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Vivian Ho

Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation vote is ‘making history’, says senator – as it happened

Ketanji Brown Jackson Jill Biden Joe Biden Fox News Rupert Murdoch Alex Burns Jonathan Martin Kamala Harris Susan Collins White House
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson smiles during a meeting with on Capitol Hill last week.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson smiles during a meeting with on Capitol Hill last week. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Closing summary

Thank you so much for following events in US politics on our live blog today, we’re wrapping up now but do please find continuing coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine on our round-the-clock, global blog here.

Here are the highlights from today’s US news:

  • As expected, the Senate judiciary committee has deadlocked across party lines, 11 to 11, on the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the supreme court. Now majority leader Chuck Schumer must call a vote to discharge the matter to the full Senate. Democrats are still holding out hope on getting her confirmed by the end of the week.
  • Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, took to the podium during today’s White House press briefing to detail what lies ahead for Ukraine and Russia. He echoed statements made by Joe Biden earlier that evidence coming out of Bucha and the recently retaken Kyiv region depicts war crimes committed by Russian forces and Vladimir Putin must be held accountable for these atrocities. However, he said the killing in Ukraine has not yet risen to the level of genocide.
  • Joe Biden spoke about his administration’s plan to strengthen the trucking industry amidst global supply chain issues.
  • The House select committee tasked with investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol is moving to capitalize on new momentum.

Updated

White House press secretary Jen Psaki has responded to the comments made today by Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, at the Senate judiciary hearing on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the supreme court.

Graham had said that if Republicans were in control, Jackson wouldn’t have even gotten a hearing. Psaki pointed out that Graham had voted to confirm her for another role previously. “Judge Jackson’s credentials, her record, warrant bipartisan support,” she said.

“Our view continues to be that qualified nominees, those who meet every objective bar of qualification, of background, should be considered and treated with fairness as they go through the process. That’s how President Biden is going to continue to operate and that’s how we would expect every member of the senate to continue to operate,” Psaki said.

“Obviously his comments are disappointing, but our focus needs to continue to be supporting Judge Jackson and her path to the supreme court.”

Updated

Senate judiciary committee vote on Ketanji Brown Jackson ends in 11 to 11 tie

As expected, the Senate judiciary committee has deadlocked 11 to 11 on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to supreme court.

The Pentagon has echoed much of what Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, said at today’s White House press briefing about Ukraine and Russia:

When pushed further on the question of genocide – reporters pointed out that the US also did not deem what the Russian forces were doing war crimes at first and are now calling them war crimes – Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, said Joe Biden has been a leader in calling things what they are.

“He’s not going to hesitate to call a spade a spade and call it as he sees it, and neither is the US government, but it’s going to be based on evidence and facts as we gather it along the way,” he said.

Sullivan continued: “We have never hesitated to call out the Russians for what they’ve done in Ukraine and we won’t start now.”

Updated

Sullivan: killings in Ukraine does not rise to level of genocide

Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, echoed a statement by Joe Biden in saying that so far, the killing of people in Ukraine by Russian forces does not rise to the level of genocide, as so many in Ukraine have been calling it.

“This is something we continue to monitor every day,” Sullivan said. “Based on what we’ve seen so far, we have seen atrocities, we have seen war crimes, we have not yet seen a level of systematic deprivation of life of the Ukrainian people to rise to the level of genocide. But that is something we will continue to monitor. There is no mechanical formula for this.”

Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, said at the White House press briefing that the US would need to consult with its allies and partners on how to hold Russia accountable for its war crimes in Ukraine.

“There have been other examples in other conflicts of other mechanisms being set up,” he said. “There is work to be done to work out the specifics of that.”

In the meantime, Sullivan said the US and its partners would continue to put pressure on the Russian economy and supply military equipment to Ukraine.

“There has to be accountability for these war crimes and that accountability has to be felt at every level of the Russian system and the United States will work with the international community to ensure that accountability is applied at the appropriate time,” he said.

“Even as Russia acknowledges the failure of its initial plans and shifts its goals, three elements of this war remain constant,” Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, said at today’s White House press briefing.

“First, Russia will continue to use its military to try to conquer and occupy sovereign Ukrainian territory. Second, the Ukrainian military and people will continue to effectively and bravely defend their homeland. Third, the United States will stand by them as long as it takes.”

Sullivan continued: “Russia has tried to subjugate the whole of Ukraine, and it has failed. Now it will attempt to take parts of the country under its rule. It may succeed in taking some territory through shear force and brutality, but no matter what happens over the coming weeks, it is clear that Russia will never be welcomed by the Ukrainian people. Instead, its gains will be temporary as the brave Ukrainian people resist Russian occupation and carry on the fight for an independent sovereign nation that they so richly deserve.”

Sullivan: "Now is not the time for complacency" in Ukraine

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, warned at today’s White House press briefing that the next stage of the war in Ukraine “may very well be protracted”.

“We should be under no illusions that Russia will adjust its tactics, which have included and will likely continue to include, wanton and brazen attacks on civilian targets,” he said.

He continued: “As the images from Bucha have so powerfully reinforced, now is not the time for complacency. The Ukrainians are defending their homeland courageously and the United States will continue to back them with military assistance, humanitarian aid and military support.”

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, painted a bleak picture at today’s White House press briefing what the US predicted was coming for Ukraine:

“We assess Russia will focus on defeating Ukrainian forces in the broader Luthank and Donetsk provinces, which encompasses significantly more territory than Russian proxies already controlled before the new invasion began in late February. Russia could then use any tactical successes it achieves to propagate a narrative of progress and mask or discontent or downplay prior military failures,” Sullivan said.

He continued: “In order to protect any territory it seizes in the east, we expect that Russia could potentially extend its presence even deeper into Ukraine beyond Luthank and Donetsk provinces. In the south, we also expect that Russian military forces will do what they can to try to hold the city of Kherson to enable their control of the water flow to Crimea and try to block Mykolaiv so that Ukrainian forces cannot proceed to retake Kherson. In the north, Russia will likely keep pressure on Kharkiv.”

This does not mean there will be relief for the rest of Ukraine, Sullivan said.

“During this renewed ground defense of eastern Ukraine, Moscow will likely continue to launch air and missile strikes across the rest of the country to cause military and economic damage, and frankly, to cause terror, including against cities like Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkiv, and Lviv,” he said.

“Russia’s goal in the end is to weaken Ukraine as much as possible.”

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said at today’s White House press briefing that the US believes that “at this juncture, Russia is revising its war aims”.

“Russia did not account for the strength of the Ukrainian military or the Ukrainian people, or the amount and effectiveness of military assistance provided by the United States and its allies and partners,” Sullivan said. “The Ukrainian people, backed resolutely by the United States and other nations have held firm. Kyiv and other cities still stand. The Ukrainian military has performed exceptionally well and many Ukrainian civilians have joined local militias in addition to using nonviolent means to resist.”

Sullivan said Vladimir Putin also believed that the west would not hold together in support of Ukraine. “The Russians have now realized that the west will not break,” he said.

Now, however, as Russian troops retreat from Kyiv to Belarus, he sees Russia “repositioning its forces to concentrate its offensive operations in eastern and parts of southern Ukraine, rather than target most of the territory.” “All indications are that Russia will seek to surround and overwhelm Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine,” he said.

Sullivan: Bucha 'appears to show further evidence of war crimes' by Russia

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, has taken to the podium for today’s White House press briefing to discuss the devastating images and information coming out of the Kyiv region now that Ukrainian forces have retaken the area from Russian troops.

Photos showed unarmed civilians who were killed execution-style, with their hands tied behind their backs and hoods over their heads. Human Rights Watch has documented reports of rape, while the mayor of Bucha said authorities have uncovered a hastily buried mass grave of nearly 300 corpses. Among the hundreds of bodies found were those of Olha Sukhenko, the leader of the village Motyzhin, and her family, who were taken by Russian forces on 25 March.

“The images that we see are tragic, they’re shocking,” Sullivan said. “But unfortunately, they’re not surprising. We released information even before Russia’s invasion showing that Russia would engage in acts of brutality against civilians, including targeted killings of dissidents and others they considered a threat to their occupation. As the horrific images that have emerged from Bucha have shown, that’s exactly what they have done.”

Sullivan continued: We had already concluded that Russia committed war crimes in Ukraine and the information from Bucha appears to show further evidence of war crimes.”

Updated

Joe Biden was in a jovial mood during his appearance today:

Joe Biden has taken to the podium to talk about his administration’s trucking action plan.

The trucking industry is a vital piece of the supply chain issues hurting economies around the world, but none more so than in the US – as Biden pointed out, trucking “moves about 70% of all the goods in this country”, and any shortages within the industry is another issue in the supply chain.

“Truck drivers are facing real challenges,” Biden said. “The average driver waits four and a half hours for their truck to be loaded and unloaded during an eleven-hour day, 40% of that day, and they don’t get paid for that wait time. Back in 1978, the average truck driver’s pay was $34 an hour in today’s dollars. Last year, it was $25 an hour, nearly a 30% decline. In this iconic American industry, it’s getting harder and harder to raise a family with the dignity and the pride you deserve. It’s no surprise that so many drivers have left their jobs. The workforce is getting older.”

Biden noted that it’s gotten harder to recruit new truck drivers, particularly women and people of color.

“The good news is that since I took office, we’ve begun to turn things around.” he said. “In fact, 2021 has been the best year for trucking employment since 1994. There are now 35,000 more trucking jobs than there were before the pandemic.”

Updated

Dick Durbin, chair of the Senate judiciary committee, has taken the meeting on confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson on the supreme court into recess as the committee awaits the arrival of Alex Padilla, the Democratic senator from California, whose flight was delayed.

Madison Cawthorn, a Republican congressman from North Carolina, has gone on the House floor to argue the definition of a woman to be “xx chromosomes, no tallywhacker”. Though he purports that his definition is based on science, he is incorrect because he is ignoring the scientific evidence that there are women who are born with androgen insensitivity syndrome and have xy chromosomes.

Cawthorn’s speech comes amid a conservative campaign against transgender rights and politically correct terminology. Cawthorn claimed that the left-wing movement was “forcing children to endure radical expressions of sexuality”, yet the left could not define what a woman was - Martha Blackburn, the right-wing senator from Tennessee, famously asked Ketanji Brown Jackson for the definition of woman during her confirmation hearings.

Yet the Republicans’ insistence that their definition is based on science is false. Cawthorn went off on the floor, saying, “Science is not Burger King, you can’t just have it your way,” but he has completely ignored the fact that, beyond the disregard for transgender rights, there are non-transgender women who are born with xy chromosomes and, to put it in his terms, “tallywhackers”.

Amid the devastating reports emerging from the Kyiv region, which was retaken by Ukrainian forces last week, Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, will be conducing the White House press briefing today.

This comes as Joe Biden joins other world leaders in calling for a war crimes trial against Vladimir Putin for the atrocities in Bucha, Irpin, Motyzhin and other cities and villages in the Kyiv region.

Some of these atrocities include photographs of unarmed civilians who were killed execution-style, with their hands tied behind their backs and hoods over their heads. Human Rights Watch has documented reports of rape, while the mayor of Bucha said authorities have uncovered a hastily buried mass grave of nearly 300 corpses. Among the hundreds of bodies found were those of Olha Sukhenko, the leader of the village Motyzhin, and her family, who were taken by Russian forces on 25 March.

Read more here:

Dick Durbin, chair of the Senate judiciary committee, is addressing the absence of Alex Padilla, the Democratic senator from California, whose redeye flight was turned around and will delay his arrival to Washington until late afternoon local time.

Updated

January 6 committee senses momentum, sources say

The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is moving to capitalise on new momentum as it embarks on its final push to complete roughly 100 remaining depositions and conclude the evidence-gathering phase of the inquiry.

The panel has scored two major wins in recent days: more than six hours of testimony from Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and a conclusion by a federal judge that the former president committed felonies to overturn the 2020 election.

Members on the committee believe Kushner’s cooperation might prompt other Trump officials to assist as the panel inches closer to Trump’s inner circle and the former president himself, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The panel has also been buoyed by the federal court ruling that said Trump “more likely than not” violated the law over 6 January, reaffirming the purpose of the investigation and making it harder for Trump’s allies to defy the inquiry, the sources said.

And members on the committee believe that opening contempt of Congress proceedings against the Trump aides Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino for ignoring subpoenas, will reinforce the message that the panel will punish non-compliance, the sources said.

“There’s a momentum to this process when there’s cooperation,” Jamie Raskin, one of the congressmen on the panel, said of the burst of recent activity. “When people see that others are doing the right thing, it gives them the courage to do the right thing.”

Full story:

The devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on poor and low-income communities across America is laid bare in a new report released on Monday that concludes that while the virus did not discriminate between rich and poor, society and government did.

As the US draws close to the terrible landmark of 1 million deaths from coronavirus, the glaringly disproportionate human toll that has been exacted is exposed by the Poor People’s Pandemic Report. Based on a data analysis of more than 3,000 counties across the US, it finds that people in poorer counties have died overall at almost twice the rate of those in richer counties.

Looking at the most deadly surges of the virus, the disparity in death rates grows even more pronounced. During the third pandemic wave in the US, over the winter of 2020 and 2021, death rates were four and a half times higher in the poorest counties than those with the highest median incomes.

During the recent Omicron wave, that divergence in death rates stood at almost three times.

Such a staggering gulf in outcomes cannot be explained by differences in vaccination rates, the authors find, with more than half of the population of the poorest counties having received two vaccine shots. A more relevant factor is likely to be that the poorest communities had twice the proportion of people who lack health insurance compared with the richer counties.

“The findings of this report reveal neglect and sometimes intentional decisions to not focus on the poor,” said Bishop William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign which jointly prepared the research. “The neglect of poor and low-wealth people in this country during a pandemic is immoral, shocking and unjust.”

Full story:

Barack Obama will on Tuesday return to the White House for the first time since leaving it in January 2017, for a celebration of the the Affordable Care Act, his signature legislative achievement which passed in 2010.

Barack Obama.
Barack Obama. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

NBC broke news of the 44th president’s visit to the 46th, his own vice-president, Joe Biden. It also pointed out that the White House released a video last year in which Obama and Biden discussed their healthcare work.

“Joe Biden,” Obama said then, “we did this together. We always talked about how if we could get the principle of universal coverage established, we could then build on it.”

Confirming the Tuesday event, the White House said Biden would “take additional action to further strengthen the ACA and save families hundreds of dollars a month on their healthcare”.

Today so far:

  • The Senate judiciary committee kicking off the home stretch of the confirmation process for getting Ketanji Brown Jackson on the supreme court began today.
  • While the White House and Democrats are talking about how historic this moment is - if confirmed, Jackson will be the first Black woman on the supreme court - Republicans are misrepresenting her sentencing record and accusing Democrats of playing games. They also keep invoking Janice Rogers Brown, a Black former conservative federal appeals judge whose nomination Democrats opposed – they claim she could have been the first Black woman on the supreme court.
  • When the judiciary committee vote on Jackson will take place, however, is literally still up in the air: Alex Padilla, the Democratic senator from California, had a flight delay and his plane had to turn back to Los Angeles.
  • With devastating images coming out of the recently retaken Kyiv region, Joe Biden called for a war crimes trial against Vladimir Putin and said he is seeking more sanctions against Russia.

Updated

In the senate judiciary committee meeting on the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the supreme court, Republicans are once again raising the talking point of Janice Rogers Brown, a conservative former judge on the federal appeals court in Washington.

Republicans argue that Brown could have been the first Black woman on the supreme court, a historic milestone that Democrats are pushing to get for Jackson. But Democrats opposed George W Bush’s nomination of Brown to the court of appeals, even going so far as going to a filibuster over it.

There could be a possible delay on the Senate judiciary committee vote on the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson today:

Updated

Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, is an unsurprising no on Ketanji Brown Jackson. The conservative senator has been vocally against Jackson - he flounced out of her confirmation hearing after wrongly accusing her of having called George W Bush and the former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld “war criminals”.

Updated

Biden calls for war crimes trial against Putin

Following the devastating reports coming out of the Kyiv region, which was retaken by Ukrainian forces last week, Joe Biden is calling for a war crimes trial against Vladimir Putin, the Associated Press is reporting.

The president will also seek more sanctions.

Biden joins other world leaders in this call - Liz Truss, Liz Truss, Britain’s foreign secretary, tweeted over the weekend that the United Kingdom is working with others to collect evidence of Russian war crimes.

As the Senate judiciary committee continues, Joe Biden sounds off on his nominee for supreme court, Ketanji Brown Jackson:

Updated

Grassley: I cannot support Jackson's nomination to supreme court

Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican member of the senate judiciary committee, has weighed in on the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson on the supreme by accusing the White House and Democrats of shielding “important parts of Judge Jackson’s record” during the confirmation process.

He said Jackson was “very personable and engaging,” butt hat he could not support her nomination.

“Having carefully studied her record, unfortunately, I think she and I have fundamentally different views on the role of judges and the role that they should play in our system of government,” Grassley said. “Because of those disagreements, I cannot support her nomination.”

Durbin: Jackson confirmation vote is 'making history'

Senate Dick Durbin, the chair of the senate judiciary committee, has kicked off the meeting confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson on the supreme court.

He began his statement by pointing out how qualified she was, this being her fourth time before the senate judiciary committee for a confirmation of some sort. He made note about how she would be the first Black woman confirmed on the supreme court: “This is a historic moment for the committee and for America.”

“During her hearing, Judge Jackson told us about her upbringing as the daughter of parents who attended racially segregated schools. She marvelled at how her youth, on the heels of the civil rights movement, differed so much from own parents’ experience,” Durbin said. “Hers is a uniquely American family story: how much hope and promise can be achieved in just one generation. I’m proud we can bear witness to it.”

He used the rest of his time to denounce the Republican attacks on her record - Republicans have called her soft on crime and a danger to children. He applauded her poise withstanding these attacks during the hearings.

“President Biden assured the American public that he would select a nominee that was ‘worthy of Justice Breyer’s legacy, of excellence and decency, someone extremely well-qualified, with a brilliant legal mind, with the utmost character and integrity’. Judge Jackson herself characterized Justice Breyer’s legacy as ‘one of the highest level’. And that’s what we saw in this room last week,” Durbin said.

Updated

Donald Trump has endorsed the former governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin for the vacant congressional seat in Alaska.

“Sarah shocked many when she endorsed me very early in 2016, and we won big,” the former president said in a statement on Sunday night.

“Now, it’s my turn! Sarah has been a champion for Alaska values, Alaska energy, Alaska jobs and the great people of Alaska.”

In 2016, Palin was the first current or former state office holder to endorse Trump. She announced her own run on Friday.

The Alaska House seat is open after the death of Don Young, the Republican who held it for nearly 50 years. An open primary will pit more than 50 contenders from all parties against each other.

Covid relief funding has been stalled in Congress for some time now, but it looks like there might be some movement:

Joe Biden called Rupert Murdoch “the most dangerous man in the world”, according to a forthcoming book.

The comment, from mid-2021, is reported in This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future by Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, two New York Times reporters.

The book is due out in May. Last month, Politico reported passages in which Jill Biden, now the first lady, is critical of her husband’s decision to pick Kamala Harris as his running mate.

Reporting Biden’s remark about Murdoch, CNN said the president had never spoken in public about the 91-year-old media baron and Fox News owner.

The president did tell a town hall audience he sometimes “turn[s] on Fox to find out how popular I am”. He also apologised to a Fox News White House reporter, Peter Doocy, for calling him a “stupid son of a bitch”.

According to Burns and Martin, Biden “assessed” Murdoch to be “one of the most destructive forces in the United States”.

Fox News anchors including Tucker Carlson, have prominently relayed coronavirus misinformation and spoken favorably of Vladimir Putin and Russia. The network has been sued for giving voice to Donald Trump’s lies about electoral fraud in his defeat by Biden, who is now a target for daily ridicule by Fox News hosts.

The White House and Fox News did not immediately comment.

As confirmation week begins for Ketanji Brown Jackson, Democratic senators have been tweeting their support:

Ketanji Brown Jackson heads for confirmation

Ahoy there, live blog readers. Let’s get started.

A week of votes and procedural whatnot in the Senate will culminate with the Democrats’ ultimate goal, confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson on the supreme court by the end of the week.

Today, the Senate judiciary committee meets, kicking off at 10am local time. Punchbowl News reports that an eventual vote is expected to end in an 11-11 tie, thereby forcing the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to file a discharge motion to bring the nomination before the full Senate.

Only a majority is required to approve a discharge motion, which is expected to also take place today. With Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine, already saying she will back Jackson, the Democrats are well set.

The White House, however, is still hoping for more Republican support. Notably, senators Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski still haven’t said which way they are leaning.

It won’t matter all too much, as Democrats already have the majority with Collins and could also confirm Jackson with Kamala Harris’s casting vote as vice-president. But more Republican support would be meaningful in terms of showing more bipartisan support for a big moment in American history - the first Black woman to be named to the supreme court.

More to come.

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