Summary
That’s it for today’s live politics blog!
Here’s what happened today:
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has said he will be in the 9 May meeting on the debt ceiling, but emphasized that Biden has to negotiate with House speaker Kevin McCarthy. “There is no solution in the Senate,” said McCarthy to reporters on Tuesday.
A Florida woman faces two charges of battery – one a felony – after allegedly throwing a drink at the far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has said that Democrats will wait on a 9 May meeting between Biden and congressional leaders to decide if they will move forward on a clean debt ceiling push that would not include spending cuts, but added that Democrats will be pushing for a two-year full extension.
Illinois senator Dick Durbin said that he wants to move on a bill imposing a code of ethics on supreme court justices, but wants to make sure he has the votes, as California senator Dianne Feinstein remains absent from the Senate following a bout of shingles.
New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said late on Monday that Feinstein should resign, joining a bipartisan chorus calling for Feinstein to step down amid absences from the Senate.
A new poll puts Donald Trump ahead of Florida governor Ron DeSantis among Republican primary voters in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary election, as Trump continues to outperform DeSantis in several polls.
Thank you for reading! Check in for more updates tomorrow!
The White House’s economist warned against Republicans “playing games” with the US economy through the debt ceiling debate when interest rate increases are already having an averse impact on the economy, Reuters reports.
“The economy remains, it’s been strong. You don’t want to be pushing it off of the course that it’s on,” said Heather Boushey in an interview with Reuters.
Boushey added: “The Fed is raising interest rates in the hope of reducing inflation. That is having this negative effect on the banking sector. Why would we add to that?”
Boushey noted that raising the debt ceiling could remove the risk of a debt default, one that could take affect on 1 June.
Updated
A Florida woman was charged with allegedly throwing a drink at the Florida representative Matt Gaetz. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports.
A Florida woman faces two charges of battery – one a felony – after allegedly throwing a drink at the far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz.
The Walton county sheriff reportedly said Gaetz insisted on pressing charges. Gaetz maintained he was justified in doing so, saying 41-year-old Selena Jo Chambers “cross[ed] the Rubicon beyond just words to throwing stuff”.
A previous case of a drink being thrown at Gaetz resulted in a woman being sent to prison.
In 2019, Amanda Kondrat’yev, then 35 and a former political opponent of Gaetz, received a 15-day prison sentence for throwing a slushie at her rival.
That beverage-blitzing brouhaha happened at an “Open Gaetz” public event at restaurant in Pensacola appropriately named the Brew Ha Ha.
Read the full story here.
Updated
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has said that Democrats will wait on a 9 May meeting between Biden and congressional leaders to decide if they will move forward on a clean debt ceiling push that would not include spending cuts.
Schumer added that he wants a two-year extension of the debt ceiling versus a stopgap measures, the Washington Post reported.
REPORTER: Is a short-term extension of the debt limit going to be necessary at a certain point?
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) May 2, 2023
SCHUMER: We should not kick the can down the road. I believe we should go for the full two-year extension [through December 2024]. pic.twitter.com/IzoTtuyJk6
McConnell will be in 9 May debt ceiling meeting but says 'no solution in the Senate'
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has said he will be in the 9 May meeting on the debt ceiling, but emphasized that Biden has to negotiate with House speaker Kevin McCarthy.
“There is no solution in the Senate,” said McConnell to reporters on Tuesday.
From CNN’s Manu Raju:
McConnell says he will be at the meeting next week on debt limit. But he adds that Biden can either accept the House bill or find a deal with McCarthy. “There is no solution in the Senate,” he says
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 2, 2023
Many expect McConnell to ultimately help negotiate a bipartisan debt ceiling agreement, as the Kentucky senator did in 2021.
But McConnell has maintained that Biden must negotiate with McCarthy and House Republicans about the debt ceiling.
Updated
Illinois senator Dick Durbin said that he wants to move on a bill imposing a code of ethics on supreme court justices, but wants to make sure he has the votes.
CNN’s Manu Raju noted that with California senator Dianne Feinstein out, Durbin is unsure of when he could forward such legislation.
“I’d like to make sure we have enough folks to pass it,” said Durbin.
Feinstein is a member of the Senate judiciary committee, but has been out due a case of shingles. Durbin confirmed to Raju that he has “not personally” spoken with Feinstein about when she would return.
Dick Durbin told me he wants to move on a bill to impose a code of ethics on justices, but needs to make sure he has the votes.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 2, 2023
With Dianne Feinstein still out, it's unclear when he will be able to move the plan.
“I’d like to make sure we have enough folks to pass it."
Durbin said he has "not personally" spoken to Feinstein about when she might return.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 2, 2023
Durbin also would not say how he plans to move ahead on his probe of Clarence Thomas' undisclosed gifts.
"I'm going to discuss with the committee before we make any announcements."
Updated
The defense department and the Federal Aviation Administration have been tracking a balloon that was flying off the coast of Hawaii last week, but a defense official said today there’s no indication it is connected to China or any other adversary, and it presents no threats to aviation or national security, the Associated Press reports.
The balloon was first detected by radar on Friday.
Pacific Air Forces launched three F-22s to assess the situation and visually identified a spherical object. We monitored the transit of the object and assessed that it posed no threat,” US Indo-Pacific Command said.
The defense official said the balloon was floating at about 36,000ft (11,000 meters), and it did not fly over any critical defense infrastructure or sensitive sites.
After determining that the balloon presented no threat to people on the ground or to aviation over Hawaii, the military took no action to bring it down, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.
It’s not clear who owns the balloon, which has now passed out of Hawaii’s airspace, the official said.
The latest balloon sighting comes about three months after the US military shot down what officials said was a Chinese spy balloon that crossed Alaska and part of Canada before returning to the US and triggering widespread interest as it flew across the country.
It was shot down over the Atlantic off the South Carolina coast on 4 February. Large portions of the balloon were recovered by the US military.
US officials said it was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals as part of a huge, military-linked aerial surveillance program that targeted more than 40 countries. Beijing insisted the balloon was just an errant civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research that went off course due to winds and had only limited “self-steering” capabilities.
The US military acknowledged there have been several other balloons that have been tracked over and near the US in recent years, but none lingered over America for as long as that one did. The incident further eroded relations between the US and China.
🚨#BREAKING: The U.S. military is tracking another mysterious balloon that flew parts of Hawaii
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) May 1, 2023
📌#Hawaii | #USA
The US military is currently keeping tabs on a mysterious balloon that was spotted over American airspace, but it's unknown what it is or who it belongs to. The… pic.twitter.com/Vn6GYNia30
Updated
At a press conference just now, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre elaborated on what Joe Biden will discuss with House majority leader Kevin McCarthy over the debt ceiling next week:
“The president is going to make it clear to them that they have to avoid a default. It is their constitutional duty to do this. It is their constitutional duty to the American people for them to do their jobs. He will also say we will have a conversation about the budget and appropriations, and that is something that he will be very clear about. We can have a conversation about that, but it is important to not default.
“The president is going to continue to make that clear. He is going to make that clear and have that conversation.”
Updated
The Biden administration will temporarily send an additional 1,500 troops to the US-Mexico border as pandemic-related restrictions to migration are set to expire on 11 May.
An unnamed US official told Reuters on Tuesday that the additional troops will be part of a supplementary preparation for an increase in illegal immigration as Title 42 comes to an end. Title 42 allowed the US to expel migrants amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The troops will not carry out any law enforcement operations and will assist US border patrol that is currently in the area, said the US official who asked to stay anonymous.
Updated
The number of Americans listing guns and crime as a top issue for them has increased, according to a new Gallup poll.
Of those polled for Gallup’s Most Important Problem list, seven percent said that guns and gun control were a priority issue for them, the Hill reported. Six percent listed crime and violence.
In polling done months earlier, only 3% listed crime as their top issue and 1% listed crime.
Both issues were listed below problems such as government and poor leadership, immigration and the economy.
Updated
House Democrats have quietly started taking steps to introduce a rare legislative procedure that could force a debt limit increase and bypass Republican legislation for cuts.
The New York Times just reported that Democrats are trying to set up a discharge petition that would allow Democrats to force a bill onto the floor if they get enough signatures – 218. This would mean all 213 house Democrats would need to sign the petition, and five Republican representatives would have to join.
Though the House is in recess today, House Dems held a pro forma session and introduced an emergency rule that would give them two weeks, until 16 May, to collect the 218 signatures.
Though Democrats see the bill as a gamble, Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic House minority leader, sent a letter to fellow Democrats today expressing a tone of defiance and saying that House Dems “are working to make sure we have all options at our disposal to avoid default”.
Updated
Oklahoma is the latest state to pass legislation banning gender-affirming care for minors, as several states pass bills targeting the rights of transgender people.
The Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, signed a bill on Monday making it a felony for healthcare practitioners to provide children with gender-affirming care, including puberty-blockers and hormones, the Associated Press reported.
The bill comes as parents of transgender children, healthcare workers, and transgender people say that such care is essential.
“Gender-affirming care is a critical part of helping transgender adolescents succeed, establish healthy relationships with their friends and family, live authentically as themselves, and dream about their futures,” said Lambda Legal and the ACLU in a joint statement, PBS Newshour reported.
At least 15 other states have taken similar measures, with over 500 bills introduced in 2023 that target aspects of life for transgender people.
Updated
A Montana lawmaker is suing the state, Montana’s house speaker, and the sergeant of arms of the state’s house after she was censured, asking to be fully reinstated to her position.
House GOP voted to ban representative Zooey Zephyr on Wednesday from the state’s floor, gallery and anteroom after Zephyr, who is the state’s first openly transgender representative, criticized legislators for supporting a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
Zephyr is now suing to be allowed back onto the house floor as she is only allowed to vote virtually. The lawsuit, filed on Monday, argues that limiting her ability to vote violates “free speech and expression rights,” the Washington Post reported.
“House leadership explicitly and directly targeted me and my district because I dared to give voice to the values and needs of transgender people like myself,” said Zephyr in a statement.
“By doing so, they’ve denied me my own rights under the constitution and, more importantly, the rights of my constituents to just representation in their own government.”
Updated
Midday summary
We’ve reached the midpoint for today’s politics live blog.
Here’s what’s happened so far:
New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said late on Monday that the California senator Dianne Feinstein should resign, joining a bipartisan chorus calling for Feinstein to step down amid absences from the Senate.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said during a Tuesday speech on the Senate floor that Democrats will only pass a “clean” debt ceiling increase, as a 1 June debt default looms.
A new poll puts Donald Trump ahead of Florida governor Ron DeSantis among Republican primary voters in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary election, as Trump continues to outperform DeSantis in several polls.
Debt ceiling talks have gained a second wind after a warning on Monday by the US treasury secretary Janet Yellen that the US could default on its debt as soon as 1 June, as Biden confers a 9 May meeting with top congressional leaders.
Updated
Here is reporting on the Senate judiciary committee meeting from the Guardian’s Chris Stein, who is currently in the hearing room.
Partisan splits were apparent in the Senate judiciary committee today as it kicked off a hearing on the supreme court’s ethics, with Democrats accusing the nation’s highest court of believing itself to be outside the law, and Republicans defending the justices from what they said were attacks motivated by bitterness over its recent rulings.
“Ethics cannot simply be left to the discretion of the nation’s highest court,” the committee’s Democratic chair Richard Durbin said. “The Court should have a code of conduct with clear and enforceable rules so both Justices and the American people know when conduct crosses the line. The highest court in the land should not have the lowest ethical standards. That reality is driving a crisis in public confidence in the supreme court.”
Durbin called the hearing after a series of reports about entanglements between the court’s justices, particularly its six conservatives, and lawyers and donors with interests in the court’s outcome. Chief justice John Roberts was invited to testify, but declined, instead sending a document signed by all of the court’s nine justices that outlined their approach to ethics.
Lindsey Graham, the judiciary committee’s top Republican, said the Democrats were using the hearing to retaliate against justices who authored opinions they didn’t agree with. Last year, the court’s conservatives upended nearly a half-century of precedent by overturning Roe v Wade and allowing states to ban abortion entirely, cut into the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate power plant emissions and weakened laws on possession of concealed weapons.
“This is not about making the court better,” Graham said. “This is about destroying a conservative court. It will not work.”
Updated
Senate judiciary committee meet to discuss supreme court ethics rules
The Senate judiciary committee is holding a meeting to discuss whether the US supreme court should bolster its ethics rules following a series of reported conflicts between supreme court justices and personal interests.
The Tuesday meeting comes after several scandals that have called into question the ethics of the court and diminishing public confidence in the institution, the Washington Post reported.
Most recently, supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has come under fire after media organization ProPublica publicized that the longest-serving justice accepted luxury travel and vacations over two decades from the real estate mogul and Republican donor Harlan Crow.
Such gifts and a real estate deal between Thomas and Crow were undisclosed by Thomas.
Ahead of today’s meeting, Chief Justice John Roberts declined an invitation to appear and testify about judicial ethics. The justice instead forwarded a three page “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices”, which is signed by all nine justices. The non-binding memo is meant to “reaffirm and restate foundational ethics principles and practices to which they subscribe”.
But Roberts himself is facing scrutiny after a whistleblower alleged that Roberts’s wife, Jane Roberts, made millions through recruiting for top law firms.
Updated
Here’s more background on Feinstein’s absence from the Senate, with her last Senate vote taking place in mid-February.
From NBC News’s Garrett Haake:
California Senator Dianne Feinstein appears unlikely to return to the Senate this week, as she continues to recover from shingles. Her office is offering no update on her potential return date. Feinstein last voted in the Senate in mid February.
— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) May 1, 2023
Updated
AOC: California senator Dianne Feinstein 'should retire'
New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said late on Monday that the California senator Dianne Feinstein should resign, as Feinstein faces mounting pressure from her party to step down amid absences from the Senate.
Ocasio-Cortez posted her thoughts on the app Bluesky, writing that Feinstein should “should retire”, CNN reported.
“I think criticisms of that stance as ‘anti-feminist’ are a farce,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
Feinstein, who has already said she will retire from Congress at the end of 2024, has been absent from the Senate as she recovers from a bout of shingles.
Feinstein is a member of the Senate judiciary committee, which has had problems processing judicial nominations amid her absence.
“Her refusal to either retire or show up is causing great harm to the judiciary – precisely where repro rights are getting stripped. That failure means now in this precious window Dems can only pass GOP- approved nominees,” said Ocasio-Cortez on social media.
Updated
Schumer: Democrats will only pass 'clean' debt ceiling increase
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday that Democrats will only pass a “clean” debt ceiling increase during a speech on the Senate floor, as a 1 June debt default looms.
During his speech, Schumer reiterated that the position of Democrats “remains the same”, but did not provide a timeline for a when a possible vote on a spending bill with no spending cuts attached would happen, Reuters reports.
"McCarthy is giving us two terrible options: either default on our debt or default on our country," @SenSchumer says on the floor this morning - calling for a clean, bipartisan debt ceiling increase instead of a "House Freedom Caucus manifesto."
— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) May 2, 2023
30 days to go...
Schumer’s declaration comes as Biden invites the four congressional leaders to a 9 May meeting to discuss the impending debt ceiling crisis.
White House sources have confirmed that Biden has not changed his stance on only approving a deal that doesn’t include spending cuts or work requirements attacked to safety nets.
Updated
The latest poll comes as Trump faces legal action for alleged rape and defamation by journalist E Jean Carroll.
Here is the latest update on the ongoing litigation from Chris McGreal for the Guardian:
Jurors in E Jean Carroll’s legal action against Donald Trump for alleged rape and defamation are expected to begin hearing on Tuesday from two women who say they can back key parts of the advice columnist’s account.
Carroll wrapped up three days on the witness stand on Monday as the judge in the civil case, Lewis Kaplan, denied a defense motion for a mistrial on the grounds that he had made “pervasive unfair and prejudicial rulings” against Trump’s team during its cross-examination of the former president’s accuser.
Carroll is suing Trump for battery for allegedly raping her in a New York department store changing room in 1996, and for defamation for calling her a liar after she went public about the alleged assault in 2019.
Carroll’s legal team is expected to call two women, Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin, to testify that the advice columnist told them about the alleged assault shortly after it occurred. Both have since corroborated the account.
Read the full update here.
Poll places Donald Trump ahead of Ron DeSantis
A new poll puts Donald Trump ahead of Florida governor Ron DeSantis among Republican primary voters in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary election.
The CBS News-You Gov poll found that Trump trounced DeSantis among primary voters by 36 points, as DeSantis has not officially announced whether he will throw his hat in the ring for the 2024 presidency, the Hill reports.
DeSantis only had 22% of prospective primary voters.
Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy both trailed significantly, gaining four and five percentage points, respectively.
DeSantis had been a top potential Republican nominee for months ahead of a rumored run for the country’s highest office.
But more recently, support for Trump has buoyed, as the former president outperforms DeSantis in multiple polls.
Updated
For those with questions, here is a Guardian explainer on the debt ceiling crisis and what will happen if it’s not raised, by the Guardian’s Lauren Aratani:
… What is the debt ceiling?
The debt ceiling is the limit on the amount of money the US government can borrow to pay for services, such as social security, Medicare and the military.
Each year, the government takes in revenue from taxes and other streams, such as customs duties, but ultimately spends more than it takes in. This leaves the government with a deficit, which has ranged from $400bn to $3tn each year over the last decade. The deficit left at the end of the year ultimately gets tacked on to the country’s total debt.
To borrow money, the US treasury issues securities, like US government bonds, that it will eventually pay back with interest. Once the US government hits its debt limit, the treasury cannot issue more securities, essentially stopping a key flow of money into the federal government.
Congress is in charge of setting the debt limit, which currently stands at $31.4tn. The debt ceiling has been raised 78 times since 1960, under both Democrat and Republican presidents. At times, the ceiling was briefly suspended and then reinstated at a higher limit, essentially a retroactive raising of the debt ceiling.
Read the full explainer here.
Updated
More on McConnell’s possible help during this latest debt ceiling crisis, from NBC News’s Sahil Kapur:
The last time the debt limit deadline came up, @LeaderMcConnell facilitated a way for Democrats to resolve it without the threat of default. Here’s what he told me about it a few months ago, in December. https://t.co/QjZ5fX9G4R pic.twitter.com/9nJr8tD554
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 1, 2023
Updated
Many have predicted that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell will likely intervene in debt ceiling discussions amid the ongoing stalemate, despite his promises to stay out of it.
McConnell helped negotiate between the parties during the last debt ceiling crisis, when it was last raised by $2.5tn in December 2021.
But the Kentucky senator has vowed to not play referee between the two parties this time around. Telling reporters on Monday, McConnell said:
The president knows how to do this … Until he and the Speaker of the House reach an agreement, we’ll be at a standoff … We have divided government. The president and the Speaker need to come together and solve the problem.
Updated
With a 9 May meeting set to discuss the looming debt ceiling deadline, Republicans and Democrats have each dug their heels in about their conditions for raising the debt limit.
House Republicans, led by McCarthy, have said they will only raise the ceiling if Democrats agree to several stipulations including spending cuts and work requirements on social safety nets.
While House republicans did manage to pass their debt ceiling bill through, said bill was described by Senate leader Chuck Schumer as “dead on arrival”. Schumer added that the Senate would hold hearings to “expose the true impact” the proposed bill, the Hill reported.
Meanwhile, McCarthy and other Republican backers have said that the recently passed bill is the opening shot in their strategy to prove that Republicans have redress to the debt ceiling crisis.
But, even those in support of the GOP debt limit package agree that getting wider support with Biden and in the Senate will be a tougher battle.
“I’m sure it’s going to be tougher,” said Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to the Hill.
Updated
Debt ceiling talks restart as deadline looms
Good morning.
Debt ceiling talks have gained a second wind after a warning on Monday by the US treasury secretary Janet Yellen that the US could default on its debt as soon as 1 June.
Following the warning, the Biden administration announced that Joe Biden has scheduled a 9 May meeting with top congressional leaders in hopes of brokering an agreement.
So far, House speaker Kevin McCarthy has accepted the invitation, in what will be Biden’s first bipartisan discussion on the issue since 1 February.
But amid a restart in talks, White House sources have said that Biden has not moved on his demands for a clean debt ceiling increase, Politico reports, as House Republicans have refused to raise the debt ceiling without deep budget cuts and other stipulations.
