Closing summary
Could the frozen negotiations on passing aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies finally be unthawing? Yesterday, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, laid out some potential concessions he may demand of Democrats in exchange for putting the measure up for a vote when Congress returns to work next week. We don’t know what Joe Biden, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, or other top Democrats think of this proposal, though California senator Laphonza Butler signaled that Johnson’s call to restart the permitting of new natural gas export projects may prove controversial. Meanwhile, Biden and Johnson are feuding over the White House’s declaration of 31 March as Transgender Day of Visibility – which also happened to be Easter Sunday.
Here’s what else happened today:
The president will on Friday visit the site of the collapsed Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore, as efforts to reopen the city’s vital port continue.
Johnson downplayed rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attempt to remove him from office, but acknowledged it was a “distraction”.
Biden gave a brief interview where he sounded upbeat about his prospects of winning re-election.
Donald Trump’s campaign also attacked Biden for recognizing transgender people, while reportedly stretching the truth about the rules for the annual Easter Egg Roll.
John Avlon, a former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor, released impressive fundraising numbers as he runs for Congress in New York.
Updated
A victory by Donald Trump could also imperil efforts to fight the climate crisis worldwide, a former top UN official warns. The Guardian’s Fiona Harvey has the story:
Victory for Donald Trump in the US presidential election this year could put the world’s climate goals at risk, a former UN climate chief has said.
The chances of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels are already slim, and Trump’s antipathy to climate action would have a major impact on the US, which is the world’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and biggest oil and gas exporter, said Patricia Espinosa, who served as the UN’s top official on the climate from 2016 to 2022.
“I worry [about the potential election of Trump] because it would have very strong consequences, if we see a regression regarding climate policies in the US,” Espinosa said.
Although Trump’s policy plans are not clear, conversations with his circle have created a worrying picture that could include the cancellation of Joe Biden’s groundbreaking climate legislation, withdrawal from the Paris agreement and a push for more drilling for oil and gas.
Biden campaign accuses Trump of making plans for 'formalizing white supremacy'
The co-chair of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign Cedric Richmond said that “formalizing white supremacy” will be a priority of Donald Trump, if he is returned to the White House.
His statement came after Axios reported that Trump’s allies are planning to fight “anti-white racism”, and dismantle efforts to promote diversity and combat discrimination against people of color and other minorities.
Richmond pointed to Trump’s promotion of the baseless conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and his equivocation over condemning the violent 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia:
Trump couldn’t care less about Black and brown communities – he never has. Now he’s making it clear that if he wins in November, he’ll turn his racist record into official government policy, gutting programs that give communities of color economic opportunities and making the lives of Black and brown folks harder. Already, his Project 2025 allies have blocked billions of dollars in support for women and minority-owned businesses, and if he wins a second term they’ll take their divisive agenda even further. It’s up to us to stop him.
Updated
Speaking of the November elections, Donald Trump’s allies are putting together plans to fight racism against white people, should be elected again. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:
The former Trump White House adviser, anti-immigration extremist and white nationalist Stephen Miller is helping drive a plan to tackle supposed “anti-white racism” if Donald Trump returns to power next year, Axios reported.
“Longtime aides and allies … have been laying legal groundwork with a flurry of lawsuits and legal complaints – some of which have been successful,” Axios said on Monday.
Should Trump return to power, Axios said, Miller and other aides plan to “dramatically change the government’s interpretation of civil rights-era laws to focus on ‘anti-white racism’ rather than discrimination against people of colour”.
Such an effort would involve “eliminating or upending” programmes meant to counter racism against non-white groups.
The US supreme court, dominated 6-3 by rightwing justices after Trump installed three, recently boosted such efforts by ruling against race-based affirmative action in college admissions.
America First Legal, a group founded by Miller and described by him as the right’s “long-awaited answer” to the American Civil Liberties Union, is helping drive plans for a second Trump term, Axios said.
In John Avlon’s Vanity Fair interview, the former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor turned Democratic candidate for a US House seat in New York says his party has a problem when it comes to “obsessing about culture-war issues”.
“I think Democrats often get spun around the axle when they start obsessing about culture-war issues,” Avlon says, offering as an example, “Defund the police, one of the worst, most self-defeating political slogans imaginable.
“But in reality, in the last Congress – I counted this up – there were seven members of the Democratic House who supported the policy known as ‘Defund the police’. There were 139 members of the Republican House [and eight senators] who voted to overturn the election after the attack on the Capitol. That’s asymmetric, that’s not the same moral universe.
“As I wrote in my book Wing Nuts over a decade ago, the far right and the far left can be equally insane, but there’s no question who’s far more powerful and more dangerous in our time.
“I mean, the Democratic party nominates and elevates centrists, right? The party is evenly divided between liberals and moderates. The Republican party is nominating Donald Trump for a third time after he tried to destroy our democracy on the back of a lie, with totally fact-free rants that are contrary to everything that party allegedly once believed. So there’s just no equivalence at all. The problem is, it distracts from a lot of the issues that we really need to deal with that are right in the Democrats’ sweet spot.”
Vanity Fair’s interviewer, Joe Pompeo, asked Avlon “for his centrist view on Israel and Gaza”.
Avlon said: “As someone who was formed by 9/11, fundamentally, in the wake of the absolute horror of the October 7 attacks, our impulse should be to stand with the victims of terrorism and not blame the victims of terrorism … It’s absolutely legitimate to not only defend yourself, but to ensure that Hamas leadership is taken out. You’re dealing with terrorism, but you’ve got to maximise humanitarian aid and minimise civilian casualties, because that ends up playing into the terrorist narrative. I think the Biden administration is walking a difficult line well.”
Here, again, is the Guardian’s John Avlon interview, from the launch of his campaign in February:
John Avlon, the former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor running for the Democratic nomination in New York’s first US House district, is heralding an impressive fundraising effort in his first month-and-a-bit in the race.
“I’m honored and humbled to have received so much support in so short a time,” Avlon said in a statement accompanying news of more than $1.1m raised so far.
“To raise over a million dollars in the first 40 days of the campaign is a measure of the excitement we’ve unleashed. Democrats understand that we can’t afford to lose this fight … Together, we’ll fight the good fight by defending our democracy, defeating Donald Trump and winning back the House from his Maga minions, who aren’t trying to solve problems in the national interest anymore.”
Avlon, 51, has also spoken to Vanity Fair, describing the “moral urgency” he feels running for office with Trump at the head of the Republican ticket, as a determined centrist, calling for an end to partisan extremities.
“This is a swing district,” he told Vanity Fair, “but when you look at the battleground maps in New York, it wasn’t being treated as one. We just got the new district registration numbers, and in New York one, we have the highest number of independent voters in the state. That’s prime for swing.”
That could be vital in a close House election.
Here’s our own interview with Avlon, from February, when he announced his run:
When Joe Biden visits Baltimore on Friday, he is expected to meet with Maryland governor Wes Moore and Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott as he tours the area where the Key Bridge collapsed last week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said a little earlier in the media briefing in the west wing.
She noted that the administration has already worked with local leaders to secure barges and a crane for the scene, along with an early influx of money, Reuters reports.
Meanwhile Jean-Pierre condemned racist attacks on Moore and Scott from the right-wing in the wake of the bridge catastrophe. Both men are Black. Such attacks are “wrong”, she said.
Updated
An Israeli air strike has hit Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria.
Israeli warplanes destroyed the consulate, killing several people including a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Among those killed was Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iranian state media reported. Iranian state television said several Iranian diplomats had been killed.
The Guardian is live blogging this in a separate blog and you can follow all that news as it happens, here.
Updated
The White House spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, said moments ago that if reports are true that Israel is trying to shut down the Qatari news network Al Jazeera in Israel, it would be “concerning”, Reuters reports.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, revived moves on Monday to shut down Qatari satellite television station Al Jazeera in Israel, saying through his party spokesperson that parliament would be convened in the evening to ratify the necessary law.
Israel has previously accused the station of agitating against it among Arab viewers.
Netanyahu indicated that the Israeli parliament would be convened this evening to ratify the necessary law. Neither the station’s main office in Israel nor the Qatari government in Doha immediately responded to a request for comment.
Al Jazeera has previously accused Israel of systematically targeting its offices and personnel. Israeli officials have long complained about Al Jazeera‘s coverage but stopped short of taking action, mindful of Qatar’s bankrolling of Palestinian construction projects in the Gaza Strip – seen by all sides as a means of staving off conflict.
Since the Gaza war that erupted on 7 October with a cross-border killing and kidnapping rampage by the enclave’s dominant Hamas Islamists, Doha has mediated ceasefire negotiations under which Israel recovered some of those taken hostage. However, talks on a second proposed truce appear to be going nowhere.
An Israeli government spokesperson, Avi Hyman, was asked if the threat against Al Jazeera might be part of pressure by Netanyahu publicly called for the Qataris to be pressed into applying more pressure on Hamas. Qatar hosts the group’s political office and several top Hamas officials.
Hyman, did not answer directly, though he did describe the station as “spouting propaganda for many, many years”.
Updated
Biden plans to visit Baltimore on Friday, following bridge collapse
Joe Biden plans to visit Baltimore on Friday in the wake of the catastrophic collapse last week of the landmark Francis Scott Key Bridge after a massive container ship collided with one of the main supports of the bridge.
The White House secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, is briefing now at the White House and gave the new detail, that the US president will be heading to the Maryland city, with its huge port, where the shipping channel has been blocked since the incident, which also killed six people who were working on road repair when it happened.
The wreckage of the huge bridge, which served as a road artery, fell into the Patapsco River in the early hours of last Tuesday morning, and the steel debris and the stricken container ship are still jamming the main entry and exit for the port.
Jean-Pierre had few details of the visit so far and said she couldn’t add any information about whether Biden will be reviewing the site of the bridge collapse by air, land or sea, or whether he will meet the relatives of victims.
The huge salvage operation on the bridge is under way.
Updated
The day so far
Could the frozen negotiations on passing aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies finally be unthawing? Yesterday, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, laid out some potential concessions he may demand of Democrats in order to bring the measure up for a vote when Congress returns to work next week. We don’t know what Joe Biden, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, or other top Democrats think of this proposal, though California senator Laphonza Butler signaled that Johnson’s call to restart permitting new natural gas export projects may prove to be the most controversial aspect. Meanwhile, Biden and Johnson are feuding over the White House’s declaration of 31 March as Transgender Day of Visibility – which also happened to be Easter Sunday.
Here’s what else is going on today:
Johnson downplayed rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attempt to remove him from office, but acknowledged it was a “distraction”.
Biden gave a brief interview where he sounded upbeat about his prospects of winning re-election.
Donald Trump’s campaign also attacked Biden for recognizing transgender people, while reportedly stretching the truth about the rules for the annual Easter Egg Roll.
Updated
Here’s more on the kerfuffle over Easter and Transgender Day of Visibility that has managed to suck in Donald Trump, Mike Johnson and Joe Biden:
A Joe Biden White House spokesperson said Republicans who have spent the Easter weekend criticizing the president for declaring Sunday’s annual Transgender Day of Visibility “are seeking to divide and weaken our country with cruel, hateful and dishonest rhetoric”.
“As a Christian who celebrates Easter with family, President Biden stands for bringing people together and upholding the dignity and freedoms of every American,” the White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said. “President Biden will never abuse his faith for political purposes or for profit.”
Bates’ statement came as the president faced criticism from the campaign of his Republican presidential challenger Donald Trump – along with religious conservatives who support him – for going through with issuing the annual proclamation recognizing 31 March as Transgender Day of Visibility even though that coincided with Easter Sunday.
The Democrat issued the proclamation Friday, calling on “all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity”.
But Republicans objected to the fact that the Transgender Day of Visibility’s designated 31 March date in 2024 overlapped with Easter, among the holiest celebrations for Christians. Trump’s campaign accused Biden, a Roman Catholic, of being insensitive to religion. And the former president’s Republican allies piled on.
Biden calls Mike Johnson 'uninformed' for attacking Transgender Day of Visibility
Joe Biden this morning hit out at Republican House speaker Mike Johnson after he objected to recognizing 31 March as Transgender Day of Visibility.
Presidents often designate certain days or months in recognition of groups or causes, but 31 March also happened to be Easter Sunday, prompting the House speaker, a prominent conservative Christian with a history of opposing LGBTQ+ rights, to accuse Biden of “banning sacred truth and tradition”:
The Biden White House has betrayed the central tenet of Easter — which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) March 30, 2024
Banning sacred truth and tradition—while at the same time proclaiming Easter Sunday as “Transgender Day”—is outrageous and abhorrent. The American people are taking note. pic.twitter.com/ZCExyVkAVS
Asked about Johnson’s comment at today’s White House Easter Egg Roll, Biden responded: “He’s thoroughly uninformed.”
The president did not elaborate.
Updated
Is it possible for something like the Easter Egg Roll, a White House tradition dating back to 1878, to become political?
The answer is apparently yes, as Politico recounted over the weekend. The brouhaha began when Joe Biden put out a statement marking 31 March as “Transgender Day of Visibility”. He’s done this before, but that day also happened to be Easter Sunday, which sparked objections from conservative Christians and their Republican allies.
Not wanting to miss an opportunity to court their supporters, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign got in on the outrage:
We call on Joe Biden’s failing campaign @BidenHQ and White House to issue an apology to the millions of Catholics and Christians across America who believe tomorrow is for one celebration only — the resurrection of Jesus Christ. pic.twitter.com/xA3krhhlaM
— Karoline Leavitt (@kleavittnh) March 30, 2024
The interesting part here is press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s claim that the White House “prohibited children from submitting religious egg designs for their Easter Art Event.” Could it be true?
Not really, Politico reports. The Egg Roll has been organized for decades in collaboration with trade group the American Egg Board, which has not allowed religious designs at the event, under any administration – Trump and Biden’s included.
Joe Biden gave a brief interview to the Today Show before this morning’s Easter Egg Roll, where he and Jill Biden sounded upbeat about their prospects of spending another four years in the White House.
You can hear their comments around the 2:55 mark:
The Easter Egg Roll is about to begin at the White House, and @AlRoker speaks with @POTUS and @FLOTUS about the day’s festivities. pic.twitter.com/TgXvvyTm11
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) April 1, 2024
Down the street at the White House, the annual Easter Egg Roll is happening, despite Washington DC’s somewhat stormy weather.
This year, 40,000 people are expected to attend, according to the White House:
Joe Biden was in attendance, per photos on the wire:
Mike Johnson has signaled that House Republicans plan to take aim at a Biden administration policy announced in January that is intended to address the climate crisis by curbing new exports of natural gas. Here’s more on the policy, which is also the target of a lawsuit by Republican-governed states, from the Guardian’s Oliver Milman:
Joe Biden’s administration has hit the brakes on the US’s surging exports of gas, effectively pausing a string of planned projects that have been decried by environmentalists as carbon “mega bombs” that risk pushing the world further towards climate breakdown.
On Friday, the White House announced that it was pausing all pending export permits for liquified natural gas (LNG) until the Department of Energy could come up with an updated criteria for approvals that consider the impact of climate change.
The pause, which will likely last beyond November’s presidential election, could imperil the future of more than a dozen gas export terminals that have been planned for the Gulf of Mexico coast. According to one analysis, if all proposed LNG projects go ahead and ship gas overseas, it will result in 3.2bn tons of greenhouse gases – equivalent to the entire emissions of the European Union.
California’s Democratic senator Laphonza Butler stuck around Washington DC to briefly gavel the Senate in and out of a pro forma session, a formality required even when lawmakers are not in town.
The upshot of that is she ran into the Capitol press corps, and weighed in on Republican House speaker Mike Johnson’s proposed demands to approve Ukraine aid. Here are her thoughts on that, from Politico:
Democratic Sen. Butler tells reporters she prefers Senate Ukraine bill but is open to negotiating with House: "Whatever form it takes to get the aid to Ukraine, that's the form that we've got to go with"
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) April 1, 2024
Still, she warned negotiating on LNG exports could lead to "another delay"
A major story to follow today is a virtual meeting where US officials are expected to propose to their Israeli counterparts alternatives to attacking the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
An estimated 1.5m Palestinian civilians are sheltering in the city after being forced to flee their homes elsewhere in the enclave, and the Biden administration has publicly criticized Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to invade Rafah, where he says Hamas battalions are positioned.
We have a live blog following the latest on the conflict, and you can read it here:
Mike Johnson’s Fox News interview was significant not just for what he revealed of his demands in order to support aid to Israel and Ukraine, but for comments indicating moving the package will be the first order of business once House lawmakers return to Washington DC. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe:
The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, has raised expectations that a vote on funding for Ukraine could be imminent in the chamber, even at the risk of the Republican losing his leadership position.
Johnson touted “important innovations” to a possible Ukraine package during an interview on Fox News’ Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy, and he suggested a vote on a standalone bill could come soon after Congress returns from Easter recess on 9 April.
But the Louisiana Republican acknowledged forces in his party were trying to unseat him over his efforts to find a bipartisan solution to stalled US funding for Ukraine’s efforts to repel Russia’s military invasion, which began in February 2022. The far-right extremist Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to remove Johnson in March, but she stopped short of calling it for a floor vote.
The White House, meanwhile, has warned that delays are costing Ukraine lives and territory because Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, “gains every day” Congress does not pass a funding measure.
“What we have to do in an era of divided government, historically, as we are, you got to build consensus. If we want to move a partisan measure, I got to have every single member, literally. And some things need to be bipartisan,” Johnson said, acknowledging the shrinking Republican majority in the House.
Johnson calls rightwing attempt to remove him as speaker 'a distraction from our mission'
Just before Congress left town last month, rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene formally proposed removing Mike Johnson as speaker over frustrations that he didn’t secure more conservative policy wins in a bill to keep the government open.
It’s a sore subject for House Republicans, who last year saw Kevin McCarthy booted from the leadership post by a small groups of disaffected Republicans assisted by all Democrats. We don’t know yet if Greene’s motion has enough support to pass, but in his interview with Fox News, Johnson described it as a “distraction”:
I think all of my other Republican colleagues recognize this as a distraction from our mission. Again, the mission is to save the republic. And the only way we can do that is if we grow the House majority, win the Senate and win the White House. So, we don’t need any dissension right now. Look, Marjorie Taylor Greene filed the motion. It’s not a privileged motion, so it doesn’t move automatically. It’s just hanging there. And she’s frustrated.
Johnson noted that “she and I exchanged text messages”, and the pair plan to talk early next week.
Johnson floats potential demands to move long-stalled Ukraine aid package
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Congress may be out of Washington DC, with lawmakers back in their districts and home states until next week, but there are signs of movement in the long-stalled military aid package for Israel, Ukraine and other national security priorities. Yesterday, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson gave an interview to Fox News where he signaled three demands he may make in order to move the package through the chamber. These were including in the legislation provisions to seize Russian assets and give them to Ukraine, make the aid a loan that Kyiv will pay back at a future date, and roll back Joe Biden’s decision earlier this year to pause new natural gas export projects.
The big questions now are: will Democrats, who control the Senate and have already passed a version of the military aid bill, accept Johnson’s asks? What about his fellow Republicans in the House, where there are rumblings of booting Johnson from the job? And what of Donald Trump, who clearly has his eye on the matter – after all, he played a big part in killing an earlier compromise that would have paired the assistance with hardline immigration policies. We’ll see if any answers reveal themselves today.
Here’s what else is going on:
The Biden administration and conservatives squabbled over the weekend after the president declared 31 March “Transgender Day of Visibility”, which happened to correspond with Easter Sunday.
US and Israeli officials will meet virtually to discuss potential alternatives to an offensive against the southern Gaza city of Rafah, Reuters reports.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters at 12pm ET.
