Closing summary
A spending battle brews once again on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are nervously eyeing 17 November, the day when the federal government’s funding expires. Republican House speaker Mike Johnson will reportedly propose over the weekend a bill to keep the government open, with the money running out at differing dates. There are reasons to think both Democrats and at least some Republicans will oppose this idea, and by this time next week, the government may likely be on the brink of another shutdown. Expect this to be a big developing story over the coming days.
Here’s what else happened today:
The FBI seized electronic devices belonging to New York City’s Democratic mayor Eric Adams as part of their investigation into his campaign finances, the New York Times reports.
Donald Trump mulled in an interview using the FBI and justice department to retaliate against his enemies, if he is elected next year.
Federal judge Aileen Cannon declined a request from Trump to delay his trial over the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, but his lawyers signaled that they are hopeful she will eventually push its start date back.
Moderate Republicans reportedly don’t think impeaching Joe Biden is worth it, because the president is already unpopular.
Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke issued strong criticisms of Biden’s handling of the southern border and immigration policy.
FBI seized New York mayor Eric Adams's electronic devices in campaign finance investigation - report
The New York Times reports that FBI agents seized two phones and an iPad belonging to New York mayor Eric Adams as part of their investigation into the Democrat’s campaign’s finances.
Here’s more from the Times:
F.B.I. agents seized Mayor Eric Adams’s electronic devices early this week in what appeared to be a dramatic escalation of a federal corruption investigation into whether his 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government and others to funnel money into its coffers, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
The agents approached the mayor on the street and asked his security detail to step away, one of the people said. They climbed into his S.U.V. with him and, pursuant to a court-authorized warrant, took his devices, the person said. The devices — at least two cellphones and an iPad — were returned to the mayor within a matter of days, the people said. Law enforcement investigators with a search warrant can make copies of the data on devices after they seize them.
It was not immediately clear whether the agents referred to the fund-raising investigation when they took the mayor’s devices.
The surprise seizure of Mr. Adams’s devices was an extraordinary development and appeared to be the first direct instance of the campaign contribution investigation touching the mayor. Mr. Adams, a retired police captain, said on Wednesday that he is so strident in urging his staff to “follow the law” that he can be almost “annoying.” He laughed at the notion that he had any potential criminal exposure.
In an interview with Spanish-language network Univision yesterday, Donald Trump signaled he would be willing to use the FBI and justice department to go after his political rivals in a second presidential term, without getting into specifics.
But behind the scenes, the former president has named the names of those he would like to go after, the Washington Post reported earlier this week:
In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said.
In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The former president has frequently made corruption accusations against them that are not supported by available evidence.
To facilitate Trump’s ability to direct Justice Department actions, his associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations. Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional.
“It would resemble a banana republic if people came into office and started going after their opponents willy-nilly,” said Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional law professor at the University of Virginia who studies executive power. “It’s hardly something we should aspire to.”
Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington. Dubbed “Project 2025,” the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act, according to a person involved in those conversations and internal communications reviewed by The Washington Post. The law, last updated in 1871, authorizes the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.
The proposal was identified in internal discussions as an immediate priority, the communications showed. In the final year of his presidency, some of Trump’s supporters urged him to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down unrest after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, but he never did it. Trump has publicly expressed regret about not deploying more federal force and said he would not hesitate to do so in the future.
Here’s more from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell about what federal judge Aileen Cannon’s decision today in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case tells us about when it may ultimately go to trial:
The federal judge overseeing the criminal case charging Donald Trump with retaining classified documents pushed back on Friday several major deadlines for the former president to file pre-trial motions, a move that could have the consequential effect of delaying the start of the trial in Florida.
The judge put off until March making the fraught decision about whether to actually delay the trial – currently scheduled for next May – but the new timetable she laid out in a nine-page written order gave little scope for the pre-trial process to finish in time.
The order from US district judge Aileen Cannon was positive for Trump, who has made no secret that his overarching legal strategy is to delay beyond the 2024 election in the hopes that winning re-election would allow him to pardon himself or direct the justice department to drop the charges.
Trump was indicted this summer with violating the espionage act when he illegally retained classified documents after he left office and conspiring to obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago club, including defying a grand jury subpoena.
But the fact that Trump was charged with retaining national defense information means his case will be tried under the complex rules laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa, which governs how those documents can be used in court.
Trump legal team expresses hope classified documents trial will not start in May
The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that Donald Trump’s legal team is expressing confidence his trial on charges related to keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort will not start in May, when it is currently scheduled.
Earlier today, federal judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by the former president, turned down a request to delay the trial’s start date, but also moved back some deadlines related to the classified evidence that will be used in the trial, increasing the likelihood the trial will eventually be postponed.
Here’s what Turmp’s lawyers had to say about that:
New: Trump statement on Judge Cannon pushing back key deadlines suggests the legal team thinks classified docs trial won’t start in May pic.twitter.com/CXrInXXfeh
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) November 10, 2023
Florida’s Republican state representative Michelle Salzman is facing increasing censure calls and outrage after she said “All of them” in response to her Democratic colleague saying, “How many [dead Palestinians] will be enough?”
The Guardian’s Erum Salam reports:
The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair-Florida), the US’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said in a statement that Salzman’s remarks were a “chilling call for genocide” and a “direct result of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people by advocates of Israeli apartheid and their eager enablers in government and the media”.
The news comes on the heels of the censure of the Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the US Congress, after Tlaib echoed a popular rallying cry for Palestine that some have called antisemitic but others say is a call for Palestinian civil rights.
The censure resolution, which was supported by 22 Democrats, punishes Tlaib for allegedly “calling for the destruction of the state of Israel” and “promoting false narratives” about the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel.
In Florida, calls for Salzman to be censured are being made by those opposed to her comments.
“Salzman’s words are incredibly dangerous and dehumanizing to Palestinians here at home and under the Israeli occupation,” the Cair-Florida executive director, Imam Abdullah Jaber, said. “She must face her party’s censure and a public repudiation from all Florida legislators.”
For further details, click here:
Former president George W Bush said to “stay positive” in response to a question on what advice he would give to the world on Veterans Day.
“Stay positive because if you study world history or US history, we go through cycles of being down and yet Americans ought to realize how blessed we are to live in this country… The images are grim and, yes, there’s violence, but ultimately love overcomes hate,” he told Fox News.
Former president George W. Bush, when asked for his advice to the world on Veterans Day:
— The Recount (@therecount) November 10, 2023
“Stay positive because if you study world history or U.S. history, we go through cycles of being down … The images are grim and, yes, there's violence, but ultimately love overcomes hate.” pic.twitter.com/ctixMKzR6B
Following reports of letters containing fentanyl being mailed to multiple state election offices, Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensberger said that he has been informed that there is another suspicious letter in transit.
Speaking to CNN, Raffensberger said:
“We have been informed by the postal officials that there is a letter in transit so that’s a three to five day transit through their system. Obviously they will try to intercept that when it comes through the Atlanta processing facility but it hasn’t arrived to Georgia yet so we don’t know if it will be intercepted. And that’s why we’ve prepared staff at the Fulton county election office if it does actually make it through the system and it arrives.”
He added that officials are going to make sure that there is Narcan, the overdose reversal drug, available in all election offices that do receive incoming mail and that staff will be trained on how to administer Narcan.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) says he’s been informed that there is another suspicious letter currently “in transit” to an elections office in the state that postal officials are working to intercept. pic.twitter.com/ub344Er1mZ
— The Recount (@therecount) November 10, 2023
Authorities across the country are currently investigation letters sent to several states’ election offices that contained fentanyl.
The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:
Law enforcement officials in the US are searching for the people responsible for sending letters with suspicious substances sent to election offices in at least five states, acts some election officials described as “terrorism”.
Election offices in Georgia, Nevada, California, Oregon and Washington state all were sent the letters, four of which contained the deadly drug fentanyl, the Associated Press reported. Some of the letters were intercepted before they arrived. The FBI and United States Postal Service are investigating.
In Washington, election offices in four counties – Skagit, Spokane, Pierce and King, which includes Seattle – were evacuated as workers counted ballots from Tuesday’s election. Two of the letters tested positive for fentanyl. Steve Hobbs, Washington’s Democratic secretary of state, said the letters were “acts of terrorism to threaten our elections.”
For further details, click here:
Anti-abortion members of the Ohio General Assembly have responded to the state’s passage of Issue 1 during Tuesday’s election.
Condemning the language of the proposal which enshrines abortion rights into the state’s constitution, several dozen anti-abortion state representatives said:
“Unlike the language of this proposal, we want to be very clear. The vague, intentionally deceptive language of Issue 1 does not clarify the issues of life, parental consent, informed consent, or viability including Partial Birth Abortion, but rather introduces more confusion.
This initiative failed to mention a single, specific law. We will do everything in our power to prevent our laws from being removed based upon perception of intent. We were elected to protect the most vulnerable in our state, and we will continue that work.
The day so far
A spending battle brews once again on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are nervously eyeing 17 November, the day when the federal government’s funding expires. Republican House speaker Mike Johnson will reportedly propose over the weekend a bill to keep the government open, with the money running out at differing dates. There are reasons to think both Democrats and at least some Republicans will oppose this idea, and by this time next week, the government may likely be on the brink of another shutdown. Expect this to be a big developing story in the coming days.
Here’s what else is going on today:
Donald Trump mulled in an interview using the FBI and justice department to retaliate against his enemies, if elected next year.
Moderate Republicans reportedly don’t think impeaching Joe Biden is worth it, because the president is already unpopular.
Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke issued strong criticisms of Biden’s handling of the southern border and immigration policy.
Johnson expected to release government funding proposal over weekend, House could vote Tuesday - report
Republican House speaker Mike Johnson is expected to release his short-term government funding proposal over the weekend, setting the chamber up for a vote next week, NBC News reports:
Speaker Johnson plans to release his government funding bill by tomorrow, a senior GOP aide tells me. Puts the House on track for a Tuesday vote. You probably don't work all day on a federal holiday toward a Saturday release of a simple CR, so "laddered" approach seems likely
— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) November 10, 2023
The bill’s prospects remain highly uncertain. House Democrats have rejected the “laddered” approach Johnson is reportedly mulling, which would see government funding expire at different times, and the proposal is unlikely to get far in the Senate, where they hold a majority. Meanwhile, conservative Republicans in the House want to use any funding measure as an opportunity to force the government to cut spending, but that may alienate more moderate Republicans and cost the bill support it needs to pass.
Nonetheless, expect this to be a big developing story over the weekend and next week, as the 17 November deadline to fund the government draws nearer.
Meanwhile in South Carolina, Kamala Harris officially filed the Biden campaign’s paperwork to appear on its primary ballot:
Vice President Kamala Harris files paperwork for Biden to appear on the presidential primary ballot in South Carolina.
— The Recount (@therecount) November 10, 2023
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) joined Harris after successfully pushing an overhaul to have the state lead the Democratic primary contest. pic.twitter.com/Vx9BDKqiMQ
Joe Biden’s victory in the state’s primary three years ago revived a presidential campaign that appeared to be flagging. After winning the White House, he successfully pushed to make it the first state to vote in the Democrats’ nominating calendar, arguing the process should better reflect the country’s diversity, though not all Democrats were happy about the decision.
Last month, the Biden administration approved building new barriers along the US border with Mexico, and resumed deportation flights to Venezuela – in the eyes of immigration advocates, exactly the types of policies Donald Trump would enact. Here’s more on that particular point of political tension, from the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino:
As a candidate in the 2020 election, Joe Biden assailed Donald Trump over what he cast as his rival’s ineffective and un-American approach to immigration – one that undermined the nation’s long history of welcoming those seeking refuge in the United States.
Now as president, facing a migrant crisis that is straining resources at the border and feeding into major US cities, Biden has taken a series of steps that critics on his left say are hardly distinguishable from his predecessor.
This week, the Biden administration announced that it will waive a series of federal laws to expedite construction of new barriers along the southern border with Mexico and, separately, resume deportation flights to Venezuela. The actions represent a striking reversal for a president who stopped construction of the border wall on the first day of his administration, after promising on the campaign trail that there would “not be another foot” built on his watch.
Biden insisted on Thursday that the move did not reflect a change of position and were simply appropriated funds being spent as they were allocated. Yet they underscore the complex political landscape the president faces in confronting this crisis ahead of next year’s presidential election, with humanitarian disasters across the globe driving more people to the US’s borders.
As Biden’s challenges at the border deepen, Republicans are intensifying their efforts to put immigration at the center of the political debate in 2024. Republicans believe immigration and border security are among the president’s biggest political vulnerabilities. According to the latest NBC News poll, voters also give Republicans the overwhelming advantage on the question of which party is better equipped to handle immigration, a margin that has doubled since Biden’s first year in office.
But the issue has also created a wedge between the administration and some of Biden’s staunchest allies.
Texas Democrat Beto O'Rourke criticizes Biden border policy, says president is 'really failing us'
For months, Joe Biden has taken heat over the situation at the US border with Mexico, where Republicans say his policies are doing little to stop a surge in people crossing without authorization, and immigrant rights advocates say he is pursuing policies similar to those of Donald Trump.
Yesterday, prominent Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke, a former congressman who tried and failed to win a Republican-held Senate seat in the state in 2018 and the governor’s mansion last year, said Biden’s policies were “really failing us”.
You can hear him explain why, in the below clip from an appearance at the Harvard Kennedy School:
Beto w/ some tough words on Biden’s handling of the border:
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) November 10, 2023
“On some counts, Biden has been successful…on other counts he’s really failing us…it is no secret that democratic voters are unexcited about Biden, and that is putting it politely.” pic.twitter.com/Erh8yIiPWV
A funder of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and several other rightwing Republican candidates is staying out of next year’s election, the Guardian’s Edward Helmore reports:
Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire who supported Donald Trump in 2016 and sunk millions more into underperforming Maga candidates in subsequent election cycles, has confirmed rumors that he is stepping away from 2024 political funding.
In an interview with the Atlantic, Thiel said voting for Trump “was like a not very articulate scream for help” and that things had not turned out the way he had hoped when he donated $1.25m to Trump and Trump-affiliated political funds eight years ago.
“There are a lot of things I got wrong,” he said. “It was crazier than I thought. It was more dangerous than I thought. They couldn’t get the most basic pieces of the government to work. So that was – I think that part was maybe worse than even my low expectations.”
Thiel told the magazine that Trump had called him earlier this year to solicit $10m – the same amount that he had donated to Blake Masters, a former protege who campaigned and lost a Senate bid in Arizona last year, and JD Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy who won an Ohio Senate seat.
When Thiel turned down Trump’s request, he said the former president told him that “he was very sad, very sad to hear that”. He later heard that Trump had insulted him to Masters, calling him a “fucking scumbag”.
Lately, Donald Trump has been spending a lot of time in the New York City courtroom where a judge is deciding how much of a penalty to levy on his business empire for committing what he found to be civil fraud. Earlier this week, Trump took the witness stand for what the Guardian’s Lauren Aratani described as “his most expensive rally ever”. Here’s more:
When Donald Trump took the witness stand on Monday morning, he started what might turn out to be his most expensive rally ever.
This was supposed to be his chance to give his side of the case in a $250m fraud trial that threatens to end his business career in New York state. On the stand, Trump mentioned crime in New York City and “election interference” as if he were in front of a crowd.
“Many people are leaving New York … you have the attorney general sitting here all day long, it’s a shame what’s going on,” Trump said. “We have a hostile judge, and it’s sad.”
The former president’s appearance on the witness stand would feel familiar to anyone who’s ever seen a glimpse of Trump’s rallies. Outside a huge line of reporters waited to get in. Banks of TV cameras parked outside the venue. Protesters shouted. The trial judge is the sole decider of this case and the fine that is at stake. But when Trump comes to town, the circus follows.
Even his testimony was reminiscent of his rallies. His statements about his real estate company were wistful, boastful and bizarre. “If I want to build something, I built a very big ballroom, a big ballroom that was built by me, it was very large, very beautiful,” Trump said when talking about using the value of Mar-a-Lago. Talking about his Scottish golf club, he promised: “At some point, at a very old age, I’ll do the most beautiful thing you’ll ever see,” he didn’t reveal what.
Donald Trump will have a heavy schedule of court appointments early next year, right in the middle of primary season.
Here’s a rundown of all the trial dates and other proceedings scheduled in the criminal and civil suits the former president and current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination is facing:
Federal judge declines to change trial date in Trump's Mar-a-Lago case — for now
In a new legal filing, federal judge Aileen Cannon has decided to keep 20 May of next year as the start date for the trial of Donald Trump and his co-defendants on charges related to storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and conspiring to keep them out of the hands of the government.
But Cannon did grant a request from defense attorneys to push back deadlines regarding the classified evidence in the trial, which could end up delaying the start date of the proceedings – though Cannon did not explicitly order that in today’s filing.
Trump mulls indicting political rivals if elected president in 2024
Donald Trump is facing 91 felony charges spread across four criminal indictments, but remains the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. In an interview, the former president suggested that if he is returned to the White House next year, he could order the FBI and justice department to indict his political rivals, arguing that he would merely be repeating what the Biden administration did to him.
Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Sam Levine:
Donald Trump has suggested he would use the FBI and justice department to go after political rivals should he return to the White House next year in a move which will further stoke fears of what a second period of office for Trump could mean.
Trump made the comments during an interview with the Spanish-language television network Univision. Host Enrique Acevedo asked him about his flood of legal problems saying: “You say they’ve weaponized the justice department, they weaponized the FBI. Would you do the same if you’re re-elected?”
“They’ve already done it, but if they want to follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse,” Trump replied. “They’ve released the genie out of the box.”
“When you’re president and you’ve done a good job and you’re popular, you don’t go after them so you can win an election. They’ve done indictments in order to win an election. They call it weaponization,” Trump added. “But yeah they have done something that allows the next party, I mean if somebody, if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say go down and indict them, mostly they would be out of business. They’d be out. They’d be out of of the election.”
Moderate House GOP lawmakers call for backing off Biden impeachment inquiry, arguing president is unpopular enough - report
One piece of unfinished business before House Republicans is the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. Shortly before he was ejected from the speaker’s office, Kevin McCarthy green-lit an investigation into still-unproven allegations of corruption against the president, which center on the overseas business activities of his son, Hunter Biden, and other family members. After one hearing that didn’t go particularly well for Republicans, the investigation stagnated after McCarthy was ousted and the GOP spent weeks trying to find a replacement.
The new speaker Mike Johnson recently said he would decide soon on whether to continue the inquiry, and this past Wednesday, oversight committee chair James Comer sent subpoenas to Hunter Biden and two other people he believes can prove wrongdoing by the president. But today, the Washington Post reports that several moderate Republicans think impeachment is not worth pursuing because of the president’s poor poll numbers, and Johnson seems to agree.
Here’s more from their story:
“We’ll just go where the evidence goes and we’re not there yet,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said, paraphrasing Johnson’s comments on the inquiry at the Republican Governance Group’s weekly lunch on Tuesday. “Most of us are saying, look, we can’t even get a single Democratic vote on this right now. I think the voters will reject what they are seeing when it comes to Biden [policies] — but high crimes and misdemeanors? I don’t think we’ve seen that or enough data to really make a good case and I feel like [Johnson] really agreed with us on that.”
…
Johnson, who told reporters that he has been “intellectually consistent” in cautioning against a rushed investigation during a news conference last week, has previously accused Biden of bribing or pressuring a foreign leader. During a Fox News appearance over the summer, Johnson accused Biden of wielding taxpayer resources to fire Ukraine’s top prosecutor to benefit his son’s business dealings — an allegation widely disputed by both U.S. and foreign officials. And in another interview on Fox News last week, Johnson said that “if, in fact, all the evidence leads to where we believe it will, that’s very likely impeachable offenses.”
But in this week’s private meeting with moderates, Johnson appeared to agree with Republican lawmakers who argued that since Biden’s polling numbers have been so weak, there is less of a political imperative to impeach him, according to Bacon and others who attended the meeting.
“Is it pragmatic? Does it make sense? Connecting those dots matter,” Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) said after the meeting. “So I don’t think it makes sense to move down a road unless those dots can be connected, and I think that’s the message he was trying to send to us which we appreciated.”
All eyes on House speaker Johnson as US government one week out from shutdown
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Once again, the US government is days away from a shutdown, and there’s no concrete plan to avert it. Much of the focus today will be on Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, who is tasked with getting legislation to fund the government through his unruly and deeply divided chamber. It’s a particularly perilous mission for him, since his predecessor Kevin McCarthy was forced out of his post after working with Democrats to keep the government open a few weeks ago, and several of the dynamics that ended his speakership still exist in the House.
Johnson reportedly wants to propose a bill to fund different parts of the government for different periods of time, but many lawmakers view that as too complicated, and it’s unlikely to get much traction in the Senate. In that chamber, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer is said to be moving forward with his own bill to keep the government going, but it, of course, will need the OK of the House, where conservative lawmakers want spending cut dramatically. Lawmakers have quite the knot to unravel, and the stakes of failing to do so would be a shutdown starting after 17 November with unpredictable consequences for both parties, and Joe Biden.
Here’s what else is going on today:
Biden and Chinese president Xi Jinping will meet on 15 November, the White House just announced. It will be their first meeting in a year and the leaders “will discuss issues in the U.S.-PRC bilateral relationship, the continued importance of maintaining open lines of communication, and a range of regional and global issues”.
Senate Republicans managed to disrupt an attempt by Democrats on the judiciary committee yesterday to send subpoenas to two prominent conservative activists involved in arranging luxury travel for supreme court justices.
Derek Kilmer and Brian Higgins, both Democrats, and Republican Brad Wenstrup, announced they would retire from the House yesterday. None represent competitive districts.
