most unexpected decision of the past year and threw out Alabama’s congressional map, part of a secret negotiation between Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Read that incredible behind-the-scenes reporting from CNN’s Joan Biskupic.

    Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, the inverse is occurring – lawmakers who enjoy a majority thanks to gerrymandered state-level districts are keen on throwing out a liberal state Supreme Court justice even though she took the bench last month after being elected to a 10-year term.

    State and federal courts are hearing challenges to maps across the country, which could have a major impact on the coming election and help determine who controls Congress.

    Also this week:

    • A federal court has also thrown into question the congressional map drawn by Republicans that helped them gain seats in Florida.
    • There’s a trial over congressional maps underway in Georgia.

    The selective drawing of legislative district maps during periods of redistricting after the US census every 10 years – colloquially known as gerrymandering – is a practice that has been the subject of political and court fights for most of the country’s history. The Supreme Court has said partisan gerrymandering done for political reasons is not its concern, but this year it reaffirmed that racial gerrymandering that keeps minorities shut out of the power structure is not allowed.

    An endless series of adjustments has sought to address the issue of gerrymandering. These have ranged from major legislation like the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s to the adoption of nonpartisan or independent redistricting commissions in recent decades. The Congressional Research Service has a list of which states, many on the West Coast, have tried to de-politicize the process.

    But lawmakers in multiple states continue to work hard to protect their party control, a battle that is being fought on multiple fronts.

    Republicans in Alabama, for instance, unhappy with the Supreme Court’s decision this summer, essentially ignored the court by drawing a map that did not include an additional majority-Black district as the justices demanded. A federal court sent the state back to the drawing board again this week with the rebuke that it was “disturbed” by Alabama’s actions.

    Alabama argued that creating a second majority-Black district would be a sort of “affirmative action.”

    But the three-judge panel that threw out the map rejected that idea.

    “The Voting Rights Act does not provide a leg up for Black voters – it merely prevents them from being kept down with regard to what is arguably the most ‘fundamental political right,’ in that it is ‘preservative of all rights’ – the right to vote.” Read more from CNN’s Fredreka Schouten and Ethan Cohen.

    Alabama plans to appeal to the US Supreme Court again with an eye to changing Kavanaugh’s mind.

    Gerrymandered lawmakers target anti-gerrymander judge

    In Wisconsin, a Marquette University Law School review of data tells the story of how partisan gerrymandering – the kind the Supreme Court doesn’t concern itself with – makes it virtually impossible for Democrats to win the state’s assembly. When Gov. Tony Evers narrowly won statewide in 2018, he got 49.6%, or about half of the vote. But because of how the state’s legislative maps were drawn, the Republican then-Gov. Scott Walker got a majority in 63 of the state’s 99 assembly districts, just two fewer than in 2014, when Walker won a majority of votes in 2014.

    It is lawmakers elected from Republican-friendly maps who now want to remove the liberal state Supreme Court justice, Janet Protasiewicz, from office in part for her opposition to the maps. Read more from CNN’s Eric Bradner.

    North Carolina’s new Supreme Court overturns gerrymandering ruling

    North Carolina Republicans tried to cut the state courts out of the federal redistricting and elections process altogether by pushing a fringe legal theory known as the “independent state legislature theory.” The US Supreme Court rejected that argument, which could have upended how federal elections are contested in a consequential decision earlier this year.

    But North Carolina Republicans seem likely to ultimately get the map they want. Republicans gained a majority on the state’s Supreme Court this year, and the court has ruled it has no authority to oversee partisan gerrymandering.

    There are many more legal fights over congressional maps underway. The US Supreme Court in June also allowed for the Louisiana congressional map to be redrawn to allow for another majority-Black district.

    From CNN’s report on the Louisiana decision by Tierney Sneed: “Louisiana state officials were sued last year for a congressional map – passed by the Republican legislature over Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ veto – that made only one of its six districts majority Black, despite the 2020 census showing that the state’s population is 33% Black.”

    Congressional maps are in question in many states, including Georgia, where there is a trial underway in Atlanta.

    Kentucky’s Supreme Court is set to hear arguments later this month about whether gerrymandered maps violate the state’s constitution.

    On the flip side, Democrats are trying to get more friendly maps in New York, where a court-drawn map led them to lose congressional seats in 2022.

    One way to view these court decisions is that the US Supreme Court allowing or insisting that maps in Alabama or Louisiana be redrawn could have a real impact on who controls Congress after the 2024 election. Republicans hold a tiny five-seat majority.

    Another way to view these court decisions is that when the US Supreme Court allowed the GOP-drawn maps to be used in these states in the 2022 election, it helped Republicans gain that slim majority.

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  • McCarthy says defense spending bill will get a vote this week ‘win or lose’ | CNN Politics

    McCarthy says defense spending bill will get a vote this week ‘win or lose’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday that the Defense Department appropriations bill that was paused last week before it even made it to the floor for debate will come up for a vote this week “win or lose.”

    “We will do that this week,” McCarthy said on Fox News, adding “unfortunately I had a handful of members last week that literally stopped the Department of Defense appropriations coming forward,” referring to members of his right flank who have stymied two appropriations bills thus far.

    “I gave them an opportunity this weekend to try to work through this, and we’ll bring it to the floor win or lose,” McCarthy told Maria Bartiromo.

    House Republican leadership was hoping to put a series of standalone spending bills on the floor to try to build consensus and unite the conference, but it’s been a gamble. Leadership was left scrambling over the defense spending bill after one member of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, voted against the bill in the Rules Committee and another, Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, told CNN he would vote against the rule on the floor.

    Both the debate and the scheduled votes were pulled minutes before the chamber was due to gavel in Wednesday.

    McCarthy on Sunday pointed a finger at the Senate, saying not only does the House have to work with the upper chamber, but that the Senate “blew up last week too. They couldn’t pass anything.”

    “And unfortunately on the Senate side, the Republicans and Democrats over there are writing bills to spend more money. Ours are the most conservative, but if we don’t ask them, we’re weaker in the negotiations. So anytime a Republican wants to hold back and stop the floor from working when Republicans have the majority, that puts us in a weaker position to win in the end of the day,” he said.

    But McCarthy said a government shutdown “would only give strength to the Democrats. It would give the power to Biden.”

    With no serious progress on Capitol Hill as Congress stares down a spending deadline at the end of the month, lawmakers are acknowledging that at this point a government shutdown is not only possible, but may soon be inevitable.

    That’s particularly true if the political dynamics at play among McCarthy, the hardliners in his conference and the US Senate don’t change fast.

    “I want to make sure we don’t shut down. I don’t think that is a win for the American public and I definitely believe that will make (Republicans’) hand weaker,” McCarthy said.

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  • Many in House GOP caution against tying Israel and Ukraine aid together | CNN Politics

    Many in House GOP caution against tying Israel and Ukraine aid together | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Biden administration and congressional Democrats are weighing tying legislation for additional military support for Israel with military assistance for Ukraine, setting up a showdown with congressional Republicans opposed to helping Ukraine amid the tumult in the speaker-less chamber.

    The looming fight over tying military aid for Israel and Ukraine together – along with Taiwan and potentially border funding – is the latest in a series of complicated questions a new speaker will have to navigate as the narrow Republican majority grapples with its future. It comes as interim House Speaker Patrick McHenry maintains his role is limited to help Israel in the midst of war, meaning the House can’t pass any legislation until a new speaker is chosen.

    The White House has yet to formalize a request for additional aid to Israel – it is expediting weapons already purchased first – but briefers on a call with lawmakers Sunday night underscored that there would be an eventual need as Israel burns through munitions. On a Senate briefing Sunday evening, Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and others proposed packaging Ukraine aid and Israel aid together with the expectation that conversation will likely intensify over the next several days ahead of the Senate’s return next week, one person familiar told CNN.

    While congressional aides and US officials make clear that Israel is not in danger of running out of equipment in the near term like Ukraine, the thinking is that tying funding for each country together could help get Ukraine aid across the finish line as support has dwindled among House Republicans in recent months.

    There is also some discussion of including border security funding and more funding for Taiwan in an eventual package as there is growing uncertainty over how future supplemental packages would fare in the GOP-controlled House.

    “There’s discussion about putting Israeli funding with Ukraine funding, maybe Taiwan funding and finally border security funding. To me that would be a good package,” said House Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican who has been a vocal supporter in the conference for continuing to support Ukraine.

    It’s an open question if hardliners in the House – who have been vehemently opposed to giving more to Ukraine – would back that effort, however. It’s also not clear if a future speaker – knowing the bitter divide over the issue of Ukraine – would be willing to move a joint package on the House floor.

    “Absolutely not,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who has been steadfastly opposed to providing Ukraine with any additional funding. “They shouldn’t be tied together. I will not vote to fund Ukraine.”

    But even some House Republicans who support providing Ukraine with additional aid said Monday they had concerns with pairing a supplemental for Israel with Ukraine, given the opposition inside their conference, including Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, who co-chairs the Congressional Ukraine Caucus.

    “You know, right now, probably not,” said Diaz-Balart, who is a House appropriator. “There’s still quite a bit of money left for Ukraine. There will be a moment when we have to revisit that. But I think that there’s potentially going to be a lot more urgency for the situation in Israel.”

    The question now is looming large over a massively unpredictable speaker’s race that all signs suggest could drag out for days or weeks. On Monday, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who’s running for the position, told CNN that he plans to bring forward a resolution to show support for Israel, but it’s not clear how he would handle a move to bundle Ukraine and Israel military aid.

    On Monday night, House Republicans gathered for a conference meeting – the first since McCarthy announced he wouldn’t seek another term as speaker – in order to discuss next steps in the leadership race. But the question of how to support Israel in uncertain times remained a key question.

    McHenry has made clear to colleagues that his role is narrow and is only intended to help elect the next speaker of the House. Even as some have raised questions about whether the North Carolina Republican could put a resolution vowing support for Israel on the floor, McHenry has maintained that is not in the scope of his limited role. That means that the only way to move more funding for Israel is to elect a new speaker, something that remains in flux as neither Majority Leader Steve Scalise nor Jordan has locked down the votes they need to secure the gavel.

    Further complicating the dynamics, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wouldn’t rule out if he’d seek the speakership again if the conference failed to rally around one candidate.

    “I’m going to allow (the) conference to do their work,” McCarthy said repeatedly on Monday when pressed if he’d get in the race.

    Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said at a conference in Washington on Monday that additional funding from Congress would be required for the Defense Department to provide munitions to Israel at the same time the US is supporting Ukraine. Wormuth would not say whether the US would be providing Israel with additional Iron Dome systems, but that she expected the US would “lean forward in support of Israel” in the same way the US has for Ukraine.

    “To be able to increase our capacity … to expand production, and then to also pay for the munitions themselves, we need additional support from Congress,” Wormuth said. “We’re obviously at the early stage of the process of evaluating our ability to support what the IDF needs, and just as we have with Ukraine, we’re going to weigh obviously the impacts of requests to our readiness.”

    Israel is requesting precision guided bombs and additional Iron Dome interceptors from the US, according to an Israeli military official and a US defense official. The Israeli official said the request to the Americans includes Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, a kit that turns an unguided “dumb” bomb into a precision “smart” weapon. Israel has used precision guided bombs to strike targets in Gaza from the air.

    Administration officials told lawmakers in the Sunday briefings they are already expediting existing contracts for weapons Israel has purchased to give them a boost in the near term. The administration also can use the presidential drawdown authority to provide additional weapons to Israel, though it would need Congress to increase the amount of money in the fund, officials said.

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  • House enters third week without speaker as nine Republicans vie for gavel | CNN Politics

    House enters third week without speaker as nine Republicans vie for gavel | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    As the House enters its third week without a speaker, nearly a dozen Republicans are vying to earn the support of their conference to wield the gavel, throwing the chamber into even more uncertainty.

    The conference is searching for a new speaker nominee after Rep. Jim Jordan on Friday became the latest to exit the race. The chamber has been without a speaker since House Republicans ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy earlier this month.

    Nine House Republicans are running for the position, announced House GOP conference chair Rep. Elise Stefanik, including GOP Whip Tom Emmer, who is endorsed by McCarthy. Emmer has moved to lock in support across the ideological and geographic spectrum in the conference, giving him what many House Republicans believe is an advantage, according to GOP sources. He could face an uphill battle, however, against allies of former President Donald Trump who have been quick to criticize Emmer for voting to certify the 2020 election.

    The speaker hopefuls spent the weekend working the phones to win their conference’s support ahead of an expected candidate forum Monday evening and secret-ballot election Tuesday.

    Emmer spoke with Trump by phone over the weekend, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, and Emmer touted his “strong working relationship” with the former president on social media Monday.

    “Thank you, Mr. President,” Emmer posted on X, alongside a video clip of Trump saying he’s “always” gotten along with Emmer. “If my colleagues elect me Speaker of the House, I look forward to continuing our strong working relationship.”

    Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, another candidate for speaker, said Monday that he also spoke with Trump about his bid.

    “He called me and we had a polite conversation. I believe that the president is interested in having somebody he can work with, and I think I’m one of those people,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju, adding that he did not ask for Trump’s endorsement.

    These are the other GOP representatives running for speaker:

    • Jack Bergman of Michigan, a retired 40-year veteran of the US Marines.
    • Byron Donalds of Florida, a second-term member of the far-right Freedom Caucus.
    • Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, chair of the conservative group known as the Republican Study Committee – which wields a large bloc of GOP members.
    • Mike Johnson of Louisiana, the vice chairman for the House Republican Conference.
    • Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.
    • Gary Palmer of Alabama, the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee.
    • Austin Scott of Georgia, the seven-term ally of McCarthy who quickly dropped out of a last-minute challenge to Jordan last week.

    Frustrations and divisions have only intensified within the conference as Republicans search for a way to resolve the impasse. That, along with the GOP’s narrow majority, has made it increasingly unclear whether any candidate will be able to secure the 217 floor votes needed to win the gavel.

    The House, meanwhile, remains in a state of paralysis amid the threat of a government shutdown next month and the Israel-Hamas war.

    The government runs out of funding in less than a month, after narrowly avoiding a shutdown with a stopgap funding bill last month. A speaker will need to be involved in negotiations with the White House and the Senate, both of which are controlled by Democrats.

    And there is momentum for a bill to give further aid to Israel’s war against Hamas. President Joe Biden has asked Congress for a $105 billion package that will include aid for Israel and Ukraine, which is said to be running out of munitions in its fight against Russia’s invasion.

    The showdown over the speakership kicked off earlier this month when a bloc of hardline conservatives voted to oust McCarthy, a historic move that plunged the House into unprecedented territory. Then, in the aftermath of McCarthy’s ouster, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s speakership nomination met a swift downfall when the conference failed to come together on his bid.

    On Friday, Republicans pushed Jordan out of the race after he failed to win the gavel for the third time in a floor vote earlier in the day.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Hunter Biden is a sensitive topic that advisers rarely broach with the president | CNN Politics

    Hunter Biden is a sensitive topic that advisers rarely broach with the president | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Long among the most sensitive subjects inside the West Wing, Hunter Biden’s legal saga now appears destined to play out amid his father’s bid for reelection, frustrating the president but so far causing little real concern among his advisers.

    The probe into Hunter Biden is now one of two special counsel investigations – the other being an inquiry into his father’s handling of classified documents after leaving the Senate and the vice president’s office – that both appear poised to extend for months to come.

    Even some of Biden’s allies acknowledge they threaten to complicate or erode the moral high ground the president asserts as he seeks reelection. Hunter Biden, of course, is not himself running for president and the White House has taken pains to avoid interference in the case – all points of contrast with the president’s most likely Republican rival.

    The cases and consequences are entirely separate for both investigations. Although President Biden is so far not a part of special counsel David Weiss’s investigation into his son, his aides expect that he may be interviewed as part of special counsel Robert Hur’s documents probe.

    Still, both investigations take away the fundamental element of control for a White House heading into an election cycle. As multiple Biden advisers conceded privately this week, special counsels have a history of uncovering information they hadn’t set out initially to discover. The fact that it’s also a delicate family matter, people close to Biden say, is creating a level of personal angst unlike any other challenge for the president.

    David Weiss, left, and Hunter Biden

    ‘This is just a debacle’: Ex-federal prosecutor on length of Hunter Biden investigation

    How and whether those factors play into Biden’s reelection chances remains to be determined. Next to a likely rival who has now been indicted four times, Biden’s predicament is vastly different. Democratic strategists believe swing voters see Hunter Biden as a private citizen and are more concerned about the economy.

    Given the facts currently known, strategists say, these voters don’t believe President Biden has been implicated in any wrongdoing. Yet Biden’s advisers also concede the topic is mostly verboten with the president, raising the prospect of a critical blind spot heading into a bruising campaign where nothing will be off limits with their Republican rivals.

    “Hunter Biden is not a topic of discussion in campaign meetings,” a senior aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity, given the sensitivity of the subject. “It’s just not addressed.”

    It was a surprise to the West Wing last week when Attorney General Merrick Garland announced he was giving special counsel status to Weiss – originally a Trump appointee – a fact that further underscores the separation between the White House and the Justice Department on the case. The decision was met with a range of responses by Biden’s allies last week, from resignation to frustration.

    Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks at the Department of Justice, Friday, Aug. 11, 2023, in Washington. Garland announced Friday he is appointing a special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe, deepening the investigation of the president's son ahead of the 2024 election. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

    Garland appoints special counsel to Hunter Biden case

    For the president himself, the decision to name a special counsel amounted to another page in a chapter he would like to close. Even as the president and first lady try to move on from a dark period surrounding their son’s addiction, Republicans and now the Justice Department are extending the scrutiny into an indeterminable future.

    Just two weeks ago, the couple had hoped Hunter Biden’s expected plea deal would be a moment to admit mistakes and move on, one person familiar with the president’s thinking had said.

    But that plea deal fell apart and the special counsel appointment moves the legal issues into a new phase, including potentially a trial.

    From the beginning, the Bidens have tried to approach Hunter Biden’s issues through a personal lens, expressing their love and support for their son but otherwise declining to comment on the investigation. They have kept him close amid the legal proceedings with Hunter Biden appearing at family events and White House functions including a lavish state dinner days after his initial plea agreement was announced.

    President Joe Biden hugs his son Hunter Biden upon returning from a trip to Ireland, at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, on April 14.

    For some close to the president, however, there are now questions over how the matter has continued to persist, despite work toward a plea deal on tax and gun related charges, the resolution of a child support battle and no evidence yet that President Biden himself was implicated in any wrongdoing.

    They pin the blame mainly on Republicans, whom the White House blasted this week for waging years-long investigations into the president that haven’t produced evidence showing President Biden engaged in wrongdoing.

    “If you think about what Republicans in Congress have tried to do for years, they have been making claims and allegations about the president on this front over and over again. And month after month, year after year, they have been investigating every single angle of this and looking for any evidence to back their allegations,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said this week. “And what’s been the result of that, if you ask yourself what we have seen from that? They keep turning up documents and witnesses showing that the president wasn’t involved.”

    Beneath the surface, however, private questions are now brewing among some Democrats about the abilities of Hunter Biden’s legal team and the wisdom of his visible presence around his father.

    On Tuesday, Hunter Biden’s lead criminal defense attorney asked a federal judge on Tuesday for permission to withdraw from the case because he could now be called as a witness in future proceedings. To some Biden advisers, the surprise collapse of a plea deal only exacerbated existing concerns about Hunter’s legal team.

    “I’m sure this didn’t land all that well over in the White House because I think they’d love this Hunter Biden case to be behind them. The Republicans are sort of pointing to it for purposes of what-about-ism,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser in the Obama White House and CNN senior political commentator, who said Republicans were eager to make false comparisons – essentially saying, “what about” Hunter’s legal issues?

    “They need to have a countervailing argument and their countervailing argument is, ‘Oh two standards of justice, they’re not indicting Hunter Biden,’” he said. “And they’re beating that horse to death, even though they’ve failed to make the connection between Hunter Biden and Joe Biden in the way that they allege. So I think that anything that extends the Hunter Biden case into the election year is not welcome news for Joe Biden.”

    Hunter Biden walks to a waiting SUV after arriving with US President Joe Biden on Marine One at Fort McNair in Washington, DC, on July 4, as they return to Washington after spending the weekend at Camp David.

    CNN reporter details why Hunter Biden’s top lawyer asked to withdraw from case

    Indeed, the actions of Hunter Biden are now becoming a central discussion point for Republicans in Congress and presidential candidates, who frequently point to the president’s son in their argument of a false equivalency in the Justice Department.

    Republicans have criticized the now defunct plea agreement between Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors as a “sweetheart deal,” and they scoffed when Weiss was appointed as special counsel, despite many previously supporting the appointment of a special counsel.

    Some of the president’s potential Republican rivals also blasted the special counsel decision. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis argued Hunter Biden would receive “soft glove treatment.” A spokesperson for former President Donald Trump argued the Biden family has “been protected by the Justice Department for decades” – even though Trump appointed Weiss to his position and Biden kept him in the post upon taking office.

    Hunter Biden at a ceremony at the White House in Washington, July 7, 2022.

    The matter is likely to arise at the first Republican presidential debate next week in Milwaukee. The Democratic National Committee is not preparing specific responses to any criticism leveled against Hunter Biden at the Republican presidential debate but will be ready to respond as needed, a party official says.

    In 2020, plans were similarly laid ahead of general election debates with Trump, who seized on Hunter Biden as an attack line. Biden’s defense of his son and his pride in his sobriety proved one of the most memorable moments of that year’s debate circuit.

    First lady Dr. Jill Biden had previously told CNN that the investigations into their son Hunter did not impact the president’s decision to seek reelection this year.

    Some Democrats view the development as an opportunity to demonstrate the party’s view of a fair judicial system – a contrast to many Republicans who have cried foul at the multiple indictments of Trump.

    “If Hunter has done something beyond the tax issue and beyond the gun issue that deserves to be investigated, then that should happen. No one is above the law,” said Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat. “That’s why you’re not hearing Democrats say that, you know, this is the weaponization of the Justice Department. No. We’re being consistent. When we say no one’s above the law when it comes to Donald Trump, we mean it even if it’s one of our own.”

    This story has been updated to clarify that the DNC may respond to criticism leveled against Hunter Biden but has not prepared any specific responses.

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  • Abortion politics take center stage after Biden campaign capitalizes on GOP debate rift | CNN Politics

    Abortion politics take center stage after Biden campaign capitalizes on GOP debate rift | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    More than a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republican candidates remain split over how to move forward on abortion, a political liability Democrats are eager to exploit regardless of who becomes the Republican nominee.

    The GOP divide was laid bare on the debate stage this week, as candidates backed a 15-week abortion ban, deferred to the states or tried to split the difference. President Joe Biden’s campaign responded immediately in a new digital ad, painting the field’s top contenders as extreme on the issue – and signaling what the Democratic campaign is likely to focus on in the coming year.

    When it comes to the future of abortion access, Republican candidates are facing pressure on all sides.

    GOP-led state legislatures have passed a wave of complete or near-total abortion bans that go beyond what most Americans support. Voters have supported abortion rights ballot initiatives and candidates in several key elections over the last year. And anti-abortion and evangelical groups are demanding presidential candidates go on the offensive and get as specific as possible.

    “The debate reflected the many different views among Republicans regarding abortion policy: not only what the policy ought to be, but what level of government ought to be making the decisions,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “There’s no real consensus at this point.”

    Biden’s reelection campaign has also homed in on remarks GOP candidates made on abortion during the debate. In talking points sent out to surrogates Wednesday night, the campaign claimed Republicans “spent two hours shouting over each other on … who has the best plan to ban abortion nationwide,” CNN reported Thursday.

    Biden’s team followed up Friday morning with a digital ad, “These Guys,” highlighting comments former President Donald Trump, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have made on abortion, including a clip of DeSantis on the debate stage. The ad, aimed at women in seven battleground states, is part of a $25 million ad campaign CNN first reported earlier this week.

    The ad also reaffirms Biden’s stance on abortion: that the U.S. should maintain the standard set in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which allowed for abortion up until fetal viability, generally viewed as around 24 weeks.

    “This ad is the first of many that will hold all MAGA Republicans accountable for their extreme, losing positions throughout the cycle, while also highlighting the President’s support for women and their fundamental freedoms,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

    Polling suggests that Americans support some legal abortion, but with limits. Seventy-three percent of respondents to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released last month said abortion should be allowed during the first six weeks of pregnancy, including 88% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans surveyed. Asked if states should allow abortion at 15 weeks, 51% of those surveyed said yes, including 75% of Democrats and 29% of Republicans.

    Only 27% of those surveyed supported allowing abortion until 24 weeks of pregnancy.

    Democrats are hoping that abortion access will continue to be an issue that helps them with voters heading into 2024. Since last year’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturned Roe and left abortion access up to individual states, Democrats and abortion rights activists have racked up a number of wins in special elections and ballot initiatives, and the party overperformed in the 2022 midterm elections.

    Trump – whose handpicked nominees lost key Senate races in Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia – went on to write a January social media post blaming the party’s midterm losses on “the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that insisted on No Exceptions.”

    Tom Bonier, chief executive of TargetSmart, a Democratic political targeting firm, said he expects abortion will be an even stronger issue for his party heading into the 2024 election.

    “The evidence that we’re seeing at this point is that abortion rights as a political issue is having an even greater impact than it did last year, which is saying a lot because it had a huge impact on elections in 2022,” he said.

    Bonier cited two causes for abortion’s growing influence. Voters, he said, no longer have to imagine what life would look like after Roe. They’re experiencing it firsthand. At the same time, Republicans have not adopted their message to address the political climate, he said. That dynamic was on display in the ad released by the Biden campaign Friday.

    “It literally speaks for itself as an issue at this point, that Republicans have not moderated, that in some ways they’ve actually got further to the right,” he said.

    Nearly two dozen states have moved to ban or restrict abortion in the wake of Dobbs. Some of the bans have been blocked in court, including the six-week limit DeSantis signed in April. Abortion is currently legal in Florida until 15 weeks of pregnancy.

    Republicans have begun to coalesce around the idea of a federal abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group, has called on candidates to support the 15-week limit at minimum, with room for states to pass more restrictive measures.

    “A number of GOP officeholders and even presidential aspirants use ‘states’ rights’ as an excuse to tape their mouths shut on abortion,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, wrote in a Thursday Washington Post op-ed with former Trump White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway. “This should not, and will not, stand.”

    Former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and DeSantis all declined to commit to signing a 15-week ban, while former Vice President Mike Pence and Scott did. The latter two criticized their opponents in post-debate interviews. Scott said in a Thursday Fox News interview that it is “a problem for our nation” that some candidates said they would not commit to a 15-week ban, while Pence also took a jab at Trump.

    “Whether it be with Gov. Desantis or Nikki Haley or others onstage, frankly most of the candidates running, including the one that did not show up tonight, are all trying to relegate the question of abortion as a states-only issue,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash on Wednesday.

    Trump has not said whether he would back a 15-week ban and has suggested he would leave it with the states. In May, he criticized the six-week ban DeSantis signed as “too harsh” for the anti-abortion movement but declined to say whether he supported it personally. A month later he told the audience at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference that while there “remains a vital role for the federal government” to play in abortion policy, people want it to be a state-level issue.

    “I believe the greatest progress for pro-life is now being made in the states, where everyone wanted to be,” Trump said. Pence used his remarks at the same conference to call on every GOP candidate to back a 15-week ban as a national standard.

    If a consensus is reached it will likely be whatever the eventual Republican nominee backs, though Ayres would advise candidates to leave the issue to the states — if that’s what they personally believe, he said.

    “Ultimately, a candidate has to look into his or her heart and soul to find a position they’re comfortable with, otherwise, they’ll never be able to articulate it effectively,” he said.

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