The Full Belmonte, 2/7/2024
Donald Trump is not immune from Jan. 6 prosecution, an appeals court ruled.
“What to know: Trump can be put on trial for trying to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, yesterday’s ruling said. It rejected his claim of presidential immunity.
What it means: It’s a blow to Trump’s quest to escape conviction and it could restrain him if he returns to the White House. He plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.
In related news: President Biden will be criticized for his handling of classified documents in an upcoming Justice Department report, but no charges are expected.”
Read this story at Washington Post
“Congressional Republicans are regrouping after a chaotic evening. The House failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on charges of failing to enforce border policy. Four Republicans joined Democrats to reject the measure. Additionally, a bipartisan Senate package that pairs border security policies with foreign aid for Israel and Ukraine could fall apart because Republicans now oppose the border policy they previously demanded.” [NPR]
Jose Luis Magana/AP
Epic double debacle
House Speaker Mike Johnson meets with Israeli Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana yesterday. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
“It's 10 minutes of humiliation that will live in House lore:
Speaker Mike Johnson last night lost by one vote — a Republican vote! — the first impeachment of a Cabinet official in 148 years. Then the House rejected the GOP's heavily hyped package of aid for Israel.
Why it matters: Even in an era of ousted speakers and wild, daily internal disarray, these back-to-back defeats were epic.
House Republicans were fuming and embarrassed after the twin defeats on impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and military aid for Israel — a bill that was a GOP chess move against President Biden.
GOP lawmakers openly criticized leaders for bringing the bills to the floor without the votes to pass them.
‘I just don't understand why we can't do the one thing the American people want,’ said Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.).
‘Frustrating' is not the right word. … It's maddening,’ Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) told Axios.
The big picture: It's part of a broader pattern of House Republican leaders struggling for wins in the narrowly divided chamber — largely due to divides in their own conference.
After unseating Speaker Kevin McCarthy, with the power gap that followed, Republicans are now failing to muster muscle on bills that would help them keep their majority at the polls in November.
What happened: The Mayorkas vote failed after three Republicans — Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.), Mike Gallagher (Wis.) and Tom McClintock (Calif.) — joined Democrats in voting against it.
The final Israel vote was 250 for and 180 against, which fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage. 14 Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the bill. 46 Democrats voted for the bill.
Between the lines: The Israel vote was an important House GOP counter-measure as the Senate struggles to pass a bill to fund Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and border security.
Being there: In a dramatic scene, Republicans on the House floor urged the three GOP "no" votes to flip.
When that failed, GOP leaders flipped a fourth vote to "no" so they could try again when House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) returns from cancer treatment.
Leaving the chamber, conservative Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) called the result ‘shameful,’ telling Axios: ‘I mean, what the hell are they thinking? We should have gotten this done.’
Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), a former official in the Trump White House, chalked up the standoff on national security funding to ‘bad decision-making’ by House GOP leaders.
Republican leaders are vowing to bring impeachment back to the floor — as soon as they have the votes.” [Axios]
“Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley lost the Nevada primary yesterday despite her opponent, former President Donald Trump, not being on the ballot. Nevada voters opted for the ‘none of the above’ option on their primary ballots. Trump will compete in Nevada's Republican caucus tomorrow. Because the party uses the caucus to award delegates, a primary win would have been purely symbolic for Haley. Still, the loss is a setback for her campaign.
A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found that immigration is the top issue for Republicans this year, while Democrats prioritize preserving democracy.” [NPR]
“Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of the Oxford High School shooter, was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter yesterday. Ethan Crumbley, who killed four people at the Michigan high school in 2021, is currently serving a life sentence for the mass shooting. Ethan Crumbley’s father, James Crumbley, has yet to go to trial.” [NPR]
Jennifer Crumbley Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
Netanyahu rejects Hamas’s Gaza cease-fire proposal, calling it ‘delusional’ — a setback for Blinken on his Israel trip
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that a plan proposed by Hamas to halt fighting in Gaza, exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and ultimately end the war was a non-starter, adding that Israel would continue its military operation in the south. It was a setback for Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Israel seeking to build support for a hostage deal and humanitarian pause.”
Read more at Washington Post
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks with aides during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 12, 2023. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
THE CATCH-UP
“Beginning shortly, Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER will hold two votes aiming to force Republicans’ hands now that the bipartisan Senate border deal has crashed ashore.
The first vote is on the foreign aid package (Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan) that bipartisan negotiators hammered out — the one with the border security provisions long sought by Republicans, but which the GOP is now poised to reject.
The second vote will be on a foreign aid package sans the border provisions but including the Fend Off Fentanyl Act.
Schumer told reporters this morning he wanted to give his GOP colleagues ‘both options.’
‘It’s not clear whether Republicans will be ready to advance the second package, according to several people familiar with party strategy. It will need 60 votes to get over the first filibuster, and then eventually 60 votes to end debate,’ Burgess Everrett reports. ‘A two-week recess is scheduled to start this weekend, and any one senator can drag out the foreign assistance package; several conservative senators are likely to do so over opposition to Ukraine funding. But there’s also a possibility Republicans are ready to move on.’
However it shakes out, Republicans in both chambers are licking their wounds after yesterday’s high-profile failures.
In the House, some Republicans are pushing back against GOP leadership after yesterday’s failed vote on the Israel aid bill and doomed effort to impeach DHS Secretary ALJEANDRO MAYORKAS.
Rep. THOMAS MASSIE (R-Ky.) bluntly summed up the mood this morning in a post on X: ‘Getting rid of Speaker [KEVIN] McCARTHY has officially turned into an unmitigated disaster. All work on separate spending bills has ceased. Spending reductions have been traded for spending increases. Warrantless spying has been temporarily extended. Our majority has shrunk.’
So what’s next? Jordain Carney and Athony Adragna report that some moderate House Republicans are working across the aisle to create their own “Plan B” backup plan. House Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES noted today ‘several Republicans who are not in leadership’ have been open to working with them to pass a ‘comprehensive’ package, while Rep. BRIAN FITZPATRICK (R-Pa.) said ‘he was working on a new national security package with Democrats that would include funding for Ukraine and the border, among other priorities.’
But for now, all eyes are on the Senate. Speaker MIKE JOHNSON said he’s waiting to ‘see what the Senate does,’ per Burgess.
‘We spend a lot of time on the House side of waiting, awaiting the Senate's action,’ Johnson told reporters. ‘And it's frustrating sometimes but that's the way the process works.’
Related read: NYT’s Kayla Guo goes deep on Sen. JAMES LANKFORD’s (R-Okla.), the man whose border deal was tanked after months of painstaking work — making him the ‘latest in a long line of lawmakers who had been burned by failed efforts to push through a bipartisan immigration deal.’
‘The plight of Mr. Lankford, a slim, understated Baptist minister with a neatly combed shock of red hair and a baritone voice that regularly delivers deadpan quips, reflects the extraordinary rise and fall of the border and Ukraine deal … and the political forces within the Republican Party that brought it down,’ writes Guo. Lankford ‘had honorable intentions, but he took on a herculean task,’ said CHAD ALEXANDER, the former chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party. ‘The sentiment has gotten even more intense since he began this four months ago. And now it’s a powder keg.’” [POLITICO]
“More than 60 House Republicans signed a resolution declaring that Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 didn’t amount to insurrection, as courts and officials weigh his eligibility to hold office.” [New York Times]
“Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, plans to step down this month. Trump is likely to back a 2020 election denier to replace her.” [New York Times]
“A Texas company was behind robocalls that impersonated Biden and urged Democrats not to vote in New Hampshire’s primary, the state’s attorney general said.” [New York Times]
EPA strengthens limits on soot, a move that could prevent thousands of premature deaths from air pollution
“The rule — opposed by industry groups — could avert up to 4,500 premature fatalities and 290,000 lost workdays per year by 2032, according to the agency.”
Read more at Washington Post
“It’s one thing to win an election, and another to form a government in the increasingly fragmented European political landscape.
Anti-immigrant, eurosceptic Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders learned this lesson the hard way late yesterday when one of his potential coalition partners said he wouldn’t serve in government with the far-right Freedom Party, which won a shock election in November.
Since the vote, Wilders’s popularity has risen, and if a new election were held today he’d likely chalk up a stronger first-place finish, picking up nearly a third of the 150 seats in parliament.
How this plays out is anybody’s guess. Pieter Omtzigt, the head of the New Social Contract party who ditched the coalition talks, could always return to the negotiation table, or remain outside of the coalition but support the Freedom Party at the top of a minority government.
The Labor-Green alliance could also get a shot at forming a government. And if everything else fails, there may be a new election.
Right-wing parties have found a natural habitat in opposition — using the mainstream government as a battering ram and a foil for their populist policies. But once you start winning elections, it becomes a different story, and Wilders’s struggles are being felt in other nationalist corners of Europe.
In Italy, Matteo Salvini of the anti-immigrant League has managed to rise to the jobs of both Deputy Premier and Infrastructure Minister under Giorgia Meloni since the coalition they were part of won in September 2022. But he is greatly overshadowed by her and his party is set for an unimpressive performance in June’s European Parliament elections.
Swedish politics has been upended in the last decade by the emergence of the Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigration party that has fragmented an electoral landscape long dominated by two opposing blocs. Following the fracturing of the right-leaning alliance, the current government includes three parties that are dependent on the Sweden Democrats’ backing.
Dutch lawmakers have questioned whether some of Wilders’s proposed policies would be in line with the constitution or European Union law — but regardless of how the current complication is overcome, Dutch politics will never be the same.” — Richard Bravo [Bloomberg]
Wilders celebrates his party’s election victory on Nov. 23. Photographer: Carl Court/Getty Images
“Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry told the US there will be no diplomatic ties with Israel unless the “aggression” against Gaza is stopped and Israel recognizes a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital. The statement comes as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on his fifth trip to the region since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.” [Bloomberg]
“Switzerland asked China to participate in a peace conference on Russia’s war in Ukraine, stepping up pressure on Beijing to play a role in ending the conflict. Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said he made the request at talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing today. In Moscow, online commentator Tucker Carlson confirmed he’ll interview Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war.” [Bloomberg]
“Donald Trump is planning to punish the EU with a potential raft of trade measures should he win reelection in November, sources say. It would most likely kick off with the EU’s inclusion in a broad minimum 10% tariff that would also be applied to China.” [Bloomberg]
“The EU’s aim to cut 90% of emissions by 2040 is its most ambitious move yet to try to keep global warming below 1.5C. The plan would put the world’s largest trading bloc at the forefront of global climate efforts and require a significant overhaul of its economy and trade. But as John Ainger explains, the European Commission’s proposal is likely to face intense debate among member states.” [Bloomberg]
“A Leap Into the Void”
Protesters gesture at the police outside the National Assembly in Dakar, Senegal, on Feb. 5.John Wessels/AFP
“Senegal’s National Assembly voted on Monday to postpone the country’s presidential election, slated for Feb. 25, until Dec. 15—nearly 10 months later than originally scheduled. This is Dakar’s first such election delay in the nation’s history, worrying some civil liberty watchdogs of declining freedoms in what was once a bastion of West African democracy.
‘It is a leap into the void,’ said human rights expert Alioune Tine. ‘The brutal, unconstitutional delay of the election plunges Senegal into uncertainty and violence.’
On Saturday, outgoing Senegalese President Macky Sall called for parliamentarians to suspend the election in order to investigate the Constitutional Council’s decision to bar certain candidates from running. However, some opposition leaders have accused Sall of delaying the vote to extend his time in power and sway the election results. Sall’s actions are a ‘constitutional coup,’ said former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall, no relation to Macky Sall, with another lawmaker accusing the president of ‘high treason.’
Violent protests erupted in the capital this week, including at the National Assembly, in response to the move. Sall’s administration deployed riot police to break up the demonstrations and restricted mobile internet access to crack down on so-called threats to public order. Opposition members who disapproved of Monday’s vote were forcibly removed from the chamber. Dollar bonds dropped on Tuesday following the news, and the International Monetary Fund is reportedly concerned about future investments in Dakar.
Sall is not allowed to run for a third term. Instead, he is backing Prime Minister Amadou Ba, who would maintain the ruling coalition’s grip on power. But Ba’s probability of success dipped last week when opposition leader Ousmane Sonko publicly supported the campaign of his party deputy, Bassirou Diomaye Faye. Sonko, who was arrested last year, is barred from running for fomenting insurrection, among other criminal charges that his supporters believe are politically motivated.
‘Sall became convinced that Ba was going to lose to Bassirou Diomaye Faye, the radical running as Sonko’s stand-in, and chose to postpone the election to play for time,’ François Conradie, the lead political economist at Oxford Economics Africa, told Bloomberg. Faye has been detained since April 2023 for defamation and contempt of court.
Sall accused the Constitutional Council of corruption on Saturday, an allegation that another barred candidate, Karim Wade of the opposition Senegalese Democratic Party, has latched onto. Wade was banned from running for president over his dual French citizenship, an allegation he has called ‘scandalous.’ He renounced his French nationality last month.” [Foreign Policy]
“Nairobi’s murder trial. Kenyan authorities on Tuesday charged doomsday cult leader Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, along with 29 others, of killing 191 children. Mackenzie pleaded not guilty and was deemed fit to stand trial, which will begin on March 7. Prosecutors accused Mackenzie of instructing followers of his Good News International Church to starve themselves and their children to reach heaven.
Local authorities exhumed more than 400 bodies in the Shakahola forest in eastern Kenya last year. The children are believed to have been killed between January 2021 and September 2023. President William Ruto called the cult’s actions “terrorism,” and his administration said it plans to turn the forest into a national memorial. Yet victims’ families have criticized the courts for moving too slowly and treating those killed like perpetrators.” [Foreign Policy]
“Santiago mourns. Former Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, 74, died in a helicopter crash on Tuesday in southern Chile’s Los Ríos region. It is unclear what caused the crash. Three other passengers are reported to have survived.
Piñera held office from 2010 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2022, during which he was known for his economic growth policies, efforts to curb unemployment, and fast COVID-19 response. However, heavy unrest over inequality and alleged state human rights violations marred Piñera’s second term, leading to the country’s lower house voting for his impeachment (though the Senate declined to remove him from office) as well as a rejected constitutional referendum.” [Foreign Policy]
“Suspended death sentence. Beijing convicted Chinese Australian writer and businessman Yang Hengjun of espionage on Monday and gave him a suspended death sentence. If Yang does not commit any crimes for the next two years, his sentence will be reduced to life imprisonment.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong called the decision “harrowing” and said Canberra will continue to advocate on Yang’s behalf. Yang has been detained in China since 2019, and Australia has accused Beijing’s courts of failing to uphold procedural fairness and basic standards of justice.
For the past few months, Canberra and Beijing have worked to warm diplomatic ties. China released an Australian journalist in October 2023 after a more than three-year detention for allegedly sharing state secrets, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Beijing last November in Canberra’s first premier visit since 2016. But some experts believe that Yang’s sentencing could backtrack this bilateral progress.” [Foreign Policy]
“Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is poised to extend his rule well into a third decade in snap elections today in the energy-rich Caspian nation.” [Bloomberg]
The Boeing 737 Max plane that blew out a panel midflight was missing bolts.
“What to know: The panel appears to have been reinstalled at a Boeing factory without four bolts needed to keep it attached, federal investigators said yesterday.
What it means: The findings will probably increase pressure on Boeing, which has been under intense scrutiny since last month’s terrifying midair accident.”
Read this story at Washington Post
Facebook, Instagram will label AI posts
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
“Meta announced yesterday that it plans to start applying labels to Facebook, Instagram and Threads posts that contain images the company has identified as being generated by AI, Axios' Ryan Heath writes.
Why it matters: Meta-owned platforms host more than 5 billion active accounts — and every one of its apps will be subject to the labeling policy in all supported languages.” [Axios]
SPORTS
“Teaming up: ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery are joining forces to create a sports streaming app, expected to launch in the fall.
M.L.B.: Clayton Kershaw will return to the Dodgers next year. He spent the offseason deciding between Los Angeles and the Rangers, his hometown team.
Basketball: Caitlin Clark’s competitiveness, no-look passes and 3-point bombs have made Iowa games a must-see. What happens when she leaves?” [New York Times]