Closing summary
Federal agents have come and gone from Joe Biden’s Rehoboth Beach, Delaware home in their search for classified materials, after previously paying a visit to his residence in Wilmington and former office in Washington DC. There were no government secrets found at Biden’s beachfront property, but the search means the investigation will stay in the news for the time being. Meanwhile, Democratic lawmaker Jared Huffman is circulating a letter worrying over security in the House ahead of next week’s State of the Union address, which he says has grown worse since the GOP took control of the chamber at the start of the year.
Here’s what else happened today:
Nikki Haley and Tim Scott sure seem to be preparing to campaign for president, which would put them up against fellow Republican Donald Trump.
Socialism is set to be formally denounced with a Republican-backed House resolution that has received surprising Democratic support.
Biden is having his first meeting with Kevin McCarthy since the Republican was elected House speaker, but the press is not invited.
It’s the usual partisan split when it comes to the public’s views of the unfolding classified document scandal, new polling has found.
Just about anything can spark an argument in Congress these days, including the pledge of allegiance.
Kevin McCarthy is heading to his first meeting with Joe Biden since becoming House speaker.
Increasing the debt ceiling is the main item on their agenda, and as he left the Capitol, Fox News caught McCarthy again laying out his demands for spending cuts:
McCarthy leaving to talk to Biden: I got a big plan. The first question is does the President want to continue reckless spending or find a way that we could be responsible. Sit down and find common ground where we put ourselves on a path to budget. Make a balanced budget.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) February 1, 2023
You might not hear much more than that about the meeting, at least not for a while. According to the White House, the encounter is “Closed Press”, meaning reporters are not invited to attend. That has sparked objections from Kelly O’Donnell, vice-president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, who said prior presidents have invited journalists to observe parts of such meetings:
When presidents meet House speakers, there's a long tradition of WH press pool covering a portion of meeting to document that for the day's news and historical record. Today's first meeting of Pres. Biden and Speaker McCarthy should be covered the same way. pic.twitter.com/fvMzhkLoNe
— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) February 1, 2023
Updated
Republicans are moving forward with a plan to boot Democrat Ilhan Omar off the House foreign affairs committee, saying she used antisemitic rhetoric. But a Democratic colleague said the effort is about nothing more than revenge, the Associated Press reports. A vote on her ouster is expected Thursday:
A House Republican attempt to remove Ilhan Omar from the foreign affairs committee, expected as soon as Wednesday, is about “vengeance” and “spite”, one of the Minnesotan’s fellow Democrats said.
“This is about vengeance. This is about spite. This is about politics,” said James McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the rules committee, as Republicans called a hurried meeting late on Tuesday to consider the matter.
Republicans are targeting Omar, an African-born Black lawmaker, over comments she has made about Israel and as payback after Democrats kicked far-right Republicans off committees for incendiary and violent remarks. On Wednesday, the House voted 218-209 along party lines to move forward with a resolution to remove Omar from the committee. A final vote was expected later this week.
The new House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, has been eager to remove Omar after blocking two other Democrats, Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, from the intelligence committee.
Omar, a Somali immigrant and one of the first female Muslims in Congress, has apologized for comments she has said she has come to understand were viewed as antisemitic.
Nikki Haley, the Republican former governor of South Carolina who served as ambassador to the United Nations under Donald Trump, has a “big announcement” planned for later this month.
What could it be?
My family and I have a big announcement to share with you on February 15th!
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 1, 2023
And yes, it’s definitely going to be a Great Day in South Carolina! 👊 🇺🇸
Be sure to RSVP here: https://t.co/fxxxpBbW2b pic.twitter.com/2QJIo0H7Jo
A run for president, is the most likely answer. Trump may already have announced a second campaign for the White House, but that isn’t scaring off other Republicans from throwing their hat in the ring.
Case in point: Tim Scott, a GOP senator who is also from South Carolina, will launch “a listening tour focused on Faith in America” later this month, with stops in Iowa and South Carolina. Both states happen to be on the early primary calendar for Republicans, and often play a major role in winnowing the field of presidential nominees.
The biggest name waiting in the wings is Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has repeatedly come in second in polls of Republicans over their preferences for president.
In Memphis, mourners are gathering for the funeral of Tyre Nichols, whose death at the hands of law enforcement sparked outrage and renewed calls for Congress to act on long-stalled police reform legislation.
Vice-President Kamala Harris is among the attendees, and the Guardian has a blog dedicated to covering the event live:
Updated
Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, told CNN earlier he has handed his cellphones to prosecutors in Manhattan as they look again at a 2016 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the adult film star with whom Donald Trump denies having an affair.
A grand jury has been convened in New York to hear evidence related to the payment, a potential campaign finance crime.
Cohen said: “Most recently, they asked for my cellphones because they want to be able to extract from it the voice recordings that I had had with Keith Davidson, former attorney to Stormy Daniels before Michael Avenatti, as well as a bunch of emails, text messages and so on.”
Cohen’s phones have been seized before, by federal investigators in 2018.
Cohen has previously pleaded guilty to paying Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, $130,000 to be quiet about her alleged affair with Trump, which she says happened in 2006. Cohen says Trump directed him to make the payment. Cohen’s recompense for doing so has been detailed by federal prosecutors.
As CNN put it, “Manhattan prosecutors are [now] looking into whether Trump and his business falsified business records by improperly treating the reimbursement as a legal expense. That charge is a misdemeanor in New York unless it can be tied to another crime, such as campaign finance laws.”
There follows more on what Stormy Daniels is up to now, containing a quote for the ages, about her experience as a stand-up comic, thus: “It was the most terrifying experience of my life, and that’s saying something because I’ve seen Trump naked.”
Speaking of the debt ceiling, the meeting at the White House later, Republican messaging as practised by Senate minority leader Addison Mitchell McConnell III – you know and love him as Mitch – and our columnist Robert Reich, here’s Robert with some pertinent preparatory reading…
The dire warnings of fiscal hawks are once again darkening the skies of official Washington.
They’re demanding that the $31.4tn federal debt be reduced and government spending curtailed – thereby giving cover to Republican efforts to hold America hostage by refusing to raise the debt ceiling.
It’s always the same when Republicans take over a chamber of Congress or the presidency. Horrors! The debt is out of control! Federal spending must be cut!
When they’re in power, they rack up giant deficits, mainly by cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy (which amount to the same thing, since wealthy investors are the major beneficiaries of corporate tax cuts).
Then when Democrats take the reins, Republicans blame them for being spendthrifts.
Not only is the Republican story false, but it leaves out the bigger and more important story behind today’s federal debt: the switch by America’s wealthy over the last half century from paying taxes to the government to lending the government money.
This backstory needs to be told if Americans are to understand what’s really happened and what needs to be done about it. Republicans won’t tell it, so Democrats (starting with Joe Biden) must.
More:
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Senate leaders tee up Biden-McCarthy meeting
Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, has issued a statement about the meeting scheduled for this afternoon between Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker.
True to Republican messaging about spending and debt – see Reich, Robert, former US labor secretary and Guardian US columnist, passim but also here, today – McConnell says “it is right, appropriate and entirely normal that our need to raise the debt limit would be paired with negotiations regarding Democrats’ runaway printing and spending”.
McConnell cites previous remarks by his opposite number, Chuck Schumer, about the debt ceiling being something that should be negotiated over, and says: “The president of the United States does not get to walk away from the table.
“The same president who happily signed off on [further messaging alert] trillions of dollars of reckless party-line spending needs to begin good-faith negotiations on spending reform with Speaker McCarthy today.”
Schumer spoke on the Senate floor. He said Republicans had to show the American people their plan to avoid a catastrophic default.
Later this afternoon President Biden will meet with Speaker McCarthy for their first one-on-one meeting of the year, and everyone is asking the same question of Speaker McCarthy: show us your plan. Where is your plan, Republicans? Where is your plan, Speaker McCarthy?
McCarthy “showing up at the White House without a plan is like sitting down at the table without cards in your hand”, Schumer said, adding: “We know why the speaker has struggled and is unable to produce a plan – delaying it or avoiding it – he doesn’t have the votes for one, in all likelihood.”
He concluded: “We Democrats have a plan – raise the debt ceiling without brinksmanship or hostage-taking as it’s been done before. Speaker McCarthy doesn’t have a plan. So, he is not really negotiating. And the clock is ticking.”
Updated
Whatever else one might say about Lauren Boebert, the extremist Republican from Colorado, she knows how to get herself in the news.
We mentioned her just a few posts ago, regarding a contretemps earlier today about security matters at the Capitol.
On the House floor yesterday, the eve of Black History Month, Boebert claimed to be afraid the History Channel and even the Weather Channel could be “canceled” by the forces of wokeness – and/or DirectTV.
In her remarks, Boebert bemoaned the recent decision by the cable provider to drop Newsmax, a rightwing, pro-Trump channel.
Boebert said: “Will the Weather Channel be canceled next if they refuse to bow to the left’s altar of climate change? What about the History Channel? We see on a regular basis the left wants to erase history and deny truth. How about [the rightwing Christian channel] TBN?”
DirecTV says it dropped Newsmax for commercial reasons, because the channel’s “demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs” for customers. It replaced Newsmax with The First, another rightwing operation.
But the decision has stoked rightwing anger. In Florida on Tuesday the governor, Ron DeSantis, said DirecTV’s move “does warrant investigation”.
Boebert insisted it was a political decision.
“This is not the first time that we’ve seen this,” the Coloradan said, “and I’m afraid that it won’t be the last time that we are seeing this here in our great country.
“OAN [One America News, also pro-Trump] was de-platformed by DirecTV in April of 2022. So what’s next? Fox News?”
After DirecTV dropped OAN, Yosef Getachew, media and democracy program director at Common Cause, a government watchdog, told the Guardian: “No company should profit from spreading content that endangers our democracy.”
But cancel culture is a profitable rightwing talking point, holding that people with views deemed unacceptable by the left are barred from public life.
Insisting “conservatives are not being treated fairly”, Boebert said: “There has definitely been an increase in disdain and intolerance by many liberals for Christian beliefs simply by saying we love Jesus. So is TBN next? Americans are tired of cancel culture.”
The day so far
Federal agents have come and gone from Joe Biden’s Rehoboth Beach, Delaware home in their search for classified materials, after previously paying a visit to his former office in Washington DC and residence elsewhere in the state. There were no government secrets found at Biden’s beachfront property, but the search means the investigation will stay in the news for the time being. Meanwhile, in Congress, Democratic lawmaker Jared Huffman is circulating a letter worrying over security in the House ahead of next week’s State of the Union address, which he says has grown worse since the GOP took control of the chamber at the start of the year.
Here’s what else has happened today:
Socialism is set to be formally denounced with a Republican-backed House resolution that has received surprising Democratic support.
It’s the usual partisan split when it comes to the public’s views of the unfolding classified document scandal, new polling has found.
Just about anything can spark an argument in Congress these days, including the pledge of allegiance.
The House will today begin considering a resolution proposed by Republicans to denounce “the horrors of socialism” – a non-binding statement that has received a surprising amount of support from Democrats.
Florida Republican María Elvira Salazar first introduced the resolution in 2021 when Democrats controlled the chamber, and has proposed it again this year with the House under GOP control. “Through this resolution, the House of Representatives denounces socialism in all its forms and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America,” Salazar’s office said in 2021, noting it specifically singles out left-wing one-party states such as Cuba, China and the USSR, which broke up more than three decades ago.
Ahead of the vote today, the second-largest Democratic caucus in the House, the New Democrat Coalition, said its 10-member leadership team would back the measure. “New Dems strongly reject socialism – period. House Republican Leaders should set aside political games and join us as we work to grow our economy for all Americans,” the center-left group said in a statement.
With support like that, the resolution seems sure to pass. But why bother with a statement condemning a governing philosophy that has few open adherents in Washington and is practiced by several of America’s best-known foes? According to Fox News, it’s an attempt to put progressive lawmakers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib on the spot, both of whom are affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America.
Updated
Justice department concludes search of Biden residence: lawyer
The justice department has concluded its search of Joe Biden’s home on Delaware’s coast, and while it found no classified material, agents did take away some documents for further review, an attorney for the president said.
“The DOJ’s planned search of the President’s Rehoboth residences, conducted in coordination and cooperation with the President’s attorneys, has concluded. The search was conducted from 8:30 AM to noon. No documents with classified markings were found,” Bob Bauer, who is acting as a personal lawyer for Biden, said in a statement.
“Consistent with the process in Wilmington, the DOJ took for further review some materials and handwritten notes that appear to relate to his time as Vice President.”
Democrats are expressing safety concerns in the House natural resources committee after Republicans proposed rules that exclude a ban on firearms in hearing rooms, which existed in the previous Congress.
Here’s how the debate started, according to NBC News:
👀
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) February 1, 2023
The Committee on Natural Resources is meeting NOW to organize and vote on their rules…
Some fireworks expected: GOP side is pushing to ALLOW FIREARMS in hearing rooms and we are told DEMS will loudly object
Jared Huffman, the Democratic lawmaker who is also circulating a letter questioning security in the House ahead of next week’s State of the Union speech, has proposed an amendment to reinstate the ban:
Happening NOW @RepHuffman: “my amendment explicitly prohibits carrying or having readily available any firearm dangerous weapon explosive or incendiary device within the hearing rooms and conference rooms of this committee” https://t.co/9GO2PfubY3
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) February 1, 2023
Several far-right lawmakers serve on the committee, including Lauren Boebert. In the hearing, she harkens back to a time when Huffman donned a tinfoil hat to mock her:
Boebert pulls up this poster and says “looks my colleague forget his tin foil hat so I brought this to remind” pic.twitter.com/UPbdQCXFlb
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) February 1, 2023
She then gets into her reasoning for wanting to carry a gun in the Capitol, a building where access is controlled at all hours by a large police force:
BOEBERT: “With threats now at an all time high I would like to remind the gentleman that now's not the time to be stripping members of our constitutional right to defend ourselves. DC has a violent crime problem and it's often wondered 50% higher than the national average.”
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) February 1, 2023
Democrat warns of 'precarious' House security ahead of State of the Union speech
A Democratic representative is circulating a letter to congressional leadership warning that the security of the House is “precarious”, and asking what steps they will take to protect the chamber during the 7 February State of the Union address.
California’s Jared Huffman blamed new rules passed under the House’s Republican leaders for worsening the security situation, and in his letter cited as evidence “the violent insurrection of January 6, an attempt by a Member of Congress to bring a concealed weapon on to the House Floor, other Members vowing to do so in contravention of House rules, and most recently a colleague distributing what appeared to be legitimate, and later revealed to be inert hand grenades on the House Floor.
“We know from experience that the House is vulnerable to multiple fronts of attacks both from inside and outside Congress,” wrote Huffman. “Considering the ability of Members of Congress to carry firearms in the Capitol complex outside the House Floor, removal of magnetometers from the entrances to the House Floor, and with record threats against the lives of Members of Congress, the security of the House complex is today precarious.”
Addressed to the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate, Huffman’s letter requests “information on what steps you are taking, in coordination with the House and Senate sergeant at arms, Secret Service, and other federal agencies to protect the president, vice-president, the diplomatic corps, cabinet secretaries, supreme court justices, senators, representatives, and their guests ahead of the State of the Union address on 7 February 2023. Any attack on this gathering would threaten our democracy and undermine the functionality of the entire federal government.”
Huffman is circulating the letter to lawmakers interested in signing it, and plans to send it to leadership this evening, his office said.
Updated
Monmouth University has new polling out on the classified documents scandal, which finds voters are more inclined to give Joe Biden and Mike Pence the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the government secrets that turned up at their properties than they are Donald Trump.
According to the survey, 50% think Pence knew there were documents in his Indiana home, while 58% believe Biden was aware of the secrets that have turned up in his Delaware residence and former office in Washington DC.
Voters were much less charitable to Trump when it comes to whether he knew about the secrets discovered at Mar-a-Lago. The survey says 80% believe he did.
A familiar partisan split emerges among voters as they consider the seriousness of the discoveries, Monmouth finds:
Somewhat more Democrats (91%) than Republicans (72%) believe Trump was aware of the presence of classified documents at his home, while many more Republicans (79%) than Democrats (39%) believe Biden was aware. When it comes to being very concerned about the national security implications of these documents, the partisan splits are similar for Trump (62% of Democrats and just 14% of Republicans) and Biden (62% of Republicans and just 20% of Democrats).
“Obviously, we don’t know exactly what was contained in any of these classified documents. But partisans are already inclined to believe that the other party’s guy took more sensitive information than their own guy,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
Meanwhile in the Senate, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are frustrated that they have not been briefed on the national security implications of all the classified documents that have turned up in Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Mike Pence’s hands.
The sentiment expressed by Democrat Jon Tester today, according to NBC News, is a common one:
.@SenatorTester on Biden classified docs: First priority is to "make sure that they don't put this country at risk."
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 1, 2023
"The Intel Committee at a minimum should know what's in those documents — not just Biden's documents but Pence's documents, Trump's documents, any document."
According to CBS News, the justice department is working to arrange a briefing for senators on the documents case, after a previous effort fell through last September.
The House judiciary committee got to work today for the first time since Republicans took control, but had barely started its business before squabbling began.
The catalyst was an amendment proposed by rightwing Republican lawmaker Matt Gaetz to start each meeting with the pledge of allegiance. Democratic representative David Cicilline then floated tweaking the amendment’s language so that people “who supported an insurrection” shall not lead the pledge – a reference to lawmakers like Gaetz who have cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election. Thus began a lengthy back-and-forth, which Gaetz seized on to attack Democrats:
I just introduced an amendment in the House Judiciary Committee to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before every meeting.
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) February 1, 2023
This is common sense. Why does patriotism make Democrats so heated? pic.twitter.com/Jl8E67vQdp
Ultimately, Cicilline lost:
/6 The Cicilline amendment is defeated 24-13
— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) February 1, 2023
And Gaetz won:
/7 The Gaetz amendment has passed unanimously, 39-0. The Judiciary Cmte will now say the Pledge of Allegiance before cmte hearings
— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) February 1, 2023
Last month, attorney general Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate how several batches of classified documents were found at locations linked to Joe Biden.
As the FBI searches the president’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, listen back to Jonathan Freedland’s conversation with Ankush Khardori, who worked in the justice department from 2016 to 2020, about what the outcome to this investigation may be:
Vice-President Kamala Harris will today attend the funeral of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, whose beating death has led to murder charges against five police officers:
Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, will attend the funeral of Tyre Nichols, the black man who died three days after Memphis police officers savagely beat him following a traffic stop earlier this month, the White House has said.
Nichols will be eulogised by the Rev Al Sharpton at a service at Mississippi Boulevard christian church in Memphis on Wednesday morning. Family members of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, who were killed in 2020 by police in Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis, will also attend.
Meanwhile, the Shelby county district attorney, Steve Mulroy, said on Tuesday that prosecutors could bring further criminal charges against police officers and others in connection with Nichols’s fatal beating, after mounting criticism over how Mulroy’s office and the Memphis police department have handled the case.
Updated
As with the searches of Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home and former office in Washington DC, CBS News reports the ongoing search of his Rehoboth Beach property was consensual, and no warrant was sought:
NEW from @AndyTriay @AdrianaDiaz @ArdenFarhi: 2 sources familiar tell @CBSNews @FBI personnel are at @POTUS Biden’s Rehoboth Beach home. 1 source says search is in relation to classified documents probe. 3rd source says it’s a consensual, planned search and no warrant was sought
— Ed O'Keefe (@edokeefe) February 1, 2023
Today also happens to be Robert Hur’s first day in the office. Hur is the special counsel appointed by attorney general Merrick Garland to handle the investigation into Biden’s possession of classified documents. CBS reports that the justice department, as usual, has nothing new to say about that:
Per @RobLegare: @TheJusticeDept declines to comment on the ongoing @FBI probe. Today is Special Counsel Robert Hur's first day on the job with DOJ. Here's his official web site, in line with other special counsels: https://t.co/XlrueBs3gb
— Ed O'Keefe (@edokeefe) February 1, 2023
Updated
Justice department searching Biden's Delaware home in documents investigation
Federal agents are searching Joe Biden’s Rehoboth Beach, Delaware home as part of the investigation into his possession of classified documents, his personal attorney says.
“Today, with the President’s full support and cooperation, the DOJ is conducting a planned search of his home in Rehoboth, Delaware,” Bob Bauer said in a statement. “Under DOJ’s standard procedures, in the interests of operational security and integrity, it sought to do this work without advance public notice, and we agreed to cooperate. The search today is a further step in a thorough and timely DOJ process we will continue to fully support and facilitate. We will have further information at the conclusion of today’s search.”
Last month, Biden allowed agents to conduct an unprecedented search of his home in Wilmington, Delaware, one of two locations where secret materials had earlier been found. He also consented in November to the FBI searching a former office he used in Washington DC, where the documents were first discovered.
All told, between 25 and 30 classified documents dating to Biden’s time as senator and vice-president have been found by both the FBI and Biden’s aides at the Wilmington and Washington DC properties. Biden’s attorneys also searched the home in Rehoboth Beach, where he often vacations or spends weekends, but found no documents. It is not known to have been previously searched by the FBI.
Updated
The spotlight in the House has indeed shifted to Republicans and their slim control of the chamber, but that does not mean progressive Democrats have thrown in the towel. The Guardian’s Joan E Greve spoke to one of their most notable lawmakers, Mark Pocan, about what, if anything, he thinks they can get done over the next two years:
Democrats may not control the House of Representatives anymore, but congressman Mark Pocan is not giving up on his legislative agenda. Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat and the former co-chair of the congressional progressive caucus (CPC), instead focuses on playing “the long game” of policymaking.
Pocan’s commitment to promoting progressive policies will be on display Wednesday, as he reintroduces the Save Medicare Act. The congressman points to his advocacy for the legislation as just one example of how progressives can keep advancing their ideals in a Republican-controlled House and ensure that Democrats will be ready to act when they regain full control of Congress.
“I’ve been in local, state and federal government. Each time, you can impact more people’s lives, but it takes exponentially longer to get things done,” Pocan told the Guardian. “You’re always in the long game.”
The meeting between Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy isn’t that big of a deal. No, really: just listen to what the White House is telling the press.
“First meeting of a hundred to follow,” a White House official told Politico. A more succinct description from the same person: “boring”.
The Biden administration yesterday laid out its demands for McCarthy with a memo that asked two questions:
Will the Speaker commit to the bedrock principle that the United States will never default on its financial obligations …?
When will Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans release their Budget?
McCarthy has already answered the first question, saying he will not allow a default in a CBS News interview last Sunday. The budget is an outstanding question, and one Biden and the Democrats will surely seize on to cast the GOP as making vague demands in a negotiation with uniquely high stakes.
As for McCarthy, he has cast just getting the president to sit down with him as a victory, since Biden says he won’t negotiate over increasing the debt ceiling and demanded Republicans raise it without preconditions. But the Republican speaker is intent on bargaining, saying Washington needs to reduce its spending. He hasn’t said what cuts he will demand, though has ruled out going after the Social Security and Medicare benefit programs.
“I’d rather sit down with the president, and let’s have those discussions,” McCarthy said on CBS. “The one thing I do know is, we cannot continue the waste that is happening.”
Biden, McCarthy to meet as debt ceiling imperils economy
Good morning, US politics blog readers. This afternoon, Joe Biden will hold his first meeting with Kevin McCarthy since the California Republican was elected speaker of the House of Representatives, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. The two men will need to agree on a way to raise the US government’s borrowing limit in the next five months or so, otherwise Washington could default on its debt payments for the first time in history, with potentially cataclysmic economic consequences. That said, the White House is telling reporters not to expect too much from their encounter scheduled for 3.15pm eastern time – the two men will meet many times in the months to come.
Here’s what else we can expect today:
Kamala Harris is heading to Memphis to attend the funeral of Tyre Nichols, whose beating death following a traffic stop has led to the indictment of five police officers on murder charges. The funeral will begin at 10.30am central time, and the Guardian will have a live blog covering it.
The Republican-led House judiciary and oversight committees will hold their first hearings today. Oversight will investigate fraud in Covid-19 aid programs, while judiciary will look into the more touchy subject of border security.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 2pm eastern time.
Updated
