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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Chris Stein in Washington

Biden in Israel as poll shows support for re-election bid at new low – as it happened

Inflation Joe Biden Middle East Israel United States
Biden at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem. The president arrived in Israel earlier on Wednesday.
Biden at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem. The president arrived in Israel earlier on Wednesday. Photograph: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images

Closing summary

President Joe Biden is in Israel, where he reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to one of its top allies. Meanwhile, back home, another month of sky-high inflation data rocked the Democratic leadership and caused a key senator to warn he may not be on board for big spending bills as long as prices keep increasing.

Here’s what else happened today:

Shortly after the supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, the story of a 10-year-old girl who was forced to travel from Ohio to neighboring Indiana for an abortion after being raped went viral.

Ohio was one of the states whose law greatly restricting access to abortions took effect after the court ruling, and news of the girl’s ordeal sparked outrage over its consequences. However, the story had its doubters, chief among them the state’s Republican attorney general Dave Yost, whom the Columbus Dispatch reports gave interviews questioning whether the story happened at all.

It did indeed, the Dispatch reported today, with police arresting a 27-year-old man who confessed to twice raping the child. From their story:

Gershon Fuentes, 27, whose last known address was an apartment on Columbus’ Northwest Side, was arrested Tuesday after police say he confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions. He’s since been charged with rape, a felony of the first degree in Ohio.

Columbus police were made aware of the girl’s pregnancy through a referral by Franklin County Children Services that was made by her mother on June 22, Det. Jeffrey Huhn testified Wednesday morning at Fuentes’ arraignment. On June 30, the girl underwent a medical abortion in Indianapolis, Huhn said.

While Yost had plenty to say when the story first broke, the Dispatch reported he kept his comments following the arrest brief:

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost questioned the validity of the account during an appearance on Fox News this week.

Yost, a Republican, told Fox News host Jesse Watters that his office had not heard “a whisper” of a report being filed for the 10-year-old victim.

“We have regular contact with prosecutors and local police and sheriffs — not a whisper anywhere,” Yost said on the show.

Yost doubled down on that in an interview with the USA TODAY Network Ohio bureau on Tuesday, saying that the more time passed before confirmation made it “more likely that this is a fabrication.”

“I know the cops and prosecutors in this state,” Yost said. “There’s not one of them that wouldn’t be turning over every rock, looking for this guy and they would have charged him. They wouldn’t leave him loose on the streets ... I’m not saying it could not have happened. What I’m saying to you is there is not a damn scintilla of evidence.”

On Wednesday, once news of the arraignment of the Columbus man accused in the child’s rape came, Yost issued a single sentence statement:

“We rejoice anytime a child rapist is taken off the streets.”

The Associated Press reports a third arrest has been made related to allegations officials mishandled election equipment in a Colorado county after the 2020 election.

The case centers around Tina Peters, the clerk of Mesa county who last month lost her bid to be the Republican nominee for the position of top election official in Colorado. The AP reports that her election manager turned herself in earlier this week.

Here’s more from the report:

Sandra Brown, who worked for Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, turned herself in Monday in response to a warrant issued for her arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and attempting to influence a public servant, said Lt. Henry Stoffel of the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office. The arrest was first reported by The Daily Sentinel newspaper.

Peters and her chief deputy, Belinda Knisley, are being prosecuted for allegedly allowing a copy of a hard drive to be made during an update of election equipment in May 2021. State election officials first became aware of a security breach last summer when a photo and video of confidential voting system passwords were posted on social media and a conservative website.

Peters, who has become a hero to election conspiracy theorists, following the lead of former President Donald Trump, lost her bid to become the GOP candidate for Colorado secretary of state last month.

Peters is charged with three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation, two counts of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, one count of identity theft, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.

The Guardian’s Sam Levine has previously covered the saga around Peters:

Jill Biden’s questionable phrasing during a speech earlier this week has resulted in an apology from the first lady, Erum Salam reports:

Jill Biden has apologized for remarks in a speech to the civil rights and advocacy organization UnidosUS in which she likened the diversity of Latino Americans to breakfast tacos.

Speaking in Texas on Monday, the first lady said: “The diversity of this community – as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio, is your strength.”

Amid condemnation of the statement, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists said: “We are not tacos. Our heritage as Latinos is shaped by various diasporas, cultures and food traditions. Do not reduce us to stereotypes.”

Biden’s press secretary, Michael LaRosa, responded: “The first lady apologizes that her words conveyed anything but pure admiration and love for the Latino community.”

Republicans, however, were quick to seize on the remarks.

The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, tweeted: “Breakfast tacos? This is why Texas Hispanics are turning away from the Democratic party.”

The Guardian’s David Smith has the latest on whether the January 6 committee’s hearings will lead to Trump facing a criminal prosecution:

Donald Trump is facing growing legal peril as the House January 6 committee lays out a case that appears increasingly geared to making a criminal prosecution all but inevitable.

The panel’s seventh hearing on Tuesday argued that Trump instigated an attack on the US Capitol that was premeditated rather than spontaneous and that he cannot hide behind a defence of being “willfully blind”.

The committee also sought to show an explosive convergence between Trump’s interests and those of far-right extremist groups, although critics said the case fell short of direct collusion.

Even so, the late revelation that Trump had tried to contact a person talking to the committee about potential testimony – raising the prospect of witness tampering – was only likely to compound pressure on the Department of Justice to investigate the former president.

Chair of the January 6 committee Bennie Thompson has revealed a bit more about the body’s interactions with the justice department as it turns up more and more evidence of potentially criminal misconduct by Donald Trump around the time of the 2020 election.

At yesterday’s hearing, the House committee revealed that Trump had contacted a former witness who was working with the panel. Here’s what Thompson had to say about that:

He also talked about what of the committee’s evidence the justice department was most interested in:

Biden says willing to use force on Iran as 'last resort', calls Democratic Israel foes 'wrong',

President Joe Biden is in Israel right now but in an interview with the country’s Channel 12 broadcaster filed at the White House before his departure, he weighed in on the issues facing one of Washington’s top allies in the Middle East.

The president kept the door open to using military force to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but said that would only be done as a “last resort”:

He also drew a line between himself and fellow Democrats who criticize aid to Israel and claim it’s an apartheid state:

Biden will on Friday travel to Saudi Arabia, but he made clear he does not expect that country to normalize relations with Israel anytime soon:

Steve Bannon, a former top advisor to Donald Trump, has tried again and again to delay his trial on contempt of Congress charges for ignoring a subpoena from the January 6 committee.

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that his latest bid has failed:

A brief look at Bannon’s attempts to stay out of the courtroom:

Congress held two hearings today on the impact of last month’s landmark supreme court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, in which advocates for and against the procedure made their case to House and Senate lawmakers.

Here are some highlights:

A Missouri lawmaker worried the state’s regulations would mean doctors and women alike would face jail for seeking out the procedure:

And a Georgia state representative said the burden of abortion bans would hit Black women and racial minorities the hardest:

Anti-abortion lawyer Erin Hawley, wife of Republican senator Josh Hawley, batted away pro-abortion talking points:

As did Roger Marshall, Kansas’s Republican Senator:

Support for Biden's re-election bid plummets

More bad news for Joe Biden on the polling front, where a mere 18% of respondents to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll said he should run for re-election in 2024 and 64% said he should step back in favour of another Democratic candidate.

Among Democrats, 41% said Biden should not run again, against 35% who still wanted him as president.

The result was worse than the same poll in May, when 25% of respondents said Biden should run for a second term. Among Democrats then, the figure was 49%.

Biden’s favourability rating remains stuck in the mid- to upper-30s – not good by any measure.

The Yahoo/YouGove poll also contained bad news for Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris, who was supported by just 19% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents to run in Biden’s stead – behind doubty campaigners “someone else” (20%) and “not sure” (30%).

Biden has said he will run again but he is already the oldest president ever inaugurated and will turn 82 shortly after the 2024 election.

He has also faced his fair share of crises in his short time in office, from the economic and physical effects of the coronavirus pandemic to the threat to democracy posed by his Republican opponents, and from the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its effects on gas prices, food supplies and more.

Such a roster of challenges would, it seems fair to say, challenge most non-Biden candidates the Democrats might be able to find.

Here’s Ross Barkan with more:

Updated

Joe Biden has said the US is committed to Israel’s security, on arriving in Tel Aviv for the first leg of a three-day visit to the Middle East, a trip focused on deepening the majority Jewish state’s ties with the Arab world as the region faces a common foe in Iran.

The president was greeted by the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, and caretaker prime minister, Yair Lapid, on Air Force One’s arrival at Ben Gurion airport on Wednesday afternoon, fist-bumping rather than shaking hands with Israeli officials on the tarmac over what the White House said was concern over rising Covid cases.

Ahead of Biden’s trip, senior Israeli officials briefed reporters that the two countries will issue a broad-ranging communique titled the “Jerusalem Declaration”, which will take a tough stance on Iran’s nuclear programme, and reaffirm Israel’s right to defend itself.

In his opening remarks, Biden recalled that his first visit to the country had been as a young senator in 1973, just a few weeks before the Yom Kippur war with Egypt and Syria broke out. At that time, Israel and imperial Iran were still allies, and Egypt and Jordan were still hostile to the majority Jewish state.

“We’ll continue to advance Israel’s integration into the region and the relationship between the US and Israel is deeper and stronger in my view than it’s ever been,” the president said.

Air Force One will make a first direct flight from Israel to Saudi Arabia amid efforts to build a relationship between the Jewish state and the conservative Gulf kingdom, which does not officially recognise Israel’s existence.

Full story:

Another sentence has been handed down against a January 6 rioter, in this case a Maryland man who pled guilty to charges related to striking a police officer with a lacrosse stick that had a Confederate battle flag attached.

He was ordered to serve five months in prison, according to the AP:

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper also sentenced David Alan Blair, to 18 months of supervised release after his prison term and ordered him to pay $2,000 in restitution, said William Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.

Federal prosecutors recommended sentencing Blair to eight months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

Blair’s attorney, Terrell Roberts III, asked for a sentence of probation.

Blair, 27, left his home in Clarksburg, Maryland, and started driving to Washington, D.C., after the riot erupted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Shortly before 6 p.m., Blair encountered a line of Metropolitan Police Department officers on the Capitol’s West Lawn and refused to heed their commands to leave the area, prosecutors said.

A police officer’s body camera captured Blair walking in front of the police line and yelling, “Hell naw. Quit backing up. Don’t be scared. We’re Americans.”

Blair was arrested after he pushed his lacrosse stick against an officer’s chest.

The officer responded to the push by striking Blair three times in the head with a baton, drawing blood and giving him a concussion, according to Blair’s attorney.

Updated

The race for the Senate seat in Georgia currently occupied by Democrat Raphael Warnock is among those considered pivotal to deciding who controls the chamber following November’s midterm elections, and the incumbent seems to be prevailing, at least when it comes to money.

As the Associated Press reports, Warnock raised $17.2 million in the second quarter running from April through June, much more than the $6.2 million Republican Herschel Walker brought in.

From the AP’s report:

The dueling Senate campaign numbers underlined two truths. Georgia is again going to be one of the most expensive races to run for office in 2022, and Democrats are building a strong fundraising advantage.

Like Warnock, Democrat Stacey Abrams heavily outraised incumbent Republican Brian Kemp in the race for governor, collecting almost $50 million compared to the $31 million Kemp has brought in over a longer period. Abrams and Warnock plan to run closely linked campaigns, echoing many of the same themes.

Warnock is one of several Democratic Senate incumbents in swing states who is trying to cling to their seat amid President Joe Biden’s deep unpopularity. Republicans had long dominated statewide races until Georgia helped elect Biden to the presidency and enabled Democrats to control the Senate by electing Warnock and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff in a January 2021 runoff.

Michigan’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed an executive order preventing women who travel to Michigan for an abortion from being extradited to other states where seeking the procedure is illegal.

Here’s how she described the order, which also protects abortion providers in the state from extradition:

I will stand up for all women, even if their local and statewide leaders refuse to. Michigan must remain a place where a person’s basic rights are preserved. In this existential moment for fundamental rights, it is incumbent on every elected official who believes that health—not politics—should guide medical decisions to take bold action.

Whitmer said the move was in response to attempts by Republican lawmakers to pass laws criminalizing out-of-state travel by women seeking abortions. Her order was similar to one made by Colorado’s Democratic governor Jared Polis, who banned state agencies from cooperating with investigations into abortions by other states.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley is a sponsor of legislation to keep transgender children out of sports, and at a hearing yesterday, one of his critics took the opportunity to tell him what she thought of his questions, as The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt reports:

Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, was accused of being transphobic by a law professor on Tuesday, at a hearing on the consequences of the supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade, the ruling which guaranteed the right to abortion.

During the judiciary committee hearing, Hawley, who has previously co-sponsored a bill which would prevent transgender children from competing in sports, questioned Khiara Bridges, a professor at UC Berkeley School of Law who was invited to testify on reproductive rights.

“You’ve referred to ‘people with a capacity for pregnancy’,” he said. “Would that be women?”

Elsewhere in Congress, Punchbowl News has reported a strong comment from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a meeting with Democrats this morning:

She also took a stab at forecasting when peak US inflation might be reached, a notoriously difficult thing to nail down:

Senator Joe Manchin, a crucial swing vote for Democrats hoping to get any major legislation through Congress before the end of the year, has issued a statement warning against big spending plans at a time of high inflation.

It reads in part:

“For more than a year, leaders in Washington have ignored the serious concerns raised by myself and others about the rising cost of inflation. While Washington seems to now understand this reality, it is time for us to work together to get unnecessary spending under control, produce more energy at home and take more active and serious steps to address this record inflation that now poses a clear and present danger to our economy. No matter what spending aspirations some in Congress may have, it is clear to anyone who visits a grocery store or a gas station that we cannot add any more fuel to this inflation fire.”

Consider it something of a warning shot as Democrats look to pass a major spending package in what could be their final months controlling the House and Senate. Manchin cited his concerns about inflation last year when he torpedoed Build Back Better, a spending plan proposed by Joe Biden to address a range of Democratic priorities, including fighting climate change, which ultimately collapsed after months of negotiations. In recent days, details have leaked out about a renewed effort to reach an agreement that can pass with only Democrats’ votes via the reconciliation process. But with his statement, the West Virginia senator, who has a deep involvement in the coal industry, has reminded the party’s leaders that he won’t be an easy man to convince.

Updated

Planning a coup isn’t for amateurs, ok? That was the argument Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton decided to make after yesterday’s January 6 committee hearing, as Martin Pengelly reports:

John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Donald Trump and before that ambassador to the United Nations under George W Bush, said on Tuesday he helped plan coup attempts in other countries.

Speaking to CNN after the day’s January 6 committee hearing, Bolton said it was wrong to describe Trump’s attempt to stay in power after the 2020 election as a coup.

Bolton with Trump, his former employer.
Bolton with Trump, his former employer. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

He said: “While nothing Donald Trump did after the election, in connection with the lie about the election fraud, none of it is defensible, it’s also a mistake as some people have said including on the committee, the commentators that somehow this was a carefully planned coup d’etat to the constitution.

Updated

Details are trickling out about the January 6 committee’s next hearing, which The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports is set to take place Thursday of next week during the prime-time TV hour:

Committee member Stephanie Murphy gave a hint of what to expect in an interview with MSNBC this morning:

Inflation numbers 'out-of-date', don't reflect price decreases, Biden says

The latest inflation figures are certainly bad, but President Biden has just issued a statement arguing that the situation is better than it appears because gas prices have declined since the data was collected. Here’s the meat of his argument:

While today’s headline inflation reading is unacceptably high, it is also out-of-date. Energy alone comprised nearly half of the monthly increase in inflation. Today’s data does not reflect the full impact of nearly 30 days of decreases in gas prices, that have reduced the price at the pump by about 40 cents since mid-June. Those savings are providing important breathing room for American families. And, other commodities like wheat have fallen sharply since this report.

Importantly, today’s report shows that what economists call annual “core inflation” came down for the third month in a row, and is the first month since last year where the annual “core” inflation rate is below six percent.

Jason Furman, a former top economic advisor to Democratic president Barack Obama might take issue with Biden’s characterization of core inflation. He shared several thoughts about the latest report on Twitter, which he described as “brutal” overall:

This may best sum up the damage done by the inflation wave to Americans:

If you missed it, The Guardian’s David Smith has a look at what happened during yesterday’s hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6 attack, which painted a distressing picture of former president Donald Trump’s willingness to resort to violence following his 2020 election loss:

“We settle our differences at the ballot box.”

Bennie Thompson, chairman of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, emphasised this article of faith in his opening remarks on Tuesday.

But what followed was a three-hour story about how American democracy, like a rickety old house, creaked and bent and struggled to hold itself together during a thunderstorm of political violence.

There was the tale of an Oval Office meeting that almost ended in fisticuffs. There was testimony from a former true believer in the “big lie” who joined the rampage at the Capitol. There were predictions that if Trump runs again, no one will be safe.

Updated

Biggest 12-month US inflation increase since 1981, data shows

Americans looking for relief from the country’s inflation spike did not find it in June, the latest data from the Labor Department confirmed.

The consumer price index rose 9.1% last month compared to June 2021, its biggest 12-month increase since the same period in November 1981. It even accelerated compared to May, rising 1.3% compared to that month’s one percent increase.

Dig deeper into the numbers and you’ll see a story of frustration and financial pain for people across the country. Grocery prices were up one percent compared to May and 10.4% over the prior 12 months. Gasoline prices have increased 59.9% over the past 12 months and 11.2% in June alone.

Washington’s inflation fighter, the Federal Reserve, may respond to this report with another big interest rate increase later in July to cut into the demand drivers of inflation, as they did at their meeting last month. Biden has already seen inflation wreck his approval rating, but can hope that if Saudi Arabia agrees to bring more oil onto the market, the price of gasoline, an important contributor to inflation, will decline. Meanwhile, there’s evidence the gas price surge is already receding:

Updated

Biden begins tough Middle East trip with US inflation as bad as ever

Good morning, US politics reader. President Joe Biden has just landed in Israel for the first visit to the Middle East of his presidency, but even there, he won’t be able to escape the troubling state of the US economy. Inflation soared 9.1% in June compared to the same month last year, the government reported just minutes ago, and indeed, that problem will be on the agenda during his visit - convincing Saudi Arabia to raise oil production in a bid to lower gas prices in America is considered one of the president’s priorities.

Here’s what else is happening today:

  • The Senate health committee will at 10 am eastern time be hearing from health care providers impacted by last month’s supreme court ruling overturning the right to abortion nationwide.
  • A new poll shows Democrats and Republicans are in a close race when it comes to which party voters would prefer controlling Congress.
  • With Biden set to visit Saudi Arabia, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, widow of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, said she had met with White House advisors and called on the US president to press Riyadh’s leadership for the release of political prisoners.
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