Summary
That’s it for this US politics liveblog. Here are the key points from today:
The US supreme court has issued a new code of ethics following controversies involving conservative justices who failed to disclose financial ties to republican mega-donors.
Biden is getting ready to meet Xi Jinping on Wednesday in San Francisco – a demonstration of goodwill on the part of China, whose leader hasn’t visited the US in six years.
2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley reacted to the news of Tim Scott suspending his presidential bid. “Tim Scott is a good man of faith and an inspiration to so many. The Republican primary was made better by his participation in it,” Haley said on Twitter/X. “South Carolina is blessed to continue to have him as our senator. Scott announced conceded on Sunday, just six months after launching his campaign.”
New House speaker and Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson has until Friday to garner support for his spending plan, or risk a government shutdown and a fate similar to his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted from the role in October.
Trump, Trump, and more Trump: The former president received swift condemnation from the Biden-Harris campaign for comparing his political enemies on the left to vermin – language criticized as mirroring that of fascist dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. And ongoing is Trump’s civil fraud trial, after which he could be fined $250m.
Updated
Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries is considering Mike Johnson’s proposal to stave off a shutdown and discussing it with members.
Jeffries says he has concerns with the proposal, specifically what he calls “the bifurcation of the continuing resolution in January and February 2024” as well as Republicans’ failure to address national security and domestic funding priorities of Americans. He also said Democrats wouldn’t accept “any extreme right-wing policy provisions in connection with funding the government”.
But he doesn’t reject it outright, writing:
House Democrats will continue to put people over politics, work with our colleagues to keep the government open and push back against right-wing extremism.
He added:
We will proceed this week through the lens of making progress for everyday Americans by continuing to put people over politics.
Updated
