Closing summary
Thank you for reading the US politics blog today. We’ll be back on Wednesday.
For all the detailed news on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, please consult our global war blog here.
Here are the main events that occurred today:
- The White House is making efforts to communicate that Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell may disagree on what the problems are at the root of America’s repeated mass shootings, but the US president can still call the Senate majority leader a “rational Republican” and try to find common ground on gun violence.
- US supreme court clerks may be required to release their phone records as the investigation into who leaked the Roe v Wade opinion draft widens.
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A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, Michael Sussmann, was acquitted Tuesday of lying to the FBI when he pushed information meant to cast suspicions on Donald Trump and Russia in the run-up to that election.
- Joe Biden has been speaking at the White House with Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand prime minister, ahead of their mini-summit.
- The US president is meeting with Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, today to discuss the economy in the US and globally, and what steps can be taken to ease inflation and lower prices. Biden is calling the issue his “top domestic priority”.
- An emergency gun reform package, the Protecting Our Kids Act, will be presented to the House judiciary committee on Thursday as politicians grapple with the aftermath of mass shootings in New York and Texas this month that killed 31 people, including 19 elementary school children.
"Potentially a way for the Senate to come together" on gun violence - White House
The White House is making efforts to communicate that Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell may disagree on what the problems are at the root of America’s repeated mass shootings, but the US president can still call the Senate majority leader a “rational Republican” and try to find common ground on gun violence.
Kentucky Republican McConnell, and many Republican leaders, including in Texas where the small city of Uvalde is devastated by last week’s school shooting, continually hone in on mental health issues and a need for more school security.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre noted that: “We are the only country that is dealing with gun violence at the rate we are, so what’s the problem here? The problem is with guns and not having legislation to deal with something that’s a pandemic here.”
Biden spoke at length yesterday outside the White House, as he returned from Delaware the day after he’d visited Uvalde, about how the idea of 18-year-olds legally being able to buy military-style assault rifles in the US - the weapons used in the Uvalde massacre and the racist attack on a supermarket in a majority-Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, days before - made no sense.
Jean-Pierre noted that Republicans’ insistence on mental health and “hardening schools” and away from great gun control are “two things he [Biden] does not agree on [with McConnell].”
But she added: “But I think there is a way potentially for the Senate to come together and legislation to come together, they need to.”
A group of Senate Democrats and Republicans are currently discussing on Capitol Hill the potential for a bipartisan “significant package” of measures, according to Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy.
But indications are that any such bill will include a collection of more minor measures, not sweeping change such as an assault weapons ban, freshly urged upon by US vice president Kamala Harris on Saturday when she attended the last funeral for the 10 people killed in Buffalo.
Updated
Karine Jean-Pierre says Biden is “considering” more executive actions on gun reforms following the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, but did not give details of what they might be.
She confirmed that the president, and a White House team, is also discussing legislation with lawmakers:
He’s calling on Congress to act. He’s hopeful, he wants to make sure there’s action.
The President has done everything he can from from the federal government. We are looking at other executive actions that we could possibly do. But it’s not up to him alone. He cannot do this alone. Congress needs to act.
White House economic adviser Brian Deese followed the band to report on Joe Biden’s lunchtime meeting with the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, and treasury secretary, Janet Yellen.
“I get to go home and tell my kids that BTS opened for me,” he jokes.
Deese says Biden underscored that he respects the independence of the federal reserve and will give the fed the space and independence it needs to tackle inflation.
“It’s a global challenge,” Deese says of inflation.
“It’s hitting American families and creating anxiety and economic hardship. He [Biden] gets this”.
But he says because of Biden’s economic achievements, and US economic strengths including a robust jobs market, few countries are better placed for the challenge ahead.
He predicts the recovery moving forward will look different than it has so far.
“It’s a marathon and we have to move and shift to stable and resilient growth,” Deese adds, noting that the recovery since the Covid-19 pandemic has been at a furious pace.
Soaring gas and food prices remain Biden’s top economic priority, Deese says.
“He’s focused on the right policy decisions and choices. We have to address this issue, we need some help working with Congress”.
Updated
An interpreter has now kindly informed us what the BTS band members were saying.
[Update: The speed of the English interpretation after the band had finished speaking meant I was unable to report with certainty which comments should be attributed to which band members. My colleague David Smith, who attended the briefing in person and had access to an official transcript, later wrote this outstanding piece on the BTS visit which gives you the fuller picture.]
Jungkook, although it might have been J-Hope, said: “Today is the last day of AA and NHPI heritage month (Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander), we join the White House to stand with the AA and HPI community and to celebrate”.
The interpreter has raced through the names, and this blogger can’t determine if he said Jimmy or Ji-min, so either Kim Seok-jin (known as Jinny) or Park Ji-min said: “We were devastated by the recent surge of hate crimes, including Asian American hate crimes, [it’s time] to put a stop on this and support the cause. We’d like to take this opportunity to voice ourselves once again”.
Another band member who probably was Jungkook said: “We still feel surprised that music created by South Korean artists reaches so many people around the world, transcending languages and cultural barriers. We believe music is always an amazing and wonderful unifier of all things”.
The band were hustled out as reporters shouted questions to them in vain.
Updated
The seven members of K-pop band BTS are flanking White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, wearing black suits and looking more like a security detail than pop stars.
“It is a great honor to be invited to the White House to discuss important issues of anti-Asian hate crimes, Asian inclusion and diversity,” the first band member says in perfect English.
A second band member steps up and speaks in Korean, as do the others, one by one. There seems to be no interpreter, but they look very earnest in what they’re saying.
The English-speaking band member returns:
We thank President Biden and the White House for giving us this important opportunity to speak about these important causes and remind ourselves of what we can do as artists.
Updated
One of the most extraordinary White House press briefings in recent memory is about to get under way, with South Korean K-pop band BTS set to take the podium with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
The popular music combination is in town to meet with Joe Biden and discuss “the need to come together in solidarity, Asian inclusion and representation, and addressing anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination”.
There’s been reaction to the acquittal earlier today of Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, who was accused of lying to the FBI.
Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse in Washington DC, Sussmann said he “told the truth to the FBI, and the jury clearly recognized that with their unanimous verdict today”.
Sussmann was accused of concealing from the FBI that he was working for the Clinton campaign when he met with the bureau’s general counsel James Baker in September 2016 and handed over documents purporting to show links between the rival campaign of Donald Trump and Russia.
Sussmann added: “Despite being falsely accused, I am relieved that justice ultimately prevailed in this case”.
In a statement, special counsel John Durham, who was appointed three years ago to search for government misconduct during the investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign, effectively investigating the investigators, said he and his team were “disappointed” by the verdict.
“While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service,” Durham said.
“I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case”.
Read more:
As the first of the funerals takes place on Tuesday for the victims of last week’s elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, local media outlets are casting a spotlight on a company that worked with families to create 19 custom-made children’s caskets to honor their lives.
Trey Ganem, his son Billy and their team at SoulShine Industries of Edna, Texas, donated, constructed and painted 19 caskets in three days.
“We’re creating the last thing that the parents can ever do for their child,” Ganem told NewsNation. And we’re making it with passion and purpose. We put all of our heart and soul into this thing”.
Meet the TX man who’s making customized caskets for each of the 19 young victims and two teachers from the school shooting in #Uvalde. Trey Ganem visited with the families last week so each casket is personalized to include each child's interests.
— John-Carlos Estrada (@Mr_JCE) May 31, 2022
📷: SoulShine Industries pic.twitter.com/eeoOZHcrfF
Read more:
Updated
Interim summary
It’s been a lively morning in US politics news, do stay tuned as we take you through the next hours with fresh updates as they happen.
For all the detailed news on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, please consult our global war blog here.
Here’s where things stand in the US:
- US supreme court clerks may be required to release their phone records as the investigation into who leaked the Roe v Wade opinion draft widens.
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A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, Michael Sussmann, was acquitted Tuesday of lying to the FBI when he pushed information meant to cast suspicions on Donald Trump and Russia in the run-up to that election.
- Joe Biden has been speaking at the White House with Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand prime minister, ahead of their mini-summit.
- The US president is meeting with Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, today to discuss the economy in the US and globally, and what steps can be taken to ease inflation and lower prices. Biden is calling the issue his “top domestic priority”.
- An emergency gun reform package, the Protecting Our Kids Act, will be presented to the House judiciary committee on Thursday as politicians grapple with the aftermath of mass shootings in New York and Texas this month that killed 31 people, including 19 elementary school children.
Supreme court leak inquiry may seek clerks' phone records
In an unprecedented move, US supreme court clerks may be required to release their phone records as the investigation into who leaked the Roe v Wade opinion draft widens.
The possible mandated release of private cell records and signed affidavits, reported by CNN, is reportedly causing some clerks to consider retaining legal counsel.
The leaked draft on abortion, which was first published by Politico on 2 May, sparked outrage across the nation as it appeared to show that the conservative majority on the court is prepared to roll back federal abortion protections.
In the following weeks, an investigation into who leaked the draft has intensified. The chief justice, John Roberts, has met with the clerks in a group, but it is unclear whether any individual interviews have taken place.
The request for phone records is the most significant development in the investigation to date, with legal observers noting that the intrusion could cause the clerks to seek counsel.
Read more:
Clinton lawyer acquitted of lying to FBI
A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign was acquitted Tuesday of lying to the FBI when he pushed information meant to cast suspicions on Donald Trump and Russia in the run-up to the 2016 election.
The jury in the case of Michael Sussmann deliberated on Friday afternoon and Tuesday morning before reaching its verdict, the Associated Press said.
The case was the first courtroom test of special counsel John Durham since his appointment three years ago to search for government misconduct during the investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Michael Sussman not guilty -- eminently predictable, given Durham's desperate stretching of the law and facts.
— Elie Honig (@eliehonig) May 31, 2022
I wrote this back in September:https://t.co/EUWxptnMYd
The verdict represents a significant setback for Durham’s work, the AP says, especially since Trump supporters had looked to the probe to expose what they contend was sweeping wrongdoing by the FBI.
In the indictment filed in September 2021, Sussmann was accused of falsely telling FBI general counsel James Baker in September 2016 that he did not represent any client when he met him to give the bureau white papers and other data files containing evidence of questionable cyber links between the Trump Organization and a Russia-based bank.
The indictment alleged that in fact Sussmann had turned over this information not as a “good citizen” but rather, as an attorney representing a US technology executive, an internet company and Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Trump is suing Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and other people and entities tied to the investigation of Russian election interference in 2016, claiming they attempted to rig the election he won.
Read more:
Updated
Biden welcomes New Zealand's Ardern to White House
Joe Biden has just been speaking at the White House with Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand prime minister, ahead of their mini-summit.
The president recalled his visit Sunday to Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman murdered 19 children and two teachers exactly one week ago.
Biden told Ardern:
There’s an expression by an Irish poet that says ‘too long a suffering makes a stone of the heart’. Well, there’s an awful lot of suffering.
I’ve been to more mass shooting aftermaths than I think any president in American history, unfortunately, and so much of it is preventable.
The devastation is amazing. People sat in a room, about 250 in a large room with me, for almost four hours.... nobody left, they waited until the very end. Their pain is palpable.
Biden thanked Ardern for New Zealand’s “significant support” in efforts to isolate Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and said the two leaders had “a lot to talk about”.
Footnote: the poem Biden was (mis)quoting is Easter, 1916 by William Butler Yeats. The exact line is: “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?”
Updated
Recent revelations that Democratic West Virginia senator Joe Manchin quietly made millions from his coal business could come back to haunt him as he eyes a run for re-election. Chris McGreal reports:
Nancy Hilsbos, a former coalminer living in the West Virginia county that Senator Joe Manchin calls home, barely noticed the nondescript office block she passed almost daily.
The property, at the top of a rise on the road out of the small city of Fairmont, bears a large sign: “Manchin Professional Building”. Nameplates announce the offices of accountants, financial advisers and insurers. But there is no mention of the most profitable and influential company registered at the address – the Democratic senator’s own firm, Enersystems.
Manchin was recently revealed to have quietly made millions of dollars from Enersystems over the past three decades as the only supplier of a low grade coal to a high-polluting power plant near Fairmont. That came as news to Hilsbos and just about everyone else in the city.
“What surprised me was that we didn’t know it. One of the most shocking things was that I’ve driven by that place thousands of times in the last 30 years and I had no idea that’s where his business operation was headquartered because there’s no sign,” said Hilsbos.
“I wonder why he’s not prouder of what he’s done. Why doesn’t he have a big sign that says Enersystems?”
In 2020, Manchin earned nearly half a million dollars from the company, and $5.6m over the previous decade.
But Hilsbos, who worked underground for 13 years and was also a union activist, is less bothered by the senator keeping the source of his wealth shielded than by what else may have been hidden from view.
For years, Manchin has justified voting against curbs on the burning of fossil fuels and other measures to tackle the climate crisis on the grounds that they were bad for West Virginia, whose economy and culture are rooted in coal mining. Last year, he used his vote in a hung US Senate to block President Biden’s $3.5tn economic plan in part because he said he was “very, very disturbed” that its climate provisions would kill the coal industry.
But after the revelations that Manchin has made what most West Virginians would regard as a fortune from the Grant Town power plant, Hilsbos was left wondering if US climate policy, and by extension the global response to the crisis, has been held hostage to the senator’s financial interests.
Read the full story:
We don’t usually celebrate birthdays here in the blog, but we’re prepared to make an exception for the Lincoln Memorial, which on Monday reached the grand old age of 100.
Dedicated in May 1922 to celebrate the 16th president Abraham Lincoln, the monument has taken on far more significance over the last century. We couldn’t put it any better than the National Parks Service in its description of the memorial, taken from an NPS website page celebrating the centenary:
As one of the most recognized buildings in the world, the Lincoln Memorial has become a symbol of the United States of America, a backdrop for national celebrations and the nation’s pre-eminent stage for the rallies and demonstration, particularly those for civil rights.
The Washington DC memorial has seen plenty of presidents come and go since the time of Warren G Harding, the 29th US president who was in the White House when it was dedicated.
The most recent changeover was, of course, Donald Trump’s succession by Joe Biden, courtesy of his November 2020 defeat that he continues to argue.
Trump used the monument as a political prop during his single term of office. Let’s take a trip down memory lane to May 2020 and recall how “Dishonest Don” was made to look small by positioning himself in front of the colossal structure, as told by Guardian US columnist Richard Wolffe.
Updated
Peter Navarro, a top White House adviser to Donald Trump, revealed in a court filing on Monday that he had been ordered to testify before a federal grand jury and produce to prosecutors any records concerning January 6, including communications with the former president.
The grand jury subpoena to Navarro, which he said was served by two FBI agents last week, compels him to produce documents to the US attorney for the District of Columbia and could indicate widening justice department action ensnaring senior Trump administration officials.
Navarro’s disclosure about the subpoena came in a 88-page filing that seeks a federal court to declare the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack unlawful in a desperate move to stop a potential contempt of Congress indictment for defying the panel’s subpoena.
The grand jury subpoena appeared to be part of a case to hold Navarro in contempt rather than pertaining to the justice department’s criminal investigation into the Capitol attack, though the exact nature of the justice department subpoena was not immediately clear.
But the new filing, reviewed by the Guardian, that Navarro will submit to the US district court for the District of Columbia, is not expected to succeed beyond causing a nuisance and potentially delaying the justice department from moving on a contempt indictment.
The filing is seeking the court to rule that the select committee is not properly constituted and therefore illegal, because the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, refused last year to appoint some Republican members put forward by the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy.
Since the panel supposedly lacks a Republican minority – despite the presence of Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – its subpoenas are unenforceable, the suit argues, and therefore his non-compliance with his subpoena is immaterial and should mean the justice department cannot act on a referral for contempt of Congress.
Read the full story:
Biden and Powell meet to 'address inflation'
Soaring inflation is on Joe Biden’s agenda today as he turns his attention back to what he’s calling his “top domestic priority”.
The president will meet Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, early this afternoon to discuss the economy in the US and globally, and what steps can be taken to ease inflation and lower prices.
According to Politico, the meeting with Powell, the first since he was re-confirmed by the Senate a week ago to serve a second term in charge of the central bank, is part of a month-long White House effort to talk up Biden’s economic successes.
It began with an op-ed penned by Biden in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, in which he laid out a plan for tackling high prices:
I ran for president because I was tired of the so-called trickle-down economy. We now have a chance to build on a historic recovery with an economy that works for working families.
The most important thing we can do now to transition from rapid recovery to stable, steady growth is to bring inflation down. That is why I have made tackling inflation my top economic priority.
Polls show economic concerns are the single biggest issue facing voters as November’s midterm elections approach, and Biden’s ratings are at the lowest levels of his presidency, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Inflation reached the highest level in more than 40 years last month, and although it has eased slightly since, consumers are still paying record high gas prices, which surpassed $4.62 today for the first time, the AAA said. Biden has blamed Russia’s war in Ukraine for what he calls “[Vladimir] Putin’s price hike”.
Powell has said interest rates could rise by a half percentage point in June and July to help cool inflation.
Ahead of today’s meeting, the Associated Press said, Biden promised not to interfere in the Fed’s decision-making, but suggested that he and Powell are aligned on addressing inflation.
On Friday, Biden will deliver remarks on the May jobs report, highlighting “the remarkable progress we’ve made in getting Americans back to work “.
Updated
Texas leaders are under growing pressure to increase gun control measures in the face of data indicating the state leads the US in mass shooting deaths, while Republicans have steadily eased restrictions on weapons and cut mental health spending.
As the funerals of the 19 children and two teachers begin on Tuesday in the tiny, devastated southern Texas city of Uvalde, a week after a shooting at Robb elementary school, state Democrats – and some Republicans – are demanding a special legislative action.
Right-leaning Republican governor Greg Abbott has been asked to convene a special legislative session to weigh legislation, with state senate Democrats calling for increasing the age for buying any gun to 21.
They also want to mandate background checks for all gun sales, and regulate civilian ownership of high capacity magazines, the Austin ABC affiliate KVUE reported.
They are also calling for “red flag” legislation that would permit the temporary removal of guns from persons who present an “imminent danger to themselves and others” and are urging a law to require a “cooling off” period when buying a gun.
“We have to do something, man,” Democratic state senator Roland Gutierrez, whose district covers Uvalde, said to Abbott at a press conference. “Your own colleagues are telling me, calling me, and telling me an 18-year-old shouldn’t have a gun.”
Read the full story:
House 'to vote on Protecting Our Kids Act'
An emergency gun reform package will be presented to the House judiciary committee on Thursday as politicians grapple with the aftermath of mass shootings in New York and Texas this month that killed 31 people, including 19 elementary school children.
The eight-piece Protecting Our Kids Act, as Democrats are calling it, includes raising the minimum age of purchase for assault weapons to 21, background checks for “ghost” guns, and stricter requirements for safe gun storage.
There would also be new federal offenses for the sale, manufacture or possession of high-capacity magazines; and for the trafficking and straw purchases of weapons.
It doesn’t include an outright ban on assault weapons, which many gun reform activists have called for following the massacres in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.
But Democrats behind the push, which is taking place during congressional recess, say they’re not ruling it out.
According to Punchbowl, Nancy Pelosi plans to bring the measures for a House vote next week, and the speaker is confident she has the votes to pass them.
Achieving the necessary 60 votes in the Senate, however, is unlikely given Republicans’ traditional hostility to gun law reform, but Pelosi and her leadership team felt they had to act after the mass killings, both committed by teenagers with legally-held weapons.
Separately, bipartisan talks between senators on gun controls will take place over Zoom today, with Texas Republican John Cornyn leading negotiations for his side.
On Monday at the White House, Joe Biden expressed his hope that “rational Republicans” including Cornyn and senate minority leader Mitch McConnell could finally help get something done on gun reforms:
I think things have gotten so bad that everybody is getting more rational about it. At least that’s my hope.
Here’s my colleague Lauren Gambino on the challenge of getting gun reform legislation through a bitterly divided Congress:
Good morning, and welcome to Tuesday’s US politics blog.
We begin with some breaking news, courtesy of Punchbowl… the House judiciary committee has called an emergency meeting for Thursday to try to progress what’s being called an omnibus package of gun control measures in the wake of this month’s mass shootings in Buffalo, New York; and Uvalde, Texas.
The eight-piece Protecting Our Kids Act covers a range of restrictions including raising the minimum age of purchase for assault weapons to 21, background checks for “ghost” guns and stricter requirements for gun storage. Punchbowl says.
What it doesn’t include: an assault weapons ban, although Democrats say they’re not ruling that out.
And because the package stands little to no chance of reaching the required 60 votes in the Senate, thanks to Republican opposition, some Democrats want it split into individual bills.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of senators will meet over Zoom to talk about gun reforms today.
What we’re also watching:
- Joe Biden meets with Jerome Powell, chair of the federal reserve, and treasury secretary Janet Yellen this afternoon as he turns his attention back to the inflation crisis. The White House has launched a month-long campaign to talk up his administration’s economic achievements, according to Politico.
- Biden will meet New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern at the White House this morning.
- White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will host a briefing at 2.30pm.
- South Korean K-pop band BTS will visit the White House at 3pm to discuss with Biden “the need to come together in solidarity, Asian inclusion and representation, and addressing anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination”.
Updated
