Good morning.
The absence of Donald Trump played a central role in the second Republican primary debate of the 2024 election season, as seven White House hopefuls tried and mostly failed to shake up a race in which the former president remains the clear frontrunner.
Two of Trump’s rivals attempted to capitalize on his absence by criticizing him for skipping the debate, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in Simi Valley, California. DeSantis mocked Trump as “missing in action”, saying: “He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record.”
Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor, suggested Trump was skipping the debates out of fear of facing voters. Addressing Trump in a straight-to-camera diatribe, Christie said: “You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on this stage and defending your record. You’re ducking these things.”
Trump skipped the event – as he skipped last month’s debate, and reportedly plans to skip the next – and instead held a rally in Michigan, where autoworkers have gone on strike to demand pay increases. A day earlier, Joe Biden joined some of the striking workers on the picket line, providing an odd preview of the likely matchup in the 2024 general election.
What were the key takeaways from the debate? Amid the squabble of the seven candidates, all of whom trail Trump significantly, Americans were left to parse which direction the Republican party plans to take in 2024. Here are the main takeaways from the two-hour debate that aired on Fox Business.
Did the candidates tell the truth? The seven Republican presidential candidates offered an array of dubious data and claims to prop up their talking points. Here are six factchecks from the night.
Who won the Republican debate? Our panel responds.
Republicans pushing for government shutdown ‘stuck on stupid’, says party moderate
Republicans pushing for a federal government shutdown are “stuck on stupid”, a party moderate said shortly before one rightwinger reported that the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, would not hold a vote on a bipartisan Senate plan advanced as a way to keep the government open.
“The American people elected a House Republican majority to serve as a check and balance and be able to govern,” Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York, a heavily Democratic state, told CNN.
“Some of my colleagues have, frankly, been stuck on stupid and refused to do what we were elected to do, against the vast majority of the conference, who have been working to avoid a shutdown.”
If no agreement to continue funding the government is reached by midnight on Saturday, many federal functions will cease. Employees can expect to be furloughed and the public left without key services.
Do shutdowns pay off politically? Past shutdowns – most recently in 2013, 2018 and 2019 – have been stoked by Republican hardliners in Congress but have not paid off politically. The most recent closure was prompted by Donald Trump, then president, over immigration policy. The Congressional Budget Office put the cost of the 35-day shutdown at about $18bn and said $3bn was wiped off US GDP.
Federal judge declines to recuse herself from Trump election interference case
The federal judge presiding in Donald Trump’s criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results rejected his request that she recuse herself yesterday, ruling the former president had failed to show her previous comments about his role in the January 6 Capitol attack meant she could not be impartial.
The decision means the case remains with Tanya Chutkan, the US district judge to whom it was randomly after Trump was indicted last month on charges that he conspired to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power, though Trump can ask the DC circuit to overrule her with a writ of mandamus.
Trump has long complained that Chutkan is biased against him based on remarks she made about him during sentencing in other January 6 riot defendant cases. But he faced an uphill struggle in trying to get Chutkan to recuse because, to succeed, he needed to satisfy a particularly high evidentiary threshold.
“Justice … demands that judges not recuse without cause. In the wrong hands, a disqualification motion is a procedural weapon to harass opponents and delay proceedings,” Chutkan said in her ruling, a line with resonance after Trump’s indications that his overarching legal strategy is to delay his cases beyond the 2024 election.
What did the decision say? In a 20-page opinion, the judge said Trump did not meet the standard for her to take herself off the case, citing a supreme court ruling that said a judge’s statements made in a judicial setting do not constitute a basis for a motion to recuse unless they implied some deep-seated favoritism.
In other news …
A Nasa astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts returned to Earth yesterday after being stuck in space for just over a year. The American Frank Rubio set a record for the longest US spaceflight – a result of the extended stay. The trio landed in a remote area of Kazakhstan.
International regulators are incapable of properly monitoring safety at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, according to a critical dossier compiled by Greenpeace that is being sent to western governments today.
Astronomers have captured the first direct evidence of a black hole spinning, providing new insights into the universe’s most enigmatic objects. The observations focus on the supermassive black hole at the centre of the neighbouring Messier 87 galaxy, whose shadow was imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope.
A leading Vietnamese climate activist has been jailed for tax evasion, the latest environmentalist put behind bars by Vietnam’s communist government. A court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced Hoang Thi Minh Hong to three years in prison for dodging $275,000 in taxes.
Stat of the day: Two-thirds of Black Americans say they are depicted unfairly in news – study
A majority of Black Americans say their communities are unfairly depicted in news coverage, according to a survey. Nearly two-thirds of respondents observed that their community received more negative coverage than other racial and ethnic groups, the Pew Research Center found.
Roughly four in 10 surveyed not only said the media stereotyped Black people but also felt they saw racist and racially insensitive coverage sometimes or fairly often. The center’s findings reflect the shortfalls of a “racial reckoning” that swept through newsrooms across the US in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, when news outlets focused on hiring for roles centering on diversity and inclusion and reporters and editors focused on covering communities traditionally underrepresented in news coverage.
Don’t miss this: New York is breaking free of Airbnb’s clutches. This is how the rest of the world can follow suit
New York City’s crackdown on Airbnb, which was enforced earlier this month, has been described as a “de facto ban” by the company, writes Anna Minton. The tough restrictions, designed to bring back thousands of rental properties to the housing market for city residents, will be closely scrutinised by politicians worldwide. Many argue that Airbnb’s exponential growth – it is now valued at close to $100bn – is a key factor behind the soaring inflation in property prices and rents that is fuelling a global housing crisis. They will be hoping that interventions like New York’s will show them a way to take back cities across mainland Europe and the UK for people who actually live in them.
Climate check: Girl, 11, among six young people taking on 32 nations in historic climate case
An 11-year-old girl from Portugal sat inside the grand chamber of the European court of human rights yesterday to face 86 lawyers from 32 nations in the world’s largest climate legal action. Mariana Agostinho was alongside her brother and sister, and her cousins, two rows back from 17 human rights judges. A few feet away, teams of black-suited lawyers from across Europe stood to argue why the countries they represented should not do more to tackle global heating.
Judges, led by the court’s president, Síofra O’Leary, filed in to take their seats, watched by Agostinho. O’Leary told the packed courtroom: “The case is concerned with articles 2, 3, 18 and 14 [of the European convention on human rights] as regards the impact of climate change … which results in heatwaves and wildfires affecting the applicants’ lives and health.”
Last Thing: Meta to launch AI chatbots played by Snoop Dogg and Kendall Jenner
Meta is to launch artificial intelligence chatbots embodied by celebrities including Snoop Dogg, Kendall Jenner and Naomi Osaka. Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement at the company’s annual Connect conference, where he spoke about new AI products at Facebook’s parent company. The chatbots will feature unique interests and allow users to receive personalised advice, with the intention that they will be more interactive and fun to use. Meta will launch more than 28 of these AIs in beta, with some played by celebrities. Snoop Dogg will be Dungeon Master, who will assist users to play adventure games; Osaka will be the anime-obsessed Tamika; and Jenner will be Billie, a “big sis” referred to as a “ride-or-die companion”.
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