Closing summary
We’re closing the US politics blog now, thanks for joining us.
It’s been an eventful day, with Joe Biden attempting to reassure the public the US banking system was “safe and sound” following the collapse of First Republic bank.
The president praised regulators and JP Morgan bank, the nation’s largest, that stepped in to pick up First Republic’s deposits and assets, safeguarding money invested in the failed California institution.
Here’s what else we followed:
Kevin McCarthy launched a robust defense of his stance on Ukraine in a testy exchange with a Russian reporter in Jerusalem. The speaker, with a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers to celebrate Israel’s 75th anniversary, challenged the reporter’s assertion that Republican rightwingers weakened his position by calling for an end to US aid.
The Democratic governor of Washington state, Jay Inslee, announced he would not seek a fourth term in elections next year.
It followed an announcement by Democratic Maryland senator Ben Cardin that he was standing down after three terms in office, creating a primary battle for a seat crucial to his party’s hopes of retaining control of the chamber in the 2024 election.
Ron DeSantis’s war on Disney escalated with a decision by his hand-picked board overseeing the theme park giant to sue the company. Disney sued the board last week saying the Republican Florida governor’s seizure of power over the company was a retaliatory move for opposing his “don’t say gay” law.
Dominion Voting Systems executives insisted its $787.5m settlement with Fox News over the media company’s lies about the 2020 election did not include a requirement that rightwing TV celebrity Tucker Carlson be dismissed. Fox fired Carlson last week.
Attorneys for Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr filed a lawsuit seeking her return to the House floor, a week after Republicans banished the transgender Democrat for her opposition to a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for trans children.
Donald Trump will appear next week in a town hall debate hosted by CNN. The surprise announcement said the former president will participate in the 10 May event for Republican and undecided voters at St Anselm college, a liberal arts campus in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Please join us again tomorrow for more live US politics.
US military tracking another 'mysterious balloon'
The US military is tracking a mysterious balloon that flew over American soil, NBC News is reporting. It is not clear what it is or who it belongs to, according to three US officials cited by the network.
The object flew across portions of Hawaii but did not go over any sensitive areas, the officials said.
NEW: The U.S. military is tracking a mysterious balloon that flew over Hawaii, officials tell @NBCNews. https://t.co/vsv3WLp80H
— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 1, 2023
NBC reported the military had been tracking the object since late last week and has not determined if posed a threat to aerial traffic or national security. It was not communicating signals, one official said.
It is also not clear if it is a weather balloon or something else, the official said, adding that the US military could shoot it down if it nears land.
It was revealed last month that a Chinese spy balloon that flew over parts of the US earlier this year, and was shot down in February, had sent sensitive intelligence from US military sites back to Beijing.
Donald Trump will appear next week in a town hall debate hosted by CNN, the cable news channel he has frequently and loudly derided as “fake news”.
The network made the surprise announcement on Monday afternoon, saying the former president will participate in the 10 May event for Republican and undecided voters at St Anselm college, a liberal arts campus in Manchester, New Hampshire.
The event will be hosted by Kaitlan Collins, host of CNN This Morning.
Trump attacked the network frequently during his single term in office, at one stage revoking the press credentials of White House correspondent Jim Acosta, a particular bête noire. Acosta was reinstated after a legal challenge.
It is not yet known who else might be appearing at the event.
Updated
Attorneys for Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr are asking a court to allow for her return to the House floor, a week after Republicans banished the transgender Democrat for her opposition to a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for trans children.
A lawsuit was filed Monday in state district court in Helena on behalf of Zephyr and several constituents who say they are being denied their right to adequate representation, the Associated Press reported.
Zephyr was removed from the chamber last week after telling Republicans they would have “blood on your hands” if they voted for the measure.
The controlling party said her actions “violated decorum” and that she had incited protests at the statehouse.
The legal challenge against House speaker Matt Regier and statehouse sergeant-at-arms Bradley Murfitt comes with just days left in the legislature’s biennial session. Neither has commented on the lawsuit.
Another prominent Democrat, the governor of Washington state Jay Inslee, has announced he won’t be seeking re-election. It follows the declaration earlier Monday by Maryland senator Ben Cardin that he was standing down.
Today I announced I will not be running for a fourth term. We've made Washington a beacon for progress, and now it's time to pass the torch. https://t.co/qTGs6hth00
— Governor Jay Inslee (@GovInslee) May 1, 2023
Inslee won election to a third term in 2020, but said in a statement: “I’m ready to pass the torch”.
He didn’t say what he intended to do after his retirement next year, but said: “Now is the time to intensely focus on all we can accomplish in the next year and a half”.
Inslee, who ran for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination in 2020, added: “Serving the people as governor of Washington state has been my greatest honor”.
Updated
Senior Democrat Jamie Raskin – the Maryland congressman – has paid tribute to his friend Ben Cardin, his state’s US senator who has announced he’s standing down after three terms in office:
After 58 years of integrity-filled public service, where he showed his prodigious work ethic from Annapolis to Washington, senator Ben Cardin has assembled a remarkable record of advancing the needs and priorities of Maryland.
I salute him and have congratulated him on a truly amazing and inspiring career devoted to service of our people and the old-fashioned public values of honesty and decency. I want to thank him, his beloved wife Myrna and their whole family for their outstanding and continuing contributions to our state.
In his own statement saying he had given his “heart and soul” to the state, Cardin said he would remain in office until the 2024 election:
There is still much work to be done. During the next two years, I will continue to travel around the state, listening to Marylanders and responding to their needs.
My top priorities include continuing our progress for the Chesapeake Bay, helping the people of Baltimore city deal with the challenges they face, and permanently expanding opportunities for telehealth, mental and behavioral health.
Kevin McCarthy had a testy exchange with a Russian reporter over the war in Ukraine after his speech to the Israeli Knesset this afternoon.
Asked if Ukraine was losing the support of Republicans, following comments by rightwingers such as McCarthy ally Marjorie Taylor-Greene that the US “had done enough” to help the country against the Russian invasion, the speaker of the American House of Representatives was firm:
I vote for aid for Ukraine. I support aid for Ukraine. I do not support what your country has done to Ukraine. I do not support your killing of the children either.
And I think for one standpoint, you [Russia] should pull out and I don’t think it’s right, and we will continue to support because the rest of the world sees it just as it is.
Interim summary
Joe Biden has been speaking at the White House about the collapse of California’s First Republic bank, the third US lender to fail this year. He said the swift action of regulators, and JP Morgan bank, the nation’s largest, to take on First Republic’s deposits and most assets, helped ensure the US banking system was “safe and secure”.
Here’s what else we’ve been following:
Kevin McCarthy, the first speaker to address the Knesset for 25 years, talked up US-Israel relations in Jerusalem, and pledged full financial support for the country’s security. He promised US support for ensuring Iran never obtains nuclear weapons.
Ron DeSantis’s war on Disney stepped up a notch with a decision by his hand-picked board overseeing the theme park giant to file its own lawsuit against the company. Disney sued the board last week saying the Florida governor’s seizure of power over the company was a retaliatory move for its opposition to his “don’t say gay” law.
Democratic Maryland senator Ben Cardin announced he was standing down after three terms in office, opening the prospect of a furious primary battle for a seat crucial to his party’s hopes of retaining control of the chamber in the 2024 election.
Dominion Voting Systems executives have been insisting that its $787.5m settlement with Fox News over the media company’s lies about the 2020 election did not include a requirement that rightwing TV celebrity Tucker Carlson be dismissed. Fox fired Carlson last week.
We’ve plenty more coming up this afternoon. Please stick with us.
Biden: Banking system 'safe and sound' despite First Republic collapse
Joe Biden has been speaking at the White House about the collapse of First Republic Bank, insisting that the “safety and security” of the US banking system was paramount.
JP Morgan stepped in quickly to snap up the “deposits and substantially all assets” of the California bank, the third US lender to fail this year.
Biden praised the swiftness of the takeover by the nation’s largest bank:
I’m pleased to say that regulators have taken action to facilitate the sale of First Republic bank, making sure that all depositors are protected, and the taxpayers are not on the hook.
These actions are going to make sure that the banking system is safe and sound. And that includes protecting small businesses across the country who need to make payroll for workers and their small businesses.
Touting the economic successes of his administration during an address for small business week, Biden used the crisis to pivot to an attack on so-called make America great again (Maga) Republicans he said were threatening the economy by presenting proposals over raising the national debt limit that were unacceptable:
The most immediate thing we can do is ensure the continued reliance of our economy and the financial system. The most important thing we have to do in that regard is to make sure the threat by the speaker of the House to default on the national debt is off the table.
For over 200 years, America has never, ever ever failed with a debt. America is not a deadbeat nation. We have never, ever failed to meet the debt.
As a result, one of the most respected nations of the world, we pay our bills and we should do so without reckless hostage taking from some of the Maga Republicans in Congress.
Read more:
Updated
Democratic senator Cardin standing down
Long-serving Democratic senator Ben Cardin of Maryland is expected to announce his retirement Monday after serving three terms, opening a rare vacancy in the chamber ahead of the 2024 election, according to the Associated Press, citing his spokesperson.
The 79-year-old plans to release a statement saying he will not seek reelection. His retirement is likely to create a highly competitive Democratic primary to replace him as the party faces a tough electoral map to maintain its slim majority next year.
Cardin has served in the Senate since 2006, when he won a seat to replace retiring Democrat Paul Sarbanes. Before that, he was a congressman who represented a large part of Baltimore and several nearby suburbs, winning his first House race in 1986.
During his tenure in the Senate, Cardin has been a leader on health care, retirement security, the environment and fiscal issues. The senator has been a leading advocate for clean water and the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary, which flows in his home state.
No reason for his decision was given.
Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are set to speak together at the White House imminently in what the administration is billing as “remarks during national small business week”.
There’s no indication they’ll address anything else, but the vice-president has just tweeted this:
I'm proud to run for reelection with President @JoeBiden so we can finish the job. pic.twitter.com/x7uN8gbEKG
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 1, 2023
It’s not news, but the reason for posting it now is curious, if indeed there is one. Biden announced his intention to seek re-election last week, with Harris, the highest-ranking woman and person of color in US politics, on the ticket.
China’s growing influence in southeast Asia will be on the agenda when Joe Biden meets Ferdinand Marcos Jr, president of the Philippines, at the White House this afternoon. My colleague Helen Davidson has this preview from Taipei:
The president of the Philippines is meeting his US counterpart in Washington as the two countries draw closer together against what they say is growing aggression and harassment by China.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Joe Biden will meet in the Oval Office on Monday, during the Philippine president’s four-day US tour. They are expected to discuss the security situation, with the US hoping to strengthen longstanding ties between the two nations as it battles Beijing for influence in Asia.
The US has been a vocal supporter of the Philippines against China’s recent actions, on Sunday saying an attack on Philippine security forces or a public vessel would “invoke US mutual defence commitments”.
It came in response to what the US described as “aggressive tactics” by the Chinese coastguard last week.
On 23 April, a Chinese coastguard ship blocked a Philippine patrol vessel from entering into the disputed Second Thomas Shoal. Journalists from several outlets had joined the Philippine patrol, filming what the Associate Press described as a “near collision”, with the Chinese vessel moving suddenly to cut off the Philippine ship.
It was the latest maritime incident between the two countries in the South China Sea. Chinese authorities have also repeatedly cut off access to the shoal, where a small contingent of Filipino soldiers are stationed on a second world war-era ship, which was deliberately grounded in 1999 by the Philippines to cement its claim to the atoll.
Read the full story:
The Happiest Place on Earth, otherwise knows as Florida’s Disney World, is now a battleground for dueling lawsuits after Ron DeSantis’s hand-picked board of directors charged with overseeing the theme park giant on Monday chose instead to sue it.
The decision by the Central Florida tourism oversight district is the latest shot in rightwing Florida governor DeSantis’s year-long spat with the state’s largest private employer over its opposition to his “don’t say gay” law that bans classroom discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation.
Disney filed its own lawsuit last week seeking to block the takeover by DeSantis loyalists, accusing the governor, a likely candidate the Republican 2024 presidential nomination, of a “patently retaliatory, patently anti-business and patently unconstitutional” action.
DeSantis, speaking in Israel, called Disney’s filing a meritless “political stunt”.
The lawsuit announced Monday by the new board seeks to overturn 11th hour actions taken by the outgoing board of the oversight district that nullified much of the new board’s power by handing power to make key decisions to the company itself.
“Since Disney sued us – yes, we didn’t sue Disney, Disney sued us - we have no choice now but to respond. We’ll seek justice in our own backyard,” Martin Garcia, chairman of the oversight district’s board of supervisors, said Monday, according to CNN.
There’s growing evidence that the fight with Disney is weighing down DeSantis’s prospects for a presidential run.
Senior Republicans including Donald Trump, Chris Christie and Chris Sununu have condemned DeSantis’s apparent obsession with targeting a private company with opposing political views, while he has struggled to obtain endorsements from Florida’s congressional delegation.
Read more:
McCarthy: US will 'fully fund' security assistance to Israel
The Times of Israel has the first account of Kevin McCarthy’s “effusive and enthusiastic” address to the Israeli Knesset, saying the speaker lauded US-Israel ties and pledged the US would always stand by the Jewish state and defend it.
“As long as I am speaker, Congress will continue to fully fund security assistance to Israel,” McCarthy said, according to the outlet.
He also denounces Iranian aggression in the Middle East and its funding of terror proxies in the region, the Times said.
“To deter Iran our nations must continue to stand together,” McCarthy said.
“We must always remain resolute in our commitment that Iran will never acquire a nuclear weapon.”
McCarthy emphasized that “bipartisan support [in the US] is the foundation of our relationship,” a comment seemingly at odds with his earlier jabs at Joe Biden over the president’s apparent reluctance to invite Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a customary visit to the White House.
In an interview with the news outlet Israel Hayom on Monday, McCarthy tied it his own failure to secure an audience with Biden over the debt ceiling.
“President Biden hasn’t talked to me about the debt ceiling for the last 80 some days so. I think he, the prime minister, might be in good company if he treats me the same way,” McCarthy said.
“If that [visit to the White House] doesn’t happen, I’ll invite the prime minister to come meet with the House.”
McCarthy is leading a bipartisan delegation of US lawmakers to Israel to celebrate the country’s 75th anniversary.
The latest challenger to Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination looks like it’s going to be South Carolina senator Tim Scott, who has earmarked 22 May for a “major announcement”.
That Scott, formerly a Trump loyalist, looks ready to throw his hat in the ring is no surprise. He’s already been testing the waters in primary race states such as Iowa and New Hampshire on a “Faith in America” tour.
On May 22nd, you should be in North Charleston.
— Tim Scott (@votetimscott) April 30, 2023
We will talk about America’s future.
Big things to come.
God Bless you, and God Bless America. pic.twitter.com/O69j6j2jAF
His expected run was forecast as early as February, and he launched an exploratory committee to plot a campaign last month.
Scott will be the first sitting senator to announce his candidacy. Other prominent likely candidates, including Florida’s rightwing governor Ron DeSantis and Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence, are also expected to announce this month.
Already in the race are Trump, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, conservative media personality Larry Elder, investor Vivek Ramaswamy and businessman and former candidate for Michigan governor Perry Johnson.
“I believe this so thoroughly, that it is time to take the Faith in America Tour not just on the road, and not just an exploratory committee. But May 22nd in North Charleston, South Carolina, it is time to make the final step,” Scott, a 10-year senator, said in a press release.
The supreme court won’t hear a challenge to the legality of an Indiana requirement that abortion providers bury or cremate embryonic or fetal remains, Reuters reports.
The justices turned away an appeal by an Indianapolis abortion clinic and two women who underwent abortions at the facility.
NEW: U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear challenge to Indiana law requiring burial or cremation of abortion remains
— John Kruzel (@johnkruzel) May 1, 2023
A law signed in 2016 by Republican then-governor Mike Pence imposed a requirement that clinics cremate or bury the tissue from abortions or miscarriages rather than using the standard method of incineration for human medical waste.
The law, which the state’s Republican attorney general Todd Rokita said in court papers aimed to ensure the “respectful disposition of human remains,” also lets patients dispose of the remains on their own.
The plaintiffs argued that the law unconstitutionally compelled them to express the state’s message that an embryo or fetus is a person and ran afoul of their moral or religious beliefs by treating embryonic tissue in the same manner as the remains of a deceased person.
The case reached the supreme court after a district court judge found the provision violated the challengers’ religious freedom and free speech rights, a ruling overturned by the seventh circuit appeals court last year.
Trump's lawyer seeks rape case mistrial
Donald Trump’s attorney requested a mistrial Monday in the former president’s rape and defamation civil case brought by advice columnist E Jean Carroll.
Judge Lewis Kaplan has ruled in a biased manner against Trump, lawyer Joe Tacopina alleged in a filing to… Kaplan.
He cited “pervasive unfair and prejudicial rulings” by Kaplan as the basis for the mistrial request, made in a letter.
Carroll, 79, testified at a trial that began last week that Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in midtown Manhattan, most likely in spring 1996. She said a chance encounter brought the pair together in an episode that was fun and flirtatious until Trump became violent in the dressing room.
Trump, 76, has long denied that a rape happened, that he was at the store with Carroll or that he even knew her beyond fleeting moments when pictures were taken of them in group settings in other years.
Carroll said she was motivated to speak up after the New York Times exposed Harvey Weinstein’s crimes and fired the #MeToo movement.
Read more:
Kevin McCarthy is about to address the Knesset after earlier meeting Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It’ll be the first time a House speaker has addressed the country’s parliament in a quarter-century, when another Republican, Newt Gingrich, spoke there in 1998.
Prime Minister Netanyahu met today with US House of Representatives @SpeakerMcCarthy:
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) May 1, 2023
"I'm delighted to welcome to Jerusalem an old friend of mine, and a trusted friend of the State of Israel: Kevin McCarthy. A champion of the Israeli-American alliance."https://t.co/oRcK6nxetK pic.twitter.com/XJrtwiewYs
Netanyahu hailed McCarthy, who is leading a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers to celebrate the country’s 75th anniversary, as: “a champion of the Israeli-American alliance”.
The Knesset reconvenes today after a month off amid tensions over a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary that has split Israelis and drawn concern from the US, the Associated Press reports.
Joe Biden has voiced concern about the legal overhaul and, largely because of it, has so far denied Netanyahu a customary invitation to the White House after his election win late last year.
McCarthy took jabs at Biden Monday in an interview with the news outlet Israel Hayom.
He lamented what he saw as Biden’s tardiness in inviting Netanyahu to the White House, and reluctance to meet with McCarthy to negotiate a solution to concerns over the national debt.
“President Biden hasn’t talked to me about the debt ceiling for the last 80 some days so. I think he, the prime minister, might be in good company if he treats me the same way,” McCarthy said.
“If that [visit to the White House] doesn’t happen, I’ll invite the prime minister to come meet with the House.”
Updated
Carlson firing from Fox 'not part of $787m Dominion settlement'
Executives of Dominion Voting Systems have been talking to Axios about the $787.5m settlement it won from Fox News over lies about the 2020 election pushed by on-air celebrities.
Tucker Carlson, one of the most vocal exponents of Donald Trump’s big lie of a stolen election, became a high-profile casualty of the fallout when he was fired last week, but Dominion says his dismissal wasn’t a condition of the settlement.
And Hootan Yaghoobzadeh, co-founder of Staple Street Capital that has a controlling investment in Dominion, says neither did the company seek an on-air apology from Fox, because it would have been “worthless”.
He said the financial settlement, and damage to Fox’s reputation, were more significant:
These results are much more profound than some disingenuous apology or forced statement that would not have any credibility, or would have been disingenuous from actors that have had a track record for making statements that are disingenuous.
Attorney Stephen Shackelford, partner at Dominion’s lawyers Susman Godfrey, said he did not expect the case to be settled before trial. He criticized Fox owner Rupert Murdoch for not acting earlier, when it became clear that claims about Dominion’s voting machines changing votes for Trump to Joe Biden were lies:
He knew the truth and yet his enormous asset, Fox News, kept broadcasting the lies. The Tucker Carlson texts where it took him no time at all to figure out that the software stuff was absurd.
It was obvious to everybody that this was crazy and we expected to see internal acknowledgment that this was crazy and false. And that’s what we ended up seeing in the end.
You can read the full Axios interview here.
Kevin McCarthy jabs Biden over US debt ceiling
Good morning and happy Monday to all US politics blog readers. We woke to news that Kevin McCarthy has been taking jabs at Joe Biden during his visit to Israel, teasing the president for not talking with him about a deal to raise the debt ceiling.
The speaker lamented what he saw as Biden’s tardiness in inviting Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, and reluctance to meet with McCarthy to negotiate a solution to concerns over the national debt.
“President Biden hasn’t talked to me about the debt ceiling for the last 80 some days so. I think he, the prime minister, might be in good company if he treats me the same way,” McCarthy told the news outlet Israel Hayom.
“If that [visit to the White House] doesn’t happen, I’ll invite the prime minister to come meet with the House.”
The partisan attack on Biden raised eyebrows because McCarthy is in Israel leading a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers to celebrate the country’s 75th anniversary. He will address Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, in short order.
Here’s what else is on our radar:
Joe Biden will meet Ferdinand Marcos Jr, president of the Philippines, this afternoon at the White House, as the two nations seek to strengthen ties to counter growing Chinese influence in southeast Asia.
Advice columnist E Jean Carroll returns to the witness stand on Monday to face another day of cross-examination in her lawsuit against Donald Trump for alleged rape and defamation.
Republican senator Tim Scott of South Carolina appears ready to throw his hat into the ring for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination. He’s touting a “major announcement” on 22 May in North Charleston that could see him become the latest direct challenger to Donald Trump.
The chief executive of Dominion Voting Systems is speaking out after his company won a $787.5m defamation settlement from Fox News over lies about the 2020 election pushed by on-air celebrities. Among the revelations in the exclusive Axios interview are that Tucker Carlson’s firing wasn’t a condition of the settlement.
And in politics/business news, JP Morgan is to acquire most of the failed California bank First Republic, in a deal brokered by regulators in an effort to contain a series of US banking failures.
We’ll have more on all that coming up. Stick with us for what promises to be a lively day.
