Closing summary
Arizona’s supreme court ruled to let a law banning almost all abortions in the state go into effect. The justices said Arizona could enforce a 1864 near-total abortion ban that went unenforced for decades after the US supreme court legalized abortion nationwide in the 1973 decision Roe v Wade.
Arizona governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said Tuesday was a “dark day” for the state and implored abortion rights supporters to make their voices heard in November.
Joe Biden criticized the Arizona supreme court ruling, blaming “the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women’s freedom” and calling the ban “cruel”.
Kamala Harris, in response to the ruling by the Arizona supreme court, said the state had “rolled back the clock to a time before women could vote”, and said Donald Trump was resopnsible for the ruling. Harris will travel to Arizona on Friday.
Secretary of state Antony Blinken and his UK counterpart, foreign secretary David Cameron, urged Congress to approve new military aid for Ukraine after talks in Washington during a joint press conference following talks in Washington on Tuesday.
Blinken said the supplemental budget request that the president has made of Congress is “urgent” and should be taken to a vote “as quickly as possible”. Victory for Ukraine is “vital for American and European security”, Cameron said.
Cameron also met with Trump over dinner on Monday at his Mar-a-Lago estate. During the briefing with Blinken, Cameron defended the meeting as a standard encounter with an opposition figure and said it covered a number of pressing global issues but did not elaborate. “These things are entirely proper,” he said.
Trump’s campaign said the former president and Cameron discussed the Ukraine war and “the need for Nato countries to meet their defense spending requirements”.
Defense secretary Lloyd Austin said the US has seen “no evidence” that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Austin addressed a Senate armed services committee during a budget hearing and was interrupted several times by protesters calling for the US to stop funding Israel’s war in Gaza.
A New York appeals court judge rejected the latest bid by Trump to delay his 15 April trial on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to an adult film star.
Republican far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene escalated her threat to oust Mike Johnson, issuing a searing indictment of the House speaker in a letter explaining her decision to file a motion to oust him.
Kamala Harris will travel to Arizona on Friday just days after the state’s supreme court upheld a near-total abortion ban.
The vice president’s trip to Arizona, her second this year, was already in the works prior to Tuesday’s court decision and will likely take on a heightened focus on abortion rights and access, Politico reported.
The White House said Harris will use her visit “to continue her leadership in the fight for reproductive freedoms”.
Fifteen prominent historians filed an amicus brief with the supreme court, rejecting Donald Trump’s claim in his federal election subversion case that he is immune to criminal prosecution for acts committed as president.
Authorities cited in the document include the founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Adams, in addition to the historians’ own work.
Trump, the historians said, “asserts that a doctrine of permanent immunity from criminal liability for a president’s official acts, while not expressly provided by the constitution, must be inferred.
To justify this radical assertion, he contends that the original meaning of the constitution demands it. But no plausible historical case supports his claim.
Despite widespread legal and historical opinion that Trump’s immunity claim is groundless, the supreme court, to which Trump appointed three justices, will consider the claim.
Oral arguments are scheduled for 25 April. The court recently dismissed attempts, supported by leading historians, to remove Trump from ballots under the 14th amendment, passed after the civil war to bar insurrectionists from office.
As we reported earlier, defense secretary Lloyd Austin told the Senate earlier today that the US government has seen “no evidence” that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
Austin addressed a Senate armed services committee during a budget hearing and was interrupted several times by protesters calling for the US to stop funding Israel’s war in Gaza.
The UK also confirmed in meetings with US counterparts that there would be no changes to arms exports to Israel, although it would be kept under review.
Here’s the clip:
Louisiana’s Republican-controlled senate advanced a bill on Monday that would empower state and local law enforcement to arrest and jail people in the state who entered the US illegally, similar to embattled legislation in Texas.
Amid national fights between Republican states and Joe Biden over how and who should enforce the US-Mexico border, Louisiana joins a growing list of legislatures seeking to expand states’ authority over border enforcement.
Proponents of the bill, such as the legislation’s author, GOP state senator Valarie Hodges, say Louisiana has the “right to defend our nation”. Hodges has accused the federal government of neglecting responsibilities to enforce immigration law, an argument heard from GOP leaders across the country.
Opponents argue the bill is unconstitutional, will not do anything to make the state safer, and will only fuel negative and false rhetoric directed toward migrants.
Across the nation, reliably red legislatures have advanced tougher immigration enforcement measures.
The Oklahoma house passed a bill that would prohibit state revenue from being used to provide benefits to those living in the state illegally. A bill in Tennessee, which is awaiting the governor’s signature, would require law enforcement agencies in the state to communicate with federal immigration authorities if they discover people who are in the country illegally. Measures that mirror parts of the Texas law are awaiting the governor’s signature in Iowa, while another is pending in Idaho’s statehouse.
Lawmakers and climate advocates called on utilities to “ditch the American Gas Association” at a press conference at the US Capitol on Tuesday.
“Americans are already paying the price of climate change,” said Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
They shouldn’t have to pay the salaries of those who are fueling it.
A trade association representing more than 200 US utilities, the AGA has a well-documented history of lobbying against climate regulations and policies – activity funded in part by members’ ratepayers’ utility bills. It’s a “dirty game,” said Xavier Boatwright of the Sierra Club.
Both the event and a protest outside the AGA’s headquarters earlier Tuesday were led by the anti-gas nonprofit organization the Gas Leaks Project.
“There’s nothing natural about natural gas,” said the group’s senior communications director Maria Luisa Cesar.
The extraction and use of gas, called natural gas by industry interests, emits planet-heating and toxic pollution. Reports show the AGA has been aware of these dangers for 50 years, but has continued to undercut climate efforts. Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse said:
The fossil fuel industry depends in roughly equal parts on hydrocarbons and lies.
In August, the New England utility Eversource cut ties with the American Gas Association. Advocates are calling on other utilities to follow its lead. Four states have also passed legislation to prevent the use of ratepayer dollars to fund political activity.
Also in Arizona, Eva Burch, a Democratic state lawmaker who drew national attention after announcing her decision to seek an abortion earlier this month, said today’s court decision to enforce a ban - using a law that was originally drafted in the 19th Century before women could vote and before Arizona was a state - would have devastating consequences for women such as her.
“A couple of weeks ago I had an abortion – a safe legal abortion here in Arizona for a pregnancy that I very much wanted,” Burch said.
Somebody gave me a procedure so that I wouldn’t have to experience another miscarriage – the pain, the mess, the discomfort. And now we’re talking about whether or not we should put that doctor in jail. This is outrageous.
Burch predicted the ruling would backfire on conservatives who have fought to allow the ban to be enforced.
“The people of Arizona have had enough,” Burch said.
We are electing pro-choice candidates in November. Watch it happen.
Harris says Arizona ruling 'rolls back clock to a time before women could vote'
Kamala Harris has responded to a ruling by the Arizona supreme court to let a law banning almost all abortions in the state go into effect, saying the state had “rolled back the clock to a time before women could vote”.
In a statement, the vice president said there was “one person responsible” for the ruling, which will allow a law first passed in 1864 to go into effect, “by his own admission … Donald Trump”.
Harris said the “extreme and dangerous” ban criminalizes almost all abortion care in the state and “puts women’s lives at risk”, adding:
It’s a reality because of Donald Trump, who brags about being ‘proudly the person responsible’ for overturning Roe v. Wade, and made it possible for states to enforce cruel bans.
She added:
The alarm is sounding for every woman in America: if he has the opportunity, Donald Trump would sign off on a national abortion ban. He has called for punishing women and doctors. If he wins, he and his allies have plans to ban abortion and restrict access to birth control, with or without Congress.
Arizona governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, called today’s news from the state’s supreme court on an abortion ban a “dark day” for the state and implored abortion rights supporters to make their voices heard in November.
Hobbs vowed to do everything in her power to preserve access to reproductive care and contraception in the state, pointing to actions she has already taken. After winning the election in 2022, Hobbs last year issued a sweeping executive order banning county attorneys from prosecuting women who seek abortions and doctors who perform them.
Asked about the possibility that her directive could be challenged in court, Hobbs said: “Bring it on.”
At the news conference, held moments after the state supreme court released its decision, Hobbs called on the Republican-led state legislature to “immediately” repeal the ban. But the legislature is unlikely to do so. The leaders of both chambers joined anti-abortion activists in favor of allowing the territorial-era ban to take effect.
“The legislature has ignored the will of the voters on this issue for decades,” she said.
The ballot box is the way that voters can have their say and overrule the legislature on this issue that the vast majority of Arizonans support.
It is a dark day in Arizona. We are just fourteen days away from one of the most extreme abortion bans in the country.
— Governor Katie Hobbs (@GovernorHobbs) April 9, 2024
But my message to Arizona women is this: I won't rest, and I won't stop fighting until we have secured the right to abortion.
That is my promise to you.
Updated
The national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, just said that US government agencies were still involved in an “informal review” of the Israel Defense Forces’ review of the killing by the Israeli military of seven aid workers with the group World Central Kitchen in Gaza earlier this month.
Sullivan said that the CIA director, Bill Burns, was involved in further talks in Cairo in Egypt at the weekend, where states such as the US and Qatar are trying to broker a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza and the return of the remaining hostages held by Hamas since the massacre it perpetrated in southern Israel last 7 October.
Sullivan said the US “has seen Israel take some steps forward” in the talks, while the latest statements from Hamas were regarded as “less than encouraging”.
He said more humanitarian aid was reaching Gaza, which he said was “good, but not good enough”, amid Israel’s blockade and siege of the Palestinian territory.
And amid Israel pulling troops out of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, in a pause in its offensive actions, Sullivan said the US has still not seen “a credible and executable” plan from Israel about what it would do to move or protect Palestinians in the event that, as it has pledged to do, it invades Rafah.
Updated
Joe Biden has just arrived back at the White House after a very short trip to Washington’s main Union Station rail hub, to deliver remarks about healthcare.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was originally due to brief the media at 1.30pm in the regular daily session in the west wing, but obviously everything is being pushed back because the president’s schedule shifted later than originally expected, also. The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will join the briefing. It’s getting underway now.
We’ll bring you highlights from the briefing. There has been a lot of international-facing news today, especially with the latest on high-level talks in the Middle East about Israel’s war in Gaza and US secretary of state Antony Blinken and the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron meeting in Washington, DC, and urging the US Congress to approve new military aid for Ukraine.
Joe Biden has criticized the Arizona supreme court ruling from earlier today to let an old law on the books banning almost all abortions in the state go into effect – albeit with a 14-day delay to allow further legal challenges before it does.
The US president blamed “the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women’s freedom” and called the ban “cruel”.
In a statement issued from the White House moments ago, Biden said: “Millions of Arizonans will soon live under an even more extreme and dangerous abortion ban, which fails to protect women even when their health is at risk or in tragic cases of rape or incest. This cruel ban was first enacted in 1864 – more than 150 years ago, before Arizona was even a state and well before women had secured the right to vote.”
The statement ended with: “Vice-President Harris and I stand with the vast majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to choose. We will continue to fight to protect reproductive rights and call on Congress to pass a law restoring the protections of Roe v Wade for women in every state.”
Kamala Harris has taken a strong lead in recent months on efforts by the Biden administration and the Biden-Harris re-election campaign to win support for protecting reproductive rights.
This follows, in particular, the landmark overturning of the federal right to abortion by the conservative-dominated supreme court in 2022 and further attacks on rights ranging from abortion pills to contraception to IVF by the hard right.
Updated
Arizona court upholds old law banning most abortions
The Arizona supreme court ruled on Tuesday to let a law banning almost all abortions in the state go into effect, a decision that could curtail abortion access in the US south-west and could make Arizona one of the biggest battlefields in the 2024 electoral fight over abortion rights.
The justices said Arizona could enforce a 1864 near-total abortion ban, first passed before Arizona became a state, that went unenforced for decades after the US supreme court legalized abortion nationwide in the 1973 decision Roe v Wade. However, the justices also ruled to hold off on requiring the state to enforce the ban for 14 days, in order to allow advocates to ask a lower court to pause it again.
The ban can only be enforced “prospectively”, according to the 4-2 ruling. Minutes after the ruling Kris Mayes, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, vowed not to prosecute any doctors or women under the 1864 ban.
You can read the full story here.
Updated
Interim summary
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, urged Congress to approve new military aid for Ukraine after talks in Washington.
Blinken and Cameron held a joint press conference where the US secretary of state said the stalled Ukraine funding is critical for US, European and world security. The supplemental budget request that Joe Biden has made of Congress is “urgent” and should be taken to a vote “as quickly as possible”, Blinken said. Victory for Ukraine is “vital for American and European security”, Cameron said.
Cameron also met with Donald Trump over dinner on Monday at his Mar-a-Lago estate. During the briefing with Blinken, Cameron defended the meeting as a standard encounter with an opposition figure and said it covered a number of pressing global issues but did not elaborate. “These things are entirely proper,” he said.
Trump’s campaign said the former president and Cameron discussed the Ukraine war and “the need for Nato countries to meet their defense spending requirements”.
The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, told a Senate armed services committee hearing that the US has seen no evidence that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
A New York appeals court judge rejected the latest bid by Trump to delay his 15 April trial on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to an adult film star.
Republican far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene escalated her threat to oust Mike Johnson, issuing a searing indictment of the House speaker in a letter explaining her decision to file a motion to oust him.
Updated
There’s a key US Senate race in Ohio this year, where the incumbent leftwing Democrat, Sherrod Brown, is expected to face a tough challenge from Bernie Moreno, a car dealer turned Trump-backed populist firebrand.
Like many Trump-backed candidates, Moreno is making it his business to blame China for woes affecting blue-collar workers. Earlier this year, he went so far as to tell a conservative radio host: “The Buick Envision was made in China, I told General Motors I wouldn’t sell one of them, don’t even ship it to me.”
The problem about the claim, which Moreno has made elsewhere, is that as Spectrum News reports … “Moreno’s dealership did sell the Chinese-made SUVs for several years, and even promoted the vehicles on social media, according to numerous social media posts.”
After detailing such posts, Spectrum adds:
“GM, the parent company of Buick, confirmed to Spectrum News the Envision was only manufactured in China. The SUV became the first Chinese-made vehicle to be imported by a major US automaker when it debuted in Michigan in 2016.
The imports were called a “slap in the face” by the United Auto Workers union, which felt the vehicles should be made on US soil by American workers.
A spokesperson for Moreno, Reagan McCarthy, told Spectrum: “In response to the closure of the Lordstown Plant here in Ohio [in March 2019], Bernie made a decision to stop any new inventory of Envision’s [sic] from being sold at his dealership. After he sold off the inventory he already had on the lot, he refused to take orders for more Envisions. There is zero contradiction here.”
There are contradictions elsewhere in Moreno’s campaign statements, though, as the Guardian discussed here:
Updated
Judge denies Trump's request to delay hush-money trial while he appeals gag order
A New York appeals court judge has rejected the latest bid by Donald Trump to delay his 15 April trial on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to an adult film star.
Trump’s lawyers had requested the trial to be postponed indefinitely while he appeals a gag order that bars him from commenting about jurors, witnesses and others connected to the case.
Trump’s attorneys argue that Justice Juan Merchan’s order restricting his public comments is an unconstitutional prior restraint on his free speech rights while he campaigns for president. Merchan imposed the order last month after finding Trump made statements in various legal cases that the judge called “threatening, inflammatory” and “denigrating”.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Trump’s lawyer Emil Bove said:
The First amendment harms arising from this gag order right now are irreparable.
Justice Cynthia Kern issued the order following a Tuesday morning hearing, but a full panel of appeals judges will later consider the former president’s underlying challenge to the gag order.
Updated
Austin, asked what the consequences of a deadly mass famine in Gaza would be, said:
It will accelerate violence, and it will have the effect of ensuring that there’s a long-term conflict.
Addressing the Senate armed services committee, the defense secretary added:
It doesn’t have to happen ... We should continue to do everything we can, and we are doing this, to encourage the Israelis to provide humanitarian assistance.
Updated
The defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, speaking during a Senate armed services committee hearing, said pressure on Israel to improve humanitarian aid to Gaza appears to be working, but that more must be done. Austin said:
It clearly had an effect. We have seen changes in behavior, and we have seen more humanitarian assistance being pushed into Gaza. Hopefully that trend will continue.
During the meeting, a number of senators decried the civilian casualties in Gaza and called on the administration to press Israel to protect the population in the Palestinian territory.
Austin said he spoke with his Israeli counterpart, the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on Monday and that he repeated US insistence that Israel must move civilians out of the battle space in Gaza and properly care for them.
Updated
Lloyd Austin rejects accusations Israel has committed genocide in Gaza
The US has seen no evidence that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said.
Austin, addressing a Senate armed services committee during a budget hearing today, said:
We don’t have any evidence of genocide being created.
He also avoided referring to the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October as a genocide, calling it a “horrific terrorist attack” and “certainly … a war crime”.
Austin’s testimony was interrupted several times by protesters calling for the US to stop funding the war.
A protester interrupted Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin during a Senate hearing on the Defense Dept.'s budget, calling for a cease-fire in Gaza as they were removed from the room by police. pic.twitter.com/JRdzFBTwL0
— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) April 9, 2024
Updated
Cameron was asked if Donald Trump gave any assurance that the US would remain a Nato member if he is re-elected to the White House.
The UK foreign secretary says he won’t go into what he said during his dinner with Trump, but that he has argued consistently for getting Nato in its strongest possible shape and getting all of its members to meet the alliance’s target of spending 2% of GDP on defense this year.
He says the best things Nato can do is to keep the Ukrainians in this fight, and that he will “make that argument to anyone who will listen”. He says supporting Ukraine is “extremely good value for money” for the US and its allies.
For like 5 or 10% of your defense budget, almost half of Russia’s prewar military equipment has been destroyed, without the loss of a single American life. This is an investment in United States’ security.
Updated
Cameron says that the UK’s position on arms sales to Israel remains “unchanged” after the latest assessment of the government’s legal advice.
He says Israel remains a “vital” defensive security partner to the UK.
Cameron is asked why he is not meeting with the US House speaker, Mike Johnson, during his visit to Washington.
The UK foreign secretary says he has a range of meetings with senators and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, and that he does “with great trepidation”. Cameron says:
It’s not for foreign politicians to tell legislators in another countries what to do. It’s just that I am passionate about the importance of defending Ukraine against this aggression, that I think it is up to the interests of US security that Putin fails in his illegal invasion.
Cameron says there will be people in Tehran, Pyongyang and Beijing looking at how the US and UK stand by its allies.
So I’m here to offer my opinion and to meet with anyone who wants to talk to me about it to make those arguments.
He says he’s “delighted” to have these meetings this afternoon and tomorrow, and that he will make time for anyone in Congress who would welcome a conversation.
Updated
Blinken: 'the ball is in Hamas's court' after 'very serious' offer made
Blinken says the US is working “24/7” with Qatar, Egypt and Israel on reaching a ceasefire and hostage-release agreement.
He says there is a “very serious” offer for Hamas on the table that “should be accepted”, adding that he believes that the fact that Hamas has not said yes “is a reflection of what it really thinks about the people of Gaza – which is not much at all”.
The ball is in Hamas’s court. The world is watching to see what it does.
Updated
Cameron calls meeting with Trump 'entirely proper'
Cameron, asked about his meeting with Donald Trump on Monday, says it was an “entirely proper” meeting that was in line with precedent of UK ministers speaking with opposition politicians in the run-up to elections.
The UK foreign secretary says it was a “private” meeting and that he and Trump “discussed a range of important geopolitical subjects”.
Updated
Blinken, responding to a reporter’s question, says the US does not have a day for a potential Israeli operation in Rafah in southern Gaza.
He says Joe Biden has been very clear with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, about the US’s deep concerns about Israel’s ability to conduct a major military operation that would do real harm to civilians.
Blinken says he expects that he will see Israeli colleagues again next week for further talks.
Cameron, reiterating Blinken’s comments, says the UK and US want to see 500 trucks carrying humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza.
The UK foreign secretary calls on the water in Gaza to be switched back on, the Ashdod port and a northern crossing point to be opened, and for aid to reach across Gaza.
Cameron emphasizes need for Ukraine aid and says US House must 'release this money and let it through'
David Cameron starts his remarks off by saying that there is no closer alliance for the UK than its partnership with the US.
“In a time of danger like this international affairs, close alliances really matter,” the UK foreign secretary says.
In terms of support for Ukraine, Cameron says:
We know what they need, and we know what is right for us. We know that if we give the Ukrainians the support they deserve, they can win this war.
Citing the Ukrainian foreign minister, Cameron says Ukraine needs air defenses, ammunition and money. He says it is important to send a clear message to all those around the world, including China, that the US and UK stands by its allies. Cameron says:
Nothing is more important than the supplemental request the Congress is looking at the moment. I come here with no intention to lecture anybody or tell anybody what to do or get in the way of the process of politics. I just come here as a great friend and believer in this country and a believer that it’s profoundly in your interest, and your security, and your future, and the future for all your partners to release this money and let it through.
Updated
Blinken speaks about the Middle East – he says Israel has made “important commitments” to significantly increase the supply of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza, and that it is taking some “initial actions to move on those commitments”.
“But what matters is results and sustained results,” the secretary of state says, noting that the US “will be looking very carefully in the days ahead” that assistance is distributed effectively in Gaza, including that it gets to the north of Gaza.
The US continues to work closely with Israel, Egypt and Qatar to reach an agreement for an immediate ceasefire and the release of hostages, Blinken says.
'Imperative' for US House to pass Ukraine aid, says Blinken
Blinken says it is “imperative” now that the House is back in session to get a vote on Ukraine aid “as quickly as possible”.
The supplemental budget request that President Biden has made to Congress is “urgent”, he says.
Blinken says there has been genuine burden-sharing among the US and European and international allies in terms of support for Ukraine. “We need to continue to do our part,” he says.
Updated
Blinken: US and UK committed to supporting Ukraine's efforts against Russia
Antony Blinken begins the news conference by saying he and Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, reaffirmed the imperative of continuing to support and help Ukraine defend itself against the ongoing Russian aggression.
The secretary of state says the UK has been an “extraordinary leader” in the effort to support Ukraine from day one, including by imposing sanctions and export controls on Russia.
Blinken says he and Cameron discussed ways to strengthen efforts to prevent the transfer of weapons and materials to Russia for use in Ukraine. “This is an ongoing challenge,” he says.
We see weapons and technologies to support the defense industrial base in Russia coming from North Korea from Iran from China. This is an area of particular concern for not only the United States and the United Kingdom, but many of our allies and partners throughout Europe.
Updated
Donald Trump and David Cameron discussed “the need for Nato countries to meet their defense spending requirements” during a dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, Trump’s campaign said in a statement.
The pair discussed “the upcoming US and UK elections, policy matters specific to Brexit, the need for Nato countries to meet their defense spending requirements, and ending the killing in Ukraine,” the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign said.
Blinken and Cameron to hold joint press conference
The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, are due to hold a joint press conference at 11:15am ET following talks in Washington about support for Ukraine and bringing stability to the Middle East.
Cameron also met with Donald Trump ahead of his meeting with Blinken in an attempt to persuade the presumptive Republican presidential candidate to drop his opposition to a new package of aid for Ukraine that is being held up in Congress partly on Trump’s instruction.
Updated
Though it is called “natural gas” by industry interests, gas is primarily made of methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more planet-warming in the short term that has also been linked to asthma and other health risks.
“There is no such thing as clean methane gas,” Caleb Heeringa of the Gas Leaks Project shouted at a protest in Washington DC to demand that gas utilities stop using ratepayer dollars to fund their political agendas.
Attendees included actors from the Gas Leak Project’s recently launched Hot & Toxic campaign, a faux reality show which parodies the marketing of gas stoves. Dressed in brightly colored outfits, they cheered when protesters mentioned pollutants such as carbon monoxide and benzene and pretended to try and snatch the banner away.
"we won't pay for the AGA" pic.twitter.com/BytYlJRaqU
— 𝕯𝖍𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖆 𝕹𝖔𝖔𝖗 (@dharnanoor) April 9, 2024
Authorities quickly asked the protesters to vacate the American Gas Association’s premises, so they relocated in front of the Capitol building.
The Gas Leaks project on Tuesday also launched DitchTheAGA.com, a website allowing viewers to determine if their utility is a member of the American Gas Association. If the answer is “yes”, users can also easily email their local officials to demand that the utility cut ties.
At noon, the group will hold a press conference with Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
Updated
Protesters gathered in Washington DC on Tuesday to demand that gas utilities stop using ratepayer dollars to fund their political agendas.
The demonstration took place outside the headquarters of the lobbying organization the American Gas Association, which represents nearly every gas utility in the country.
“We won’t pay for the AGA,” protesters cried.
happening now: protestors gather outside the @aga_naturalgas headquarters in DC calling out the use of ratepayer dollars to fund pro-fossil fuel policies @GasLeaksProject pic.twitter.com/JTQC7tk4TA
— 𝕯𝖍𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖆 𝕹𝖔𝖔𝖗 (@dharnanoor) April 9, 2024
The trade group, funded in part by utility bills paid to its members, has come under fire for successfully working to strip decarbonization measures from building codes and lobbying against an array of climate-friendly policies.
The protesters, convened by the anti-gas nonprofit The Gas Leaks Project, held a banner that said Ditch the AGA and signs that said “American Gaslighting Association”.
Updated
David Cameron is scheduled to hold talks with the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in Washington on Tuesday. Although they have much to discuss covering the future of Nato, China and a possible ceasefire in Gaza, the foreign secretary’s key goal is to shift Republican thinking in Congress on the relevance of the threat posed by Russia to American interests.
A steady stream of European politicians have travelled to Washington on similar missions, only to return frustrated at the growing US indifference to Ukraine’s fate.
The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, has so far declined to allow the Ukraine aid issue onto the floor of the Congress, but has indicated he might do so next week when Congress returns from recess. In February, the speaker refused to consider a Senate-passed foreign aid package that would have included $60bn for Ukraine because it lacked measures relating to security on the US-Mexico border.
A key test for Cameron’s trip is whether he gains meetings with the swing Republican congressmen including Johnson. At present no meeting with Johnson is slated for Tuesday.
Talks will also focus on the Middle East, with the foreign secretary expected to set out the UK’s reasoning for not suspending arms sales to Israel.
Updated
The risk is that past bad blood between David Cameron and Donald Trump over issues such as Brexit have poisoned the well, and Cameron, for all his persuasive skills, is not the British political leader most likely to make Trump change his mind and drop his opposition to a new Ukraine aid package.
Trump has said he can negotiate a peace deal on Ukraine in 24 hours. His allies say the deal will involve ceding Crimea and the Donbas region to Russia, formalizing the land grab that Vladimir Putin started in 2014 and continued with the full-scale invasion in 2022.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Sunday that Ukraine would lose the war if US aid was withheld and Ukrainian air cover not improved.
“Success for Ukraine and failure for [Vladimir] Putin are vital for American and European security,” Cameron said before his trip.
This will show that borders matter, that aggression doesn’t pay and that countries like Ukraine are free to choose their own future. The alternative would only encourage Putin in further attempts to redraw European borders by force, and would be heard clearly in Beijing, Tehran and North Korea.
Earlier this year, he warned Congress not to show “the weakness displayed against Hitler” in the 1930s.
Cameron is also arguing that Ukraine has shown time and again that if it is given the resources it can succeed and would be ready to “go on the offensive” in 2025.
Aware that Trump believes Europe does not pull its weight in defending itself, Cameron is armed with statistics to show more than $184bn (£145bn) has already been committed to Ukraine by European nations including more than $15bn (nearly £12bn) from the UK.
David Cameron meets Trump amid push to shore up Ukraine support
The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, has taken the unusual and potentially risky step of travelling to see Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida before a visit to Washington DC on Tuesday.
Cameron was hoping to persuade the presumptive Republican presidential candidate to drop his opposition to a new package of aid for Ukraine that is being held up in Congress partly on Trump’s instruction.
It is Cameron’s second visit to the US to try to convince Republicans that it is in America’s national interest for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, not to make any further military advances in Ukraine.
In a statement on Monday, a UK Foreign Office spokesperson played down the rarity of a Conservative foreign secretary trying to persuade a Republican not to make concessions to Russia over the future of Europe. The Foreign Office said it was “standard practice for ministers to meet opposition candidates as part of their routine international engagement”.
Although Conservative politicians have met Trump, as has his great ally Nigel Farage, Monday’s meeting was the first between a senior UK minister and Trump since he left office insisting that the presidential election had been stolen from him.
Ken Buck was one of eight Republicans who voted to eject the previous speaker, Kevin McCarthy, last October. But Buck quit Congress in protest of his party’s domination by Trump supporters.
Speaking to CNN on Monday, Buck dismissed McCarthy’s contention that Marjorie Taylor Greene is “a very serious legislator that deals with policy”, saying:
So many of the statements that Marjorie has made over the years are completely irresponsible. The idea that somehow the speaker [Johnson] is corrupt because he believes that we should be supporting an ally that has been invaded by a war criminal, [Russian leader] Vladimir Putin, and the idea that somehow anybody who is in agreement with Ukraine and our Nato allies is corrupt, it’s just another distraction that she uses to take away from the core arguments that are so important.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene is ungovernable and should be known as “Moscow Marjorie”, said a former House Republican colleague, accusing the far-right Georgia congresswoman of “getting her talking points from the Kremlin” when opposing new federal aid for Ukraine.
Ken Buck, a Colorado rightwinger who left Congress last month, told CNN:
My experience with Marjorie is people have talked to her about not filing articles of impeachment on President Biden before he was sworn into office, not filing articles of impeachment that were groundless based on other individuals in the Biden administration. She was never moved by that. She was always focused on her social media account. And ‘Moscow Marjorie’ is focused now on this Ukraine issue and getting her talking points from the Kremlin and making sure she is popular and she is getting a lot of coverage.
“Moscow Marjorie.” Former Rep. Ken Buck tells @ErinBurnett how he really feels about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene pic.twitter.com/zoFkWiMAu2
— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) April 9, 2024
In the letter sent to colleagues this morning, Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene laid into Mike Johnson with a point-by-point takedown of his record as speaker.
She ticked through the instances that Johnson has negotiated with Democrats on major legislation, including a $1.2tn spending bill last month that averted a government shutdown and prompted Greene to file a motion to move the speaker. At the time, she said the move was meant as “more of a warning than a pink slip” because she did not want to “throw the House into chaos”.
But in her memo, Greene wrote that Johnson’s actions have been “a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats’ agenda that has angered our Republican base”, adding:
If we win the House this fall, it will only be because President Trump is on the ballot, not because we have earned it.
Read my full letter to my colleagues detailing why I filed a motion to vacate Speaker Johnson.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) April 9, 2024
(1/2) https://t.co/CByvpRo8My pic.twitter.com/DWQck3WpoZ
(2/2) pic.twitter.com/ieWIeihzUw
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) April 9, 2024
For his part, Johnson has tried to downplay Majorie Taylor Greene’s threat and attempted to ease tensions.
Johnson and Greene exchanged text messages over the two-week Easter recess, and the pair was supposed to speak on Friday but the plan fell through, the Hill reported, citing a source.
In a statement last week, the House speaker said:
I respect Marjorie. She will always have an open door to the speaker’s office. We do have honest differences on strategy sometimes but share the same conservative beliefs.
New — Speaker Mike Johnson is now responding to MTG, telling us in a statement: “I respect Marjorie. She will always have an open door to the Speaker’s office. We do have honest differences on strategy sometimes but share the same conservative beliefs.⁰⁰“In spite of our… https://t.co/hOXGnK9TyD
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 4, 2024
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Marjorie Taylor Greene escalates pressure on Johnson in scathing memo
Republican Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene escalated her threat to oust Mike Johnson, issuing a searing indictment of the House speaker in a letter explaining her decision to file a motion to oust him.
In the five-page memo sent to her Republican colleagues on Tuesday morning, Greene laid out a detailed case against the speaker, accusing Johnson of failing to deliver on promises he ran on and breaking legislative procedural rules. Johnson is “throwing our own razor-thin majority into chaos by not serving his own GOP conference that elected him”, Greene wrote.
With so much at stake for our future and the future of our children, I will not tolerate this type of Republican ‘leadership’. This has been a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats’ agenda that has angered our Republican base so much and given them very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority.
Greene quoted the seven “key priorities” Johnson laid out when running for the speakership in October, and said he had “not lived up to a single one of his self-imposed tenets”.
Greene has not said if or when she plans to force a floor vote on Johnson’s removal, calling it a “warning” and noting it would be a “rolling issue”, but the letter marks her first direct pitch to her GOP colleagues to join her push to oust the speaker.
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Some centrist Democrats have already indicated they will not allow Greene to let the chamber descend into chaos, especially if she forces the motion to vacate vote over the issue of Ukraine funding. Congressman Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat of Florida, posted to Twitter/X last month:
I do not support Speaker Johnson but I will never stand by and let [Greene] … take over the people’s House.
The House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, previously told the New York Times that he expected “a reasonable number” of his caucus members would come to Johnson’s assistance if his speakership was imperiled because of a vote on Ukraine aid.
But one of the leading House progressives, congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, has argued that Democrats’ support for Johnson should come with some legislative strings attached. Ocasio-Cortez recently told CNN:
My vote would most likely be for a Speaker Jeffries, which becomes an increasingly likely reality day after day as Republicans pursue further midterm resignation. But I think, for those of us and for any Democrat inclined, I don’t think we do that for free.
While Johnson weighs his legislative options to approve more money for Ukraine, the specter of the motion to vacate looms in the background.
If congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia follows through on her threat to force a vote on Johnson’s removal, the House must take up the matter within two legislative days. Johnson will then need the support of a majority of members to keep his job, and because of a recent string of Republican resignations, he can only afford to lose two votes within his conference.
As of now, few Republicans appear eager to revisit the spectacle of last fall, when the conference’s repeated failures to elect a new speaker ground the House to a complete halt for weeks.
Even as Johnson faces a challenge from the hard-right flank of his conference, other House Republicans insist the chamber must take action to assist Ukraine.
They warn that further inaction, after months of ignoring the White House’s demands to approve more funding, will only embolden the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Congressman Mike Turner, the Republican chair of the House intelligence committee, told CBS News last Sunday:
We are at a critical juncture on the ground that is beginning to be able to impact not only morale of the Ukrainians that are fighting, but also their ability to fight. Putin knows this. This is obviously an area where we cannot allow Putin to win.
Johnson already has two legislative options to approve more money for Ukraine, the Senate-approved package and a smaller $66bn bill introduced by a bipartisan group of House members.
The second proposal would provide military-only funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, omitting the $10bn for humanitarian aid included in the Senate bill.
The House legislation also outlines a number of border security provisions, a bid to sway some Republican members who are otherwise wary of sending more money to Kyiv. Congressman Mike Lawler, a Republican of New York and one of the House bill’s co-sponsors, told CNN last Sunday:
I am hopeful that the speaker will put the bill on the floor or an amended version of the bill on the floor so that we can once and for all ensure that our allies have the aid and support that they need.
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As the House adjourned last month, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, vowed that the chamber would soon “take the necessary steps to address the supplemental funding request”, which includes money for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
The Senate passed a $95bn foreign aid package in February, but Johnson indicated that the House would consider an amended proposal when members return to Washington. Johnson told Fox News last Sunday:
We’ve been talking to all the members, especially now over the district work period. When we return after this work period, we’ll be moving a product, but it’s going to, I think, have some important innovations.
Those innovations might include sending money to Kyiv as a loan or redirecting Russian assets seized under the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity (Repo) for Ukrainians Act.
But even those changes are unlikely to sway the most vocal Ukraine skeptics in the House Republican conference, such as the congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
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Pressure mounts on Johnson over Ukraine aid as ouster threat looms
Good morning US politics readers.
The House returns today after a two-week Easter recess as the speaker, Mike Johnson, faces mounting pressure to advance a Ukraine aid package and the threat of an intra-party revolt if he does so.
Johnson has indicated the House will take up the issue of Ukraine funding this week, but many hard-right members of his conference remain staunchly opposed to additional Ukraine aid and the Georgia congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has already introduced a motion-to-vacate resolution, all but daring Johnson to move forward with a Ukraine aid bill so she can force a vote on the matter. Speaking to CNN last week, Greene said:
I’m not saying I have a red line or a trigger, and I’m not saying I don’t have a red line or trigger. But I’m going to tell you right now: funding Ukraine is probably one of the most egregious things that he can do.
Meanwhile, the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, is scheduled to meet with secretary of state Antony Blinken and congressional lawmakers in Washington over the next two days. Ahead of his meeting with Blinken, Cameron took the unusual and potentially risky step of traveling to see Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, in the hopes of persuading the presumptive Republican presidential candidate to drop his opposition to Ukraine aid deal that is being held up in Congress partly on Trump’s instruction.
Here’s what else we’re watching:
10am ET. The secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will meet with the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, at the state department.
11:15am. Blinken and Biden will give a news conference.
12.30pm. Joe Biden will speak at Washington’s Union Station about the “care economy”, a reference to care workers and family caregivers.
1.30pm. The White House daily press briefing.
4pm. The House rules committee will meet to take up several bills, including a bill extending Section 702 in the FISA reauthorization and a resolution denouncing the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
6pm. Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, will welcome the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida and his wife, Yuko Kishida, to the White House.
Kamala Harris will meet privately this afternoon in with relatives of Americans taken hostage in Gaza during the Hamas terror attacks on southern Israel on 7 October.
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