Closing summary
House Republicans began debate on their bill to raise the debt limit while cutting government spending, prompting a furious response from the White House and vows from Democrats that they’ll have nothing to do with the effort. In Florida, governor Ron DeSantis’s feud with Disney is heading to the courts, which GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley used to level an unexpected barb at DeSantis.
Here’s what else happened today:
Joe Biden addressed concerns about his age in a White House press conference held the day after announcing his re-election bid.
Republicans in Montana’s House of Representatives may vote to censure or expel the state’s sole transgender lawmaker.
West Virginia’s Republican governor Jim Justice is expected to announce his campaign for Senate, potentially pitting him against conservative Democrat Joe Manchin.
“Donald Trump raped me”, advice columnist E Jean Carroll said in the second day of the trial of her civil lawsuit against the former president.
Joining the presidential race today was Republican Asa Hutchinson, a rare Trump critic who also tangled with Bill Clinton once upon a time.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden met with the justice department today, amid reports that the president’s son could soon face charges over tax evasion and lying on gun purchase documentation, CNN reports.
House Republicans have fixated on the younger Biden in an attempt to paint the president as corrupt, though their investigation has yet to turn up much. However the US attorney in Delaware is said to be nearing a decision over whether to bring charges against Biden, which could add a wrinkle to Joe Biden’s re-election effort.
Here’s the latest on the case, from CNN:
Hunter Biden’s longtime attorney Chris Clark, along with several other attorneys, were spotted by CNN heading into Justice Department headquarters early Wednesday. When reached afterward, Clark declined to comment.
In attendance at the meeting were officials from the Justice Department’s tax division and the Delaware US attorney’s office, according to a person familiar with the meeting. The tax division is led by a career DOJ lawyer as there still isn’t a Senate-confirmed appointee.
David Weiss, the Trump-appointed Delaware US Attorney, has been overseeing the investigation into Hunter Biden.
The Hunter Biden legal team had reached out to Justice officials in recent weeks, asking for an update on the case, according to one source familiar with the meeting.
After prosecutors narrowed down the possible charges Hunter Biden could face last year, there haven’t been any public developments. According to sources familiar with the investigation, prosecutors are still weighing whether to bring two misdemeanor charges for failure to file taxes, one count of felony tax evasion related to the overreporting of expenses, and a false statement charge regarding a gun purchase.
In an interview with CNN, House financial services committee chair Patrick McHenry shared a little bit of the Republican strategy for passing a debt limit increase with cuts Joe Biden won’t accept:
Biden said he'd meet with McCarthy "but not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended."
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 26, 2023
McCarthy ally Patrick McHenry says House passage of bill should force Biden to the table so he can "start being a grown up in this situation and negotiate with the legislative branch." pic.twitter.com/eW17uwIgqF
Disney’s lawsuit against Florida governor Ron DeSantis is only hours old, but the biggest winner thus far could be Nikki Haley.
She’s on the campaign trail for next year’s Republican presidential nomination, a contest DeSantis is expected to soon join. Haley, a former South Carolina governor, had him in her crosshairs when asked on Fox News about DeSantis’s squabble with the entertainment giant.
Here’s what she said:
Hey @Disney, my home state will happily accept your 70,000+ jobs if you want to leave Florida.
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) April 26, 2023
We’ve got great weather, great people, and it’s always a great day in South Carolina!
SC’s not woke, but we’re not sanctimonious about it either. pic.twitter.com/uf1PWQjGc5
A reminder: polls have repeatedly shown Donald Trump well and away the favorite for the nomination, over both Haley and DeSantis.
Let’s take a metaphorical trip down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to see how things are going in the House of Representatives.
In a party line vote, Republicans have succeeded in beginning debate on their debt ceiling proposal, which they call the Limit, Save, Grow Act and which Democrats are dissing as the Default on America Act. In addition to raising the debt limit, the measure would cut spending by about $4.8tn through 2033, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office:
The House adopted the combined rule by a vote of 219-210. https://t.co/D54phgVNXC
— House Press Gallery (@HouseDailyPress) April 26, 2023
However, it’s still possible that enough GOP lawmakers refuse to vote for the bill’s final passage that Kevin McCarthy and his deputies run into trouble. Several remain opposed or on the fence, as CNN reported just now:
GOP Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona told me he is “undecided” on the debt limit bill as McCarthy works to lock down the votes today
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 26, 2023
McCarthy’s quest to get them on board will be an issue to watch in the hours and maybe even days to come.
That’s not all the House GOP has going on. Tomorrow, majority leader Steve Scalise along with the chairs of the judiciary and homeland security committees will unveil a “border security package” that they intend to put up for a vote in May, according to Scalise’s office. That will be another piece of legislation to watch.
As Joe Biden was wrapping up his press conference with South Korea’s president Yoon Suk Yeol at the White House, a reporter asked him about the bill House Republicans are promoting to raise the debt limit while blocking a number of his administration’s priorities.
“They haven’t figured out the debt limit yet,” Biden replied. “Happy to meet with McCarthy, but not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended. That’s not negotiable.”
That’s GOP House speaker Kevin McCarthy he’s referring to, of course. Biden has refused to negotiate with him over raising the limit, saying cuts to the federal budget are a separate issue from increasing the government’s borrowing authority to pay for programs Congress has already approved. But McCarthy wants to trade one for the other, and economists predict a default could happen in June if a deal is not reached.
Biden says age concern 'doesn't register with me'
Joe Biden said he was not concerned about running for a second term despite being the oldest president ever to do it, a day after officially kicking off his re-election bid.
“With regard to age … I guess how old I am. I can’t even say the number. It doesn’t register with me,” Biden said at a joint press conference with visiting South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol at the White House.
Now 80 years old, Biden was the oldest person ever elected president, and would set another record if he wins a second term in the November 2024 vote. While Donald Trump, who remains the most popular candidate among Republicans, is a similar age at 76, Biden’s foes have questioned whether his age would hold him back in a second term.
Americans are “gonna see a race, and they’re going to judge whether or not I have it or don’t have it,” Biden said of those concerns. “I respect them taking a hard look at it. I take a hard look at it as well. I took a hard look at it before I decided to run, and I feel good, I feel excited about the prospects and I think we’re on the verge of really turning the corner in a way we haven’t a long time.”
Updated
It’s been a busy morning on the legal front for Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and other prominent figures on the far right of the Republican party. Reuters has the following report about sentencing in the cases of two associates of Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, in a case regarding fraudulent fundraising …
Brian Kolfage, a US air force veteran and former associate of the Trump ally and adviser Steve Bannon, was sentenced on Wednesday to more than four years in prison after admitting to conspiring to defraud donors to a campaign to build a wall along the US-Mexican border, as promised by the former president.
Bannon, 69 and a former campaign chair and White House strategist for Trump, was also charged in the case but received a presidential pardon in the final hours of Trump’s term.
Bannon remains a prominent presence in far-right media and politics. In September, he was indicted in New York state court in Manhattan on money laundering and conspiracy charges over the planned wall. He pleaded not guilty. Trump’s pardon of Bannon covered federal crimes but not alleged state crimes.
Kolfage, 41, lost his legs and right hand in a rocket attack in Iraq. In the federal case, he pleaded guilty last year to misappropriating funds meant for the We Build the Wall campaign.
On Wednesday a US district judge, Analisa Torres, announced the 51-month sentence at a hearing in federal court in Manhattan.
Andrew Badolato, 58, another former Bannon associate, also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison.
“The fraud perpetrated by Mr Kolfage and Mr Badolato went well beyond ripping off individual donors,” Torres said. “They hurt us all by eroding the public’s faith in the political process.“
READ ON:
The advice columnist E Jean Carroll told a New York jury this morning that Donald Trump raped her, leaving her unable to again have a romantic relationship, then “shattered my reputation” by denying the attack.
Carroll testified in her civil lawsuit seeking damages for battery after Trump allegedly sexually assaulted her in a New York department store changing room in 1996 and for defamation after he accused her of lying and perpetrating a hoax when she went public with her accusations in a book.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and shattered my reputation. I’m here to try and get my life back,” she told the jury.
Trump denies the accusations.
Before Carroll testified, Judge Lewis Kaplan warned that Trump may have crossed the line into jury tampering after the former president posted an attack on Carroll on his social media site, Truth Social, calling her accusations a “made up SCAM” and a “witch hunt”.
Kaplan called Trump’s post “entirely inappropriate” and warned that they could become “a potential source of liability” for him.
READ ON:
Here’s another thing about Asa Hutchinson, mentioned earlier for having launched his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in Bentonville, Arkansas, this morning, and for being a relatively rare Trump critic within Republican ranks.
Hutchinson has had a long career in Republican politics and in public service, including stints leading the Drug Enforcement Agency and working at the Department of Homeland Security.
But he was also once a congressman from Arkansas and in that role he played a key, not to say controversial part in the impeachment of another former governor of the Natural state, William Jefferson Clinton, for lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern.
Many observers link the jagged divisions of the Clinton era, in which House Republicans waged political war on the White House, to the far worse divides of today.
A decade after Clinton’s acquittal, Hutchinson told the Associated Press: “I knew it wasn’t good politics for Arkansas, being the president’s home state. [But] I could actually help our country go through a difficult time, and so I accepted that responsibility reluctantly.”
He has repeated that line, for instance telling Politico in 2014, as he ran for governor: “Anybody who observed me at that time knows I was just trying to help the country through a difficult time.”
Not everyone buys it. Back then, the then Democratic mayor of Little Rock, Mark Stodola, a Clinton supporter, told Politico: “There’s no love lost, that’s for sure. There’s a substantial number of people who believe Asa did not have to go do that extra step by being part of the impeachment team, that the piling on was gratuitous coming from Arkansas.”
Worth thinking about, perhaps, as Hutchinson seeks to convince Republicans he can now, as he said earlier, “bring out the best of America”.
Updated
The former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson has formally launched his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination – a contest in which he currently polls around 0% – at an event in his hometown, Bentonville.
Harking back to the outset of his career 30 years ago, he said: “I ran as a conservative Republican when being a Republican was like having a career-ending handicap. And now, I bring that same vigour to fight another battle, and that battle is for the future of our country and the soul of our party.”
Hutchinson has been unusually willing to criticise Donald Trump – which may in part explain his vanishingly small presence in polling which shows the former president with consistent leads.
Today, Hutchinson took a veiled shot at Trump, fuming over his supposed persecution by federal authorities, when he said: “There are a few misguided leaders who say we should defund law enforcement, we should defund the FBI. I am here today in support of our law enforcement heroes.”
Hutchinson also said he was “confident we will survive through the destructive policies of the Biden administration, but the time for change is now. It is time to bring out the best of America.”
Critics have focused on what some would call a destructive policy championed by Hutchinson, namely restrictions on abortion rights including a draconian law he signed while governor in Little Rock.
On a recent episode of his Axe Files podcast, the former Obama adviser David Axelrod said: “You signed one of the, if not the toughest abortion law in the country, basically outlawing abortion apart from the the cases where the health of the mother and the life of the mother was involved.
“You speak so eloquently about government’s role and the need to have a light hand on regulatory issues. There are a lot of women in this country who would say this is completely antithetical to that philosophy, government telling me what I should do with my own body in the most intimate decision that a person has to make.
“Do you understand that concern?”
Hutchinson said: “I do. I do. And it’s tough. It’s a tough issue all around. My historic position, my current position is that the unborn represent life and deserve protection. And there’s three exceptions that I’ve always acknowledged, which is that when the life of the mother is at stake and in cases of rape and incest.”
Axelrod said: “Although that’s not in the law that you sign.”
Hutchinson said: “That’s right.”
It got awkward, and fascinating, from there. Democrats think abortion rights will be a winning issue in 2024. Listening here, you can perhaps see why.
The day so far
House Republicans are moving to vote on their bill to raise the debt limit while cutting government spending, prompting a furious response from the White House and vows from Democrats that they’ll have nothing to do with the effort. In Florida, governor Ron DeSantis’s feud with Disney is heading to the courts.
Here’s what else is happening today so far:
Republicans in Montana’s House of Representatives may vote to censure or expel the state’s sole transgender lawmaker.
West Virginia’s Republican governor Jim Justice is expected to announce his campaign for Senate, potentially pitting him against conservative Democrat Joe Manchin.
Donald Trump’s civil trial over a rape allegation continues in New York City.
Disney takes DeSantis to court as resort feud escalates
Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis has been at loggerheads with Disney for months, and now their dispute is heading to court, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:
Disney has sued Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida and presumed challenger for the Republican presidential nomination.
The entertainment giant wants a court to overturn state efforts to exert control over the Walt Disney World theme parks in Orlando.
DeSantis moved against self-governing powers long granted to Disney after it opposed his so-called “don’t say gay” laws, concerning the teaching of gender and LGBTQ+ issues in Florida schools.
In response, Disney passed covenants keeping such powers out of the hands of a board appointed by DeSantis.
The governor said he would fight back, and joked with reporters about perhaps building a new state prison close to the Disney World park.
Speaking of Senate news, Mitch McConnell is certainly looking forward to next year, when Democrats will have to defend a number of seats held by their lawmakers representing conservative states.
Perhaps the most difficult for Democrats to hang on to will be West Virginia’s, which is currently held by Joe Manchin. He’s cast himself as a conservative Democrat, and derailed progressive priorities such as stronger measures to fight climate change. Yesterday, he threatened to vote to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Biden’s marquee legislation to combat rising temperatures and cut prescription drug prices, which the senator personally played a role in crafting.
We’ll see if that is enough to convince voters in the strikingly Republican state to give him another six years – should he ask for it, since Manchin has not said whether he will run again. But if he does, he may have to go up against the state’s Republican governor, Jim Justice.
Justice, together with his dog, Babydog, has a “special announcement” scheduled for Thursday afternoon. The Washington Post says that will be the start of his Senate campaign.
Manchin, too, was once governor of West Virginia, but unlike Justice stuck with the Democratic party. Justice, however, switched to the GOP in 2017, in an event presided over by Donald Trump.
Updated
Senate Democrats have demanded answers from the supreme court after a series of reports indicating at least two justices have relationships with parties interested in the court’s decisions that they did not disclose.
But the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, said on the floor today that the court continues to have his confidence:
“I have total confidence in Justice Gorsuch, Justice Thomas, and all seven of their distinguished colleagues, no matter who appointed 'em.”
— The Recount (@therecount) April 26, 2023
— Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blames the far left's “character assassination” amid SCOTUS justices' recent ethical messes pic.twitter.com/pkA8XfKX0d
McConnell has played a major role in the creation of the court’s current six-justice conservative majority, beginning in 2016, when he blocked Barack Obama’s appointment of a new supreme court justice. That paid off when Donald Trump won the White House and appointed conservative Neil Gorsuch, the first of three appointments he would make. The trio were among the signatories of last year’s decision overturning Roe v Wade, along with other decisions seen as victories for the political right.
The House Democratic minority, unsurprisingly, wants nothing to do with the Republican debt limit bill.
Their leadership said as much at a press conference this morning, as Politico reports:
House Dem leaders laying out the message on the GOP debt bill, which Aguilar dubbed the “Default in America Act”
— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) April 26, 2023
“It’s not secret that the circus is in town this week” pic.twitter.com/nMOAdembKt
"Democrats are going to be unified in opposing this radical bill," says vice chair Lieu
— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) April 26, 2023
The party’s rank-and-file lawmakers have also signed on to a letter urging speaker Kevin McCarthy to “uphold the full faith and credit of the United States of America by allowing prompt floor consideration of legislation to raise the debt ceiling without any extraneous policies attached.”
House speaker Kevin McCarthy fired back at the White House over its strenuous disapproval of the bill Republicans seem set to pass in the House to raise the debt ceiling while slashing spending.
Here’s the word, from McCarthy’s deputy spokesman Chad Gilmartin:
President Biden’s reckless spending has already threatened the financial well-being of every American family, and now his irresponsible refusal to negotiate with Speaker McCarthy threatens the entire American economy with the first default in our history. House Republicans have the only plan that responsibly raises the debt ceiling and avoids a default while growing the economy and making us less dependent on China. Biden said it was his ‘great honor’ to negotiate debt ceiling agreements before — he should honor the American people today by doing his job and coming to the table again.”
In New York City, the trial of a civil lawsuit brought against Donald Trump by author E Jean Carroll alleging rape continues today. Here’s the latest on the legal entanglement, which is one of many facing the former president, from the Guardian’s Chris McGreal:
E Jean Carroll, the advice columnist suing Donald Trump for rape, is expected to testify on Wednesday in the civil trial of the former president for alleged battery and defamation.
The trial opened on Tuesday with Carroll’s lawyer, Shawn Crowley, telling the jury of three women and six men she was seeking “to clear her name, to pursue justice and to get her life back”.
Carroll alleges the former president raped her in a New York department store changing room in 1996, then attempted to “destroy her” by accusing her of lying when she went public years later.
Joe Tacopina, representing Trump, told the jury he will show that Carroll conspired with other women to falsely accuse the former president of sexual assault because they “hate” him.
In a statement that is not at all a surprise, the White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt has slammed the Republican proposal to raise the debt ceiling and cut spending.
Here’s what LaBolt says of the bill, which he calls the “Cut Growth Act”:
Speaker McCarthy has cut a deal with the most extreme MAGA elements of his party to accelerate taking food assistance from hundreds of thousands of older Americans and to carve out one industry from his draconian cuts without making a single change to provisions that will strip away health care services for veterans, cut access to Meals on Wheels, eliminate health care coverage for millions of Americans, and ship manufacturing jobs overseas. House Republicans are selling out hard-working Americans in order to defend their top priority: restoring the Trump tax cuts for the wealthiest and corporations at a cost of over $3 trillion. President Biden will never sacrifice opportunity and economic security for working and middle-class families in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest and corporations. Budgets are a statement of values — and House Republicans have made clear who they are fighting for.
House Republicans optimistic about debt ceiling passage
House Republican leadership appears to have convinced enough members to support its proposal raising the debt ceiling while instituting a number of conservative priorities, including spending cuts, Politico reports:
There was some grumbling heading into conference today but it looks like they got some key yeses on board
— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) April 26, 2023
Senior Rs coming out of conference meeting say they feel good about passing debt measure TODAY
— Sarah Ferris (@sarahnferris) April 26, 2023
Can lose about 4 - maybe more. Both sides had about 6 absences last night, unclear who makes it back https://t.co/qlXiTcrU2q
This is but the latest salvo in what will probably be a drawn-out campaign to win congressional approval of an increase. The White House has said it will only accept an increase of the debt limit without preconditions, while the GOP measure includes all kinds of other provisions, including cuts to government spending and a block on Joe Biden’s effort to relieve some student debt.
Updated
A transgender lawmaker in Montana who has been prevented from speaking on the floor of the state House of Representatives says the chamber’s Republican leadership will try to censure or expel her:
I have been informed that during tomorrow’s floor session there will be a motion to either censure or expel me.
— Rep. Zooey Zephyr (@ZoAndBehold) April 26, 2023
I've also been told I'll get a chance to speak. I will do as I have always done—rise on behalf of my constituents, in defense of my community, & for democracy itself. pic.twitter.com/8gD3UWPBkS
Since last week, first-term Democrat Zooey Zephyr has not been allowed to speak on the House floor after Republican leaders accused her of making disrespectful comments. A group of conservative lawmakers in the chamber has demanded her censure, with a letter that misgendered Zephyr, the first openly trans woman elected to Montana’s legislature. Read more about the standoff here:
As we wait to see if House Republicans have their ducks in a row, the chief justice of the supreme court yesterday declined an invitation from Senate Democrats to testify about the court’s ethics, after a series of reports showed links between two conservative justices and parties with interests in the court. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:
Democrats and progressives reacted angrily after John Roberts, the chief justice of the supreme court, declined an invitation to testify before the Senate judiciary committee about corruption allegations against members of his court.
Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut senator, said: “The marble pillars of the supreme court and platitudes about its independence no longer provide refuge. He must face the nation.”
Sheldon Whitehouse, from Rhode Island, said: “The gaping hole in today’s response from Roberts … is that it overlooks the complete failure of process regarding ethics questions involving the justices. When there’s no ref, there’s no rule.”
Updated
To Democrats, GOP debt ceiling bill is 'DOA'
There’s still substantial uncertainty over whether enough House Republicans will vote for the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which raises the debt ceiling and cuts spending. They are meeting right now at the Capitol, so we may have a better idea of where things stand within the hour.
Less murky is what Democrats think of the bill. “It might as well be called the Default On America Act because that’s exactly what it is: DOA,” declared the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer yesterday. And even if it somehow made it through that chamber, the White House said Joe Biden would veto it upon arrival at his desk.
Despite the bluster, the stakes remain the same as they have all year. The US government hit its legal borrowing limit in January, and is currently funding its operations with the cash it has on hand. Sometime soon, probably early June, that cash will be exhausted, and the government will have to be able to borrow more money, or default on its obligations, such as bond payments, or salaries for its workers. America has never defaulted before and economists generally believe doing so could spark a financial calamity.
Updated
After night of negotiating, does GOP have votes for debt limit bill?
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives were up into the wee hours of Wednesday mornings negotiating among themselves to clinch the votes needed to pass the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which would increase the debt ceiling while also slashing government spending and enacting a number of conservative policies. Democrats will not vote for it and it will not pass the Senate, which they control, at least without substantial changes. So, the question today is: did speaker Kevin McCarthy succeed at convincing enough members of his small and fractious Republican majority to vote for the bill? Will it even be voted on today? Follow this blog to find out.
Here’s what else is going on today:
The Senate health, education and labor committee will vote on the nomination of Julie Su to serve as labor secretary, but it’s unclear if she has the votes to be confirmed by the whole chamber.
Joe Biden will host South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol at the White House, where they’ll have a joint press conference (rare for Biden) at 12:30 pm eastern time and then a state dinner in the evening.
Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson will formally announce his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination at 11:05 am.
