Follow our debate blog!
We’re about to close down the US politics live blog, but the evening’s news is far from over. The second debate of the Republican presidential primary starts at 9pm eastern time at the Ronald Reagan presidential library in California, and we’ll be covering it live on our new blog, which you can read below:
Here’s a recap of what happened today:
Federal judge Tanya Chutkan declined to recuse herself from Donald Trump’s trial on charges related to overturning the 2020 election.
The apparently impending government shutdown could disrupt air travel in the United States, the Biden administration warned.
Senator Bob Menendez pleaded not guilty to corruption-related charges in his initial court appearance.
United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain will not meet with Trump when he visits Michigan this evening. Fain, however, joined Joe Biden yesterday, when the president appeared with striking union members on a picket line in the state.
House speaker Kevin McCarthy said he would not put a short-term funding measure passed by the Senate up for a vote, saying he doesn’t see enough support for it among his Republicans. The development is an ominous sign for efforts to halt a shutdown.
Updated
Back in the Senate, Fox News reports that lawmakers have approved a dress code mandating men wear long pants, coats and ties – exactly the sort of thing Pennsylvania’s freshman senator John Fetterman does not wear.
The changes came after the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer effectively eliminated its dress code in what was seen as a way to allow Fetterman to wear his trademark hoodie and shorts when casting votes. But his fellow senators did not like that, and have thus codified a dress code requiring formal wear:
Senate adopts dress code requring coats, ties and long pants for men on the floor. Dress code is specific to men. Here’s the text of the resolution: https://t.co/P2pXajLVjW
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) September 27, 2023
Here’s the Guardian’s Joan E Greve with a preview of tonight’s debate of Republican presidential contenders, which kicks off at 9pm eastern time but will not feature Donald Trump, the far and away frontrunner:
Seven Republican presidential contenders gathered in California on Wednesday night for the second primary debate of the 2024 election season, but the absence of Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner in the race for the party’s nomination, again loomed large over the event.
Seven candidates qualified for the second debate, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute in Simi Valley, California. Those candidates were Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, the former vice-president Mike Pence, the former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and the North Dakota governor Doug Burgum.
Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor who participated in the first primary debate, did not appear on Wednesday because he failed to meet the heightened polling requirements outlined by the Republican National Committee.
Trump skipped the event – as he skipped last month’s debate – and instead delivered a speech in Michigan, where auto workers have gone on strike to demand pay increases. A day earlier, Joe Biden joined some of the striking workers on the picket line, and the back-to-back events provided an odd preview of the likely matchup in the 2024 general election.
Here are more scenes from Simi Valley, California, where the Ronal Reagan Presidential Library will host this evening’s debate between seven Republican presidential candidates:
Judge in 2020 election meddling case responds: 'Justice demands that judges not recuse without cause'
The federal judge presiding in Donald Trump’s criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results rejected his request that she recuse herself on Wednesday, ruling that the former president failed to show her previous comments about his role in the January 6 Capitol attack meant she could not be impartial.
The decision means the case remains with US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who was randomly assigned it after Trump was indicted last month on charges that he unlawfully conspired to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power, though Trump can appeal to the DC circuit for a special order known as a mandamus.
Trump has long complained that Chutkan was biased against him based on remarks she made about him during sentencing in other January 6 riot defendant cases. But he faced an uphill struggle in trying to get Chutkan to recuse because, to succeed, he needed to satisfy a particularly high evidentiary threshold.
“Justice … demands that judges not recuse without cause. ‘In the wrong hands, a disqualification motion is a procedural weapon to harass opponents and delay proceedings,” Chutkan said in her ruling, a line with resonance given Trump has suggested his overarching legal strategy is to delay his cases beyond the 2024 election.
Updated
A regular presence in the media tent at primary debates is Aaron Kall, director of debate for the University of Michigan Debate Program.
He took his seat early in a media tent erected in the grounds of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, which is laid out in Spanish Mission architectural style with red tiled roof and central courtyard in sunny Simi Valley, California.
Donald Trump is staying away again but Kall will be looking out to see how much he features in tonight’s contest. “In the first debate in Milwaukee, there was only about 10 or 12 minutes where he was discussed,” he said, competing with the Fox Business channel booming from loudspeakers. “There were solid performances – Ramaswamy, Haley, DeSantis all did well – but they didn’t narrow the gap at all. In fact, Trump only increased his lead in the month since the Milwaukee debate.
“Part of that was because he really wasn’t engaged by the candidates and the only time he was discussed were things that would help him: if he was criminally convicted, they would support him and maybe pardon him. So he’s got to play a bigger role in the debate tonight, even if he’s not here, for the candidates to have any chance of narrowing that gap at least a little bit to give them some momentum heading into future debates.”
Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, failed to qualify for the debate this time. For some candidates, Kall noted, tonight might be the last chance to stop Trump. “The thresholds are only increasing so it’s going to be much tougher to even qualify for the Miami debate in November. There are fewer debates this cycle and so it’s really reaching a point of now or never for the inevitability of Trump as the nominee.”
Rather than attend this evening’s debate of Republican presidential candidates, Donald Trump will be in Michigan, addressing blue-collar workers in a state that will be crucial to his campaign to return to the White House.
His visit comes a day after Joe Biden walked the picket line with striking members of the United Auto Workers union, who are in the midst of a work stoppage brought on by a protracted contract dispute with Detroit’s Big Three automakers.
Trump will appear at a non-union auto parts supplier in Clinton township, outside Detroit, and speak to a crowd that will include members of the UAW and other unions, as well as some non-union workers.
Ahead of Trump’s visit, CNN reports that some in the region are giving him a cold reception:
There’s a plane flying over the venue Trump is speaking at tonight in Clinton Township, Michigan with a sign that says “Trump sold us out - Trumphatesworkers .com” pic.twitter.com/Ed7AHW51wI
— Kate Sullivan (@KateSullivanDC) September 27, 2023
Here’s more from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell on Donald Trump’s attempts to get federal judge Tanya Chutkan to remove herself from his trial on charges related to trying to overturn the 2020 election – an effort that now appears to have failed:
Donald Trump’s legal team on Monday asked the federal judge overseeing the 2020 election interference prosecution against him to remove herself from the case, arguing that her previous public comments about the former president’s culpability in the January 6 Capitol attack were disqualifying.
The recusal motion, filed to and against the US district judge Tanya Chutkan, faces major legal hurdles: to succeed, Trump must show a “reasonable person” would conclude from just her remarks – but not any of her actual rulings – that she was unable to preside impartially.
Trump has long complained that the judge assigned to the case was biased against him because of her previous comments about Trump in other January 6 riot defendant cases and his legal team weighed filing the motion for weeks, according to two people familiar with deliberations.
The nine-page motion identified two episodes where Chutkan remarked on her opinion about Trump’s responsibility in instigating the Capitol attack, which Trump’s lawyers argued gave rise to the appearance of potential bias or prejudice against the former president.
The first instance came in October 2022 when she said, referring to January 6: “And the people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man … It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
Trump’s lawyers argued that those remarks, which came during sentencing of a rioter who stormed the Capitol, suggested Chutkan believed Trump should have been prosecuted and jailed in a prejudgment of guilt that alone was disqualifying.
Judge in Trump's 2020 election meddling trial rejects call to recuse
Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge presiding over Donald Trump trial on charges related to trying to overturn the 2020 election, has rejected an effort by the former president to remove her from the case, Politico reports:
BREAKING: Judge CHUTKAN *denies* Trump's motion to recuse. https://t.co/N3O5MmeO2Z pic.twitter.com/Kt3mdsKgU8
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2023
CHUTKAN rejects the notion that some of her statements alluding to Trump were based on watching the news, rather than facts she was presented with by Jan. 6 defendants who pinned their conduct on Trump. https://t.co/EtKFH7taJH pic.twitter.com/idI7RuGEVm
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 27, 2023
Trump’s legal team earlier this month had filed the motion asking Chutkan to recuse herself from the case, arguing previous statements she had made about his involvement in the January 6 insurrection were disqualifying.
We’re about three hours away from the start of the second Republican primary debate at the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California.
The Guardian’s David Smith is on the scene, and reports that the seven candidates who have qualified will have quite the view:
Republican candidates will be directly below the nose of Air Force One during the debate: pic.twitter.com/EkYB4364lA
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) September 27, 2023
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) September 27, 2023
The Republican-led House Ways and Means committee today held a press conference to discuss evidence related to Joe Biden’s impeachment, but that was overshadowed by a testy exchange between its chair Jason Smith and a reporter for NBC News.
As this video shows, the reporter asked Smith, who chairs one of three committees involved in the impeachment effort, to explain some of the gaps in his evidence. Smith struggles to do so. You can watch more below:
A heated exchange occurs between House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) and an NBC reporter during a news conference on the investigation into President Biden's family. The reporter presses Rep. Smith on the timeline of the evidence found against the Bidens. pic.twitter.com/2hfbQXEsPh
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 27, 2023
Video clips like these play right into the hands of White House officials who argue the Republicans have no case. Here’s Ian Sams, Biden’s spokesman for oversight and investigations:
When House Republicans staged this stunt to try to distract from them shutting down the government in 3 days, I don’t think this is what they had in mind…
— Ian Sams (@IanSams46) September 27, 2023
Another total bust. Zero evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden. And they can’t even answer basic questions without snapping. https://t.co/UtKDQVVMon
While the Senate’s top Republican Mitch McConnell is not the type to engage in social media spats, he used his speaking time on the chamber’s floor today to wag his finger at the House Republicans whose intransigence in approving spending may soon cause the government to shut down:
Sen. Min. Leader McConnell sends pointed message to House Speaker McCarthy:
— The Recount (@therecount) September 27, 2023
“A vote against a standard short-term funding measure is a vote against paying over $1 billion in salary for Border Patrol and ICE agents working to track down lethal fentanyl and tame our open borders.” pic.twitter.com/dz36nxHzlS
And here’s another great example of the intraRepublican fingerpointing that’s probably only going to get worse over the coming hours and days.
It’s Montana congressman Ryan Zinke, who aligns with speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Republican leadership, squaring off against insurgent leader congressman Matt Gaetz. The point of contention is which wing of the House GOP was responsible for returning to “regular order” in the chamber, which the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service defines as “a traditional, committee-centered process of lawmaking, very much in evidence during most of the 20th century.”
While it’s somewhat in the weeds, the open social media bickering (yes, they really did this in front of everybody on Twitter/X) tells you a lot about how things are going in the House today:
Funny, I recall you guys skipping the conference meetings in December where Republicans decided to restore regular order. https://t.co/fX3YWAs1vU
— Rep Ryan Zinke (@RepRyanZinke) September 27, 2023
Riiiiiight, Ryan.
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) September 27, 2023
We are totally doing regular order in September (moments away from a shutdown) at 2am because you guys decided in December 22 that it was gonna be this way.
It wasn’t that we forced this on Kevin by depriving him his preferred CR….
We have 10 approps bills out of committee. One passed on the floor in July. For two weeks we tried to bring DOD approps forward and twice it was killed when a couple Rs voted with Ds. It stopped the process, backed up bills. That's why we were voting until 1:30am and you know it.
— Rep Ryan Zinke (@RepRyanZinke) September 27, 2023
They went on from there. Click on the tweets if you want to read more.
As Washington shambles towards its 11th government shutdown since 1980, finger pointing is intensifying between lawmakers in Congress.
CNN heard from West Virginia’s Republican senator Shelley Moore Capito, who pondered Kevin McCarthy could have averted the crisis that now looms if he had stuck to an agreement reached earlier this year that increased the government’s borrowing limit and also provided a rough outline of future spending plans. Here’s what she had to say:
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a member of the Senate GOP leadership, believes Speaker McCarthy should have stuck to the spending levels as part of the debt limit law, which he himself cut with the WH.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 27, 2023
"If you make a deal, you've got to stick to the deal," she told me pic.twitter.com/fQnmVSmC9i
While Joe Biden may not believe that anything is inevitable in politics, he struck a realistic note when reporters traveling with him in California pressed him on his ability to stop the federal government from shutting down.
“If I knew that, I would’ve already done it,” the president replied, when asked what he could have done to stop the shutdown.
X cuts half of election integrity team – report
Elon Musk’s X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has axed around half of its global team dedicated to tracking election disinformation, according to a report by the Information.
The cuts, which reportedly include the head of the Dublin-based team, come less than a month after the company said it would expand its safety and election teams.
X executives told the team last week that “having elections integrity employees based in Europe wasn’t necessary,” according to the report. The team had about two dozen employees before Musk bought the platform, and is now down to less than half of that.
Updated
Biden says government shutdown 'not inevitable'
Joe Biden said a government shutdown is not inevitable, but that if there is one, a lot of vital work could be impacted in science and health, Reuters reported.
The president, speaking to reporters after remarks to a group of science and technology advisers in San Francisco, was asked if he believed a government shutdown was inevitable. He replied:
I don’t think anything is inevitable ... in politics.
Reporter: “Mr. President, do you think a government shutdown is inevitable at this point?”
— The Recount (@therecount) September 27, 2023
President Biden: “I don’t think anything is inevitable ... in politics.” pic.twitter.com/G8VKTJpX6F
Moderate New York Republican Mike Lawler said members of the GOP blocking efforts to keep the federal government from going into shutdown before a Saturday deadline are “stuck on stupid” in an interview with CNN.
Criticising members of his party, Lawler said:
Some of my colleagues have, frankly, been stuck on stupid and refused to do what we were elected to do, against the vast majority of the conference, who have been working to avoid a shutdown.
Schumer says he was 'disappointed and disturbed' by Menendez indictment
The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said he was disappointed and disturbed by the indictment of fellow Democratic senator Bob Menendez.
Schumer, speaking to reporters, said:
I’ve known Senator Menendez a very long time, and it was truly, truly upsetting. We all know that for senators, there’s a much, much higher standard. And clearly, when you read the indictment, Senator Menendez fell way, way below that standard.
But he stopped short of calling for the New Jersey senator’s resignation, saying that “we’ll see what will happen” after Menendez addresses the Democratic caucus tomorrow.
Embattled New Jersey senator Bob Menendez has asked to speak to the Senate Democratic caucus on Thursday as he faces growing calls to resign following his indictment on corruption and bribery charges.
Senator Mark Warner, chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said he would grant Menendez the “courtesy” of listening to what he had to say to the conference, the Hill reported.
A Senate aide confirmed that Democratic offices are aware of a special caucus meeting tomorrow, with no subject matter outlined, Politico reported.
Menendez pleaded not guilty earlier today to charges of taking bribes from three New Jersey businessmen.
A majority of Black Americans say that their communities are unfairly depicted in news coverage, according to a sweeping new survey on Wednesday.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents observed that their community received more negative coverage than other racial and ethnic groups, the Pew Research Center survey found. Roughly four in 10 surveyed said that the media not only stereotyped Black people but also felt that they saw racist and racially insensitive coverage sometimes or fairly often.
The center’s findings reflect the shortfalls of a so-called racial reckoning that swept through newsrooms across the United States in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, when news outlets focused on hiring for roles centering diversity and inclusion and reporters and editors focused on covering communities traditionally underrepresented in news coverage.
The latest survey indicates that the so-called reckoning inside newsrooms has struggled to reach the communities that they are meant to serve, including as the news business continues to experience layoffs, and failed to change the way communities feel about the coverage they receive.
Biden administration warns government shutdown could disrupt air travel
The US secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg, warned that a government shutdown could disrupt the nation’s air travel system as he spoke to reporters just days before the deadline.
Even a short shutdown would jeopardize the work and the hiring and training of potentially thousands of air traffic controllers and other key department employees, he said in a news conference earlier today.
House Republicans who are “comfortable” with a government shutdown should “explain themselves directly to all of the nonpartisan civil servants who make sure that planes land safely, who inspect trucks and railroads and pipelines to prevent disasters, who will have to go without pay”, he said.
There is no good time for a government shutdown, but this is a particularly bad time for a government shutdown, especially when it comes to transportation.
The consequences of a shutdown would be “disruptive and dangerous”, he added.
Updated
Trump’s business empire could collapse ‘like falling dominoes’ after ruling
If appeals from Donald Trump’s legal team are unsuccessful, the collapse of the Trump empire, upon which the former reality TV host staked his reputation as a successful business tycoon, could be imminent.
It would probably start with the sale of Trump’s most prestigious real estate assets, experts say, including Trump Tower in New York, golf courses and resorts around the US, and possibly his prized Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, if it is determined to be a business operation instead of his primary residential home. In his post on Wednesday, Trump decried the judge’s $18m valuation of Mar-a-Lago, claiming it was worth “100 times more than he values it”.
William Black, a white-collar criminologist, corporate fraud investigator and distinguished scholar in residence for financial regulation at the University of Minnesota law school, said:
In finance, once the dominoes start falling, it becomes basically impossible to save it. These properties are even more damaged goods today because of the success in demonstrating they are massively overvalued. The most likely thing, if you get an honest agent or receiver, they’re going to sell the properties at a loss. And when you’ve got a whole bunch of properties, with the first one you just desperately need to get some action and that gets discounted the most.
Black, who helped expose congressional wrongdoing in the Lincoln Savings and Loans scandal of the 1980s, in which the financier Charles Keating inflated his company’s worth to bilk taxpayers for billions, called Engoron’s ruling “devastating”. He believes Trump insiders and employees would have incentive to come forward with more information if he loses his wealth and influence.
Updated
Donald Trump’s real estate empire could collapse “like falling dominoes”, experts believe, following a New York judge’s ruling that the former president’s business fortune was built on rampant fraud and blatant lies.
According to Michael Cohen, his former attorney and fixer, Trump is already effectively “out of business” in New York after Judge Arthur Engoron on Tuesday rescinded the licenses of the Trump Organization and other companies owned by Trump and his adult sons, Eric and Don Jr. Cohen told CNN:
Those companies will end up being liquidated … the judge has already determined that the fraud existed.
On Wednesday morning, in a confrontational post on his Truth Social website that branded the judge a “political hack”, Trump said Engoron “must be stopped”.
Trump’s lawyers said they would appeal the rescinding of the licenses, the appointment of receivers, and Engoron’s assertion that Trump and executives lived in a “fantasy world” of routinely, repeatedly and illegally overvaluing property values and his personal net worth to gain favorable loan terms and reduced insurance premiums.
Ahead of tonight’s second GOP primary debate, Reproductive Freedom for All, formerly Naral Pro-Choice America, warned that anti-abortion Republican presidential candidates will try to “message their way out of the electoral disaster”.
The reproductive rights organization tweeted:
GOP presidential candidates can’t message their way out of the electoral disaster their support for a national abortion ban poses, but during tonight’s debate, they’ll try to.
“No matter how they spin it, bans are just that – bans. And voters will reject them every time,” it added.
GOP presidential candidates can’t message their way out of the electoral disaster their support for a national abortion ban poses, but during tonight's debate, they’ll try to.
— Reproductive Freedom for All (@reproforall) September 27, 2023
No matter how they spin it, bans are just that—bans. And voters will reject them every time.
Key Republican presidential candidates including Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, and former vice-president Mike Pence have all been vocal about their anti-abortion stances.
In April, DeSantis approved of a six-week abortion ban in Florida while Pence previously said that he wants to ban abortions even during non-viable pregnancies.
Updated
Jared Kushner pressured the Washington Post to fire its editor over coverage of the Russia election interference investigation, a new book says.
The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:
Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, tried to persuade the publisher of the Washington Post to fire its editor over coverage of the Russia investigation, that editor, Marty Baron, writes in a new book.
“With no delay and without pause during his four years as president,” Baron writes, “Trump and his team would go after the Post and everyone else in the media who didn’t bend to his wishes.
“In December 2019, Kushner would lean on [Fred] Ryan to withdraw support for me and our Russia investigation.
“… ‘He aims to get me fired,’ I told Ryan.”
Baron’s book, Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos and the Washington Post, will be published next Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.
For the full story, click here:
Joe Biden approves Louisiana emergency declaration
President Joe Biden has approved an emergency declaration in Louisiana due to the emergency conditions resulting from the seawater intrusion that began on September 20.
The White House announced in a statement on Wednesday:
The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population.
The declaration is also set to “provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, and St. Bernard”, it added.
Last Friday, New Orleans’ mayor, LaToya Cantrell, signed an emergency declaration after saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico started seeping its way through the Mississippi River in Louisiana.
The concern comes as the saltwater makes its way into the drought-hit river as it could potentially affect thousands of residents’ drinking water in the following weeks.
Updated
Interim summary
It is slightly past 1pm in Washington DC. Here is where the day stands:
The speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, said he would not allow a vote on a bipartisan Senate stopgap funding bill that would avert a government shutdown. At a closed-door meeting this morning, McCarthy urged House GOP members to work together to approve their own temporary measure to keep the government open past the Saturday deadline.
New Jersey senator Bob Menendez pleaded not guilty to charges of taking bribes from three New Jersey businessman as he appeared in a federal courthouse in New York on Wednesday. Menendez entered the plea at a hearing before US magistrate judge Ona Wang in Manhattan. His wife, Nadine Menendez, and co-defendants Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes also pleaded not guilty.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer urged House speaker Kevin McCarthy to use bipartisanship to avert a government shutdown that could force millions of federal employees to go without pay. NBC reported Schumer as saying: “The only way out of a shutdown is bipartisanship, and by constantly adhering to what the hard right wants, you’re aiming for a shutdown.”
A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Donald Trump committed financial fraud by overstating the value of his assets to broker deals and obtain financing. The ruling is an acceleration of the case the New York attorney general, Letitia James, has been building against Trump since 2019.
The United Auto Workers president, Shawn Fain, who appeared beside Joe Biden at a picket line in Michigan on Tuesday, said he will not meet with Donald Trump during his upcoming visit to Detroit. In an interview with CNN on Tuesday evening, Fain said it was a “pathetic irony” that Trump would hold a rally for union members at a non-union business.
US soldier Travis King, who fled to North Korea in July, is in American custody after being expelled by Pyongyang into China, according to US officials. North Korea’s KCNA state news agency said King had been expelled after he confessed to illegally entering the country.
Updated
Donald Trump will attempt to woo blue-collar workers in Michigan in an intensifying political tug-of-war with Joe Biden a day after the sitting president visited a picket line to declare support for a trade union strike against the US’s three flagship carmakers.
Targeting working-class voters in the key battleground, the former president will attempt to upstage Tuesday’s appeal by Biden to union members on the frontline of the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike, which is turning into a proxy struggle for next year’s presidential election.
Trump will address about 500 workers, including UAW members, at Drake Enterprises, a non-unionised car parts maker in Macomb county, a few miles from where Biden spoke to striking employees picketing a Ford facility.
Trump has emitted a sympathetic feeling towards workers striking against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis without explicitly endorsing their demands for a 40% pay rise, shorter working hours and better pensions – which polls show a majority of Americans support.
Instead, he has accused the UAW’s leadership of selling its members “down the river” and attacked Biden’s clean energy policy of incentivizing the three car giants to convert to manufacturing electric vehicles.
Updated
None of the series of tax revelations or reports about Donald Trump seems likely to shake the Trump faithful ahead of next year’s presidential election against Joe Biden.
Their instant assumption is that politically biased judges are trying to distract attention from Hunter Biden’s troubles and that Trump is merely smarter than others when it comes to gaming the system.
At a campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa, last week, Mathew Willis, 41, said:
I’ve never seen him be anything but honest. During a debate at one point, they were like, ‘Oh, you don’t pay your taxes,’ and he’s like, ‘Neither do you! I use the legal system to do what I do. The loopholes are there. They put them there for people like you and us. I’m just working the system.’ He’s not doing anything illegal. What’s wrong with that?
Updated
Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, released a statement following the judge’s ruling in her lawsuit against Donald Trump on Tuesday.
The statement, reported by CNN, said:
Today, a judge ruled in our favor and found that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization engaged in years of financial fraud. We look forward to presenting the rest of our case at trial.
Trump’s attorney, Christopher Kise, called the ruling “completely disconnected from the facts and governing law”, adding:
While the full impact of the decision remains unclear, what is clear is that President Trump and his family will seek all available appellate remedies to rectify this miscarriage of justice.
Updated
Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump insisted his father’s claims about the value of his Mar-a-Lago estate were correct, writing that the Palm Beach estate is “speculated to be worth well over a billion dollars making it arguably the most valuable residential property in the country”.
Judge Arthur Engoron, ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by New York attorney general, Letitia James, found that the former president consistently overvalued Mar-a-Lago, inflating its value on one financial statement by as much as 2,300%.
Posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, Eric Trump called the ruling “an attempt to destroy my father and kick him out of New York”.
In an attempt to destroy my father and kick him out of New York, a Judge just ruled that Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach Florida, is only worth approximate “$18 Million dollars”… Mar-a-Lago is speculated to be worth we’ll over a billion dollars making it arguably the most valuable… pic.twitter.com/b0U6J5ykWJ
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) September 26, 2023
While everyone can see that this case is egregious, the only thing worse than weaponizing the legal system against a political opponent is unfairly going after their family. Both the Attorney General and the Judge know I had absolutely NOTHING to do with this case. Every single…
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) September 27, 2023
Updated
Donald Trump rallied against the ruling by a New York judge that he committed financial fraud by overstating the value of his assets to broker deals and obtain financing.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the decision was “un-American” and part of an ongoing plot to damage his campaign to return to the White House. He wrote on Tuesday:
My Civil rights have been violated, and some Appellate Court, whether federal or state, must reverse this horrible, un-American decision.
He insisted his company had “done a magnificent job for New York State” and “done business perfectly”, calling it “A very sad Day for the New York State System of Justice!”
Updated
McCarthy says he 'doesn't see the support' in House for Senate stopgap bill to avert shutdown
The speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, said he would not allow a vote on a bipartisan Senate stopgap funding bill that would avert a government shutdown.
At a closed-door meeting this morning, McCarthy urged House GOP members to work together to approve their own temporary measure to keep the government open past the Saturday deadline.
McCarthy set up a test vote on Friday, a day before the shutdown deadline, on a far-right bill, AP reported. It would slash federal spending by 8% from many agencies and toughen border security but has been rejected by Joe Biden, Democrats and his own right-flank Republicans.
McCarthy, speaking to reporters after the meeting, rejected outright the Senate’s bipartisan bill, which would fund the government to 17 November, adding $6bn for Ukraine and $6bn for US disaster relief while talks continue. He said he didn’t “see the support in the House” to pass the Senate’s bill.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he had a “good conference” with House GOP, and hopes the House will pass 4 appropriation bills “by Thursday.”
— The Recount (@therecount) September 27, 2023
“The next 5, we’re gonna need more time. So, we will pass a CR — bring that rule up hopefully on Friday — that would keep government open.” pic.twitter.com/XQIqTtgujC
Updated
Abortion rights supporters and foes will square off in the Ohio supreme court on Wednesday over whether the state should be allowed to ban abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many people even know they are pregnant.
Arguments in the case arrive just weeks before Ohio will become the only state in the United States to vote directly on abortion in 2023. On 7 November, voters will have the chance to decide whether to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution.
If the Ohio supreme court rules to reinstate the state’s six-week ban, which is currently paused, it could throw the election – and abortion providers across the midwest – into chaos.
First passed in 2019, before the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade and abolished the national right to abortion, the six-week ban was put on hold. But once Roe fell last year, the ban snapped into place.
In court documents, Ohio abortion providers spoke of encountering patients who could not get cancer treatments while pregnant, people who threatened suicide if they could not get abortions, and women whose pregnancies had fetal anomalies so serious that they would never result in healthy babies.
As the ban does not have exceptions for rape or incest, multiple children also had to flee the state for abortions after being raped, according to court records. One 10-year-old rape victim’s case continues to make national headlines.
Senator Bob Menendez pleads not guilty to corruption charges
New Jersey senator Bob Menendez pleaded not guilty to charges of taking bribes from three New Jersey businessman as he appeared in a federal courthouse in New York on Wednesday.
Menendez entered the plea at a hearing before US magistrate judge Ona Wang in Manhattan. His wife, Nadine Menendez, and co-defendants Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes, also pleaded not guilty. A third businessman, Wael Hana, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday.
Travis King, an American soldier who fled across the border from South Korea to North Korea in July, is back in US custody, US officials have confirmed.
According to senior administration officials, King crossed the Chinese border on Wednesday, and Chinese authorities handed him to the US embassy, who then arranged for the army private to be flown to a US military base.
US officials briefing the press on Wednesday did not comment on his motivations but insisted he had returned willingly. A senior US official said:
We can confirm that Private King was very happy to be on his way home. That has been quite clear as we have resumed our contact with him, and he is very much looking forward to being reunited with his family.
On the issue of any legal or disciplinary action King might face on the return to the US, a US official said that would be considered after a medical and psychological assessment.
“When he arrives on US soil, he will be evaluated by [a] very talented, experienced team that are going to guide him through a reintegration process,” the official said.
They’ll address any medical and emotional concerns and ensure we get him in a good place to reunite with his family…and we’ll work through all those administrative status questions following completion of his reintegration.
California congressman Ted Lieu accused House speaker Kevin McCarthy of having gone back on his word over the funding deal outlined in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which passed the House and the Senate with bipartisan support earlier this year.
That agreement, brokered between Joe Biden and McCarthy, suspended the debt ceiling and outlined modest spending cuts for fiscal year 2024, but those cuts were deemed insufficient by members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus.
That deal “wasn’t just a handshake agreement,” Lieu said at a news conference with House Democratic leadership.
Democrats, Republicans disagree on many issues. We work together on various issues but in this town, your word still matters. How do we, the American people, trust Kevin McCarthy if he simply goes back on a deal that was put into law?
He urged the speaker to “simply honour the deal that he made” and to “start taking steps to rebuild his integrity”.
Chuck Schumer tells Kevin McCarthy 'you can stop it' as government shutdown looms
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer urged House speaker Kevin McCarthy to use bipartisanship to avert a government shutdown that could force millions of federal employees to go without pay.
NBC reported Schumer, speaking on the chamber floor this morning, said:
The only way out of a shutdown is bipartisanship, and by constantly adhering to what the hard right wants, you’re aiming for a shutdown. They want it, you know it, you can stop it.
House Republicans “have tried everything but bipartisanship”, he said, adding that a shutdown would cause “grave harm” for communities across the country.
Last night, the Speaker twisted himself into pretzels yet again trying to avoid his responsibility of governing, but this is the truth, every bill House Republicans have pushed is partisan, every CR has been aimed at the hard right, and every path they’ve pursued to date will inevitably lead to a shutdown.
Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic caucus, called for New Jersey senator Bob Menendez to resign during a news conference with House Democratic leadership.
Menendez has had “an incredible track record” of service to the people of New Jersey and of having “lifted up issues that the Latino community cares about”, Aguilar said.
It doesn’t bring me or any of us joy to say that he should resign. But he should for the betterment of the Democratic party. For the people of New Jersey. It’s better that he fights this trial outside of the halls of Congress.
Updated
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer celebrated the crafting of the bill as a bipartisan achievement that would buy lawmakers more time to make longer-term funding decisions, and he urged House Republicans to adopt a similar approach in their negotiations.
“We worked together so hard and diligently over the weekend, and we produced a result, I think, that shows that bipartisanship can triumph over extremism,” Schumer said just before the vote.
It’s a bridge towards cooperation and away from extremism, which will allow us to keep working to fully fund the federal government and spare families the pain of a shutdown.
The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, echoed that message, saying in a statement:
The Senate’s bipartisan continuing resolution will keep the government open, make a down payment on disaster relief, and is an important show of support for Ukraine. House Republicans should join the Senate in doing their job.
Updated
The Senate took a significant step on Tuesday evening to extend government funding beyond the end of the month, with just days left to avoid a shutdown.
In a vote of 77 to 19, the Senate advanced a shell bill that will become a stopgap measure to fund the government through 17 November while directing roughly $6bn toward Ukraine’s war efforts and another $6bn toward disaster relief.
The Senate could give final approval to the bill in the coming days, but the proposal faces steep odds of passage in the Republican-controlled House, where hard-right members have denounced efforts to provide additional funding to Ukraine.
The disagreements have elevated the risk that Congress will fail to pass a short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, before the 1 October deadline to avoid a government shutdown that could force millions of federal employees to go without pay.
Here’s a list of Senate Democrats who have called on Bob Menendez to resign, as shared by NBC’s Frank Thorp V.
28 Senate Ds calling on Menendez to resign:
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) September 27, 2023
Fetterman
Brown
Welch
Baldwin
Tester
Casey
Rosen
Warren
Heinrich
Klobuchar
Bennet
Kelly
Booker
Gillibrand
Markey
Massan
Hirono
Warnock
Peters
Duckworth
Murphy
Blumenthal
Stabenow
Sanders
Ossof
Van Hollen
Hickenlooper
Durbin
Key takeaways from Donald Trump’s financial fraud case ruling
A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Donald Trump committed financial fraud by overstating the value of his assets to broker deals and obtain financing.
The ruling is an acceleration of the case the New York attorney general, Letitia James, has been building against Trump since 2019, that the former president fudged financial statements and inflated his net worth up to $2.2bn more than the actual figure.
In a dramatic step just days before the trial is set to start, New York supreme court justice Arthur Engoron issued a partial ruling largely agreeing with James. He also ordered the cancellation of New York business certificates of all companies related to Trump and his two sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, making it difficult for Trump to continue running his real estate business in the state.
A trial is still set to start 2 October, in which Engoron will decide whether Trump, his allies and his companies will have to pay the $250m in monetary damages James is asking for. Trump’s lawyers say they will appeal the judge’s ruling.
My colleague Lauren Aratani reported five key takeaway’s from Tuesday’s ruling.
Updated
New Jersey senator Cory Booker on Tuesday joined calls for Bob Menendez’s resignation after days of silence on the matter.
“The details of the allegations against Senator Menendez are of such a nature that the faith and trust of New Jerseyans as well as those he must work with in order to be effective have been shaken to the core,” Booker said in a statement.
I believe stepping down is best for those Senator Menendez has spent his life serving.
By early afternoon, more than a dozen Democratic senators had called for Menendez to quit.
Updated
Senator Bob Menendez arrives at court to answer to bribery case charges
New Jersey senator Bob Menendez arrived in a federal courthouse in Manhattan to face corruption charges, as he resisted growing calls among his fellow Democrats to resign.
Menendez and his wife, Nadine, who is also charged in the case, said nothing as they arrived at the lower Manhattan courthouse on Wednesday morning.
Under an indictment unsealed last week, the couple were accused of using his seat in the Senate, as chair of the foreign relations committee, to benefit the government of Egypt. Prosecutors described how large sums of cash were found at Menendez’s New Jersey home, as well as actual gold bars. A Mercedes-Benz car is also at issue. Three businessmen have also been charged.
Menendez his wife are scheduled to be arraigned in the morning. A third co-defendant, Wael Hana, was arraigned on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty.
Updated
Donald Trump has added at least two veteran attorneys to his criminal defense team as he faces 91 criminal charges under four indictments.
The legal team, organized by attorney Todd Blanche, now includes Emil Bove, a former federal prosecutor and co-chief of the national security unit at the Manhattan US attorney’s office, and Kendra Wharton, a white-collar defense attorney, according to a Politico report.
Bove and Wharton are expected to work on Trump’s New York criminal case brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, and the federal cases filed by special counsel Jack Smith, according to the report.
Updated
UAW president Shawn Fain says he won't meet Trump during Detroit visit
The United Auto Workers president, Shawn Fain, who appeared beside Joe Biden at a picket line in Michigan on Tuesday, said he will not meet with Donald Trump during his upcoming visit to Detroit.
In an interview with CNN on Tuesday evening, Fain said it was a “pathetic irony” that Trump would hold a rally for union members at a non-union business. He said:
I see no point in meeting with him because I don’t think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for. He serves a billionaire class, and that’s what’s wrong with this country.
CNN’s @WolfBlitzer talks to United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain about former President Donald Trump’s planned trip to Michigan and if he would be willing to meet with Trump. Hear his response on @CNNSitRoom. pic.twitter.com/SHPVRsu8L2
— CNN (@CNN) September 26, 2023
Updated
US soldier Travis King in American custody after expulsion from North Korea
US soldier Travis King, who fled to North Korea in July, is in American custody after being expelled by Pyongyang into China, according to US officials.
North Korea’s KCNA state news agency said King had been expelled after he confessed to illegally entering the country. It said the soldier harboured ill feelings over inhumane treatment and racial discrimination within the US army.
A US official confirmed that King had been transferred to American custody in China, but did not offer further details.
Pte King entered North Korea on 18 July during a tour of the border village of Panmunjom, US officials have said. He had served nearly two months in a South Korean prison for assault before being released to be sent home to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he faced possible additional military disciplinary actions and discharge from the service.
He is the first known American to be held in North Korea in nearly five years.
Updated
Joe Biden bills himself as the most pro-union president in history, and his visit to the Michigan plant on Tuesday came a day before his expected 2024 Republican opponent, Donald Trump, was set to address workers in different industries in his own pitch for the strikers’ support.
No other sitting president has joined a picket line, according to Nelson Lichtenstein, a longtime labor historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Lichtenstein told the Guardian:
This is genuinely new – I don’t think it’s ever happened before, a president on a picket line. Candidates do it frequently and prominent senators, but not a president.
Trump won Michigan with the help of union members’ support in his 2016 election victory over Hillary Clinton before losing it four years later in his defeat to Biden. He will need to regain significant union support if he is to prevail next year.
The former president has said workers are being betrayed by their leadership and also by Biden’s environmentally friendly policy of encouraging the three American car giants to convert to making electric vehicles.
Updated
Donald Trump’s visit to Detroit later today comes after Joe Biden joined a protest outside a Michigan car plant in solidarity with striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, becoming the first sitting president to appear on a picket line.
Addressing the cheering crowd through a bullhorn on Tuesday, Biden said:
The fact of the matter is you guys – the UAW – you saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and before. You made a lot of sacrifices, gave up a lot. The companies were in trouble. Now they are doing incredibly well and guess what? You should be doing incredibly well too.
The president, wearing a UAW baseball cap with the words “Union Yes” on the side, added:
You deserve a significant raise and other benefits. Let’s get back what we lost.
Biden was joined by the UAW president, Shawn Fain. The UAW has withheld an endorsement of Biden so far, but union leadership has been critical of Donald Trump, who has sought to capitalize on the strike and siphon support from the majority-Democratic unions.
Updated
Donald Trump skips GOP debate to woo blue-collar Michigan workers
Donald Trump will skip the second Republican presidential debate on Wednesday and instead visit autoworkers in Detroit, where he will attempt to position himself as an ally of Michigan’s working-class voters by promising to raise wages and protect jobs if elected to a second term.
Trump, the clear frontrunner for the GOP primary race, will speak before a crowd of current and former United Auto Workers (UAW) members at Drake Enterprises, a nonunion manufacturer in Clinton Township, about a half-hour outside Detroit.
A Trump campaign radio ad released last week in Detroit and Toledo, Ohio, praised autoworkers and said the former president has “always had their back”.
Updated
Donald Trump’s persona as a successful tycoon was always more about illusion than reality.
In The Apprentice, he was effectively an actor reading from a script in a fantasy board room. In real life, it later transpired, he shied away from saying “You’re fired!” to anyone’s face at the White House, preferring to delegate the unpleasant task.
Trump’s origin story was told in his bestselling 1987 book The Art of the Deal. But the man who ghostwrote it, Tony Schwartz, describes him as an emperor with no clothes. He told the Guardian in 2020:
There’s nothing more important to Trump than being seen as very, very rich, which is why he’s expended so much effort in trying to claim a net worth far beyond what he actually was worth.
A series of tax revelations and reports have shown that Trump is not as rich as he would like everyone to believe. But the exaggerations are very on brand for a man who claimed to have the biggest inauguration crowd ever, that voter fraud is rampant and that Democrats are so pro-abortion they want to commit infanticide.
Updated
Fraud ruling is a bitter blow to Donald Trump's successful tycoon persona
For years Donald Trump was the host of The Apprentice, a reality TV show in which contestants vied for a management job within his organisation and he would deliver the verdict: “You’re fired!”
It cemented the image of Trump as an assertive chief executive who had conquered New York, an image that still proves seductive to millions of voters who want him to run the US like a business. But like much else about the 45th US president, it was all a lie.
On Tuesday a judge found that Trump’s business empire was built, at least in part, on rampant fraud. Noting that Trump’s lawyers were effectively asking the court not to believe its own eyes, Engoron quoted the Marx brothers’ film Duck Soup:
Well, who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?
The decision will make it easier for the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, to establish damages at a civil trial due to start next week; she is seeking a penalty of about $250m.
Engoron ordered the cancellation of certificates that let some of Trump’s businesses, including the Trump Organization, operate in New York – just possibly the beginning of the end of his empire.
If the judge’s scathing decision withstands an appeal from Trump’s lawyers, it will be the first time a government investigation into the former president has resulted in punishment. It will also deal the biggest blow yet to his persona as a successful tycoon.
Updated
Alina Habba, general counsel for Donald Trump, described the Trump Organization as “an American success story” and called the judge’s ruling “fundamentally flawed”.
In a statement after the judge’s ruling on Tuesday, she said:
We intend to immediately appeal this decision because President Trump and his family, like every American business owner, is entitled to their day in court.
Donald Trump’s legal team had previously asked the judge to dismiss the case against him, arguing New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, lacked authority to file the lawsuit because there was no evidence the public was harmed by Trump’s actions, and that many of the allegations were beyond the statute of limitations.
But Judge Arthur Engoron indicated last week he was not inclined to be sympathetic, rebuking Trump’s lawyers for making “frivolous arguments” and stating he was considering sanctions against them.
Chris Kise, who is also representing Trump in a federal indictment in Florida over the former president’s handling of classified documents after leaving the White House, argued:
What is happening here is what happens every day in complex business transactions.
Engoron was not swayed. He said:
The fact that no one was hurt does not mean the case gets dismissed.
In his ruling on Tuesday, he granted a motion by James seeking sanctions against Trump’s legal team for repeatedly making arguments already rejected, fining five attorneys $7,500 each.
Updated
A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Donald Trump committed fraud for years while building the real estate empire that catapulted him to fame and the White House.
Judge Arthur Engoron found that Trump and executives from his company, including his sons Eric and Donald Jr, routinely and repeatedly deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork.
His ruling came in a civil lawsuit brought by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, days before the start of a non-jury trial that will hear accusations that Trump, and the Trump Organization, lied for a decade about asset values and his net worth to get better terms on bank loans and insurance.
Engoron wrote:
The documents here clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business.
James has said Trump had effectively engaged in a “bait and switch” operation, inflating his net worth by as much as $2.23bn, and by one measure as much as $3.6bn, on annual financial statements given to banks and insurers. Assets whose values were inflated include Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, his penthouse apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, and various office buildings and golf courses, James said in the lawsuit filed in September 2022.
In his ruling, the judge said James had established liability for false valuations of several properties, Mar-a-Lago and the penthouse. He wrote:
In defendants’ world: rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party’s lies. That is a is a fantasy world, not the real world.
Updated
Donald Trump's real estate empire under threat after New York fraud ruling
Good morning, US politics blog readers. On Tuesday, a judge found that Donald Trump’s business empire was built, at least in part, on rampant fraud. Justice Arthur Engoron of the New York state court in Manhattan said Trump and his adult sons, Eric and Donald Jr, wildly inflated the value of his properties to hoodwink banks, insurers and others.
The ruling came in a civil lawsuit brought by Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, days before the start of a non-jury trial that will hear accusations that Trump, and the Trump Organization, lied for a decade about asset values and his net worth to get better terms on bank loans and insurance.
James has said Trump had effectively engaged in a “bait and switch” operation, inflating his net worth by as much as $2.23bn, and by one measure as much as $3.6bn, on annual financial statements given to banks and insurers.
Assets whose values were inflated include his office buildings and golf courses, his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his penthouse apartment at Trump Tower in New York, which he claimed was 30,000 sq ft, nearly three times its actual size, resulting in an overvaluation of as much as $207m.
The decision will make it easier for James to establish damages at a civil trial due to start next week; she is seeking a penalty of about $250m. Engoron ordered the cancellation of certificates that let some of Trump’s businesses, including the Trump Organization, operate in New York – just possibly the beginning of the end of his empire.
If the judge’s scathing decision withstands an appeal from Trump’s lawyers, it will be the first time a government investigation into the former president has resulted in punishment. It will also deal the biggest blow yet to his persona as a successful tycoon.
Meanwhile, the former president is expected in Detroit today to address autoworkers. His visit comes a day after Biden made a rousing speech, telling striking workers they deserved higher pay.
Here’s what else we’re watching today:
9am Eastern time: The House convenes. SEC chair Gary Gensler will testify before the financial services committee at 10am. The ways and means committee will meet in an executive session to discuss releasing new Hunter Biden/IRS whistleblower info at 10.30am.
10am: The Senate meets.
1.30pm: Joe Biden will convene a meeting with his advisers on science and tech in San Francisco.
1.30pm: Republican senators Lindsey Graham, John Kennedy, Thom Tillis, Marsha Blackburn, Ted Cruz, Katie Britt and John Cornyn will hold a news conference about the border.
2pm: Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer will hold his weekly news conference, where he may deliver remarks on embattled New Jersey senator Bob Menendez’s political future.
8pm: Donald Trump is expected to skip the second GOP primary debate and instead address striking auto workers in Michigan.
9pm: Republicans will hold their second presidential debate at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Seven candidates are set to take part – Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, South Carolina senator Tim Scott, entrepeneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former vice-president Mike Pence, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum.
Updated
