Closing summary
Republicans in the House were reeling after far-right insurgents yesterday orchestrated the removal of Kevin McCarthy as speaker. The majority leader Steve Scalise and the judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan have both announced they will run to replace him, while Donald Trump said he had nothing to do with McCarthy’s overthrow. At the White House, Joe Biden reiterated that House Democrats are willing to work with their GOP colleagues to prevent a still-looming government shutdown, while calling “to change the poisonous atmosphere in Washington”.
Here’s what else happened today:
The top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer warned the breakdown in the House threatens national security.
At least one GOP congressman wants the architect of McCarthy’s overthrow, Matt Gaetz, to be kicked out of the conference.
Will McCarthy’s downfall tip the scales of US politics ahead of next year’s elections? One analyst doesn’t think so, but warned it could nonetheless have unpredictable effects.
Republicans are so angry Democrats helped remove McCarthy that they are kicking veteran lawmakers Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer out of their Capitol offices.
Mitch McConnell says the next speaker of the House should change the rules so that what happened to McCarthy does not happen to them.
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In New York City, Donald Trump returned for a third day of trial.
Judge Arthur Engoron is determining how much in damages Trump and his family must pay after finding they fraudulently inflated their assets for years. Yesterday, the judge imposed a gag order on the notoriously loquacious former president after he attacked Engoron’s clerk on social media.
Here’s the Guardian’s Dominic Rushe with the latest on the trial:
Donald Trump returned to his New York civil fraud trial on Wednesday a day after running afoul of the judge by denigrating a key court staffer in a social media post.
The former US president and Republican frontrunner in the 2024 presidential race is voluntarily taking time out from the campaign trail to attend the trial. New York attorney general Letitia James’s lawsuit accuses Trump and his business of deceiving banks, insurers and others by providing financial statements that greatly exaggerated his wealth.
Judge Arthur Engoron already has ruled that Trump committed fraud by inflating the values of prized assets including his Trump Tower penthouse. The ruling could, if upheld on appeal, cost Trump control of his signature skyscraper and some other properties.
Trump denies any wrongdoing. With familiar rhetoric, on his way into court Wednesday, he called James “incompetent”, portrayed her as part of a broader Democratic effort to weaken his 2024 prospects and termed the trial “a disgrace”.
Trump has frequently vented in the courthouse hallway and on social media about the trial, James and Judge Engoron, also a Democrat.
But after he assailed Engoron’s principal law clerk on social media on Tuesday, the judge imposed a limited gag order, commanding all participants in the trial not to hurl personal attacks at court staffers. The judge told Trump to delete the “disparaging, untrue and personally identifying post”, and the former president took it down.
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