Evening summary
Washington is ending its week on a quiet note, with few major developments in Congress or at the White House as officials continue grappling with the fallout from the shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Here’s what happened today:
- Peter Navarro, a top former White House adviser to Donald Trump, was taken into custody after being indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.
- A fourth grader who survived the Uvalde, Texas shooting will testify before a US House panel next week, as Democrats attempt to convince their GOP counterparts that something must be done to prevent the epidemic of mass shootings.
- People affected by the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 students and two teachers last month have taken initial steps to sue Daniel Defense, manufacturer of the weapon used in the massacre.
- US Capitol police say they arrested a man outside the building carrying a BB gun, high-capacity magazines, a fake badge and body armor.
- May employment data confirmed that robust job growth is continuing in the United States, with the economy adding a better-than-expected 390,000 positions and the unemployment rate remaining at 3.6% – a hair above where it was before the pandemic caused tens of millions of people to lose their employment.
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John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor and Democratic nominee for US Senate, said he “almost died” after suffering a stroke last month, the Washington Post is reporting.
“The stroke I suffered on May 13 didn’t come out of nowhere,” Fetterman said in a statement.
“Like so many others, and so many men in particular, I avoided going to the doctor, even though I knew I didn’t feel well. As a result, I almost died.”
He added: “I didn’t do what the doctor told me. But I won’t make that mistake again.”
Fetterman did not give a date for his return to the campaign trail. On Friday he released a letter from his doctor saying he had been diagnosed with an irregular heart rhythm in 2017 , but had not scheduled a follow up appointment, and had not visited any doctor for five years since that 2017 appointment.
John Fetterman, who has been criticized for not providing more details about his health following his stroke, releases a letter from his doc saying he was first diagnosed in 2017 with an irregular heart rhythm. Said he ignored doctor’s advice for five years until he had a stroke pic.twitter.com/1LpZ1J214S
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 3, 2022
Pennsylvania is a crucial contest for Democrats as they aim to avoid losing the Senate in the November midterm elections. Fetterman, 52, had previously faced criticism for not providing a timetable on his return to campaigning.
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Ohio’s House of Representatives has passed a bill that would ban transgender girls from school sports and require verification from a doctor if a student’s sex is called into question, Reuters reported.
The Republican-sponsored legislation comes in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections, with transgender rights emerging as a major front in the US culture wars.
The bill next goes to a vote in the state Senate when it reconvenes in several months after a recess.
Several other states have passed anti-trans sports bills in recent months, but few are as extreme as the Ohio legislation, which would require students whose sex is “disputed” to provide a physician’s statement verifying “internal and external reproductive anatomy” and other criteria.
These provisions target “a handful of Ohio students and their families who simply want to play sports like everyone else,” LGBTQ+ rights group Equality Ohio said in a statement.
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People affected by the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 students and two teachers last month have taken the initial steps to sue Daniel Defense, manufacturer of the weapon used in the massacre, Reuters reports.
An attorney representing Alfred Garza, father of Robb Elementary School student Amerie Jo Garza, sent the Georgia-based gun manufacturer a request for information about its marketing to children and teens.
“We ask you to begin providing information to us now, rather than force Mr. Garza to file a lawsuit to obtain it,” his lawyers wrote in a letter to the company.
School employee Emilia Marin has also filed a petition in Texas state court to depose Daniel Defense over its marketing, and to turn over documents.
Daniel Defense did not respond to Reuters’s request for comment.
Remington Arms, manufacturer of the weapon used in the Sandy Hook school shooting that left 20 students and six adults dead in 2012, agreed earlier this year to pay $73 million to some of the victims of that attack, though a federal law complicates many lawsuits against gun makers.
Imagine that you are wanted for a crime. Imagine that you are in the United States, perhaps in a state not far from the Mexican border. You may think, based on what you’ve seen in movies or read on the news, that if you can get to Mexico, you can go scot-free. You would be wrong, according to an excellent Washington Post article that profiles the “Gringo Hunters,” a Mexican police unit tasked with tracking down foreign criminals on the run in their country.
American politicians, most famously Donald Trump along with other conservatives, have characterized Mexico as a source of criminals who flood over the border into the United States. The piece flips that stereotype on its head, as reporter Kevin Sieff goes on the hunt with the officers who go after the many alleged murderers, rapists and child abusers that pour into their country from their northern neighbor:
It was late March. The unit had been busier than at any other time in its history. While politicians in Washington argued over whether there was a crisis at the border, it felt to the Gringo Hunters that crime was spilling over in the opposite direction.
“Honestly, I think it’s all the drugs over there,” said Moises, the liaison unit’s commander. Like other unit members, he spoke on the condition that his last name be withheld so he can continue to work undercover.
In its office, the unit keeps a whiteboard with the month’s apprehensions tallied by name, date and charge. In the first three weeks of March, there were eight accused of drug trafficking, two of murder and one of pedophilia.
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US Capitol police say they have arrested a man outside the building carrying a BB gun, high-capacity magazines, a fake badge and body armor.
Officers encountered the man after he parked his Dodge Charger at Peace Circle on the US Capitol’s west side around 5am on Friday, the agency said in a statement:
The man was identified as 53-year-old Jerome Felipe out of Flint, Michigan.
Felipe, who is a retired police officer out of New York, presented the USCP officers with a fake badge that had “Department of the INTERPOL” printed on it. Felipe also made a false statement that he was a criminal investigator with the agency.
Felipe gave officers permission to search his vehicle. The officers discovered a BB gun, two ballistic vests, several high capacity magazines, and other ammunition in the car. No real guns were found.
Investigators are still working to determine the reason Felipe was parked near the US Capitol.
Felipe is facing charges for Unlawful Possession of High Capacity Magazines and Unregistered Ammo.
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A top deputy to Mike Pence warned the Secret Service about a security risk to the then vice-president the day before the January 6 attack, the New York Times is reporting.
The warning was conveyed by Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, to his main Secret Service agent, Tim Giebels, on 5 January, before a crowd of more than 2,000 people stormed the US capitol following a speech by Donald Trump. In their conversation before that happened, Short warned Giebels that Trump was going to publicly repudiate Pence, whom he had chosen as his running mate during his successful 2016 run for the White House.
According to the Times:
Mr Short did not know what form such a security risk might take, according to people familiar with the events. But after days of intensifying pressure from Mr Trump on Mr Pence to take the extraordinary step of intervening in the certification of the Electoral College count to forestall Mr Trump’s defeat, Mr Short seemed to have good reason for concern. The vice president’s refusal to go along was exploding into an open and bitter breach between the two men at a time when the president was stoking the fury of his supporters who were streaming into Washington.
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Summary
- The need for meaningful gun control reforms, following the mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, continues to dominate political conversation, but Republicans and Democrats appear no closer to a consensus.
- On Thursday Joe Biden asked: “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” and called for a series of gun control measures. But Republicans snubbed serious discussion of stricter gun laws at a hearing on Thursday.
- A fourth grader who survived the Uvalde, Texas shooting will testify before a US House panel next week, as Democrats attempt to convince their GOP counterparts that something must be done to prevent the epidemic of mass shootings.
- Peter Navarro, a top former White House adviser to Donald Trump, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress, after he defied a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.
- Democrats are increasingly blaming Joe Biden’s climate office for holding up progress on measures that could cut US emissions, according to Politico. “Micromanaging” by the office of other government bodies has stalled a series of environmental efforts, Politico reported.
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With Biden having failed to get his major proposals to fight rising global temperatures through Congress, Politico reports that Democrats are increasingly blaming his climate office for holding up progress on other measures that could cut US emissions.
The Climate Policy Office headed by Gina McCarthy has gotten in the way of actions that Biden could take without Congress’s approval, according to the article, which cited nine Democratic sources both inside and outside the Biden administration:
The office’s micromanaging of other government bodies has weakened the Interior Department’s efforts to rein in oil and gas leases on federal lands, stalled a redo of federal ethanol policies and slowed White House efforts to address pollution in low-income and minority communities, said the Democrats, who include congressional staff and current or former Biden administration officials.
Much of Biden’s emissions-cutting strategy was contained in Build Back Better, his failed attempt to spend potentially trillions of dollars revamping American social services and also fighting climate change. Despite passing the House, it failed to win enough votes among Senate Democrats, and the fate of its proposals remains up in the air.
A fourth-grader who survived last week’s mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas will testify before a US House panel next week, alongside the parents of victims killed in both the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings.
Miah Cerrillo, a student at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, will appear before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday, as Congress faces calls to take meaningful action on gun control.
Cerrillo will be joined by Felix Rubio and Kimberly Mata-Rubio, the parents of Lexi Rubio, who was ten-years-old when she was killed at Robb elementary.
Zeneta Everhart, the mother of Zaire Goodman, who survived after being shot at the mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store, will also speak before the House committee.
Carolyn Maloney, the New York Democrat who chairs the committee, said the hearing “will examine the terrible impact of gun violence and the urgent need to rein in the weapons of war used to perpetrate these crimes”.
“It is my hope that all my colleagues will listen with an open heart as gun violence survivors and loved ones recount one of the darkest days of their lives,” Maloney said.
“This hearing is ultimately about saving lives, and I hope it will galvanize my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass legislation to do just that.”
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Peter Navarro may not be the only former Trump official facing Washington’s wrath.
My colleague Peter Stone has reported that there is evidence the Justice Department is looking into lawyers who advised the former president on how to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory:
Legal experts believe the US Justice Department has made headway with a key criminal inquiry and could be homing in on top Trump lawyers who plotted to overturn Joe Biden’s election, after the department wrote to the House panel probing the January 6 Capitol attack seeking transcripts of witness depositions and interviews.
While it’s unclear exactly what information the DoJ asked for, former prosecutors note that the 20 April request occurred at about the same time a Washington DC grand jury issued subpoenas seeking information about several Trump lawyers including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, plus other Trump advisers, who reportedly played roles in a fake electors scheme.
Giuliani, Trump’s former personal lawyer, worked with other lawyers and some campaign officials to spearhead a scheme to replace Biden electors with alternative Trump ones in seven states that Biden won, with an eye to blocking Congress’ certification of Biden on January 6 when a mob of Trump loyalists attacked the Capitol.
January 6 committee indicts ex-Trump adviser Navarro
Peter Navarro, a top former White House adviser to Donald Trump, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on two counts of contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.
The justice department said in a news release that Navarro was indicted with one count for refusing to appear at a deposition and another for refusing to turn over documents as required by the panel’s subpoena.
Navarro’s indictment, the department said, was unsealed a day after it was returned by a federal grand jury in Washington that acted on a contempt referral made by the House of Representatives after he declined to cooperate with the January 6 inquiry.
The justice department told the Guardian that Navarro is expected to appear before Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui in the US district court for the District of Columbia in the early afternoon on Friday.
Navarro did not respond to a request for comment.
The process of reporting the news can be exciting, but few American journalists can match the tales of James Risen, a former national security reporter for The New York Times who is now with The Intercept. He has a new story out about how the FBI in 2014 planned to arrest a source he was meeting with in Belgium.
In the convoluted tale, which occurred when he was with the Times, Risen explains how the FBI worried the source would turn over documents that would be even more explosive than those released by Edward Snowden. The meeting ultimately falls apart due to the lies of a lawyer who was talking with both Risen and the FBI.
Risen has had uncommonly high-stakes run-ins with the government, including a standoff with the Obama administration over his refusal to disclose the name of a source, during which the specter of him serving jail time was raised. He also shared a Pulitzer price for revealing the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program in 2005.
Tim Ryan, the Democratic candidate for the open senate seat in Ohio, has released a new ad attacking his Republican opponent JD Vance for doubting that trade deals undermined the state’s industries, and casting aspersions over his time living in California.
Vance, who won the endorsement of former president Donald Trump and is perhaps best known for authoring the memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” triumphed in last month’s crowded Republican primary and will face sitting House representative Ryan in the race for the senate seat held by Rob Portman, a Republican who is not standing for re-election.
Ohio was once seen as a swing state but has increasingly become dominated by the GOP, and The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter rates the race as leaning Republican.
Joe Biden said Americans should feel “confident” about the economy, despite high gas prices and inflation, as he blamed Russia for increases “at the pump” and “in the grocery store”.
“There’s no denying that high prices, particularly around gasoline and food, are real problem for people. But there’s every reason for the American people to feel confident that we’ll meet these challenges,” Biden said.
“Because of the enormous progress we’ve made on the economy, the Americans can tackle inflation from a position of strength.”
Biden was speaking after the latest jobs report showed the US added 390,000 jobs in May. Despite that good news, inflation remains near record highs, while the average price for gasoline hit a new record on Wednesday.
“Both of these challenges have been directly exacerbated by Putin’s war in Ukraine,” Biden said.
This is a Putin price hike. Putin’s war has raised the price of food because Ukraine and Russia are two of the world’s major bread baskets, for wheat and corn.”
An increasing number of Democrats running for Senate are promising to ditch the filibuster to pass stricter gun laws, the Washington Post reports, even as Democratic party leadership has backed away from the issue.
Democrats including John Fetterman, the candidate for Pennsylvania, have repeatedly raised the issue in his campaign speeches, as have Rep Val Demings – running against Marco Rubio in Florida – and Rep Tim Ryan, who is running in Ohio.
A number of Democratic candidates in the Wisconsin primary have also called for ending the filibuster. Doing so would give the Democratic party much greater scope to push through gun control laws. But the party has been discussing scrapping the filibuster for months, without any result. The party has repeatedly been thwarted by two of its own members: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
“Party leaders and some Senate incumbents are wary of a fight they’ve already lost over voting rights and abortion, and they aren’t interested in revisiting the filibuster debate, much preferring to keep their energy focused on the Republican opposition to gun-control laws,” the Washington Post reported.
New York state is moving to place a moratorium on cryptocurrency mining amid concerns about emissions from the energy intensive processes used to mine bitcoin and other digital currencies.
The state senate on Thursday approved a bill that would put a two-year halt on new permits to use fossil-fuel power plants to mine cryptocurrencies, sending it to the desk of governor Kathy Hochul. As the value of digital assets like bitcoin has surged in recent years, companies have restarted old power plants burning coal and other polluting fuels to run their operations, including in upstate New York. Meanwhile, New York City mayor Eric Adams had his first paycheck converted into bitcoin and ethereum, though he may have ended up regretting that decision since the value of those currencies crashed in recent weeks amid wider stock market turmoil.
New York’s ban was welcomed by environmental law firm Earthjustice, whose New York policy advocate Liz Moran said it showed the state’s commitment to its plan to fight climate change: “With this bill’s passage, the legislature has rightly said fossil fuel power plants can’t get a second life in New York just for private industry gain, which would fly in the face of the state’s climate mandates,” she said in a statement.
A new migrant caravan will soon be on its way through Mexico to the southern US border, my colleague Lillian Perlmutter reports from Tapachula:
Liozanys Comeja credits her survival to her teacup chihuahua, Mia. Originally from Venezuela, Comeja moved to Colombia five years ago, but decided to leave her new life behind this month due to the rising cost of living. She crossed the Darien Gap, a notorious stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama, with Mia tucked in her backpack, eventually making her way across eight countries. Now, Comeja is hoping the dog will help her make it through the grueling final leg of their journey.
Comeja has joined about 11,000 others who on Monday will leave Tapachula, a sweltering city on the Mexico-Guatemala border, and head north for the United States. It will depart as leaders from across the hemisphere gather in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas.
“Whenever I get discouraged, Mia calms me down,” Comeja said. When they arrive at the US border, Comeja plans to cross the Rio Grande on foot.
This is not the first migrant caravan to leave Tapachula, but it may be the largest ever recorded in Mexico: its numbers are expected to swell in the coming days, and may reach 15,000 people – plus Mia the chihuahua.
Republicans have used the flow of migrants towards the southern border as cudgel to attack Biden’s policies, and the caravans have been particularly high-profile events. Biden recently ended pandemic-era restrictions on claiming asylum at the border, a move that drew objections from both Republicans and some Democrats. However, that effort has been tied up in court.
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Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who has frustrated many in his party by thwarting Joe Biden’s agenda, is close to a deal with his party that could provide green energy tax cuts, Axios reported.
Manchin, who has repeatedly voted against measures to tackle the climate crisis, has been in talks over proposals with both Republicans and Democrats.
According to Axios, Manchin has ultimately sided with Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, and the pair plan to focus on “focus on a potential deal that includes green energy tax credits and the tax increases to pay for them”.
Schumer is hoping to pass a bill which would also cut drug prices. Manchin, who opposed the Build Back Better bill which would have reduced drug costs, raised eyebrows on Tuesday when he claimed: “If we do nothing else this year — I think we can do a lot more — but if we do nothing more this year, that’s the one thing that must be done.”
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The May employment data released this morning confirmed that robust job growth is continuing in the United States, with the economy adding a better-than-expected 390,000 positions and the unemployment rate remaining at 3.6 percent — a hair above where it was before the pandemic caused tens of millions of people to lose their employment.
Low joblessness can be a major boost to American presidents, and indeed, the data was good news for the White House. But Biden has a bigger problem when it comes to the economy. Inflation has climbed to levels not seen since the 1980s over the past year, and his approval rating has suffered as a result. Biden has dubbed fighting the price increases his “top priority,” but in reality, there’s not much the White House can do about the trend, which is fueled by factors both domestic and foreign.
The Federal Reserve is the most potent inflation fighter in Washington, with its power to set interest rates — but the central bank is independent, and does not answer to Biden. Last month, it made its biggest rate hike in more than two decades and is expected to continue raising rates aggressively throughout this year. The downside to that? There are growing fears that higher rates could end up driving the economy into a recession.
Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of political news.
Democrats and Republicans remain at loggerheads over what would amount to acceptable gun control measures, even as Joe Biden demanded action in an impassioned primetime speech on Thursday.
Speaking from the White House, Biden asked: “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” As he called for the purchase age for “assault weapons” to be raised from 18 to 21, and for a ban on high capacity magazines.
Biden also said red flag laws should be introduced to alert authorities to potential shooters, and background checks expanded.
But the president will be aware that, given the makeup – and mindset – of the House and the Senate, wholesale changes to gun laws are unlikely.
A reminder of this came earlier on Thursday, when a hearing of the House of Representatives judiciary committee, called to discuss raising the age limit for purchasing a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21 and making it a federal offense to import, manufacture or possess large-capacity magazines, descended into farce.
Greg Steube, a Republican from Florida who was attending the hearing virtually, held up four handguns in an apparent attempt to signal his opposition to expanded gun control laws.
Jim Jordan, a fellow Republican, did not draw a firearm, but dismissed the measure out of hand.
In the Senate, a bipartisan group of senators is trying to craft a narrow bill, which may focus on boosting school security and possibly enacting a “red flag” law, which would allow authorities to seize guns bought by people suffering from mental illness. But previous efforts at even these milquetoast measures have fallen flat.
- In other news, the US added 390,000 jobs in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly report. The unemployment rate remained at 3.6% for the third straight month, while average hourly earnings were up 5.2% compared to last year.
- It’s not all good news, however, with inflation continuing to soar. This week Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, described the challenges facing the US economy as akin to an “hurricane”, while on Thursday Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, ordered the company to cut 10% of jobs, citing a “super bad feeling” about the economy.
- Biden will deliver remarks on the latest jobs report at 10.30am.
