Closing summary
Joe Biden was feted in Israel, giving him a respite from the troubles awaiting him back home, which include dismal approval ratings, states’ moves to criminalize abortion as well as Donald Trump and his aspirations in 2024.
Here’s a recap of what happened today:
- Republicans blocked a bill to guarantee that people seeking abortions could travel across state lines, with one lawmaker decrying “abortion tourism”.
- Saudi Arabia and Israel could announce steps towards normalizing relations, which would give Biden a major win as he visits the region.
- Trump gave an interview to New York Magazine in which he more or less said he was running in 2024, but was undecided on when to announce the campaign. The Washington Post reports that he’s leaning towards announcing before the November midterm elections, though some Republicans don’t think that is a good idea.
- In what is surely a healthy sign for American democracy, voters in a New York county are leaning towards choosing a spider monster thing to represent their local elections.
- The attorney general in Indiana said it would investigate the doctor that provided an abortion to a 10-year-old girl who was forced to travel from neighboring Ohio after being raped.
Updated
Donald Trump’s first wife Ivana Trump has died in New York City, the Associated Press reports.
According to the AP:
“I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “She was a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life. Her pride and joy were her three children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. She was so proud of them, as we were all so proud of her. Rest In Peace, Ivana!”
The Trump family also released a statement. “It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved mother, Ivana Trump. Our mother was an incredible woman a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend. Ivana Trump was a survivor.
“She fled from communism and embraced this country,” the statement continued. “She taught her children about grit and toughness, compassion and determination. She will be dearly missed by her mother, her three children and ten grandchildren.”
An arrest warrant has been issued for Tina Peters, the Colorado county clerk and 2020 election denier who recently lost her bid for a position overseeing voting in the state, the Associated Press reports.
Peters ran to be the Republican nominee for the position of Colorado secretary of state despite being indicted along with her deputy on charges related to tampering with election equipment. According to the AP, a judge issued the arrest warrant for Peters on Thursday after finding out she had left the state against his orders:
A judge revoked bond for Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters after District Attorney Dan Rubinstein said in the documents that he had learned she traveled to Nevada for a conference.
Rubinstein said he made the discovery after Peters sent a letter notarized in Las Vegas on Tuesday to Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, according to court documents. The letter was released by the secretary of state’s office and requested a recount in her failed primary election bid for the GOP nomination in the state secretary of state’s race.
Earlier this week, Peters’s election manager turned herself in on charges similar to those facing the clerk, who is accused of allowing an unauthorized person to impersonate a county employee and access and copy information from the county’s voting equipment.
Updated
Democrats’ prospects in the upcoming midterm elections are shaky, thanks in part to high inflation and President Biden’s low approval ratings. But Politico reports that when it comes to the senate, the party’s candidates have a clear edge in one area: fundraising.
Colorado Senator Michael Bennet has 10 times the funds of his Republican opponent Joe O’Dea, while Georgia’s Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock raised more than double that of his Republican challenger in his most recent quarter. Democratic senators facing tough races in New Hampshire, Arizona and Nevada have also brought in big bucks.
From the story:
The race illustrates Democrats’ circumstances throughout the country: While Bennet is slugging it out with O’Dea in a state that President Joe Biden won by 13 points, the party still sees a bright spot in candidates’ fundraising as they hope to significantly outperform Biden’s sagging approval ratings in November.
Candidates are posting “blockbuster fundraising numbers,” as Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson David Bergstein put it — though, in some cases, they are spending cash just as fast as they take it in. Nonetheless, Democrats see it as a sign of momentum after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last month and an uptick in their chances of keeping the Senate.
“It says enthusiasm, I think it says that people understand it’s the United States Senate that confirms judges, particularly in light of what’s happened,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the No. 4 party leader.
Texas is suing the Biden administration over its determination that federal law requires hospitals to offer abortions in cases of medical emergencies.
After the supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, health and human services secretary Xavier Becerra wrote a letter to healthcare providers saying the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act protects providers from any purported state restrictions, should they be required to perform emergency abortions.
Texas is suing over that determination, saying in a statement the Biden administration “seeks to transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic.”
“This administration has a hard time following the law, and now they are trying to have their appointed bureaucrats mandate that hospitals and emergency medicine physicians perform abortions,” Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said in filing the lawsuit Thursday. “I will ensure that President Biden will be forced to comply with the Supreme Court’s important decision concerning abortion and I will not allow him to undermine and distort existing laws to fit his administration’s unlawful agenda.”
Decrying 'abortion tourism', Republicans block freedom-of-movement bill in Senate
Republicans in the Senate have blocked a Democratic proposal to protect people’s ability to cross state lines to seek an abortion, with one senator saying the proposal would encourage “abortion tourism” and help “fly-in abortionists.”
The bill from Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto came in response to moves by Republican-led states to stop people from traveling to seek abortions, following the supreme court’s ruling last month overturning the right to access the procedure nationwide. Democrats attempted to get the senate to pass the measure unanimously on Thursday, but Republicans refused to do so.
Senate Republicans just blocked my bill to protect women who travel for reproductive care and those who help them. They want to allow state legislators to reach across state lines to punish and control women. It’s absolutely outrageous. I won't stop fighting for women's freedom.
— Senator Cortez Masto (@SenCortezMasto) July 14, 2022
Montana Republican Steve Daines was among those rejecting the measure, saying in a floor speech that it was “hastily put together” and “very very extreme.”
“This bill would give fly-in abortionists free rein to commit abortions on demand up to the moment of birth,” Daines said. “This bill also protects the greed, frankly, of woke corporations who see it’s cheaper to pay for an abortion, an abortion tourism, than maternity leave for their employees.”
Updated
Might Saudi Arabia normalize relations with Israel during Biden’s visit? Axios reports that Israel’s government has approved a deal that would resolve Saudi Arabia’s claim to two strategic islands in the Red Sea, which has been a sticking point in getting the countries to establish diplomatic ties.
While it’s unclear if the deal will result in an agreement for Riyadh to fully recognize Israel, which it has never done before, Biden could seize on it as a win that would be comparable to what Donald Trump pulled off during his term. The Republican leader presided over deals that got the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan to recognize the country.
The potential deal involves the Tiran and Sanafir islands in the Red Sea, and the obligations of the two countries, as well as Egypt, under the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace agreement. According to Axios, “The deal includes moving multilateral forces of observers currently on Tiran and Sanafir to new positions in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, as well as cameras to monitor activity on islands and the Strait of Tiran.” Saudi Arabia would pledge to allow ships to pass along the islands, while the United States would give Israel security commitments under that deal, the report said.
Updated
Joe Biden once pledged to turn Saudi Arabia into a pariah state but the day before his first visit to the country as president, The Guardian’s Bethan McKernan reports he’s downplaying his views on Saudi Arabia’s rights record, including its murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi:
Joe Biden has defended his imminent trip to Saudi Arabia, saying he will not avoid human rights issues on the final leg of his Middle East tour, despite refusing to commit to mentioning the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi when he meets the kingdom’s crown prince.
Speaking during a news conference with the interim Israeli prime minister, Yair Lapid, in Jerusalem on Thursday, the US leader said his stance on Khashoggi’s killing was “absolutely” clear.
US intelligence services concluded last year that Khashoggi’s killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was approved by the powerful heir to the throne, Mohammed bin Salman. On the campaign trail, the president vowed to turn the conservative Gulf kingdom into a “pariah state”, but the turmoil in global oil markets unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced a U-turn.
Updated
Biden, Lapid assert Iran must not get nuclear weapon - though US pressing diplomacy, Israel more bellicose
Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid stood side-by-side in Jerusalem moments ago and declared they would not allow Iran to become a nuclear power.
They parted ways, though, on how to get there, the Associated Press writes.
The US president, in a joint news conference after a one-on-one meeting with the Israeli leader, said he still wants to give diplomacy a chance.
Seconds earlier, Lapid had insisted that words alone won’t thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
While Biden suggested his patience with Iran was running low, he held out hope that Iran can be persuaded to rejoin a dormant deal intended to prevent it from building a nuclear weapon.
“I continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome,” Biden said on the second day of a four-day visit to Israel and Saudi
Arabia.
It’s his first trip to the Middle East as president. Biden’s emphasis on a diplomatic solution contrasted with Lapid, who said Iran must face a real threat of force before it will agree to give up on its nuclear ambitions.
Words will not stop them, Mr President. Diplomacy will not stop them. The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that if they continue to develop their nuclear program the free world will use force,” Lapid said.
Lapid suggested that he and Biden were in agreement, despite his tougher rhetoric toward Iran.
Resurrecting the Iran nuclear deal brokered by Barack Obama’s administration and abandoned by Donald Trump in 2018 was a key priority for Biden as he entered office.
But administration officials have become increasingly pessimistic about the chances of getting Tehran back into compliance.
Updated
The US Department of Justice is expected to file an antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet Inc’s Google in weeks over its dominance in the online advertising market, Bloomberg News reported today, citing people familiar with the matter, Reuters writes.
The Justice Department is likely to reject concessions offered by Alphabet, the report said.
DoJ did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment and Google declined to comment.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google has offered concessions to avoid a potential US antitrust lawsuit, including a proposal to spin off parts of its business that auctions and places ads on websites and apps into a separate company under Alphabet.
However, a Google spokesperson told Reuters on Friday that it was engaging with regulators to address their concerns, adding that it has no plans to sell or exit the ad-tech business.
The DoJ has been investigating Google’s ad-tech practices since 2019 and expedited the inquiry into the advertising market in recent months under the supervision of antitrust division’s official Doha Mekki, the report said.
The Justice Department sued Google in October 2020, accusing the company of illegally using its market muscle to hobble rivals, in the biggest challenge to the power and influence of “Big Tech” in decades.
A new US immigration enforcement directive issued today calls on federal officers to ask immigrants about their parental status during arrests, part of a broader effort by Joe Biden to prioritize family unity and replacing more restrictive policies under former US president Donald Trump, Reuters reports.
The directive, issued to all US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) employees, also calls for previously deported immigrants outside the United States to be allowed back into the country on a temporary basis for child custody hearings.
Democratic president Joe Biden has promised a more humane and orderly approach to immigration than his Republican predecessor, but has faced large numbers of migrant arrests at the US-Mexico border.
The new Ice directive replaces Trump-era guidance issued in 2017 that did not explicitly require officers to inquire about and record parental status or guardianship.
In another departure from the Trump-era policy, the new guidance applies to parents or guardians of incapacitated adults as well as children.
Ice acting director Tae Johnson said in an email to staff that the agency is “committed to safeguarding the integrity of our immigration system and preserving the parental and guardianship interests of noncitizen parents and legal guardians.”
Federal courts have blocked separate Biden memos that sought to focus immigration enforcement efforts on individuals convicted of certain serious crimes.
The day so far
Joe Biden is being feted in Israel even as challenges mount at home. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of them: dismal approval ratings, states’ moves to criminalize abortion, Donald Trump and his aspirations in 2024.
Let’s have a look at what happened today so far:
- Trump gave an interview to New York Magazine in which he more or less said he was running in 2024, but was undecided on when to announce the campaign. The Washington Post reports that he’s leaning towards announcing before the November midterm elections, which some Republicans don’t think is a good idea.
- In what is surely a healthy sign for American democracy, voters in a New York county are leaning towards choosing a spider monster thing to represent their local elections.
- The attorney general in Indiana said it would investigate the doctor that provided an abortion to a 10-year-old girl who was forced to travel from neighboring Ohio after being raped.
- A Republican senator tested positive for Covid-19.
A leaked audio recording from top Trump advisor Steve Bannon shows just how gung-ho the president was when it came to declaring victory on election night in 2020, Adam Gabbatt reports:
Days before the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump was already planning to declare victory on election night, even if there was no evidence he was winning, according to a leaked Steve Bannon conversation recorded before the vote.
In the audio, recorded three days before the election and published by Mother Jones on Wednesday, Bannon told a group of associates Trump already had a scheme in place for the 3 November vote.
“What Trump’s gonna do is just declare victory. Right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner,” Bannon, laughing, told the group, according to the audio.
New York Magazine snagged an interview with Donald Trump. The former president lives up to his reputation for loquaciousness in the piece, but the real question is what he’s thinking when it comes to 2024.
Here’s what he had to say about that:
“Look,” Trump said, “I feel very confident that, if I decide to run, I’ll win.”
I fixated on If I decide. Trump is less a politician than a live-action mythological creature, and so punditry and all of the standard forms of analyses tend to fail. What would factor into such a decision for such an unusual person? “Well, in my own mind, I’ve already made that decision, so nothing factors in anymore. In my own mind, I’ve already made that decision,” he said.
He wouldn’t disclose what he’d decided. Not at first. But then he couldn’t help himself. “I would say my big decision will be whether I go before or after,” he said. “You understand what that means?” His tone was conspiratorial. Was he referring to the midterm elections? He repeated after me: “Midterms.” Suddenly, he relaxed, as though my speaking the word had somehow set it free for discussion. “Do I go before or after? That will be my big decision,” he said.
He was thinking aloud now. “I just think that there are certain assets to before,” he said. “Let people know. I think a lot of people would not even run if I did that because, if you look at the polls, they don’t even register. Most of these people. And I think that you would actually have a backlash against them if they ran. People want me to run.”
Republican-led states are moving swiftly to ban abortion outright or retaliate against patients seeking the care and the doctors providing it to them. But the message of a new Morning Consult/Politico poll of voters gauging support for these policies might be: not so fast.
The survey found that of 13 state-level proposals, only two weren’t opposed by a majority of voters. Banning all abortions without exception is the most disliked, with 73 percent opposing it, while criminalizing abortion seekers and people who travel out of state for care both came in with 70-percent disapproval. Proposals to fine or criminalize abortion providers also polled poorly, as did the idea to allow people to sue anyone involved in abortions.
The least disliked proposals were banning abortions after around 23 or 24 weeks of pregnancy, which only 38 percent of respondents opposed. Banning the procedure 15 weeks into pregnancy was opposed by 47 percent of those surveyed.
Indiana’s attorney general said he will investigate the doctor who provided the 10-year-old Ohio girl with an abortion over whether she properly reported the child’s rape.
Speaking on Fox News last night, Republican Todd Rokita said: “We’re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we’re going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure if she failed to report. And in Indiana it’s a crime … to intentionally not report.”
Asked why it was so important that the child’s rape be reported, Rokita replied: “This is a child, and there’s a strong public interest in understanding if someone under the age of 16 or under the age of 18 or really any woman is having abortion in our state. And then if a child is being sexually abused, of course parents need to know. Authorities need to know. Public policy experts need to know.”
As Adam Gabbatt reports, the story of a 10-year-old girl who had to travel from Ohio to Indiana to get an abortion after being raped has illustrated the real consequences of the supreme court’s ruling last month overturning Roe v. Wade:
In a case that has become a flashpoint in the abortion debate after being highlighted by Joe Biden and baselessly disputed by some rightwing media and politicians, an Ohio man has been charged with raping a 10-year-old girl who later traveled to neighboring Indiana for an abortion.
Gerson Fuentes, 27, who was arrested on Tuesday, appeared in Franklin county, Ohio, municipal court for an arraignment on Wednesday. A police investigator testified at the hearing that Fuentes had confessed to raping the girl at least twice.
The arrest came after rightwing media – and the Republican Ohio attorney general – had poured scorn on reports of the child’s abortion, suggesting it was “not true” and “too good to confirm”.
Spiders or not, voting correlates with better health outcomes, so much so that a top doctors group is looking to encourage the practice, as Simar Bajaj reports:
Access to voting is now considered a health issue, according to the country’s largest physician group.
The American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates adopted a resolution calling voting a social determinant of health, a term used to describe non-medical factors that affect health and wellbeing. Co-sponsored by the National Medical Association, the resolution also recognizes that gerrymandering limits access to care and leads to worse health outcomes.
The AMA’s move follows the 2020 election, in which Republican campaigns questioned election results, and a redistricting cycle where hyperpartisan districts were proposed in several states.
Speaking of elections, Sam Levine has looked into why that thing above may be the perfect visual encapsulation of the emotions around casting your ballot in America today:
One morning a few months ago, Ashley Dittus, a Democratic election commissioner in Ulster county, New York, came into work and saw that someone had sent in the first submission in a countywide contest for an “I voted” sticker. She opened the email and was shocked. “It was a moment I’ll never forget,” Dittus told me on Wednesday.
The design was a skull-like head with bloodshot eyes and multicolored teeth sitting atop turquoise spider legs. To the creature’s right, the words “I voted” were scribbled in graffiti-like font. It was 4/20 so she wondered whether someone was playing a trick.
Trump considers announcing 2024 run before midterms – report
That former president Donald Trump is leaning towards another run for the White House is no secret. The question is: when will he announce it? The Washington Post is reporting that Trump, despite the advice of some of his advisors, is considering making it official before the November midterm elections, perhaps as soon as September.
According to the report, Republicans are divided over the effect an early Trump campaign announcement would have:
“If Trump is going to run, the sooner he gets in and talks about winning the next election, the better,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who recently golfed with Trump in New Jersey. “It will refocus his attention — less grievance, more about the future.”
Graham has embraced an argument once dismissed inside much of the party, contending that Democrats are going to use Trump’s unpopularity among some voter groups to try to drive turnout no matter what he does. If he gets in the race soon, they argue, he will be better positioned to drive turnout on the Republican side in the midterms.
“You might as well get the benefit if you’re going to take the lashes too,” said Tony Fabrizio, a Trump pollster working for multiple Senate candidates this cycle. “If you want to energize the base and get the base out, no one does it better than Trump.”
Others have argued that Trump’s direct insertion into the midterm campaign will only play into Democratic plans to make the election a referendum on the extremism of Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” or MAGA, movement. Republicans believe they are on track for a banner midterm year, a result of massive dissatisfaction with inflation, President Biden’s job performance and the direction of the country.
Updated
Republican Senator Ben Sasse has tested positive for Covid-19, his office announced.
“Yesterday, after returning from the Ukrainian border, Senator Sasse tested positive for Covid. He’s vaccinated and boosted, and is experiencing only mild symptoms. He’ll isolate for the recommended five days – during that time, he’ll be working remotely,” the Nebraska lawmaker’s communications director James Wegmann said in a statement.
Updated
The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports on why Biden probably won’t be receiving any awards from the American public, at least not right now:
Another searing inflation report yesterday underscored the deep challenges facing Democrats ahead of this year’s critical midterm elections, with widespread pessimism about the state of the US economy and Joe Biden’s stewardship of it.
Inflation soared 9.1% in June compared with the previous year, a new 40-year high. The rising cost of gas, fuel and rent squeezes American households and puts pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates further.
The sobering numbers, released as Biden arrived in Israel for a high-stakes trip to the Middle East, were driven largely by energy prices, an issue that will be top of the agenda when he makes a controversial visit to oil-rich Saudi Arabia this week.
First awarded in 2012, Israel’s Presidential Medal of Honor has only been given to a handful of the world’s most notable statesmen, including former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, Germany’s ex-chancellor Angela Merkel, author Elie Wiesel and former US president Barack Obama, whom Biden served as vice president.
So why give it to Biden? Here’s the reasoning, from the Israeli presidency:
Since the start of President Biden’s rich career in public service in the 1970s, he has established himself as a person who loves Israel and is a true friend of the whole Jewish People.
For half a century, the President has stood by the State of Israel, has given his unconditional support to its right to exist, and has fought with determination to expand U.S. assistance to Israel.
In this, the President gives expression in word and deed to the importance of the alliance between Israel and the United States, to his commitment to deepen the cooperation between them, to his support for Israel’s security, and to his commitment to firmly confront antisemitism.
Biden and Israel’s caretaker prime minister Yair Lapid signed a joint declaration earlier today that mostly reaffirms US policy on the country, including its right to defend itself.
One American president that didn’t get the award was Donald Trump, even though he made major changes in Washington’s policies towards Israel, the Palestinians and the country’s relationship with the wider Middle East. Perhaps he would have been given the honor, had he won a second term.
Enjoy it while it lasts: Middle East trip offers Biden a respite from troubles at home
Good morning, US politics readers. Today is the second day of President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel, where the country’s political leaders have hailed him as a true friend of the American ally and plan to award him the country’s highest civilian honor. It must be nice, because the opinion of Biden back home is not as lofty. A poll released yesterday found that only a minority of Americans want him to run for a second term, a sign that his lengthy slump in public opinion polls could have dire consequences for his presidency.
Here’s what we can expect from today:
- Israel is seven hours ahead of Washington so most of Biden’s events will wrap up by the afternoon in the United States, but in the balance of the day, he is set to meet former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attend a ceremony where he’ll receive Israel’s President’s Medal and watch the opening ceremony of the Maccabiah Games.
- Vice-President Kamala Harris is in Florida, where she will discuss reproductive rights with legislative leaders at 1:50 pm eastern time.
- The House judiciary committee holds a hearing titled “Whats Next: The Threat to Individual Freedoms in a Post-Roe World” beginning at 9am ET.
- The Senate homeland security committee is looking into “Protecting the Homeland from Unmanned Aircraft Systems” starting at 10.15am ET.
