“The Speaker has to move quickly” – White House on aid for Ukraine as well as Israel
The White House “will not accept” any bill put forward by Republicans in the US House that only provides additional funding to Israel, in the wake of Iran’s attack on Saturday, and does not include aid for Ukraine, the press secretary just said.
The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, said on Sunday that he will aim to advance a bill for wartime aid to Israel this week but did not clarify whether Ukraine funding would be part of the package.
The White House wants a bipartisan $95bn national security bill that is languishing in the House to be passed, which includes fresh funding for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and other allies.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at the media briefing in the west wing moments ago that “the Speaker has to move quickly” to “get this on the floor” of the chamber for a vote.
If Republicans put forward a bill that only offers extra funding for Israel, the White House will not support it (although such a bill would be unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate anyway).
“We would not accept a standalone,” Jean-Pierre said.
Key events
Joe Biden said a little earlier on Monday that he wants to prevent the conflict in the Middle East, where Israel is waging war in Gaza and fending off Iranian attacks, from spreading more widely, Agence France-Presse reports.
Iran launched an unprecedented aerial attack against Israel, and we launched an unprecedented military effort to defend it. Together with our partners, we defended that attack.
The United States is committed to Israel’s security. We’re committed to a ceasefire that will bring the hostages home and prevent the conflict from spreading beyond what it already has,” Biden said as he met Iraq’s visiting prime minister.
Biden was referring to those kidnapped by Hamas militants in their deadly October 7 attack on Israel.
Biden has promised “ironclad” support for Israel but also urged it to “think carefully and strategically” before launching a response against Iran that could trigger a wider war.
The US president said he was “also committed to the security of our personnel and partners in the region, including Iraq.”
Iraq’s prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani was visiting the White House for talks on the presence of US troops in Iraq as part of an anti-jihadist coalition.
“We don’t want a war with Iran” – White House
National security spokesman John Kirby, at the White House press briefing, is reluctant to expand on Joe Biden’s advice to Israel at the weekend to “be careful” in its approach to any response to Iran’s attack on Saturday night.
But there is an air that the US believes Israel’s broadly successful defense against the unprecedented Iranian assault at the weekend, where hundreds of missiles and drones were intercepted by the Jewish state and allies, is a satisfactory outcome in itself.
“We do not want a war with Iran,” Kirby said. He said the US is not involved with any Israeli decision now about how to respond.
However he talked in graphic terms about the US activities in shooting down incoming Iranian missiles and drones on Saturday as they approached Israel, both with US fighter jets in the air and from US destroyer ships at sea.
“We will do what we have to do to defend Israel,” he said, adding that the US “does not want a wider conflict.”
Israel has said it will respond, but without any details yet. Western leaders are urging restraint. Iran’s attack was retaliation for an Israeli attack on Iranian targets in Syria earlier this month.
A little earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said Washington did not want any escalation, but would continue to defend key ally Israel.
The White House press briefing is underway. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has just greeted the media in the west wing and now national security spokesman John Kirby is speaking on international affairs.
Kirby is speaking now about Iran’s attack on Israel on Saturday night and he’s pushing back on any idea that Iran knew it wouldn’t hit home with any of the drone weapons or cruise missiles that it launched and that it designed the assault to fail.
He said the attack “was defeated thanks to our preparations…and Israel’s remarkable defense system.”
Kirby said the extent of the US’s intervention in Israel’s defense was unprecedented, and that Iran had fired so many weapons at Israel because it knew many would be repelled but hoped a maximum number would get through.
He’s now talking up the wide defensive coalition and said “Iran failed.”
Fifteen prominent historians filed an amicus brief with the US supreme court earlier this month, rejecting Donald Trump’s claim in his federal election subversion case that he is immune to criminal prosecution for acts committed as president.
Authorities cited in the document include the founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Adams, in addition to the historians’ own work.
Trump, the historians said, “asserts that a doctrine of permanent immunity from criminal liability for a president’s official acts, while not expressly provided by the constitution, must be inferred. To justify this radical assertion, he contends that the original meaning of the constitution demands it. But no plausible historical case supports his claim.”
Trump faces four federal election subversion charges.
The supreme court will hear arguments on Trump’s immunity claim, despite widespread legal and historical opinion that the claim is groundless. Fuller report from my colleague, Martin Pengelly here.
Donald Trump’s federal criminal trial for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results had been due to take place in Washington, DC, in March and the government, prosecuting, had asked for it to begin in January of this year.
But here we are in April, with the New York criminal trial going ahead (being blogged here) and no dates for any of the other three cases in which Trump is a defendant.
This as the US Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments from the former president that he is immune from prosecution.
Trump pleaded not guilty last August to charges filed in federal district court in Washington that he conspired to defraud the United States, conspired to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructed an official proceeding and engaged in a conspiracy against rights.
My colleague Hugo Lowell writes that the supreme court’s eventual ruling in Fischer v United States, in which it’s hearing oral arguments tomorrow, will indicate whether the obstruction charge under section 1512 of title 18 of the US criminal code can be used against Trump, and could undercut the other general conspiracy charges brought against the former president by the special counsel, Jack Smith.
The court could also end up by extension invalidating many convictions against rioters involved in the January 6 Capitol attack. The obstruction statute has been the justice department’s primary weapon to hold accountable those involved in the violence of that day.
With Clarence Thomas absent from court today, observers will be watching keenly to see if he joins the bench on Tuesday for Fischer.
Clarence Thomas is the oldest of the justices on the bench of the US supreme court, at age 75.
The staunch conservative has had previous absences for health reasons, but no reasons have been given for his not being present today during the session in the marbled edifice in Washington DC.
Oral arguments were being heard today and a ruling was made. Chief Justice John Roberts announced that Thomas wasn’t present.
He has been embroiled in controversies in relation to accusations of unethical conduct and unfair partisan political links.
NBC News reports:
“Often when a justice is not present for oral arguments, the court will give a reason, including instances when there is a health issue.
In February of last year, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch was not present for an argument, and the court said he was feeling “under the weather.”
When Thomas himself was hospitalized in 2022, the court disclosed that he had an infection and was being treated with antibiotics.”
The US supreme court on April 25 will hear arguments in the unprecedented claim by Donald Trump that he has absolute immunity from prosecution in the federal criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Progressive advocacy group MoveOn is petitioning for the conservative supreme court associate justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from that case.
The group argues that: “It’s clear that the supreme court will play a central role in this year’s presidential election at a time when the public holds the historically lowest opinion of the court’s integrity. For the supreme court to consider these cases with any impartiality, it’s critical that justices with conflicts of interest recuse themselves. That applies first and foremost to Justice Clarence Thomas, whose own wife played a role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 elections.”
The group goes on to argue that: “Thomas has a longstanding history of conflicts of interest. It’s crucial that we raise the pressure now and demand that Justice Thomas recuse himself from this case immediately!”
With Trump on trial from today in Manhattan on the New York hush money case (being live blogged here), in the federal case on 2020 election interference we don’t yet have a date for trial. The case is basically on hold until the supreme court rules on the matter of immunity, putting in grave jeopardy the prospect of that trial starting before the next election in November.
The US supreme court is due to hear arguments in an important case on Tuesday that involves defendants charged with crimes in relation to the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington – and has implications for Donald Trump.
Associate justice Clarence Thomas’s absence from court today now has people wondering what will happen tomorrow.
Oral arguments will be presented in the case of Fischer v United States. Former police officer Joseph Fischer has been charged in connection with the January 6 invasion of congress by a mob of Trump supporters, accused of assaulting a serving police officer, disorderly conduct and, crucially, obstruction of a congressional proceeding.
This allegedly happened when rioters, who had been egged on by Trump at a rally near the White House just before they breached the US Capitol, aimed to stop the official certification by a joint session of congress of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump. Amid the violence, the certification was delayed but took place in the early hours of the following day after the Capitol had been cleared.
Fischer, as the learned Scotusblog explains, has asked the supreme court to throw out the charge that he obstructed an official proceeding, arguing that the law that he was charged with violating was only intended to apply to evidence tampering.
More than 300 other January 6 defendants have been charged with violating the law and also features in federal criminal charges brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith for the former Republican president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden, who is seeking re-election to a second term as the Democratic nominee this November.
Supreme court justice Clarence Thomas’s failure to turn up for court this morning has people scratching their heads, as no explanation has been given and it’s usual for the court to mention if a member of the bench is under the weather.
It’s an important few weeks for the court, hearing final oral arguments of the session that began last October, major decisions from which are expected this June.
Chief Justice John Roberts did say Thomas would participate, but the lack of details is a little odd.
Justice Thomas is not in court for Monday’s Supreme Court oral arguments.
Chief Justice said Thomas would “participate fully” based on briefs/transcripts but gave no reason for his absence.
No further information provided.https://t.co/IITSrlczS6
— Lawrence Hurley (@lawrencehurley) April 15, 2024
Meanwhile, in a bit of indirectly-related what-aboutism as Donald Trump stands trial in New York, there’s this:
If someone should have been recused from a case it should have been Clarence Thomas in regards to Ginny Thomas. Or Eileen Cannon, appointed by Trump. https://t.co/Y8saa23aPJ
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) April 15, 2024
The US and Iraq began formal talks in January about ending the coalition created to help the Iraqi government fight the Islamic State, with some 2,000 US troops remaining in the country under an agreement with Baghdad, the Associated Press writes.
Iraqi officials have periodically called for a withdrawal of those forces. The two countries have a delicate relationship due in part to Iran’s considerable sway in Iraq, where a coalition of Iran-backed groups brought Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to power in October 2022.
The US in recent months has urged Iraq to do more to prevent attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria that have further roiled the Middle East in the aftermath of Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel. Iran’s weekend attacks on Israel through Iraqi airspace have further underscored US concerns, although al-Sudani had already left Baghdad and was en route to Washington when the drones and missiles were launched.
Most previous Iraqi prime ministers have visited Washington earlier in their tenure. Al-Sudani’s visit was delayed because of tensions between the US and Iran and regional escalation, including the Gaza war and the killing of three US soldiers in Jordan in a drone attack in late January.
That was followed by a US strike in Baghdad that killed a leader in the Kataib Hezbollah militia whom Washington accused of planning and participating in attacks on US troops.
Joe Biden is set to host Iraq’s leader this week for talks that come as tensions across the Middle East have soared.
Tension has been palpable over the last three days not just over the war in Gaza but also Iran’s unprecedented Saturday attack on Israel in retaliation for an Israeli military strike against an Iranian facility in Syria.
The sharp rise in security fears has raised further questions about the viability of the two-decade American military presence in Iraq, through which portions of Iran’s Saturday drone and missile attack on Israel flew or were launched from, the Associated Press reports.
A US Patriot battery in Irbil, Iraq, knocked down at least one Iranian ballistic missile, according to American officials.
In addition, Iranian proxies have initiated attacks against US interests throughout the region from inside Iraq, making Monday’s meeting between Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani all the more critical.
The talks will include a discussion of regional stability and future US troop deployments but will also focus on economic, trade and energy issues that have become a major priority for Iraq’s government, according to US officials.
We’ll keep you up to date with any essential US-focused developments in geopolitics today but for detailed Middle East news as it happens, you can read our global live blog being run out of the Guardian’s London headquarters.
Supreme court justice Clarence Thomas absent from court with no explanation
Supreme court justice Clarence Thomas was absent from the court in Washington DC on Monday – with no explanation, the Associated Press reports.
Thomas, 75, also was not participating remotely in arguments, as justices sometimes do when they are ill or otherwise can’t be there in person.
Chief justice John Roberts announced Thomas’ absence, saying that his colleague would still participate in the day’s cases, based on the briefs and transcripts of the arguments. The court sometimes, but not always, says when a justice is out sick.
Thomas was hospitalized two years ago with an infection, causing him to miss several court sessions. He took part in the cases then, too.
He is the longest serving of the current justices, joining the supreme court in 1991.
The Guardian adds that Thomas has been at the center of political and ethical controversies for at least two years. Personally because of his reportedly “unprecedented” and “shameless” links to rightwing benefactors and indirectly because of his wife Ginni’s rightwing links and activism.
Thomas has been under pressure to recuse himself from cases where links to billionaire donors could amount to a conflict of interest, as has Justice Samuel Alito. He’s also been urged to step aside from the Trump immunity case, which is coming up for oral arguments later this month.
As a very conservative member of the nine-justice bench, Thomas is also regularly criticized by pro-choice advocates in the abortion debate raging in the US.
The upshot of the supreme court decision on Monday is that the case of Black Lives Matter organizer DeRay Mckesson will return for further review by a lower court, CNN reports.
There were no noted dissents but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote separately and said that lower courts would be able to take into account a separate First Amendment decision from the court last term that could work in Mckesson’s favor.
Mckesson relied heavily on a major Supreme Court decision from 1982 that is tied to the Civil Rights Movement. In that case, a unanimous court limited liability for protest organizers in similar situations. The decision reversed a Mississippi Supreme Court ruling that Charles Evers, a well-known civil rights activist, could be held liable for damages during a 1966 boycott of White merchants.
The unnamed officer in the current case countered that precedent shouldn’t stop the appeal because the violence that took place in Louisiana was “reasonably foreseeable” and was a consequence of Mckesson’s “own negligent, and illegal activity.”
The Supreme Court had considered the case before. In an unsigned opinion in 2020, the justices sent the matter back to appeals courts to review the Louisiana law, declining to reach the First Amendment questions. The legal questions were reconsidered and Mckesson still lost. “This case would be different if all Mckesson had done was organize a lawful protest, and if an unidentified protester had nonetheless assaulted [the officer],” the majority 5th Circuit opinion read. “But that is not what [the officer] alleges happened,” the cable news channel’s website reports.
The supreme court decision in the Black Lives Matter case not to hear an appeal by DeRay Mckesson, a protester, leaves in place a lower court decision reviving Baton Rouge police officer John Ford’s lawsuit against him.
That lower court, the fifth circuit court of appeals’ decision to allow Ford’s lawsuit could make it easier to sue protest leaders for the illegal conduct of an attendee – an outcome that, according to some legal scholars, could stifle activism seeking political or societal change, Reuters reports.
The killing of Anton Sterling, a Black man, by white police officers in Baton Rouge in 2016 inflamed racial tensions in the city. A protest four days later demanding accountability took place in the area in front of police headquarters.
Ford was among the officers assigned to make arrests of protesters on a public highway. He was struck in the face by a rock or piece of concrete hurled by an unidentified person, losing teeth and suffering head and brain injuries, according to his lawsuit.
Ford’s lawsuit, seeking monetary damages, argued that McKesson should have known from his actions leading the protest that it would turn violent.
Mckesson was arrested on the day of the protest but the charge was later dropped.
US district judge Brian Jackson dismissed Ford’s suit in 2017. But the fifth circuit in 2023 revived it, finding that the first amendment did not bar the negligence claim.
US supreme court rejects Black Lives Matter activist’s appeal over protest incident
The US supreme court on Monday allowed a Black Lives Matter activist to be sued by a Louisiana police officer injured during a protest in 2016 in a case that could make it riskier to engage in public demonstrations, a hallmark of American democracy, Reuters reports.
In declining to hear DeRay Mckesson’s appeal, the justices left in place a lower court’s decision reviving a lawsuit by the Baton Rouge police officer, John Ford, who accused him of negligence after being struck by a rock during a protest sparked by the fatal police shooting of a Black man, Alton Sterling, by white officers.
The New Orleans-based fifth US circuit court of appeals in 2023 rejected Mckesson’s defense that his rights to free speech and assembly under the US constitution’s first amendment protect him from the negligence claim.
The Baton Rouge protest was one of numerous demonstrations in the United States in 2015 and 2016 arising from incidents involving police and Black individuals.
As Joe Biden plans to hit Pennsylvania in a campaign blitz this week, Donald Trump was there on Saturday, holding a rally on north-east Lehigh county, where he turned up an hour late in bitter cold after running late at a fundraiser in Bucks county, areas of the Philadelphia suburbs where Biden won four years ago.
It was Trump’s first 2024 general election campaign in Pennsylvania with public radio station WHYY reporting that the former Republican president got busy “hitting several of his regular talking points, including energy independence, immigration and his innocence in the several ongoing trials he is party to”.
During the rally in Lehigh county, Trump endorsed Republican David McCormick for the US Senate seat held by three-term Democrat Bob Casey.
He’s a smart guy. He was a very successful guy. He’s given up a lot to do this,” Trump said and WHYY reported.
The outlet further reported that the Trump endorsement was a bit of a surprise as McCormick had run for the Senate before but in that race Trump endorsed Mehmet Oz, not McCormick. Democrat John Fetterman actually won that seat.
Maya Yang
Joe Biden and Donald Trump are targeting Pennsylvania intensively this election cycle and are visiting the crucial swing state within days of each other.
Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania in 2020 by less than 1.5% of the vote, or approximately 80,000 votes, while Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the same state in 2016 by less than 45,000 votes.
Biden is set to kick off an election campaign blitz on Tuesday, his fifth visit to Pennsylvania this year.
Democrats and Republicans due to vote in the state’s general primary on 23 April.
When the US president kicks off his Keystone State blitz on Tuesday it will be his fifth visit this year.
The plan for this trip was hatched before the Biden rushed back to the White House on Saturday afternoon from a weekend trip to his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, after he was informed by his team that an attack on Israel by Iran appeared imminent, with tension in the region ramping up following the killing of a top Iranian general in Damascus in a Israeli strike earlier this month.
If the original plan holds, he’ll visit Scranton, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia this week.
Biden and Trump battle for votes in Pennsylvania against contrasting backdrops at home
Good morning, US politics live blog readers. Joe Biden is heading to campaign in his home town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday just three days after Donald Trump held a rally in the crucial battleground state ahead of primary voting there later this month.
But the focus on the swing state for the rivals for the White House this November could not come against greater contrasting backdrops on today.
Here’s what going on:
-
Biden will be meeting with the prime minister of Iraq, Mohammed Shyaa Al-Sudani, in the Oval Office and is intensively engaged with handling the US position on the Middle East with his top intelligence, military and diplomatic chiefs, after rushing back to Washington from Delaware on Saturday just ahead of Iran’s drone and missile strike on Israel. This as he prepares to get back out on the election trail on Tuesday with a three-day trip to Pennsylvania.
-
Donald Trump is due in court in New York for the first day of the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president. It’s the hush-money case involving pay-offs to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election that Trump won and the alleged illegal cover-up of those payments. Jury selection begins today and could take a while. The former president will be in court, as will the prosecutor in the case, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. We are covering Trump’s hush money case live in a separate live blog. We’ll bring you some important snippets here, too, though, as it all unfolds. The trial is expected to last six weeks.
-
Trials, trails. Trump will continue to stump as the expected Republican nominee for president, despite the trial, and will be out on the campaign trail when court is not sitting, which is Wednesdays and weekends. The former president held a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday as his last campaign event before the trial starts, while yesterday he was golfing.
-
It wasn’t altogether clear at the weekend whether Biden would continue with a planned trip to Pennsylvania this week, given the tumultuous events on Saturday night when Iran fired more than 200 drones and cruise missiles towards Israel. The US president hastily returned to the White House on Saturday afternoon from a planned weekend at his beach house in Delaware and convened his security team. And we don’t know exactly what the next few days will bring on the international front. But the White House has duly put out the schedule that Biden is still, at this point, heading for Pennsylvania tomorrow.
-
Biden is planning to go to his hometown of Scranton on Tuesday, the Pittsburgh area on Wednesday and the Philadelphia area on Thursday. The general primary in the critical swing state, for both Republican and Democratic voters, is 23 April. Although at this point Biden and Trump are the presumed nominees, ahead of the anointment at their respective party conventions this summer, there will still be things to watch out for, such as turnout, any protest vote, voters’s views on issues such as reproductive rights and Israel’s war in Gaza.
-
Multiple new opinion polls show Biden strengthening slightly in the US presidential election, but suggest third-party candidates could present a risk to his chance of carrying the White House in November. According to a New York Times/Siena College poll released on Saturday, Biden has whittled down the four-point lead Donald Trump held in February, with Trump leading Biden 46% to 45% among registered voters.
-
Twelve news organizations have issued a joint statement calling on Biden and Trump to agree to debates during the election. The organizations say the “rich tradition” that’s been part of every general election campaign since 1976 is more important than ever during what they call “this polarized time”. The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates has set the dates for three meetings between the candidates and one for vice presidential nominees, but it’s still a mystery whether they will take place, the Associated Press reported.
-
The US and other western leaders are urging restraint from Israel in the wake of the unprecedented attack by Iran on the Jewish state on Saturday. You can follow all the news on that and Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza in our global live blog, here.
-
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is due to brief the media in the west wing at 1.30pm ET.
-
After the bilateral with the Iraqi leader, Biden will host Czech prime minister Petr Fiala in the Oval Office.
-
The US House of Representatives will meet at 12pm ET to take up legislation.
-
The US Senate will meet at 3pm to take up a judicial nomination.