Tag: us federal government

Federal judge defends Clarence Thomas in new book, rejects ‘pot shots’ at Supreme Court | CNN Politics

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A federal appeals court judge previously on short lists for the Supreme Court is taking the rare step to broadly and publicly reject allegations that Justice Clarence Thomas has been improperly influenced by lavish gifts provided by a conservative billionaire, dismissing “pot shots” at the Supreme Court in general.

“Judges are just like every other human being. We have a diverse group of friends, and those friends don’t influence the way we do our job,” Judge Amul Thapar, who sits on a Cincinnati-based appeals court, told CNN in an interview.

Thapar this past week released a new book about Thomas entitled “The People’s Justice,” in which he explores the justice’s favored judicial philosophy of originalism. Thapar posits that the theory is wrongly described as always favoring the “rich over the poor, the strong over the weak, the corporation over the consumer.”

He walks through Thomas’ reasoning in a handful of cases dealing with affirmative action, the Second Amendment, school vouchers, a cross burning law and public takings of private property, among others, and contends that Thomas’ originalism “more often favors the ordinary people who come before the court – because the core idea behind originalism is honoring the will of the people.”

RELATED: Supreme Court limits federal prisoners’ ability to bring some post-conviction challenges

President Donald Trump nominated Thapar in to serve on the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017, and he was also on Trump’s short list for Supreme Court vacancies. Thapar, 54, is a favorite of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who handpicked him to serve as the US attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky in 2006.

Thapar declined to talk about specifics regarding real estate magnate Harlan Crow’s hospitality to Thomas that included rides on private jets and luxury yachts. But he said that any determination about whether judges or justices have been improperly influenced must begin with a look at the body of their work.

“You can judge their works, and what they do, against what they’ve done in the past,” Thapar told CNN. “And if it’s consistent, then it’s hard to say anything influenced them.”

Thapar added that he finds it “disheartening that people who know better are taking pot shots at the court.”

And while Thomas speaks often about his cross-country travels with his wife, Ginni, in their RV every summer, he never publicly detailed the extent of luxury travel associated with Crow until the news was fleshed out by ProPublica in April.

Thapar, however, said the media has ignored Thomas’ other friends.

“What they don’t tell you,” Thapar said, “is that he also has friends who are homeless, friends he meets in RV parks across the nation.”

In his book, the judge wrote: “It makes sense that a justice who would rather spend his time in Walmart parking lots than at cocktail parties is an originalist.”

Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the title of Thapar’s book is “completely disingenuous.”

“Given the hundreds of thousands of dollars in private jet travel, luxurious vacations and other extravagant gifts he has accepted from his wealthy benefactor, Thomas represents anything but a justice for the people,” Canter said.

Thapar rejects suggestions that Thomas should have disclosed the hospitality provided by Crow on annual financial disclosure forms.

In April, Thomas released a statement saying he hadn’t disclosed the hospitality because the ethics rules – that have since changed – didn’t require disclosure at the time. The Crow dispute has been referred to the Administrative Office of the US Courts, the policy arm of the federal judiciary.

“As judges, we try not to disclose more than is required under the rules because otherwise it becomes a game of ‘gotcha’ – you disclosed ‘x,’ why didn’t you disclose ‘y’?” Thapar said.

“So, what the Administrative Office has recommended is we disclose what is required by the rules, and I think it’s important we do that,” Thapar said. “I wish the rules were crystal clear, and when they are, we disclose whatever is required, or we should, and if we make a mistake ,we should own up to it.”

But when it comes to recusing themselves from cases when there’s a possible conflict of interest with a party to the case, Thapar said it’s easier for a lower court judge – who often sits on multimember panels – to make that choice.

“I’m one of 16,” Thapar said. “Another judge can step in my shoes.”

But the Supreme Court, on the other hand, only has nine members, Thapar pointed out, “and they have no provision – if they recuse – for someone to take their spot, so it’s a lot harder for them.”

Thapar’s book is a ringing endorsement of originalism, a judicial theory that requires the Constitution to be interpreted based on its original public meaning.

“Originalists believe that the American people, not nine unelected judges, are the source of the law that governs us – through the Constitution and statutes enacted by our elected representatives,” the judge writes.

He says Thomas has been misunderstood over his career.

“By cherry-picking his opinions or misrepresenting them, Justice Thomas’s critics claim that his originalism favors the rich over the poor, the strong over the weak, and corporations over consumers. They have called Justice Thomas ‘the cruelest justice,’ ‘stupid,’ and even an ‘Uncle Tom’ a traitor to his race,” Thapar writes.

Elizabeth Wydra, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center, which supports what it calls a progressive view of originalism, believes the text and history of the entire Constitution, as amended, is “remarkably progressive.”

She rejects the views taken by Thapar and Thomas.

“While it is true that originalism can lead to wins for the ‘little guy,’ it only works that way if you give sufficient weight to the amendments that have, over time, pushed our Constitution along an arc of progress and made it a more inclusive and equality-focused document,” Wydra said.

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June 25, 2023
Supreme Court rejects Texas and Louisiana challenge to Biden deportation priorities | CNN Politics

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CNN
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The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling on Friday, revived the Biden administration’s immigration guidelines that prioritize which noncitizens to deport, dismissing a challenge from two Republican state attorneys general who argued the policies conflicted with immigration law.

The court said the states, Texas and Louisiana, did not have the “standing,” or the legal right, to sue in the first place in a decision that will further clarify when a state can challenge a federal policy in court going forward.

The ruling is a major victory for President Joe Biden and the White House, who have consistently argued the need to prioritize who they detain and deport given limited resources. By ruling against the states, the court tightened the rules concerning when states may challenge federal policies with which they disagree. The Biden administration policy was put on pause by a federal judge nearly two years ago and the Supreme Court declined to lift that hold last year.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote Friday’s majority opinion in the case.

“In sum, the states have brought an extraordinarily unusual lawsuit,” Kavanaugh wrote, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “They want a federal court to order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policies so as to make more arrests. Federal courts have not traditionally entertained that kind of lawsuit; indeed, the States cite no precedent for a lawsuit like this.”

Kavanaugh said that the executive branch has traditional discretion over whether to take enforcement actions under federal law. He said that if the court were to allow the states to bring the lawsuit at hand, it would “entail expansive judicial direction” of the executive’s arrest policy and would open the door to more lawsuits from states that think the executive is not doing enough to enforce the law in other areas such as drug and gun regulation and obstruction of justice laws.

“We decline to start the Federal Judiciary down that uncharted path,” Kavanaugh said.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the administration welcomes the court’s ruling and that his department looks forward to using the immigration guidelines.

The guidelines “enable DHS to most effectively accomplish its law enforcement mission with the authorities and resources provided by Congress,” Mayorkas said.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, wrote a concurring an opinion that concluded that the states also lacked standing, but for different reasons than the majority opinion. Justice Samuel Alito dissented.

At the heart of the dispute was a September 2021 memo from Mayorkas that laid out priorities for the apprehension and removal of certain non-citizens, reversing efforts by former President Donald Trump to increase deportations.

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

Kavanaugh’s opinion stressed that the standing doctrine “helps safeguard the Judiciary’s proper – and properly limited – role in our constitutional system.” He said that by ensuring a party has standing to sue, “federal courts prevent the judicial process from being used to usurp the powers of the political branches.”

The majority did not address the underlying question of whether the administration had the authority to implement the policy.

“We take no position on whether the executive branch here is complying with its legal obligations under §1226(c) and §1231(a)(2),” Kavanaugh wrote, referring to the relevant immigration statutes. “We hold only that the federal courts are not the proper forum to resolve this dispute.”

Kavanaugh pointed out that five presidential administrations have determined that resource constraints necessitated prioritization in making immigration arrests.

In his sole dissent, Alito wrote that this “sweeping executive power endorsed by today’s decision may at first be warmly received by champions of a strong Presidential power, but if presidents can expand their powers as far as they can manage in a test of strength with Congress, presumably Congress can cut executive power as much as it can manage by wielding the formidable weapons at its disposal.”

“That is not what the Constitution envisions,” he wrote.

Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst who filed an amicus brief in the immigration case, noted that Friday’s ruling was the second decision within the last week in which the court “held that red states lacked standing to challenge a federal policy – perhaps a signal of dissatisfaction with how liberally lower courts, especially the Fifth Circuit, have permitted these challenges to go forward.”

“And it’s the second in the last two years in which it has reversed a nationwide injunction against a Biden immigration policy in a suit brought by Texas,” Vladeck said. “When states are the right plaintiffs to challenge federal policies is also one of the central issues before the court in the challenges to Biden’s student loan program – in which the court is expected to rule next week.”

Kavanaugh’s opinion emphasized that, in “holding that Texas and Louisiana lack standing, we do not suggest that federal courts may never entertain cases involving the executive branch’s alleged failure to make more arrests or bring more prosecutions.”

In court, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar stressed that Congress has never provided the funds to detain everyone, prompting different administrations to consider how to prioritize limited funds. She noted that the executive branch retains the authority to focus its “limited resources” on non-citizens who are higher priorities for removal and warned that if the states were to prevail, it would “scramble” immigration enforcement on the ground, leading to a totally unmanageable landscape. She said the states’ view in the case was a “senseless” way to run an immigration system.

“I think that that is bad for the executive branch. I think it’s bad for the American public and I think it’s bad for Article Three courts,” she said.  

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

Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone, representing Texas and Louisiana, argued that the administration lacked the authority to issue the memo because it conflicts with existing federal law. He accused the government of treating immigration law in the area as “discretionary” and not “mandatory” and argued that the executive branch lacks the authority to “disregard” Congress’ instruction.

“The states prove their standing at trial based on harms well recognized,” Stone said, emphasizing the costs incurred when the government “violates federal law.”

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

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

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

This story has been updated with additional details.

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June 23, 2023
Why power in Congress is now so precarious | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Control of Congress has become so precariously balanced between the two parties that it may now be subject to the butterfly effect.

The butterfly effect is a mathematical concept, often applied to weather forecasting, that posits even seemingly tiny changes – like a butterfly flapping its wings – can trigger a chain of events that produces huge impacts.

Because it has become so difficult for either party to amass anything other than very narrow majorities in the House and Senate, the exercise of power in both chambers now appears equally vulnerable to seemingly miniscule shifts in the political landscape.

Just in the past few weeks, a revolt by a small band of House conservatives effectively denied the Republican majority control of the floor for days. At the same time, a Supreme Court voting rights decision that might affect only a handful of House seats has raised Democratic hopes of recapturing the chamber in 2024. In the Senate, the extended absence of a single senator to illness – California Democrat Dianne Feinstein – prompted an eruption of concern among party activists over the upper chamber’s ability to confirm President Joe Biden’s judicial nominations.

In different ways, these developments are all manifestations of the same underlying dynamic: the inability of either side to establish large or lasting congressional majorities.

Viewed over the long-term, majorities in the House and Senate for the past 30 years have consistently been smaller than they were when Democrats dominated both institutions in the long shadow of the New Deal from the 1930s into the 1980s. And those majorities have grown especially tight since former President Donald Trump emerged as the polarizing focal point – pro and con –of American politics.

Since the Civil War, only rarely has either chamber been as closely divided between the parties as it is this year, with Republicans holding just a five-seat advantage in the House and Democrats clinging to a one-seat Senate majority. It’s been even more rare for both chambers to be so closely divided at the same time – and rarer still for them to be split almost evenly between the parties in consecutive Congresses, as they have been since 2021.

It remains possible that either side could break out to a more comfortable advantage in either chamber. The 2024 map offers Republicans an opportunity, especially if they run well in the presidential race, to establish what could prove a somewhat durable Senate majority. But many analysts consider it more likely that the House and Senate alike will remain on a razor’s edge, with narrow majorities that frequently flip between the two sides.

The key development shaping this “butterfly effect” era are the indications that narrow majorities are now becoming the rule in both legislative chambers.

Slim majorities and frequent shifts in control have been a central characteristic of the Senate for longer. In the 12 Congressional sessions since 2001, one party or the other has reached 55 Senate seats only three times: Republicans after George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004, and Democrats after Barack Obama’s wins in 2008 and 2012. In six of the past 12 sessions, the majority party has held 52 Senate seats or less, including two when voters returned a Senate divided exactly 50-50.

By contrast, one party or the other amassed 55 seats or more seven times in the 10 sessions from 1981 through 2000. Lopsided majorities were even more common in the two decades of unbroken Democratic Senate control from 1961 to 1980: the party held at least 55 seats nine times over that interval.

Largely because the Senate majorities have been so small for the past several decades, control of the body has shifted between the parties more frequently than in most of American history. Neither party, in fact, has controlled the Senate for more than eight consecutive years since 1980. Never before in US history has the Senate gone so long without one party controlling it for more than eight years.

Generally, over the past few decades, the parties have managed somewhat more breathing room in the House. Neither side lately has consistently reached the heights that Democrats did while they held unbroken control of the lower chamber from 1955 through 1994 when the party routinely won 250 seats or more. But Republicans reached 247 seats after the second mid-term of Obama’s presidency in 2014. Democrats, for their part, soared to more than 250 seats after Obama’s victory in 2008, and 235 following the backlash against Trump in the 2018 election.

But the Democratic majority fell to just 222 seats after the 2020 election. And Republicans likewise eked out only 222 seats last fall, far below the party’s expectations of sweeping gains. Those slim majorities may reflect a precarious new equilibrium. “I don’t think a major swing in either direction is possible in this new normal,” said Ken Spain, former communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “We are in this perpetual state of power shifting hands, where the House is often times on a razor’s edge.”

Former Rep. Steve Israel, who served as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, sees the same pattern continuing. “We’re looking at very narrow House majorities for the foreseeable future,” he told me in an email.

Like the Senate, smaller majorities in the House are translating into more frequent shifts in control. While Democrats held the House for 40 consecutive years until 1994, the longest either party has controlled it since was the GOP majority from 1995 through 2006. In the post-1994 era, Democrats have twice captured the House only to lose it just four years later. If Republicans lose the White House next year, there is a strong chance they could surrender their current House majority after just two years.

As recent events show, this era of narrow majorities is changing how Congress operates in ways that are often overlooked in the day-to-day scrimmaging.

One is creating a virtually endless cycle of trench warfare over House redistricting. As I’ve written, the district lines for an unusually large number of seats are still in flux beyond the first election following the reapportionment and redistricting of seats after the decennial Census.

Because the margins in the House are now so small, the parties have enormous incentive to use every possible legal and political tool to influence any seat that could conceivably tip the balance. “We are in the perpetual redistricting era,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “We’ve been creeping into that era for the past 10 years, and I think it’s just going to continue to be that way.”

The two sides are scrimmaging across a broad battlefield. Republican gains on the state Supreme Courts in Ohio and North Carolina could pave the way for the GOP to draw new lines that might net the party a combined half a dozen House seats. Democratic gains on the state Supreme Courts in Wisconsin and New York could allow Democrats to offset that with new maps that produce gains of two seats in the former and four or five in the latter.

The Supreme Court’s surprising decision this month to strike down Alabama’s congressional map as a violation of the Voting Rights Act, could lead by 2024 to the creation of new Black-majority seats that would favor Democrats not only in Alabama, but also Louisiana and maybe Georgia, experts say. The Court’s decision could also invigorate a voting rights case that could force Texas Republicans to create more Latino-majority seats there; while that case is unlikely to be completed in time for the 2024 election, it could ultimately produce a dramatic impact, with three or more redrawn seats that could favor Democrats. Racial discrimination cases brought on other grounds could eventually threaten GOP congressional maps in South Carolina, Arkansas and Florida.

And even all this maneuvering doesn’t mark the end of the potential combat. If Democrats win multiple voting rights judgements against Republican-drawn maps, some observers think other GOP-controlled states may try to offset those gains by simply redrawing their own maps to squeeze out greater partisan advantage. Most states do not bar that sort of mid-decade redistricting, which was used most dramatically in Texas after the GOP won control of the state legislature there in 2002. “That threat is real,” said Jenkins.

The unusual recent rebellion by House conservatives that denied the GOP a majority to control the floor marks another key characteristic of the butterfly effect era in Congress: the ability of small groups to exert disproportionate influence. When Democrats held their slim majority in the last Congress, they were stalemated for months by a standoff between centrists and progressives over whether to decouple the bipartisan infrastructure bill from Biden’s sweeping Build Back Better agenda.

Ultimately, though, progressives reluctantly agreed to separate the two issues, allowing the infrastructure bill to pass. And then progressives, reluctantly again, agreed to pass the much scaled-back version of the Biden agenda that became the Inflation Reduction Act. Democrats, in fact, over the previous Congress displayed a record-level of party unity in passing not only those two bills but almost every other major party priority through the House, from multiple voting rights bills, to legislation restoring abortion rights nationwide, an assault weapon ban, police reform, and a bill barring LGBTQ discrimination.

Republican leaders are finding it tougher to corral their narrow majority. The recent backlash against the debt ceiling deal by far-right conservatives prevented Republicans from passing the “rules” needed to control floor debate on legislation in the House. Less than a dozen House Republicans joined the rebellion, but it was enough to trigger a stunning stumble into chaos for the majority party.

“Culturally the two parties are somewhat different when it comes to governing,” said Spain, now a Washington-based communications consultant. “On the Democratic side there tend to be family squabbles but ultimately everybody falls in line… On the Republican side, the tail tends to wag the dog. I think [Speaker Kevin] McCarthy did a pretty effective job threading the needle in getting the debt ceiling negotiated. Now we’re seeing the fall out.”

Former Republican Rep. Charlie Dent, who now directs the Aspen Institute Congressional program, also believes it is more difficult for Republicans than Democrats to govern with a narrow House majority, largely because governing is not a priority for the right flank in the GOP conference.

“It’s important to remember that the House Democratic conference certainly believes in governance,” Dent said. “That’s true of virtually all of them, whether they are more moderate or centrist vs. those who are on the far left. They want the government to function.” But, he added, “When you have a narrow Republican majority like we do, there is a rump group in the House Republican caucus who simply thrives on throwing sand into the gears of government and don’t want it to function well, if at all. They are more inclined to shut the government down. Some of them would be willing to default. And that’s the difference” between the parties.

Narrow majorities are also roiling the Senate, as demonstrated both by the uproar over Feinstein’s absence and the liberal discontent in the last Congress over the enormous influence of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. If Senate majorities stay as small as they have been recently, pressure is almost certain to grow for either party to end the filibuster the next time it wins unified control of the White House and Congress.

In this century, neither side has controlled the 60 Senate seats required to break a filibuster except for a few months when Democrats did in 2009 and early 2010 (until losing that super-majority when Republicans won a special election to replace Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who had died of brain cancer.) And even as it has grown more difficult for either party to approach 60 Senate votes, both have also found it harder to attract more than token crossover support from senators in the other party. In a world where 60 Senate votes is virtually out of reach, it’s difficult to imagine a party holding “trifecta” control of the White House and both congressional chambers granting the minority party a perpetual veto of the majority’s agenda through the filibuster.

Political analysts caution that it remains possible that either party might break through this trench warfare to reestablish larger majorities. But to do so, it would need to overcome the interplay between two powerful political trends.

The first is the hardening separation of the country into reliably red and blue blocks. Far fewer states than in the past are genuinely up for grabs in the presidential race: perhaps as few as five to seven, or even less, may be truly within reach for both sides next year. And even within the states, the divisions are hardening between Democratic dominance in larger metropolitan areas and Republican strength outside of them.

The impact of this sorting both between and within the states is magnified by the second big trend: the decline of split-ticket voting. Fewer voters are hopscotching between the two sides with their votes; more appear to be viewing elections less as a choice between two individuals than as a referendum on which party they want in control of government.

In 2022, only 23 House Members were elected in districts that supported the other side’s presidential candidate. (Eighteen House Republicans hold districts that voted Biden; just five House Democrats hold seats that voted for Trump.) Democrats now hold 48 of the 50 Senate seats in the 25 states that backed Biden in 2020 while Republicans hold 47 of the 50 in the 25 states that voted for Trump. And all three of those remaining Trump-state Democratic senators – Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Montana’s Jon Tester and West Virginia’s Manchin – face difficult reelection races in 2024.

With more states reliably leaning toward either party in the presidential race, and fewer legislators winning in places that usually vote the other way for president, both parties are grappling over a shrinking list of genuine congressional targets. Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political newsletter from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, points out that wave elections that produce big congressional majorities typically have come when one party faces a bad environment and must also defend a large number of seats that it had previously won in places that usually vote for the other side. (That was the compound dynamic that wiped out rural House Democrats in 2010 and suburban House Republicans in 2018.) Now, he notes, the potential impact of a bad environment is limited because each side holds so few seats on the other’s usual terrain. “Neither side is that dramatically overextended,” said Kondik. “Everything is sorted out.”

The paradoxical impact of more sorting and stability in the electorate, though, has been more instability in Congress, as the two sides trade narrow and fragile majorities. For the foreseeable future, control of Congress may pivot on the few quirky House and Senate races in each election that defy the usual partisan patterns. Such races are often decided by idiosyncratic local developments – a scandal, a candidate with an unusually compelling (or repelling) personal style, a major gaffe – that are as hard to predict or foresee as the sequence of events that begins when a butterfly flaps its wings.

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June 19, 2023
As Beijing’s intelligence capabilities grow, spying becomes an increasing flashpoint in US-China ties | CNN

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Hong Kong
CNN
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For the second time this year, concerns of Chinese spying on the United States have cast a shadow over a planned visit to China by the US’ top diplomat as the two superpowers try to improve fractured ties while keeping a watchful eye on each other.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to land in Beijing over the weekend following the postponement of his earlier trip planned for February after a Chinese surveillance balloon meandered across the continental US, hovering over sensitive military sites before being shot down by an American fighter plane.

But with Blinken poised to make a trip seen as a key step to mend fractured US-China communications, another espionage controversy has flared in recent days following media reports that China had reached a deal to build a spy perch on the island of Cuba.

Beijing has said it wasn’t “aware” of the situation, while the White House said the reports were not accurate – with Blinken earlier this week saying China upgraded its spying facilities there in 2019.

The situation is just the latest in a string of allegations of spying between the two in recent months. They underscore how intelligence gathering – an activity meant to go on without detection, out of the public eye – is becoming an increasingly prominent flashpoint in the US-China relationship.

CIA Director Bill Burns secretly traveled to China in May to meet counterparts and emphasize the importance of maintaining open lines of communication in intelligence channels, CNN reported earlier this month.

“Crisis communications are arguably in their worst state since 1979. This puts a premium on both countries’ ability to gather intelligence to understand each other’s capabilities, actions, and strategic intent around the globe,” said Lyle Morris, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.

That pushes intelligence gathering itself to become “another factor that is complicating US-China relations,” he said.

That’s especially the case, experts say, as China continues to expand its own intelligence gathering capabilities – catching up in an area where the US has traditionally had an edge.

“It’s fair to say that we’ve been spying on each other at various scales for a long time,” said former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) China analyst Christopher Johnson.

“No doubt there’s been an uptick from both sides, but probably more so on the Chinese side, simply because they’ve gotten larger, more influential, richer, and therefore have more resources to devote than they did in the past,” said Johnson, who is now president of the China Strategies Group consultancy.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has also pursued a far more assertive foreign policy than his predecessors during his past decade in power.

That’s been accompanied by “a consistent emphasis on enhancing intelligence capabilities, modernizing technology, and improving coordination among different security agencies,” according to Xuezhi Guo, a professor of political science at Guilford College in the US.

China’s main intelligence activities fall under departments within the People’s Liberation Army and its vast civilian agency known as the Ministry of State Security (MSS). Other arms of the Communist Party apparatus also play a role in activities beyond conventional intelligence gathering, experts say.

The MSS, established in 1983, oversees intelligence and counterintelligence both within China and overseas. Its remit has encouraged analogies to a combined CIA and Federal Bureau of Intelligence. But the sprawling Beijing-headquartered MSS is even more secretive – without even a public website describing its activities.

The agency is “expected to play an even more significant role in China’s domestic and international security and stability” in the coming years, amid mounting challenges at home and abroad, Guo said.

In the context of both China’s growing clout and geopolitical frictions, experts say it’s no surprise Beijing is allegedly seeking to establish or expand surveillance facilities in Cuba – or other places around the world – with the US as a key target, but not the only one.

Meanwhile, intelligence gathering in China has become harder.

Xi has consolidated his power and become increasingly focused on security – including building out the state’s ability to monitor its citizens, both online and through China’s extensive surveillance infrastructure.

“The task of collecting intelligence in China is arguably harder than ever and yet more necessary than ever,” said Johnson, the former analyst, pointing to challenges of gaining insight into the government under the centralized leadership of Xi, who maintains a “very small circle of knowledge or trust.”

China’s building of a domestic “surveillance panopticon” has also enabled its counter-intelligence, according to Johnson.

US intelligence has difficulties having operational meetings or “going black” (dodging surveillance) within China, he said, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic when movement was tightly controlled and even more digitally monitored than usual.

CIA operations also suffered a staggering setback starting in 2010, according to The New York Times, when the Chinese government killed or imprisoned more than a dozen sources over two years.

In 2021, CNN reported that the agency was overhauling how it trains and manages its network of spies as part of a broad transition to focus more closely on adversaries like China and Russia.

This contrasts with what some US lawmakers and commentators believe has been a too relaxed approach to national security with regards to China, where even private businesses are beholden to the ruling Communist Party, which also seeks to keep tabs on its citizens overseas.

Experts have also warned about the overlap between espionage efforts and operations like those of China’s United Front – a sprawling network of groups that manage the party’s relationship with non-party industries, organizations and individuals around the world.

Heightened concern and awareness about Chinese intelligence gathering – or the potential for it – has exploded in the US in recent years.

That’s played out in debates about the use of Chinese telecoms equipment and social media platforms – think Huawei and TikTok – as well as in government efforts to prosecute economic espionage cases and prevent any influence campaigns from impacting American democracy.

Beijing has said repeatedly that it does not interfere in the “internal affairs” of other countries. Both Huawei and Tiktok have repeatedly denied that their products present a national security risk or would be accessed by the Chinese government.

In the US, there’s also been concern about over-hyping the threat and sparking anti-Chinese sentiment.

The US Justice Department last year ended its 3-year-old China Initiative, a national security program largely focused on thwarting technology theft, including in academia, after a string of cases were dismissed amid concerns of fueling suspicion and bias against Chinese Americans.

US intellectual property had long been a traditional target of Chinese espionage.

A survey of 224 reported instances of Chinese espionage directed at the United States since 2000, conducted using open source data by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, found nearly half involved cyber-espionage, while over half were seeking to acquire commercial technologies.

Beijing appears to be increasingly pushing back on what it sees as a double standard – as the US’ international surveillance efforts have also been well-documented.

The 2013 leak produced by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, for example, revealed Washington’s vast global digital surveillance capabilities, against both rivals and allies alike. Meanwhile, the US intelligence community is widely understood to have its own overseas facilities for collecting signals intelligence.

Last month, Beijing released a report from a national cybersecurity agency titled “‘Empire of Hacking’: The US Central Intelligence Agency.” It accused the US of promoting the internet in the 1980s in order to further its intelligence agencies’ efforts to launch “Color Revolutions” and overthrow governments abroad.

“The organizations, enterprises and individuals that use the Internet equipment and software products of the USA have been used as the puppet ‘agents’ by CIA, helping it to be a ‘shining star’ in global cyber espionage wars,” the report also claimed.

China’s own internet is heavily censored with access limited by a “Great Firewall” – part of its extensive efforts to control the flow of information alongside its extensive digital surveillance of its own population.

China’s Foreign Ministry last month again pointed its finger at the US after Washington released a warning alleging that a Chinese state-sponsored hacker had infiltrated networks across US critical infrastructure sectors.

Earlier this month, the ministry also slammed the US for sending what it said were more than 800 flights of large reconnaissance aircraft “to spy on China” last year – though no assertion was made of crossing into Chinese airspace.

The comment came after each country’s military accused the other of misbehavior after a Chinese fighter jet intercepted a US spy plane in international airspace over the South China Sea.

Experts say this rhetorical back-and-forth over each other’s clandestine activities is likely only to continue as US-China competition drives both to ramp up their intelligence gathering – and China continues to expand its own prowess, including through technological advancements such as satellite networks, surveillance balloons and data processing.

“China increasingly has capabilities (that the US has been known for) … this is moving from a one way street historically to a two-way street,” said John Delury, author of “Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA’s Covert War in China.”

He pointed to how China had long been subject to US offshore surveillance and – prior to the restoration of diplomatic relations in the 1970s – direct aerial surveillance.

“There’s a psychological dimension to this as well,” Delury added, noting that the spy balloon incident earlier this year brought this to the fore – giving Americans the unnerving sense that China “can do this to us now, they have technical capabilities and can look at us.”

Meanwhile, there’s much at stake in how well the two governments can repair official communication – seen as a key element of Blinken’s expected visit on Sunday and Monday.

“When there’s less communication, the two intelligence communities inside the two governments have to do more and more guesswork,” said Delury. “Then there’s a lot more room for faulty assumptions.”

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June 14, 2023
Four major environmental groups endorse Biden’s reelection | CNN Politics

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Four major environmental groups endorsed President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection for president on Wednesday night, ahead of his speech at a League of Conservation Voters dinner in the nation’s capital.

LCV Action Fund, NextGen PAC, the Sierra Club, and the NRDC Action Fund endorsed Biden together at the dinner, which is honoring former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It is the first time all four groups have issued a joint endorsement, Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, told CNN.

During his remarks at the event, Biden touched on the hazardous air quality stemming from wildfires in Canada that hung over much of the American Midwest and Northeast last week, noting that while there are many threats to future generations, climate change “is the only truly existential threat.”

“If we don’t meet the requirements that we’re looking at, we’re in real trouble,” Biden said, adding that work of the environmental groups “has never been more important than it is today. Together we’ve made a lot of progress so far, but we’ve got to finish the job.”

The president listed his environmental wins to applause from the crowd, including new acreage that his administration has designated for conservation.

Sittenfeld said the endorsement is a recognition of Biden’s achievements on climate, clean energy, and environmental justice, including the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and strong federal regulations issued by Biden administration agencies.

“They have done more than any administration in history by far to address the climate crisis and advance clean energy solutions and environmental justice,” Sittenfeld told CNN.

Sittenfeld said environmental groups want to see Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris elected for four more years so they can “finish the job” on their climate agenda, especially given that Republican candidates running for president could undo part of that agenda.

“The stakes have never been higher and we’ve seen day after day MAGA Republicans in Congress trying to gut commonsense climate progress,” Sittenfeld told CNN, adding the contrast between Biden and Republican candidates for president “could not be more stark.”

“Clearly as much progress as we’ve made, there’s so much more needed,” Sittenfeld said.

“We are endorsing because of the transformational progress we already made and the progress they’re going to continue to make,” former EPA administrator Carol Browner, the chair of LCV’s board of directors, echoed.

The four groups have considerable sway in the environmental movement and the Biden administration. Their political arms have spent millions of dollars on past elections and mobilized voters across the country on climate issues.

The Sierra Club is one of the oldest environmental groups in the country, while NextGen calls itself the nation’s biggest group mobilizing youth voters. Meanwhile, Biden’s first White House Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy came most recently from NRDC before serving in her post (McCarthy was also EPA administrator in the Obama administration).

“President Biden’s climate leadership has been nothing short of historic,” Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the NRDC Action Fund, said in a statement.

However significant the groups early endorsement of Biden is, it doesn’t necessarily represent the views of the entire climate movement. Some groups and activists have recently expressed frustration with the president and his administration for approving fossil fuel projects, most recently pushing for the Mountain Valley pipeline to be included in the debt limit law.

As wildfire smoke choked DC’s air quality last Thursday, activists staged a large sit-in outside of the White House to protest the pipeline.

“President Biden, we are all out here because we want you to declare a climate emergency and do the right thing,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a progressive Democrat from Michigan, told the crowd.

As CNN has reported, a White House official had said the White House pushed for the pipeline to be included in the debt limit provision to deliver on a compromise that the White House and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer struck with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia last year to secure his vote for the Inflation Reduction Act.

But some climate activists balked at that reasoning, saying they want to see Biden reject fossil fuel projects in addition to passing bold climate bills.

“Why does Manchin get priority over millions of young people who put their disillusionment aside to vote in 2020 and 2022?” said Elise Joshi, acting executive director of youth group Gen-Z for Change. “Every single time young people are showing up for the Democratic Party, and the uphold of promises doesn’t seem to apply to us.”

Joshi said she will ultimately vote for Biden in the 2024 election, but added the president needs to give her and young people more reasons to turn out enthusiastically for him.

“Most importantly I don’t want a Republican presidency, we know that would be horrific,” she said. “But if (Biden) is our best option of two, why not make that option better?”

This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.

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June 14, 2023
Biden’s press secretary violated Hatch Act, watchdog says | CNN Politics

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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre violated the Hatch Act for using the term “mega MAGA” from the briefing room podium, the US Office of the Special Counsel has determined, and has received a warning letter.

Jean-Pierre was found to be in violation of the Hatch Act, a law that is supposed to stop the federal government from affecting elections or going about its activities in a partisan manner, when she said “mega MAGA Republican officials who don’t believe in the rule of law,” according to a letter from OSC. The letter was addressed to Michael Chamberlain, a former Trump administration official and director of the “Protect the Public’s Trust” organization, after Chamberlain filed a complaint that Jean-Pierre used the phrase “mega MAGA Republican[s]” in an “an inappropriate attempt to influence the vote.”

“OSC has investigated your allegation and concluded that Ms. Jean‐Pierre violated the Hatch Act. However … we have decided not to pursue disciplinary action and have instead issued Ms. Jean‐Pierre a warning letter,” OSC’s Hatch Act Unit chief Ana Galindo-Marrone said in the June 7 letter to Chamberlain, who served in the Department of Education during Donald Trump’s presidency.

Galindo-Marrone wrote, “OSC concluded that the timing, frequency, and content of Ms. Jean‐Pierre’s references to ‘MAGA Republicans’ established that she made those references to generate opposition to Republican candidates. Accordingly, making the references constituted political activity. Because Ms. Jean‐Pierre made the statements while acting in her official capacity, she violated the Hatch Act prohibition against using her official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election.”

Galindo-Marrone suggested that the White House Counsel’s Office “did not at the time believe” that those remarks were prohibited by the Hatch Act, and that it was “unclear” whether OSC’s analysis “was ever conveyed to Ms. Jean-Pierre.”

Jean-Pierre has taken pains during her tenure to avoid Hatch Act violations. She has refused to answer political questions, citing the 1939 law, during more than 40 White House press briefings or gaggles. Former members of Biden’s administration – namely former chief of staff Ron Klain and former press secretary Jen Psaki – have been accused of violating the Hatch Act.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates told CNN that the White House is reviewing the OSC’s opinion.

“As has been made clear throughout the administration, we take the law seriously and uphold the Hatch Act. We are reviewing this opinion,” Bates said.

A Biden administration official also noted the Trump White House’s repeated use of the term “Make America Great Again” for official purposes – found in nearly 2,000 references on the official Trump White House website. Thirteen senior Trump administration officials violated the Hatch Act, according to a report released from the OSC in November 2021.

“Mega-MAGA” and other similar terms were used often from the White House briefing room podium in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections as the White House sought to draw contrasts with Trump-aligned factions of the GOP.

Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn spoke about the decision to use the tongue-twister. While she said she “did not coin it” herself, she told Axios in a conversation shortly before the election, she was involved in the decision to harness the term as the White House went on the offensive.

“I did not coin it, no – I was part of a project when I was outside of the government that was looking deeply at Republican elected officials, at how they describe themselves, at their agenda, at a wing, in particular, of Republicans who had espoused certain beliefs, starting with denial about the election results in 2020, and looking for an effective way to shorthand all of that for people,” she said.

The use of the term “MAGA,” Dunn said, “came very organically out of research, listening to people talk about what they thought was the problem with some of these Republican elected officials.”

Pressed on the use of “mega” and “ultra” as MAGA modifiers, she added, “Well, it was MAGA, but, you know, you can always improve on something.”

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June 13, 2023
Trump’s indictment divides 2024 Republican hopefuls | CNN Politics

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Republican presidential candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Asa Hutchinson Sunday articulated vastly different plans for how they’d approach the federal indictment against former President Donald Trump should either capture the White House in 2024.

Contenders for the GOP nomination are grappling to strike the right tone on Trump, seen as the GOP front-runner to take on President Joe Biden next year, as they look to build their support among Republican primary voters.

Trump is facing his first federal indictment for retention of classified documents and conspiracy with a top aide to hide them from the government and his own attorneys – a total of 37 counts.

Ramaswamy, who vowed to pardon Trump if elected president before details of the 37-count indictment were revealed, doubled down Sunday, telling CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” that after “reading that indictment and looking at the selective omissions of both fact and law,” he was “even more convinced that a pardon is the right answer here.”

Ramaswamy acknowledged that he “would not have taken those documents with me,” but the tech entrepreneur maintained there was a difference between “bad judgment and breaking the law.”

Bash presses Ramaswamy on pledge to pardon Trump

Those comments stood in contrast to Hutchinson, who called Ramaswamy’s vow to pardon Trump “simply wrong” in a separate interview on “State of the Union” later Sunday.

“It is simply wrong for a candidate to use the pardon power of the United States of the president in order to curry votes, and in order to get an applause line. It is just wrong,” the former Arkansas governor told Bash.

“We do not need to have our commander in chief of this country not protecting our nation’s secrets,” Hutchinson said, adding later, “These are things that should not be disclosed as entertainment value to a political contact that you’re speaking with.”

Asked if he believes the indictment will help Trump in the 2024 race, Hutchinson said, “I suspect that he’s going to raise money on the indictment as he did before. And obviously with a lot of Republican leaders saying that this is selective prosecution, that this is unfair – there is a sympathy factor that is built in.”

But, Hutchinson said, “The Republican Party stands for the rule of law and our system of justice. Let’s not undermine that by our rhetoric, by making up facts, and by accusing the Department of Justice of things that there is no evidence of.”

Ramaswamy isn’t the only 2024 GOP contender to criticize the Justice Department in the days since Trump first disclosed the indictment.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday accused the DOJ of “weaponization of federal law enforcement” while vowing, if elected president, to “bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all.”

DeSantis declined to comment on the indictment Saturday at a campaign stop in Oklahoma, but he repeated his vow to end the “weaponization” of government and clean house from top to bottom” as president.

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to “stop hiding behind the special counsel and stand before the American people” to explain “this unprecedented action.”

“We also need to hear the former president’s defense so that each of us can make our own judgment,” Pence told attendees at the North Carolina GOP convention in Greensboro, where Trump also spoke hours after addressing a similar gathering in Georgia.

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Trump’s United Nations ambassador, characterized the indictment as “prosecutorial overreach” in a statement Friday, adding that it was time to move “beyond the endless drama and distractions.”

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who entered the GOP race last week, vowed Sunday in an interview on CBS News to “follow every rule related to handling classified documents” after potentially leaving office as president. He told Fox News on Saturday that Trump’s mishandling of documents was not something that voters want to spend their time talking about.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a onetime ally and close adviser to Trump who has emerged as his chief critic in the 2024 race, however, described the details of the indictment as “damning.”

“This is irresponsible conduct,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday, adding that “the conduct that Donald Trump engaged in was completely self-inflicted.”

Christie is scheduled to participate in a CNN town hall hosted by Anderson Cooper in New York on Monday.

Full Interview: Dana Bash presses Rep. Jim Jordan on indictment

Trump has maintained the reliable backing of hard-line conservatives in Congress, such as House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, who fiercely defended the former president in an interview with Bash on Sunday.

“The president’s ability to classify and control access to national security information flows from the Constitution,” the Ohio Republican said. “He alone decides. He said he declassified this material. He can put it wherever he wants. He can handle it however he wants.”

But the laws under which the Justice Department said it was investigating possible crimes – statutes about the willful retention of national defense information, obstruction of a federal investigation, and the concealment or removal of government records – do not require documents to be classified for a crime to have been committed, CNN previously reported.

Bash also reminded Jordan that Trump, on tape, in a 2021 meeting admitted to having a document that wasn’t declassified, a detail first reported by CNN. But Jordan repeatedly countered, claiming that saying Trump “could have” declassified material as president was not the same as saying he “didn’t” already declassify the material.

“He has said time and time again, he’s declassified all this material,” the congressman said.

Asked if he had evidence of Trump declassifying any documents, Jordan said, “I go on the president’s word, and he said he did.”

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June 11, 2023
Trump hits campaign trail as indictment roils 2024 race | CNN Politics

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Former President Donald Trump is set to return to the campaign trail Saturday, traveling to Georgia and North Carolina for speeches at a pair of state Republican conventions as news of his federal indictment roils the party’s 2024 presidential race.

The pre-planned stops come the day after the Justice Department unsealed its indictment laying out the government’s case that Trump and aide Walt Nauta mishandled classified national security documents.

Trump’s speeches will mark his first public outings since he was indicted for a second time in less than three months, with probes into election interference efforts in Georgia and his actions surrounding January 6, 2021, in Washington threatening to pose further legal troubles.

The visits will give Trump a chance to respond to the charges in a campaign-style as he mounts battles on both the political and legal fronts. The former president is scheduled to appear Tuesday in a federal courtroom in Miami, where he will be read the charges against him.

So far, Trump has cast his prosecution as a politically motivated effort to stop his bid for the presidency. He has described special prosecutor Jack Smith as “deranged” and the case against him as a “hoax,” while accusing President Joe Biden of similarly mishandling classified documents.

“I had nothing to hide, nor do I now. Nobody said I wasn’t allowed to look at the personal records that I brought with me from the White House. There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said Friday on his social media platform Truth Social.

Trump released a four-minute video Thursday evening repeating many of his past claims, including that the Justice Department is being weaponized and that the investigations into him represent “election interference.”

“I am an innocent man. I did nothing wrong,” Trump said in the video.

News of the former president’s indictment Thursday was met at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey with a belief that he would benefit politically as conservatives rallied around him.

Trump spent Friday morning in Bedminster playing golf with Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez as his allies made rounds of phone calls to shore up support for the former president.

After the indictment was unsealed Friday, concern began to settle in, a source familiar with the mood at Bedminster told CNN, as Trump aides began to acknowledge the legal implications. His team still thinks Trump will likely benefit politically – at least in the short term – the source said, but aides have grown more wary of how the indictment will play out legally.

Trump has long avoided legal culpability in his personal, professional and political lives. He has settled a number of private civil lawsuits through the years and paid his way out of disputes concerning the Trump Organization. As president, he was twice impeached by the Democratic-led House but avoided conviction by the Senate.

But after leaving office, the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the alleged retention of classified information at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election cast dark clouds over the former president. Smith’s investigation into January 6, 2021, and efforts to overturn the election is still ongoing.

In March, the Manhattan district attorney in New York indicted Trump on charges related to hush-money payments to a former adult star. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to announce in August whether there are any charges in her investigation into attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election in the state.

On the campaign trail, many of Trump’s Republican 2024 presidential rivals responded to the news of his indictment by attacking the Justice Department – another indication that they see advantage among conservative primary voters in defending a former president who remains popular with the party’s base.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday accused the DOJ of “weaponization of federal law enforcement” while vowing, if elected president, to “bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence had called on the Justice Department to release the indictment against his former boss. After it did so, he did not comment on its contents while campaigning in New Hampshire.

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Trump’s United Nations ambassador, characterized the indictment as “prosecutorial overreach” in a statement Friday, adding that it was time to move “beyond the endless drama and distractions.”

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who entered the GOP race earlier this week, said Saturday that Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents is not something voters want to spend their time on.

“When we’re on the road in Iowa the last two days and here in New Hampshire talking about the economy, energy policy, national security – those are the things that are hitting every American every single day,” Burgum told Fox News.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another onetime ally and close adviser to Trump who has emerged as his chief critic in the 2024 race, described the details of the indictment as “damning.”

“This is irresponsible conduct,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday, adding that “the conduct that Donald Trump engaged in was completely self-inflicted.”

“The bigger issue for our country is, is this the type of conduct that we want from someone who wants to be president of the United States?” Christie said.

Another Trump critic, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, said the former president should drop out of the race “for the good of the country.”

“This is unprecedented that we have a former president criminally charged for mishandling classified information, for obstruction of justice. This obviously will be an issue during the campaign,” Hutchinson told Tapper on Friday in a separate interview.

“For the sake of the country, he doesn’t need this distraction. The country doesn’t need this distraction, as well.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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June 10, 2023
Biden set to project a business-as-usual attitude after Trump indictment | CNN Politics

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The last time former President Donald Trump was indicted, his successor left the White House the next day intent on going about his schedule without wading into the matter.

As Trump is indicted a second time, President Joe Biden is planning to do the same thing – an intentional demonstration of calm and normalcy amid the continuing chaos of his predecessor.

He’ll probably get asked about the indictment throughout the day as he leaves the White House to visit sites in North Carolina. But there is little to suggest he’ll weigh in on the substance of the case.

That’s because he and his aides believe doing so would only lend grist to Trump’s claim that he’s the victim of a political “witch hunt.” Biden doesn’t want to be baited into providing Trump any fuel for his allegations, people familiar with his thinking said. And he remains firmly of the belief that sitting presidents should not comment on legal matters.

Those dynamics – already in play when Trump was indicted in New York – are only amplified now that former president has been handed a federal indictment by Biden’s Justice Department. It’s a situation Biden and his team know they must handle carefully.

“You’ll notice, I have never once – not one single time – suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do on whether to bring any charges or not bring any charges. I’m honest,” Biden said at a news conference Thursday.

Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden are set to travel to North Carolina on Friday to promote his job training agenda and sign an executive order meant to help military spouses remain in the workforce. The official trip is the type of activity Biden is planning a lot of over the coming year, as he works to sell his accomplishments to a skeptical electorate.

Aides know Biden’s dutiful, there-and-back stops at community colleges, union halls and construction sites aren’t likely to generate the same level of headlines as those about Trump’s legal peril.

Yet perhaps more than the accomplishments themselves, Biden is hoping to project an air of competence and authority as a contrast to the chaos that has accompanied Trump for years. That comparison could hardly be starker this week.

There is another additional goal with Friday’s trip – kicking off a push to flip a state that has gone Republican in the last three presidential elections.

The last time Biden traveled to North Carolina, Rep. Wiley Nickel offered a bullish outlook on his state’s political potential during the flight to Durham on Air Force One.

“I talked to him a number of times about it. We have been pushing with folks from all over on why North Carolina is a must win and why it’s a state that’s set to have a great outcome in November,” the Democrat told CNN this week.

The pitch may have worked. The trip is one of Biden’s first trips outside Washington to sell his agenda since he announced his bid for reelection in April.

He won’t be the only 2024 contender in the state. A two-hour drive west, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to speak at the North Carolina Republican Party convention in Greensboro. Former Vice President Mike Pence and Trump are also expected to address the gathering over the weekend.

The convergence of candidates in the Tar Heel State is hardly a coincidence. After narrowly losing there to Trump in 2020, Biden’s campaign said in a strategy memo this spring the state is among their top targets next year as they look to expand the electoral map.

On the Republican side, North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes would be essential for a pathway back to the White House. The last Democratic presidential candidate win there was Barack Obama in 2008.

Yet the 1.3% margin Trump won by in 2020 was the smallest of any state, a demonstration – at least in Biden’s mind – that it is well within grasp in 2024. The state’s demographics are becoming more urban and diverse. Biden’s campaign has already purchased television ad time there.

On Friday, Biden’s stops are considered official business, not campaign-related. But they reflect his team’s strategy of working to promote his accomplishments in places up for grabs in next year’s election.

He plans to visit a community college in Rocky Mount to tout job training programs before heading to Fort Liberty – recently renamed from Fort Bragg, removing the moniker of a Confederate general – to sign an executive order meant to help military spouses remain in the workforce.

“We’re asking agencies to make it easier for spouses employed by the federal government to take administrative leave, telework and move offices. We’re creating resources to support entrepreneurs and the executive order helps agencies and companies retain military spouses through telework or when they move abroad,” said first lady Dr. Jill Biden, who’s accompanying her husband in North Carolina on Friday.

Both stops will put a spotlight on the types of agenda items the president plans to use as the basis for his reelection argument next year, centering on job creation and the middle class. Biden has focused heavily on job training for those without college degrees as part of his effort to revive American manufacturing.

Despite a strong job market and rising wages, however, Biden has struggled to convince Americans of his economic agenda, according to polls. The three Republican candidates speaking in Greensboro this weekend will undoubtedly hammer the president on issues like inflation.

Events like the stops in Rocky Mount and Fort Liberty on Friday are meant to explain to Americans what Biden has done so far, an approach he’s expected to continue pursuing in the coming year as Republicans engage in a primary battle.

Nash Community College, where the president is visiting, is part of a coalition of historically black colleges that has received around $24 million from Biden’s American Rescue Plan for training on clean energy careers, according to the White House.

The executive order he’ll sign later at Fort Liberty is meant to allow military spouses to remain in the workforce through greater employer flexibility. The issue has been a main agenda item for the first lady.

It wasn’t clear whether Biden would address the renaming of the base, which became official last week. Many Republicans opposed stripping the names of Confederate generals from bases, an effort that began under Biden. Trump has likened the moves to erasing American history.

Biden’s aides have acknowledged that simply selling the president’s agenda isn’t likely to be enough to get him reelected. They have also worked to highlight what they say are extreme Republican positions on issues like education and abortion.

In this, too, North Carolina also offers a backdrop for areas Democrats believe they have an upper hand. North Carolina Republicans passed a restrictive new law last month that would outlaw most abortions after 12 weeks, using their legislative supermajority to override a veto from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

There are already plans by Biden’s campaign to focus on the ban as the campaign works to make inroads in the state.

Nickel said Republicans’ abortion platform was the reason he was elected last year.

“We focused almost exclusively two things. Rejecting far-right extremism and standing up for a woman’s right to choose. And that’s what folks understood our campaign was about,” he said.

For Biden, whose time as a candidate will be carefully managed as he works to confront still-significant headwinds, Nickel had this piece of advice for winning in North Carolina: “I think he needs to show up a lot.”

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June 9, 2023
Recep Tayyip Erdogan Fast Facts | CNN

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Here’s a look at the life of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, current president and former prime minister of Turkey.

Birth date: February 26, 1954

Birth place: Istanbul, Turkey

Birth name: Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Father: Ahmet Erdogan, coastguard and sea captain

Mother: Tenzile Erdogan

Marriage: Emine (Gulbaran) Erdogan (July 4, 1978-present)

Children: Two daughters and two sons

Education: Marmara University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, 1981

Religion: Muslim

Active in Islamist circles in the 1970s and 1980s.

Before his political career, Erdogan was a semi-professional football (soccer) player.

Erdogan is considered a polarizing figure: supporters say he has improved the Turkish economy and introduced political reform. Critics have accused Erdogan of autocratic tendencies, corruption and extravagance.

Erdogan has also been heavily criticized for failing to protect women’s and human rights, curbing freedom of speech and attempting to curb Turkey’s secular identity.

Under Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey has lifted restrictions on public expression of religion, including ending the ban on women wearing Islamic-style headscarves.

Has called social media “the worst menace to society.”

1984 – Elected as a district head of the Welfare Party.

1985 – Elected as the Istanbul Provincial Head of the Welfare Party and becomes a member of the central executive board of the party.

1994-1998 – Mayor of Istanbul.

1998 – The Welfare Party is banned. Erdogan serves four months in prison for inciting religious hatred after reciting a controversial poem.

August 2001 – Co-founds the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

2002-2003 – Erdogan’s AKP wins the majority of seats in parliamentary elections, and he is appointed prime minister.

2003-2014 – Serves as prime minister.

June 2011 – AKP wins by a wide margin in the parliamentary elections, securing a third term for Erdogan.

June 2013 – Anti-government demonstrations target Erdogan’s policies, including his plan to turn a park into a mall, and call for political reforms. Thousands are reported injured in the clashes.

December 2013 – Corruption probe begins which investigates more than 50 suspects, including members of Erdogan’s inner circle. The following month, the government dismisses 350 police officers amid the investigation. Ten months later, the prosecutor drops the inquiry.

March 2014 – After Erdogan threatens to “eradicate” Twitter at a campaign rally, Turkey bans the social media site, and a two-week countrywide blackout ensues.

August 10, 2014 – Erdogan is elected president during the first-ever direct elections in Turkey.

November 2014 – At a summit hosted by a women’s group in Istanbul, Erdogan says that women and men are not equal “because their nature is different.” It’s not the first time the Turkish leader has made controversial comments about women: previously, he told Turkish university students that they shouldn’t be “picky” when choosing a husband and has called on all Turkish women to have three children.

June 7, 2015 – In Turkey’s parliamentary elections, AKP wins 41% of the vote.

July 15-16, 2016 – During an attempted coup by a faction of the military, at least 161 people are killed and 1,140 wounded. Erdogan addresses the nation via FaceTime and urges people to take to the streets to stand up to the military faction behind the uprising. He blames the coup attempt on cleric and rival Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.

April 16, 2017 – A vote is held on a constitutional amendment expanding Erdogan’s presidential powers. Turkish state media report that about 51% of people voted yes on the referendum, which abolishes the country’s parliamentary system and would potentially allow for Erdogan to remain in office until 2029. International election monitors question whether the election was free and fair, citing last-minute rule changes, the muzzling of opposition voices and the dominance of the “yes” campaign in the media. Opposition leaders in the Republican People’s Party say that they plan to challenge the election results in court.

May 16, 2017 – Erdogan meets US President Donald Trump at the White House. During a joint news conference, Erdogan praises Trump’s electoral victory and vows to help the United States fight terrorism. After the two men speak, demonstrators protest outside the residence of the Turkish ambassador. Nine people are injured when Turkish security guards rush into a line of protestors and kick people on the ground. Law enforcement sources tell CNN that some of the men involved in the fight were Erdogan’s bodyguards.

October 12, 2017 – Erdogan accuses the United States of sacrificing its relationship with Turkey in a speech made days after the arrest of a US consular staff member and the announcement that he refuses to recognize the authority of US Ambassador John Bass. Erdogan blames Bass and other officials left over from the Obama administration for sabotaging relations between the two countries.

December 2017 – In response to Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Erdogan declares the move to be null and void and announces Turkey’s intention to open a Turkish embassy in Jerusalem.

June 24, 2018 – Is reelected president.

November 2, 2018 – The order to kill Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi came “from the highest levels of Saudi government,” Erdogan writes in an opinion piece in the Washington Post. The friendship between Turkey and Saudi Arabia “doesn’t mean we will turn a blind eye to the premeditated murder that unfolded in front of our very eyes,” he writes.

January 8, 2019 – After backing the decision that the United States will begin pulling troops from Syria, Erdogan claims US National Security Adviser John Bolton made “a serious mistake” telling reporters that the United States would only pull out of Syria if Turkey pledged not to attack its Kurdish allies there. “Bolton’s remarks in Israel are not acceptable. It is not possible for me to swallow this,” Erdogan says during a speech in parliament. “Bolton made a serious mistake. If he thinks that way, he is in a big mistake. We will not compromise.”

January 14, 2019 – Trump and Erdogan discuss “ongoing cooperation in Syria as US forces begin to withdraw” during a phone call just one day after Trump threatened to “devastate Turkey economically” if the NATO-allied country attacks Kurds in the region.

October 9, 2019 – Turkey launches a military offensive into northeastern Syria, just days after Trump’s administration announced that US troops would leave the border area. Erdogan’s “Operation Peace Spring” is an effort to drive away Kurdish forces from the border, and use the area to resettle around two million Syrian refugees.

October 22, 2019 – Erdogan meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi and the men announce a wide-ranging agreement on Syria, announcing that Russian and Turkish troops will patrol the Turkish-Syrian border. Kurdish forces have about six days to retreat about 20 miles away from the border.

January 2, 2020 – The Turkish parliament gives Erdogan authorization for one year to deploy military to address Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar’s offensive against the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, Libya.

December 20, 2021 – Erdogan unveils a plan to prop up the Turkish lira with a raft of new unorthodox economic measures, including compensating Turkish savers worried about the tumbling value of their nest eggs by compensating them for the impact of the depreciation of the lira on their deposits. A few days before, Erdogan announced a nearly 50% hike in the country’s minimum wage, hoping it would provide relief to suffering workers.

February 5, 2022 – Erdogan announces on Twitter that he and his wife had contracted the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and were experiencing mild symptoms.

February 7, 2023 – Erdogan declares a three-month state of emergency in 10 provinces following a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6.

May 28, 2023 – Erdogan wins Turkey’s presidential election, defeating opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu and stretching his rule into a third decade.

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May 29, 2023
White House and House Republicans strike agreement in principle to raise debt ceiling, sources say | CNN Politics

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The White House and House Republicans have an agreement in principle on a deal to raise the debt ceiling and cap spending, multiple sources familiar with the negotiations told CNN.

The text of the deal will be reviewed overnight by both sides to ensure it lines up with the tentative agreement.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

White House and House GOP negotiators are racing to finalize a deal to raise the nation’s debt limit with time running perilously short and the risk of a first-ever US default growing.

There have been some signs that talks have progressed in recent days, and negotiators were hoping to announce an agreement as soon as Saturday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden spoke by phone Saturday evening, and House GOP leaders were planning to brief all members on the state of negotiations later in the evening, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.

A source with knowledge of the negotiations told CNN on Saturday that a provision to impose new work requirements for certain social safety net programs remains a final sticking point.

Republicans have been pushing this issue hard, saying beneficiaries of programs such as food stamps with no dependents should be forced to follow new rules. Democrats, however, have cast that idea as an attack on poor people.

It’s unclear how the negotiators could come to an agreement, but the source told CNN the issue needs to be resolved before a deal can be reached.

McCarthy arrived at the US Capitol on Saturday morning after his top Republican negotiators, Reps. Garret Graves of Louisiana and Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, had worked late into the night drafting the final details of a deal from the speaker’s office.

“I feel closer to an agreement now than I did a long time before, because I see progress. But listen, this is not easy in any shape or form. But that doesn’t back us away from it,” McCarthy told reporters.

The California Republican said he’d like to hold a vote on a debt limit bill as soon as Tuesday, which would mean negotiators would need to announce a deal and send legislative text to lawmakers by Saturday.

Asked by CNN if he was confident he could get the full House GOP Caucus behind him following an agreement, McCarthy said: “Do you ever think you’re going to get every single member to vote for it? I didn’t get every single member to vote for the first one. I didn’t get every single member to vote for me for speaker.”

But McCarthy maintained he’d be able to get the majority of House Republicans on board, telling CNN, “I don’t think I’ll have any problem with that.”

White House officials were generally optimistic about the state of negotiations Saturday afternoon. One official told CNN that negotiations were ongoing and echoed Biden’s remark on Friday that they were close to a deal.

While nothing is final, negotiators have made some progress on the work requirements provision for certain social safety net programs, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN earlier Saturday.

Spending cuts on domestic programs were another issue that negotiators had worked to sort out late Friday night, but It’s unclear if the dispute has been fully resolved.

Energy permitting reform, which aims to cut down the time it takes for new projects to get approved, remains a high priority for Graves. The issue pits environmentalists against the oil and gas industry and has divided congressional Democrats.

McHenry said earlier Saturday that he and Graves had returned to McCarthy’s office, where they are meeting virtually with the White House. Friday’s negotiations broke off in the early morning hours Saturday.

McHenry said negotiators have a “very narrow set of issues that has to be dealt with” before they can reach a deal, which he said was still “hours or days away.”

People involved in the process said earlier they felt confident the issues could be resolved in a timely manner.

It’s unclear when the final bill text will be released, and the process of turning a framework into an actual bill can be laborious. New issues could easily crop up at each step along the way, and each step has the potential to be time-consuming, running out the clock ahead of the debt limit deadline early next month.

The two sides, however, have been trying to firm up the legislative text as they’ve gone along in a bid to speed up that process.

“House Republicans have a bill that we passed out of the House to raise the debt ceiling. So we have legislative text that is wide and complete. And so that is a helpful baseline when you’re getting into a window like this,” McHenry said Saturday.

Selling the deal to members will be no small task, with stiff opposition expected from both the left and right. That means it’s going to require an intense whipping operation – and support from both sides of the aisle – to get the bill over the finish line.

The pressure on negotiators is intense as the US steadily inches closer to the possibility of a default and the threat of economic catastrophe.

In a major development Friday that will give lawmakers more time to reach and pass a deal, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that Congress must address the debt ceiling by June 5 or the government will not have enough funds to pay all of the nation’s obligations in full and on time. Previously, Yellen had estimated that the earliest possible date a default could occur was June 1.

McHenry said the Yellen’s new date “clarifies that our timeline is very tight.”

“House Republicans asked for clarification. Chip Roy and Matt Gaetz and Byron Donalds and Dan Bishop, among others, asked for clarification on Secretary Yellen’s math. She updated her math. Obviously, it was a good request. And I think it clarifies our window for us to actually achieve the deal,” he said Saturday.

Debt limit predictions, however, aren’t clear-cut. Rather than a set-in-stone deadline, it is more of a best-guess estimate, which makes it harder to know exactly how much time Congress has to act to avert potential financial catastrophe.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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May 27, 2023
A man told officers at the CIA headquarters gate, ‘I’m here and I have a gun,’ law enforcement source says | CNN

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A man now under arrest walked up to the CIA Headquarters’ gate Tuesday and allegedly said, “I’m here and I have a gun,” a law enforcement source told CNN.

Uniformed federal officers turned him away and notified Fairfax County, Virginia, police of his description, the source said Wednesday.

He later was arrested and charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property, police said. He was identified as Eric Sandow, 32, of Gainesville, Florida.

Sandow said he was headed to the CIA and had an AK-47 and another weapon in his vehicle as he was arrested Tuesday at Dolley Madison Preschool in McLean, Virgnia, after he trespassed on school grounds around 11 a.m., police said.

The preschool is less than 1.5 miles from CIA Headquarters and about a 10-minute drive to major Washington, DC, landmarks, including the National Mall.

“He requested access to the (preschool) building facilities to use the restroom, which was denied by school staff,” Dolley Madison Preschool said in a statement Wednesday. “At no point did he gain physical entrance to the school building.”

Fairfax County police were then called to the scene. “While speaking with him, he made statements he had weapons inside his car located on school property,” the police department said Wednesday in a statement.

“Officers searched the car and found two weapons, an AK-47 and a pistol, along with magazines and ammunition.”

Sandow was arraigned Wednesday morning in Fairfax County General District Court, a court official said.

He was being held Wednesday without bond, police said. It was not immediately clear whether Sandow had legal representation.

“It does not appear he was acting in conjunction with anyone else,” Fairfax County police said. “Sandow did not make any threats and the weapons never left the vehicle.”

Sandow does not appear to have a lengthy criminal history, public records show. He was charged with misdemeanor domestic battery in 2014 and did not declare a political party with his voter registration.

Law enforcement lauded an alert person who summoned them Tuesday to the day care.

“We’re grateful to the community member who did the right thing and called us,” police said. “We’d like to remind our community to report suspicious activity as you never know what you may prevent by making that call.”

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May 24, 2023
White House expands its playbook for responding to mass shootings in the year after Uvalde | CNN Politics

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When news broke of a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, one year ago, President Joe Biden was on his way back from Tokyo following a major international summit.

Biden watched the news unfold on Air Force One, feeling, like others, horrified and heartbroken for the families, and deciding in that moment to speak upon returning to the White House, a White House official told CNN.

Moments after landing, a somber Biden – who had been in the Obama White House during the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School – walked into a briefing in the Oval Office and prepared an address he delivered that evening in the Roosevelt Room.

“I had hoped, when I became president, I would not have to do this again,” Biden said as he started the speech. He later visited Uvalde.

Over the last year, Biden has signed legislation called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law and implemented two dozen executive actions to try to reduce gun violence. And on Wednesday, Biden will again deliver remarks to mark the one-year remembrance of the Uvalde shooting.

But in that same time span, hundreds more mass shootings have gripped communities nationwide.

Mass shootings have become so common in the United States that the White House has framed their approach as akin to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s hurricane response. Behind the scenes, administration officials have been developing ways in which the federal government can respond in the short and long term after a mass shooting, recognizing the physical, mental and economic ramifications.

“I think we’ve learned that the needs of these communities are really intense, and they also last long after the immediate hours and days after a mass shooting. If a hurricane devastates a community, you get that immediate White House response, but you also get FEMA deployed on the ground to provide direct services and support to survivors,” one source told CNN.

This recognition of the long after-effects of mass shootings has prompted discussions within the White House about additional measures, including earlier this month, when Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice gathered the first meeting of Cabinet officials and senior staff to discuss steps forward in responding to mass shootings, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

The reality officials were up against in that meeting came into sharp focus again less than 24 hours later, when another mass shooting unfolded – that time, in Allen, Texas.

“I don’t think we could feel more urgency than we did on [that] Friday. I think people feel this very deeply. We now work with so many communities that have experienced shootings. It’s devastating, of course, when another gets added to the list,” the source told CNN.

The Buffalo, New York, shooting last year at a local grocery story was an example of a tragedy that had unanticipated effects as it left a mostly Black community without a crucial grocery store for a period of time.

“For too long, when we’ve thought about mass shootings and gun violence in general, we’ve only thought about the individuals hurt or killed. What this administration does is certainly attend to survivors and the families of those who have been hurt, but they have a realization that a mass shooting or gun violence in general ripples through the community,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, told CNN.

An operation kicks into gear within the walls of the White House the moment an alert pops up of a potential mass shooting.

The White House Situation Room and the National Security Council work with the Justice Department and other law enforcement, as well as the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, to track down information and gather the facts as they emerge. Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall will then brief Biden on what’s known about the situation and the weapon used, according to a White House official, acknowledging that it can be a fluid situation.

The Domestic Policy Council, meanwhile, assesses patterns and whether there are new lessons to be gleaned and considered in policy making. And the intergovernmental affairs team also races to reach out to the mayor’s office or other local officials to provide a point of contact at the White House.

Biden’s advisers keep him updated along the way. But the exasperation felt by White House officials after each mass shooting has been reflected in Biden’s statements, which have started with: “Once again.”

In an op-ed this month, Biden touted the work done by this administration, but called on Congress to do more.

“But my power is not absolute. Congress must act, including by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring gun owners to securely store their firearms, requiring background checks for all gun sales, and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability,” he wrote.

White House officials have also been sober about the political realities Democrats face with the current makeup of Congress, where Republicans in control of the House have rejected Biden’s calls for an assault weapons ban. Even when both chambers of Congress were controlled by Democrats during the first two years of Biden’s term, an assault weapon ban gained little traction, in part because of a 60-vote threshold necessary to advance bills through the Senate.

After three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville in March, Biden asserted that he’s done all he can to address gun control and urged members on Capitol Hill to act.

Many Republicans in Congress, including those in positions of leadership and in the Tennessee delegation, had either been reluctant to use the deadly violence in Nashville as a potential springboard for reform or they outright rejected calls for additional action on further regulating guns, arguing that there isn’t an appetite for tougher restrictions. Some Democrats in Congress, meanwhile, slammed House Republicans for their disinterest.

Advocacy groups have welcomed Biden’s executive actions and the administration’s response in the wake of a shooting, but stress there’s room for more.

“It’s part of what moves the needle. Seeing the movement at the federal level is encouraging,” said Mark Barden, co-founder and CEO of the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund. “It’s something. It’s not everything. It’s not enough. We certainly need more.”

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May 24, 2023
Major differences remain over spending cuts and other key issues as debt limit deadline looms | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Negotiations are continuing to unfold in an attempt to reach a debt limit deal, but major differences between House Republicans and the White House have yet to be bridged, and the pressure is only intensifying as the risk of default grows ever more real with each day.

Republicans have long said that spending cuts must be paired with any increase in the debt limit – an issue that is proving to be the central sticking point as Democrats argue the cuts Republicans want are too extreme, though the White House has expressed a willingness to cut some spending.

Asked if there is any general agreements on cuts, GOP Rep. Garret Graves, who has served as a chief negotiator during the talks, said on Tuesday, “No, that’s our biggest gap.”

Graves made clear that a wide array of significant differences remain, even as the timeline to avoid default grows shorter.

“Look, there are some big bright red lines on both sides,” he said. “We do not have any of those issues closed out.”

Underscoring just how far apart the two sides are, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told Republicans during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, “We are nowhere near a deal,” according to sources in the room.

The window to secure a deal is rapidly closing and the stakes are incredibly high with the Treasury Department continuing to say the US could default by June 1. A first-ever default for the US would likely trigger a global economic catastrophe.

McCarthy met with President Joe Biden at the White House on Monday, a meeting the speaker and the president both said was “productive,” but that did not yield a breakthrough in negotiations or end in a deal.

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, continue to push back against positions Republicans have staked out in negotiations and express heightened concern over the ticking clock.

House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar argued that Republicans have been pushed to take extreme positions by far-right members of the GOP conference.

“This is tough, this is not where we should be. Speaker McCarthy is being held captive by the Freedom Caucus,” Aguilar told reporters on Tuesday.

“We’re concerned that Republicans are not only moving the goalposts, but continue to hold onto the most extreme elements of their proposals,” he said.

McCarthy, despite saying the two sides are still far apart, said Tuesday he thinks it is possible to get everything done by the June 1 deadline. “We could still finish this by June 1st,” he told reporters.

But in a sign there may not be much room to maneuver in negotiations, McCarthy told CNN’s Manu Raju, “We’re going to raise the debt ceiling,” when asked what concessions he would make – a significant remark that indicates Republicans are not willing to give any more than raising the debt ceiling in exchange for their demands.

When Raju pressed the speaker, asking if that is his only concession, McCarthy said, “Everything we’re going to do is going to make America stronger.”

McCarthy’s comment Tuesday that raising the debt ceiling is the only concession he will make rankled a White House that just a day earlier viewed conversations with McCarthy as productive, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations.

A Democratic official slammed McCarthy for his comments, accusing him of refusing to compromise and being beholden to the most conservative members of his caucus as negotiations languish.

The official slammed McCarthy’s demand that defense spending increase while non-defense spending decrease as extreme and out of step with budget deals over the last decade.

Another significant challenge facing negotiators is that even if a deal is reached, that is far from the end of the road to prevent default.

Legislative text will need to be written, which can be arduous and complicated work as lawmakers and staff dive into nitty-gritty policy details – a part of the process toward final passage of any bill that can often lead to further issues and eleventh-hour hangups over disagreements about the fine print.

Then, leaders from both parties will need to wrangle the votes to pass a bill, no small task with narrow majorities in both chambers. After that, a deal would need to be brought to the floor, a process that can take days to play out in both chambers, though there are mechanisms available to leadership to speed things up.

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May 24, 2023
DeSantis to open presidential bid by out-Trumping Trump | CNN Politics

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Ron DeSantis’ decision to announce his 2024 White House bid in a conversation with Elon Musk on Twitter on Wednesday will make a typically blunt statement about his campaign, the unruly populism of the modern Republican Party and an accelerating conservative media revolution.

Florida’s governor will finally jump into the race by throwing down a gauntlet to ex-President Donald Trump with a launch strategy that frames him as the true anti-establishment rebel in the race who is willing to crush the conventions of traditional presidential politics.

His choice of venue on Twitter Spaces – the site’s audio platform – also exemplifies the Trump-era GOP’s transformation into a party that rewards gesture politics and whose activists respond to the unmoderated social media jungle while disdaining traditional standards of conduct and governance.

But while Twitter’s attractiveness to conservative voters under Musk, who has 141 million followers, means DeSantis may be making a shrewd move in a GOP primary, he could further damage an already questionable reputation among more moderate voters he’d need in a general election by appearing on an increasingly polarizing platform.

That’s because Twitter, which once offered a platform for democratic movements in the Arab Spring, has been transformed by its new owner into a febrile circus of untamed free speech, conspiracy theories and unverifiable information. Only this week, a fake image of an explosion near the Pentagon went viral, causing a blip on the stock market in a potential preview of a presidential campaign likely to be plagued by misinformation and AI-generated falsehoods. Musk has, meanwhile, shown a willingness to ignite his own Twitter infernos, so his increasingly prominent role suggests the 2024 presidential race could be just as turbulent as the 2016 and 2020 editions, which were marked by Trump’s extreme rhetoric and voter fraud accusations.

Another mind-bending twist to election season came on Tuesday with the former president’s virtual court appearance in a case arising out of a hush money payment to a former adult film star in which he has already pleaded not guilty. Judge Juan Merchan set a trial date for March 25, 2024 – in the middle of primary season. The timetable raises the prospect that Trump could use the trial as a stage to drive home his claim that he’s a victim of political persecution. But it also creates a risk for Trump that he could be criminally convicted while he’s still fighting for the GOP nomination – an extraordinary and unprecedented scenario.

By choosing Twitter to make his own splash, DeSantis appears to be targeting a dramatic moment that could restore a sense of momentum to GOP primary aspirations that were soaring six months ago but that have been undermined by his own missteps and Trump’s recent political rebound.

In embracing Musk, DeSantis is associating himself with a hero of conservatives who have long claimed they are being censored on social media. He’s taking a swipe at Trump, who was banned from tweeting by the company’s previous ownership and has so far preferred the home ground of his own platform, Truth Social, even after Musk restored his account. Trump’s 2016 campaign and entire presidency unfolded in a torrent of stream of consciousness tweets that he used to great effect – even if he left his nation stressed and exhausted.

DeSantis is taking an ostentatious jab at traditional media, which is reviled by many conservatives, by showing he is ready to bypass regular conventions of presidential campaigns. His launch will also create a sharp contrast with Trump’s own rambling, and even boring, campaign opening speech at Mar-a-Lago in November, which lacked any sense of political dynamism.

The Florida governor will also show how far the GOP has traveled from its roots as a bastion of tradition and the extent to which the internet and the fragmentation of the media into partisan blocks has changed presidential campaigns. In 1979, for instance, Ronald Reagan announced his presidential bid with a grandfatherly speech from a cozy study that looked like the inside of a country club. George W. Bush set off on the road to the White House 20 years later from a farm in Iowa. Now the best way to reach the most GOP voters is online.

By breaking the mold of presidential announcements, DeSantis is borrowing from Trump’s unconventional playbook. One lesson of the 45th president’s riotous political career is that anything calculated to offend liberals and mainstream media commentators is often wildly popular with grassroots GOP primary voters.

DeSantis is already running to the right of Trump by targeting what he calls “woke” measures on diversity, equity and inclusion and staking out conservative positions on social issues. Now, he’s also seeking to steal Trump’s reputation as the great disruptor.

The DeSantis announcement will also help enshrine an emerging power shift in conservative media. His choice of Twitter recognizes the importance of the social network to right-wing voters under Musk and may quicken the shift away from Fox News as the most dynamic platform for the new champions of the conservative movement. It comes after the top-rated Fox News host Tucker Carlson said he’d relaunch his show on Twitter after being ousted from Rupert Murdoch’s primetime line-up after the firm paid $787 million to settle a defamation suit linked to its promotion of election lies and misinformation after the 2020 election.

With his appearance, DeSantis is driving home his argument that social media networks have sought to oppress the speech of conservatives – a popular viewpoint on the right. In his autobiography “The Courage to be Free,” DeSantis slammed companies like Facebook and Twitter, under its previous owners, which he said made “censorship decisions that always seem to err on the side of leftist orthodoxy, they distort the American political system because so much political speech now takes place on these supposedly open platforms.”

Still, DeSantis is unlikely to turn his back on Fox, which has offered him plentiful air time – a possible sign the Murdoch family is beginning to tire of the ex-president.

The DeSantis launch strategy will not come without risks. The untamed environment of Twitter and his association with Musk threaten to undermine the case DeSantis has been implicitly making to Republican voters – that he can offer a more stable and disciplined style of leadership than that shown by Trump in his tempestuous White House term.

And by avoiding the kind of big, staged political announcement in front of a large crowd, DeSantis risks emboldening Trump’s mocking critique that the Florida governor is draining support by the day, following polls that show him falling further behind the former president, albeit ahead of candidates like South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

The virtual announcement could also fuel claims by Trump that his one-time protégé, whom he now accuses of betrayal for running for president, lacks the political skills to compete on a less controlled stage. A pro-Trump super PAC mocked DeSantis ahead of his online announcement, calling it “one of the most out-of-touch campaign launches in modern history.”

“The only thing less relatable than a niche campaign launch on Twitter, is DeSantis’ after party at the uber elite Four Seasons resort in Miami,” MAGA Inc., the Trump-aligned super PAC, said in a statement Tuesday.

People familiar with the DeSantis campaign blueprint, however, indicated the Florida governor would soon launch a relentless blitz of campaign appearances in key swing states, intended to contrast his energy with that of his older rivals, Trump and President Joe Biden.

Trump’s team and his allies are planning an aggressive operation to try to drown out the DeSantis launch on Wednesday. MAGA Inc. is already slamming the Florida governor for his early support of the Covid-19 vaccine during the pandemic as it seeks to undermine his credibility among conservatives who balked at government health advice.

But this is yet another sign of how head-spinning the Republican primary could get. After all, it was Trump who once claimed all the credit for developing the vaccine during his presidency. Now his supporters are condemning DeSantis for trying to save lives with it.

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May 23, 2023
Ron DeSantis spells out possibility to cement ‘7-2 conservative majority’ on Supreme Court | CNN Politics

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Ahead of an expected White House bid in the coming days, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spelled out the possibility to build a “7-2 conservative majority” on the US Supreme Court.

The Republican pointed to four justices – three appointed by Republican presidents – who he believed are poised to leave the bench during the next eight or nine years, during a speech at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Orlando on Monday.

“If you look over the next two presidential terms there is a good chance that you could be called upon to seek replacements for Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito. And the issue with that is you can’t really do better than those two. They are the gold standard for jurisprudence, so you gotta make sure that we are appointing people as close to that standard as possible,” DeSantis said, referring to two conservative stalwarts.

Alito is 73, Thomas is 74.

DeSantis also highlighted what he sees as a potential opportunity to replace conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, 68, or liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 68, to cement a conservative majority for years. The court currently has a 6-3 conservative supermajority.

“If you replace a Clarence Thomas with someone like a Roberts or somebody like that then you’re actually gonna see the court move to the left, and you can’t do that. I also think if you look over those eight years, you very well could be called upon to replace Chief Justice John Roberts, and perhaps even, someone like Justice Sotomayor,” DeSantis said.

“So, it is possible that in those eight years we would have the opportunity to fortify justices Alito and Thomas, as well as actually make improvements with those others and if you were able to do that then you would have a 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court that would last a quarter century, so this is big stuff,” he added.

As governor, DeSantis spoke about tilting the Florida Supreme Court to a conservative majority, with the help of age limits.

“We have age limits for justices,” DeSantis said. “The minute I got elected to office, three of the four liberal justices were off the court, because of age. So, I was able in my first term of office to replace three liberal justices with three conservative justices.”

He teased another judicial appointment this week to replace a retiring conservative justice.

“I will have ended up doing seven appointments throughout my tenure,” DeSantis said. “Judicial activism in Florida is now officially dead.”

Like all federal judges, Supreme Court justices are appointed for life.

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May 23, 2023
Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, enters the 2024 GOP primary | CNN Politics

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South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott on Monday formally entered the Republican presidential primary, promising to take on “the radical left” and bring faith and conservative, business-friendly policies to the White House, as he seeks to upend a contest that has so far been dominated by coverage of former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to enter the fray in the coming days.

The most prominent Black figure in the Republican Party, Scott addressed supporters at his alma mater, Charleston Southern University, in his hometown of North Charleston.

“I’m the candidate the far-left fears the most. You see, when I cut your taxes, they called me a prop. When I refunded the police, they called me a token. When I pushed back on President Biden, they even called me the ‘n-word,’” Scott said. “I disrupt their narrative. I threaten their control. The truth of my life disrupts their lies.”

Following the announcement, Scott heads to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina – states he frequented on his “Faith in America” tour in the run-up to his announcement – before returning to the Hawkeye State next week for GOP Sen. Joni Ernst’s annual “Roast and Ride” gathering.

Scott, 57, is no stranger to pathbreaking campaigns. In 2010, he became the first Black Republican elected to the US House of Representatives from South Carolina in more than a century. Years later, after being appointed to his Senate seat (he won a special election to retain the seat), Scott made history as the first Black US Senator from his native South Carolina.

Ahead of his entry into the presidential race, senior campaign officials briefed reporters on their view of the path forward, acknowledging he will need to win over support from Trump and DeSantis, but vowing – in a veiled dig at both – that his candidacy will strike a more optimistic tone and condemn the culture of victimhood and grievance that, as his aides described it, has taken over both parties.

“Our party and our nation are standing at a time for choosing,” Scott said. “Victimhood or victory? Grievance or greatness? I choose freedom and hope and opportunity.”

Trump and his team will avoid going after Tim Scott for now, two sources close to the former president told CNN. The directive from Trump has been to stay away from attacks on the South Carolina senator at the moment.

Last week, the Trump-aligned super PAC, MAGA, Inc., weighed in on Scott’s looming announcement, but used it to level an attack on DeSantis, not Scott.

The former president used that approach on Monday as he wished Scott “good luck” while taking a shot at DeSantis.

“Good luck to Senator Tim Scott in entering the Republican Presidential Primary Race. It is rapidly loading up with lots of people, and Tim is a big step up from Ron DeSanctimonious, who is totally unelectable. I got Opportunity Zones done with Tim, a big deal that has been highly successful. Good luck Tim!,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

The South Carolina senator received a boost on Sunday, less than 24 hours before his kick-off event, when news broke that his colleague Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, planned to endorse him.

“I think he’d be a great candidate. I’m excited about it. I’ve been encouraging him,” Thune previously told CNN. “I think he’s getting a lot of encouragement from his colleagues. He’s really well thought of and respected.”

Cory Gardner, the former Republican senator from Colorado and leader of Scott’s aligned super PAC, also argued that his old colleague posed a unique threat to liberal Democrats.

“I think they’re terrified of him, and he’s right to say that, because he defies every narrative they have,” Gardner said. “And this is exciting for conservatives who believe that they have a candidate who carries their values, can implement their values and do so in a way that will make all Americans proud.”

In pictures: Presidential candidate Tim Scott

A senior campaign official said Scott will continue to invest resources and time in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as the campaign ramps up.

Though Scott hails from South Carolina, they won’t count on it as a firewall, according to one senior campaign official, who emphasized Scott will have to compete as a top-tier candidate in other early primary and caucus states like New Hampshire and Iowa.

Even before the official launch, Scott revealed plans to pluck from his deep campaign coffers – with millions now transferred over from his Senate account – through a series of big-dollar ad buys in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The initial $5.5 million TV ad buy – including broadcast, cable satellite and radio – will air statewide starting Wednesday and run through the first GOP debate in August.

During the same period, Scott will also launch a seven-figure digital ad campaign.

“The biggest thing going for Tim Scott right now is $22 million in the bank. He is getting ready to spend $6 million in Iowa and New Hampshire that will garner tremendous name ID, and it’s gonna be a key factor that many of the other candidates are not doing right now,” said Dave Wilson, a South Carolina conservative strategist and former president of the Palmetto Family Council.

Though he is only officially entering the race now, Scott has already gotten caught in the churn of the campaign season. Shortly after announcing an exploratory committee last month, he was tripped up by questions over his position on a potential national abortion ban.

After initially sidestepping the matter and refusing to say whether he would back a 15-week ban, Scott told WMUR he would support restrictions beginning at 20 weeks. Days later, though, Scott said in an interview with NBC News that he “would literally sign the most conservative pro-life legislation that they can get through Congress.”

Pressed on what precisely that meant, given he had applauded DeSantis for signing a six-week ban in Florida, Scott demurred – saying it was a decision for the states to make.

“I’m not going to talk about six (weeks) or five or seven or 10,” Scott said.

Back at the senator’s home church near Charleston, there are hundreds of worshipers that see him most weekends.

“I’ve heard him talk about hope and opportunity for 25 years. It’s who he is. It’s a part of his story. And so I don’t think he’s going to change,” said Greg Suratt, founding pastor of Seacoast Church.

“I think a misconception that people might have about him is that his niceness, his humility, translates as weakness. And they don’t know the Tim Scott I know, I would like to kind of see it as an iron fist in a velvet glove,” Suratt added, noting that even people who disagree with his politics tend to like him as an individual.

Scott’s faith and his humble beginnings will be a central theme in his campaign, an aide said. Scott grew up in a single parent household in North Charleston, where his mother worked long hours to keep their family afloat.

“Think about the kid whose grandmother has to open the stove to heat the home in the middle of the winter. I think to myself, it kind of feels like that now,” Scott said at a town hall in New Hampshire this month. “So many people with our energy prices doubling in just the last couple years, are experiencing a crisis similar to the one that I had when I was just a kid.”

On his listening tour, Scott said that between the ages of 7 and 14, he “kind of drifted,” failing world geography, civics, English and Spanish in his freshman year of high school. But through the “tireless” encouragement of his mother and mentor, the late John Moniz, a Chick-fil-A manager, Scott says he was able to graduate from Charleston Southern University. He would eventually open his own insurance agency affiliated with Allstate.

Scott credits Moniz with teaching him that anyone can “succeed beyond their circumstances” if they take responsibility for themselves – a message he repeated in North Charleston.

“John taught me that anyone, from anywhere, at any time, can rise above their wildest expectations and imagination,” Scott said after giving roses to Moniz’s widow and his own mother at the beginning of his speech. “But first, I had to take responsibility for myself. He told me in the most loving way possible to look in the mirror and to blame myself.”

Scott’s political career began in 1995, when he ran in a special election to the Charleston City Council, winning a seat he would keep for nearly 15 years. After one term as a state lawmaker, Scott won a US House seat representing South Carolina’s 1st district.

Fellow presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley then appointed Scott to the US Senate in 2012 to fill a vacancy left by Sen. Jim DeMint’s retirement. He retained the seat in a 2014 special election, was re-elected to a full term in 2016 and later won for a third time last year.

“To every single mom who struggles to make ends meet, who wonders if her efforts are in vain, they are not,” Scott said after being appointed by Haley.

During his time in the Senate, Scott has amassed a strictly conservative voting record, but has also led bipartisan police reform talks alongside New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat.

Those talks have gone on for years now, beginning in the summer of 2020 with then-California Sen. Kamala Harris also involved, but hopes for a comprehensive deal were effectively abandoned in 2021. (The conversations reportedly continue, but there is no legislation currently in the offing.)

In 2017, his “Investing in Opportunity Act,” which had some Democratic support, was included in the controversial Republican tax cut bill. The provision called for the establishment of “Opportunity Zones,” which would create tax incentives for businesses that invested in parts of the country struggling with poverty and stalled economies.

“I was one of the lead authors of the Republican tax reform bill that slashed taxes for families, brought jobs and investment back from overseas, and created my signature legislation, the ‘Opportunity Zones,’ that’s brought billions of dollars into the poorest communities that have been left behind,” Scott said in his speech. “That was just one bill. Imagine what we could do with an entire agenda.”

Still, Democrats in South Carolina welcomed Scott to the race with harsh words about his political record – and an attempt to tie him to the GOP’s far right.

“We know how dangerous Tea Party extremist Tim Scott is,” South Carolina Democratic Party chair Christale Spain said in a statement. “From promising to sign the most conservative abortion ban possible as president, to doubling down on his role as ‘architect’ of the 2017 GOP tax scam that pushed tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy at the expense of working families, Scott has proven himself to be just as MAGA as the rest of the 2024 field.”

Though Scott has expressed more openness to working with Democrats than most Republicans in Washington, he also owns one of the most conservative voting records in Congress. He rarely broke with Trump during the latter’s presidency, though he did criticize Trump’s response to White supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

“What we want to see from our president is clarity and moral authority,” Scott told Vice News at the time. “And that moral authority is compromised.”

Scott largely backed off that line, though, after a meeting with Trump in the White House.

“(Trump) was certainly very clear that the perception that he received on his comments was not exactly what he intended with those comments,” Scott told CBS News.

This story has been updated with additional reporting and reaction.

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May 22, 2023
Biden and McCarthy to discuss debt ceiling Monday as staff-level talks resume | CNN Politics

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Hiroshima, Japan
CNN
—

Staff-level discussions over the debt ceiling and budget between the White House and congressional Republican will resume Sunday evening after President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spoke by phone in the afternoon, according to a White House official.

Biden and McCarthy will meet later on Monday, the official added.

McCarthy said the phone call with Biden, who was aboard Air Force One returning to Washington from Japan, was “productive.”

In an 18-minute gaggle with reporters at the US Capitol, the California Republican said that while the timing of the meeting was still being worked out, it was likely to be Monday afternoon. It is not expected to include other congressional leaders.

McCarthy’s more optimistic tone comes after the president had issued a stark warning earlier Sunday that congressional Republicans could use a national default to damage him politically and acknowledged that time had run out to use potential unilateral actions to raise the federal borrowing limit, as the deadline to reach an agreement neared.

Characterizing GOP proposals as “extreme” and warning they couldn’t gain sufficient support in Congress, Biden said he wasn’t able to promise fellow world leaders gathered in Hiroshima, Japan, for Group of Seven talks that the US would not default.

“I can’t guarantee that they will not force a default by doing something outrageous,” he said at a news conference before he left for Washington.

Biden’s remarks were the latest indication that talks between the White House and congressional Republicans remained far apart.

Republicans have been seeking spending cuts in the federal budget in exchange for their support to raise the nation’s borrowing limit. On Sunday, Biden acknowledged “significant” disagreement with Republicans in some areas, insisting that while he’s willing to cut spending, tax “revenue is not off the table” as part of the deal.

McCarthy, in an interview Sunday with Fox News, disagreed with that characterization, saying Biden previously told him that tax increases were “off the table” and that he wouldn’t agree to them.

“He’s now bringing something to the table that everyone said was off the table,” the California Republican said. “It seems as though he wants to fault more than he wants a deal.”

At his news conference, Biden said that much of what Republicans have proposed “is simply, quite frankly, unacceptable.”

“It’s time for Republicans to accept that there’s no bipartisan deal to be made solely, solely on their partisan terms. … They have to move, as well,” the president said.

Pressed on whether he would be to blame for a default scenario, Biden said that based on what he’s offered, he should be blameless but conceded that “no one will be blameless” as he suggested some of his political rivals could be encouraging a default to sabotage his reelection efforts.

“I think there are some MAGA Republicans in the House who know the damage it would do to the economy, and because I am president, and a president is responsible for everything, Biden would take the blame and that’s the one way to make sure Biden’s not reelected,” he said.

McCarthy, in turn, blamed what he called the “socialist wing of the Democratic Party” for driving Biden’s goals in the negotiations.

“The president keeps changing positions every time Bernie Sanders has a press conference. He gets reactive and he shifts,” the speaker said as he arrived at the US Capitol in Washington on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Biden’s top national security aide told CNN that the stalled debt ceiling and budget negotiations have not undercut American leadership abroad or undermined the G7 summit as it came to a close Sunday.

“When you look at the totality of the last three days, it’s actually a reflection of and an exclamation point on the way in which President Biden has led on the world stage. People understand democracies, and they understand that there are moments in domestic politics when you have got to look at the home front,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

Biden in his news conference addressed the possibility of using the 14th Amendment to continue US government borrowing in the absence of a deal, suggesting he has the power but not the time to utilize the unilateral action.

“I think we have the authority. The question is, could it be done and invoked in time that it could not – would not be appealed?” Biden asked, calling the question of whether an appeal could be solved before the default deadline “unresolved.”

Pressed by CNN’s Phil Mattingly to clarify whether he thought he could invoke the 14th Amendment as a serious and tangible option, the president made clear that maneuver would not be successful given the short window remaining.

“We have not come up with unilateral action that could succeed in a matter of two weeks or three weeks. That’s the issue. So it’s up to lawmakers. But my hope and intention is to resolve this problem,” he said.

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said Sunday a potential invocation of the 14th Amendment would be a “dodge.”

“The president needs to show leadership. ‘OK, House Republicans, American people, you’re concerned about spending, I will meet you there. As opposed to finding a dodge that tries to work its way around,” Cassidy said.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reiterated Sunday in an interview with NBC News that June 1 was a “hard deadline” for the US to raise the debt ceiling or risk defaulting on its obligations.

But Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, said there may be some leeway.

“The June 1st date was probably, according to Secretary Yellen, the earliest possible date,” the Pennsylvania Republican told CBS News, adding that “we do have enough cash flow” to “pay the interest on our debt.”

“We’re going start to see the state tax revenues come in the second week of June, so I think we’re OK on that,” Fitzpatrick said.

Biden had originally planned to stop in Australia and Papua New Guinea after the G7 summit in Hiroshima, but he canceled those portions of the trip amid the debt ceiling talks.

On Saturday, Rep. Dusty Johnson, a McCarthy ally and chair of the centrist Main Street Caucus, confirmed that the White House had made an offer seeking to cap future spending at current levels, which Johnson called “unreasonable.”

“The paper that the White House provided was a major step backward. And it undermined all the progress that was made Wednesday and Thursday. … It has endangered negotiations,” the South Dakota Republican said.

On Sunday, McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol that GOP Reps. Garrett Graves of Louisiana and Patrick McHenry of North Carolina would begin conversations again with White House staff “so we can walk them through literally what we’ve been talking about.”

Before news broke of the talks resuming, McHenry told CNN that he was “not at all” optimistic a deal could come together.

“I’ve been pessimistic for a while, and something needs to change,” he said Sunday morning.

Graves said both sides had “made a lot of progress in understanding one another’s positions, in understanding red lines” and that the negotiators were closer than when they had started.

He said there were still discussions to be had over ancillary topics such as work requirements and permitting reform, but “the numbers are the baseline.”

“The speaker has been very clear: A red line is spending less money, and unless and until we’re there, the rest of it is really irrelevant,” the Louisiana Republican said.

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

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May 21, 2023
Debt ceiling talks hit a snag, negotiators press pause for now | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

Debt ceiling talks between the White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office have hit a snag, and negotiators have put a pause on the talks, multiple sources tell CNN.

Negotiators met briefly in the Capitol on Friday before breaking up, and as of right now, there are no more meetings scheduled for the day.

This setback dashes hopes that there could be a deal in principle by this weekend.

McCarthy confirmed that talks have paused, saying there’s not enough “movement” from the White House and suggested that spending levels are part of the issue.

“We’ve got to get movement by the White House. And we don’t have any movement yet,” McCarthy told reporters as he headed into the Capitol.

Asked why he had such an optimistic tone one day earlier, McCarthy said, “I really felt we were at the location where I could see the path. The White House is just – we can’t be spending more money next year. We have to spend less than the year before. It’s pretty easy.”

McCarthy said he has not spoken to the president and did not answer questions about next steps.

Time is of the essence and pressure is building to raise the borrowing limit ahead of June 1, which is the earliest date the Treasury Department says the government could be unable to pay its bills. If the US were to default, it would likely trigger a global economic catastrophe.

GOP Rep. Garret Graves, who is leading negotiations for House Republicans, left a brief meeting with negotiators in the morning saying the situation was “not productive.” He said he is not sure they will meet again this weekend.

“Until people are willing to have reasonable conversations about how you can actually can move forward and do the right thing we aren’t going to sit here and talk to ourselves. That’s what’s going on,” Graves said.

As talks stalled, a White House official acknowledged that there are “real differences” and “talks will be difficult,” but said the president’s negotiating team is working to reach a “reasonable bipartisan solution.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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May 19, 2023
Biden and G7 leaders prepare new Russia sanctions as Zelensky expected to attend Japan summit | CNN Politics

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Hiroshima, Japan
CNN
—

US President Joe Biden and fellow world leaders were unveiling tough new sanctions on Russia as they prepare to hear in-person later this weekend from Volodomyr Zelensky, who officials said was planning a dramatic trip to Japan as he continues to appeal for military assistance amid Russia’s invasion.

The new sanctions are designed to plug loopholes and go after untapped industries as western leaders continue to work toward choking off Moscow’s war financing.

A dedicated G7 session on Ukraine was set for Friday afternoon. The war was expected to be a central topic of discussion among leaders here as Ukrainian forces prepare for a counteroffensive.

The high point will come when Zelensky addresses the group in person. Officials declined to say exactly when Zelensky would arrive or detail his travel arrangements. He has been traveling outside his country more as the war grinds onward, including a tour of Europe last week.

The lengthy trip from Ukraine to Hiroshima, where leaders from the world’s most powerful democracies are gathering, underscores Zelensky’s desire to strengthen support fourteen months into the war.

The menacing nuclear undertones to Russia’s invasion were placed into sharp relief as the summit got underway. Leaders laid wreaths at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, the epicenter of the American atomic bomb dropped here in 1945 that wiped out the city and more than 100,000 of its inhabitants while hastening the end of World War II.

In the background was the Atomic Bomb Dome, now a monument and UNESCO World Heritage Site. The dome was formerly the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, and the atomic blast struck almost directly above it, leaving the frame of its iron dome largely intact.

It was against that backdrop that Biden and his fellow leaders entered three days of talks.

The US said Friday it would tighten export controls, including by “extensively restricting categories of goods key to the battlefield,” and will announce nearly 300 new sanctions against “individuals, entities, vessels, and aircraft.”

Additionally, the US will place new designations across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and expand its sanctions authorities to further target Russia’s economy.

The United Kingdom said it will ban the import of Russian diamonds, as part of its latest sanctions against Moscow, Downing Street announced on Friday. The move aims to restrict one of Russia’s few remaining export industries that had been relatively untouched by the withering western sanctions already in place.

Imports of Russian-origin copper, aluminum, and nickel will also be banned under the UK legislation, which will be introduced later this year, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

The Russian diamond industry was worth $4 billion in exports in 2021, according to Downing Street.

Biden faces his fellow world leaders Friday in Japan under the shadow of a looming default on US debt, a scenario his advisers said risks subverting American leadership and sending the global economy into tailspin.

The risk appears particularly acute as Biden works to rally fellow G7 officials behind a shared approach toward Russia and China. On the first day of the summit talks, the group is expected to unveil a new tightening of sanctions on Moscow – a response to the invasion of Ukraine that relies on the strength of the American financial system.

Before arriving, Biden was briefed on the debt ceiling standoff by aides.

“The President’s team informed him that steady progress is being made,” a White House official said.

The call lasted 20-30 minutes, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told pool reporters traveling with the President. A separate source with knowledge of the talks said — despite the optimism and positive signals — there is a long way to go to get a deal and it’s unclear if negotiators reach one by this weekend or if it will slip into next week.

How much the debt standoff arises in Biden’s talks in Hiroshima remains to be seen; some European officials said they had been down similar roads before as American leaders worked to avert financial disaster only to find a solution at the last moment.

But even if it does not arise substantially in the many hours of leaders’ meetings spanning the next three days, the risk of default remains the backdrop against which Biden will attempt to project strength this week in Japan.

“Debt ceiling brinkmanship that Republicans are driving in Washington, DC, undermines American leadership, undermines the trustworthiness that America can bring to not just our allies and partners but to the rest of the world,” a senior administration official said as Biden began the high-stakes G7 summit.

Biden cut his trip to Asia short to return to Washington early as negotiations continue over raising the US borrowing limit ahead of June 1, the earliest date by which the country could run out of cash to pay its bills.

An extensive agenda of issues, including Ukraine, China and artificial intelligence, are all up for discussion. But it was clear from Biden’s decision to cancel planned stops in Australia and Papua New Guinea – Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make a two-day visit to the latter instead – that other matters are weighing on the US president’s time.

To that end, Biden brought with him to Japan a top domestic policy aide, Bruce Reed, to keep him continually updated on the status of talks between White House aides and congressional Republicans.

Just the threat of default has the potential to weaken American diplomatic authority, the official said, citing a sanctions regime on Russia that relies on the strength of the US financial system.

“All of those things reduce America’s capacity to lead,” the official said.

Biden’s meetings with fellow leaders in Hiroshima will present “an opportunity to highlight just how essential it is that that the Republicans work to get this done expeditiously with the president, because a lot is riding on ensuring that the United States continues to lead and lead alongside the G7.”

Nowhere is that more evident than Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. The conflict will be a key topic of discussion for world leaders Friday.

“All G7 members are preparing to implement new sanctions and export controls,” the senior official said, framing the US package of sanctions as “substantial.”

The official previewed a five-pronged plan of new steps G7 nations are taking more broadly to further economically isolate Russia, including efforts to disrupt Russia’s ability to source inputs for its war and to close loopholes that have allowed certain Russian entities to evade existing sanctions.

The sanctions come 14 months after Russia launched its invasion and as Ukraine prepares for a counteroffensive using billions of dollars in Western military aid.

Biden and fellow leaders were planning to discuss how much progress has been made on the battlefield, with an eye toward helping Ukraine regain territory and assume leverage in potential peace talks.

While the US remains Ukraine’s largest contributor of military assistance, some leaders have begun calling for ever-more-advanced weapons, including fighter jets, to send Kyiv. Biden has resisted those calls as he works to prevent an escalation.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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May 18, 2023