Author: PolitCens

Bracing for possible violence, the nation’s capital has mobilized the National Guard ahead of planned protests by President Donald Trump’s supporters in connection with the congressional vote expected Wednesday to affirm Joe Biden’s election victory. Trump’s supporters are planning to rally Tuesday and Wednesday, seeking to bolster the president’s unproven claims of widespread voter fraud.  “There are people intent on coming to our city armed,” D.C. Acting Police Chief Robert Contee said Monday. A pro-Trump rally in December ended in violence as hundreds of Trump supporters, wearing the signature black and yellow of the Proud Boys faction, sought out confrontations with a collective of local activists attempting to bar them from Black Lives Matter Plaza, an area near the White House. FILE – Supporters of President Donald Trump, many who are wearing attire associated with the Proud Boys, attend a rally at Freedom Plaza in Washington, Dec. 12, 2020.On Monday, Metropolitan Police Department officers arrested the leader of the Proud Boys, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, 36, after he arrived in Washington ahead of this week’s protests. Tarrio was accused of burning a Black Lives Matter banner that was torn down from a historic Black church in downtown Washington during the December protests. A warrant had been issued for Tarrio’s arrest for destruction of property, police said. He was also facing weapons charges after officers found him with two high-capacity firearm magazines when he was arrested, a police spokesman said. Trump has encouraged this week’s protests and hinted that he may get personally involved. Over the weekend, he retweeted a promotion for the rally with the message, “I will be there. Historic Day!” At a November rally, which drew about 15,000 people, Trump staged a limousine drive-by past cheering crowds in Freedom Plaza, on the city’s iconic Pennsylvania Avenue. And at the December rally, which drew smaller numbers but a larger contingent of Proud Boys, Trump’s helicopter flew low over cheering crowds on the National Mall.  FILE – President Donald Trump waves to supporters from his motorcade as people gather for a march in Washington, Nov. 14, 2020.As downtown D.C. businesses board up their windows, Mayor Muriel Bowser has requested a limited National Guard deployment to help bolster the Metropolitan Police Department. During a press conference Monday, Bowser asked that area residents stay away from downtown D.C. and avoid confrontations with anyone who is “looking for a fight.” But, she warned, “we will not allow people to incite violence, intimidate our residents or cause destruction in our city.” According to a U.S. defense official, Bowser put in a request on New Year’s Eve to have Guard members on the streets from Tuesday to Thursday to help with the protests. The official said the additional forces will be used for traffic control and other assistance, but they will not be armed or wearing body armor. About 340 D.C. National Guard members will be activated, with about 115 on duty in the streets at any given time, said the defense official, who provided details on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The official said Guard members will be used to set up traffic control points around the city and to stand with district police officers at all the city’s Metro stops. Contee said Guard troops will also be used for some crowd management. “Some of our intelligence certainly suggests there will be increased crowd sizes,” said Contee. D.C. police have posted signs throughout downtown warning that carrying any sort of firearm is illegal, and Contee asked area residents to warn authorities of anyone who might be armed.  The National Park Service has received three separate applications for pro-Trump protests on Tuesday or Wednesday, with estimated maximum attendance around 15,000 people, said Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst. On Monday, a stage was being assembled for one of the protests on The Ellipse, just south of the White House.  Organizers plan to rally on Tuesday evening at Freedom Plaza and again all day Wednesday on the Ellipse, including a 1 p.m. Wednesday march to the Capitol. Expected attendees include high-level Trump supporters like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Republican strategist Roger Stone, a longtime Trump devotee whose three-year prison sentence was commuted by Trump. Stone was convicted of repeatedly lying to Congress during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. During the December 12 pro-Trump protests, at least two local Black churches reported that Black Lives Matter banners were torn down and set ablaze. Contee said the hate-crimes investigation into those incidents was still ongoing and that his officers would be out in force around area churches to prevent similar incidents. On Monday the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court against the Proud Boys and Tarrio on behalf on one of the vandalized churches, Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
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Two runoff elections Tuesday in the southern state of Georgia will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control power in the U.S. Senate, dramatically shaping the legislative maneuvering for the first half of President-elect Joe Biden’s four-year term in the White House. With the stakes high, both Biden and outgoing President Donald Trump are staging last-minute campaign rallies in the state on Monday, even as Trump continues his broadsides against Georgia elections officials for refusing to overturn his narrow loss to Biden in the state in the November 3 election. The incoming president is stumping in Atlanta, Georgia’s biggest city, for the two Democrats: Jon Ossoff, a television documentary producer, and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Baptist minister. Meanwhile, Trump was set to campaign in a heavily Republican enclave in Dalton in the northern part of the state for Senator David Perdue, a one-time business executive facing Ossoff, and for Senator Kelly Loeffler, one of the wealthiest of U.S. lawmakers, who faces Warnock. Polls show the two Democrats with slight edges in the contests, both of which were made necessary because none of the four candidates won a majority in the November balloting. Georgia is a historically Republican state, with Biden the first Democratic presidential candidate to win there since 1992. The eventual voter turnout for the Senate elections is expected to be exceptionally high, with more than 3 million ballots already cast in early voting, two-thirds in person at polling places throughout the state and a third by mail. Five million votes were cast in Georgia in the November balloting and beforehand, but about 100,000 people who did not vote then have already done so in the Senate runoffs. None of the early ballots is being tabulated until Tuesday, and the official winners, depending on how close the vote counts are, might not be known on election night. Officials say the early voting in the Senate races was particularly heavy in Democratic precincts that Biden won, but Republicans say they expect to do much better with in-person voting on Tuesday’s official Election Day. That was the scenario that played out in November in Georgia and across the country when substantially more Democrats voted early ahead of Election Day while more Republicans voted in person on the actual day.The Senate elections are being closely watched in Washington by the Biden transition team and his Republican opponents as a sign of what leverage the incoming chief executive might have in advancing his legislative agenda once he and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are inaugurated at noon January 20 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. After this past Sunday’s congressional swearing-in ceremonies, Republicans hold a 50-48 advantage in the Senate. A Republican victory in either or both of the Georgia elections would give the party an outright majority and the right to set the Senate agenda and hold a majority on all Senate legislative committees. If both Warnock and Ossoff were to win, there would be a 50-50, Democratic-Republican split in the Senate, giving Harris the opportunity to break tie votes in favor of the Democrats in organizing the committees and controlling the legislative calendar. Republican control would complicate passage of Biden’s legislative agenda over the next two years, likely forcing extensive negotiations on such issues as extending health care benefits, setting immigration controls and establishing climate regulations. The lead-up to the Georgia elections has been marked by Perdue’s absence from the campaign trail, as he quarantines himself after coming in contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus. Meanwhile, Trump has promised, when he visits the state Monday night, to again attack the outcome of his Georgia contest against Biden, which he lost by just under 12,000 votes. An initial vote count, and two recounts, all showed Biden won. In a Saturday phone call, Trump pleaded with the state’s top elections official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to “find” another 11,780 votes to overturn his loss to Biden. Raffensperger rebuffed Trump and told ABC News on Monday morning that the president was “just plain wrong” that there was vote- and vote-counting fraud in Georgia. Despite his claims of fraud in the November voting, Trump is calling for Republicans to turn out to vote for Perdue and Loeffler to maintain the Republican majority in the Senate. 
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The mayor of Washington, D.C., urged calm Monday as some 340 National Guard troops were being activated while the city prepared for potentially violent protests surrounding Congress’ expected vote to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. According to a U.S. defense official, Mayor Muriel Bowser put in a request on New Year’s Eve to have Guard members on the streets from January 5 to 7 to help with the protests. The official said D.C. National Guard members will be used for traffic control and other assistance, but they will not be armed or wearing body armor. Congress is meeting this week to certify the Electoral College results, and President Donald Trump has refused to concede while whipping up support for protests.  During a press conference on Monday, Bowser asked that people stay away from downtown D.C. and avoid confrontations with anyone who is “looking for a fight.” She warned, “We will not allow people to incite violence, intimidate our residents or cause destruction in our city.” There will be about 115 Guard troops on duty at any one time in the city, said the defense official, who provided details on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The official said Guard members will be used to set up traffic control points around the city and to stand with district police officers at all the city’s Metro stops. Acting Police Chief Robert Contee said Guard troops will also be used for some crowd management. “Some of our intelligence certainly suggests there will be increased crowd sizes,” said Contee, adding, “There are people intent on coming to our city armed.” Because D.C. does not have a governor, the designated commander of the city’s National Guard is Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. Any D.C. requests for Guard deployments have to be approved by him. The defense official said there will be no active-duty military troops in the city, and the U.S. military will not be providing any aircraft or intelligence. The D.C. Guard will provide specialized teams that will be prepared to respond to any chemical or biological incident. But the official said there will be no D.C. Guard members on the National Mall or at the U.S. Capitol. 
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President Donald Trump is set to present one of the nation’s highest civilian honors to two of his most outspoken congressional allies, California Rep. Devin Nunes and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, as he looks to reward loyalists with just over two weeks left in his term.
A White House official confirmed that Trump would present Nunes with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Monday. The former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has been an ardent backer of Trump’s during probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the president’s 2019 impeachment by the Democratic-led House.
The award, established by President John F. Kennedy, is meant to recognize those who have made an “especially meritorious contribution” to national security, world peace or “cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
The award comes as Trump has been rewarding supporters with the perks and prestige that come with serving on a host of federal advisory boards and commissions before he leaves office on Jan. 20.FILE – Rep Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, speaks during a House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust on Capitol Hill, July 29, 2020, in Washington.Jordan, one of the GOP leaders in trying to undermine confidence in the results of the 2020 presidential election, is expected to receive the award next week. Trump’s intent to present the award to the lawmakers was first reported by The Washington Post.
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U.S. President Donald Trump is “just plain wrong” about election irregularities in Georgia, the state’s top elections official said Monday after he rebuffed Trump’s plea over the weekend to find enough ballots to upend his pivotal 11,000-vote loss in the state to President-elect Joe Biden. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the elections official in the southern state, told ABC News’s “Good Morning America” show that when he and Trump had anFILE – In this June 27, 2017, photo, President Donald Trump talks on the telephone in the Oval Office of the White House.“For the last two months, we’ve been fighting the rumor whack-a-mole,” Raffensperger said. “And it was pretty obvious very early on that we debunked every one of those theories that have been out there. But President Trump continues to believe them. … We believe that truth matters.” Trump, who has refused to concede defeat to Biden, continued his attack Monday on the election outcome on Twitter, saying that in the evening, he would reveal “the real numbers,” when he heads to Georgia to campaign for two incumbent Republican senators facing runoff elections against Democratic challengers on Tuesday. “How can you certify an election when the numbers being certified are verifiably WRONG,” Trump said in a comment that Twitter labeled as “disputed.” FILE – Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., speaks with reporters in Washington.Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, a Trump critic, said in a statement that the president’s “disgraceful effort to intimidate an elected official into deliberately changing and misrepresenting the legally confirmed vote totals in his state strikes at the heart of our democracy and merits nothing less than a criminal investigation.” Michael Bromwich, a former Department of Justice inspector general, said on Twitter, “Unless there are portions of the tape that somehow negate criminal intent” in asking Raffensperger to find more votes for him, “his best defense would be insanity.” Trump’s call to Raffensperger came ahead of the scheduled Wednesday vote in Congress to certify Biden’s 306-232 advantage in the Electoral College to make him the country’s 46th president when he and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are inaugurated January 20.  Ahead of the congressional certification of the election outcome, more than 100 Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives and a dozen senators said they are planning to contest Biden’s narrow victories in battleground states.FILE – President-elect Joe Biden, accompanied by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, speaks at a news conference to introduce their nominees and appointees to economic policy posts at The Queen theater, Dec. 1, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.Even if Trump were to upend the Georgia vote, Biden would still have more than the 270-vote majority needed to win the presidency in the Electoral College.  Trump asked the Georgia officials to recalculate the vote count and said that if Raffensperger refused to overturn the vote, he would be taking “a big risk.”  Throughout the call, Raffensperger and Germany rebuffed Trump’s assertions that he had been defrauded of a win in the state. Trump has lost dozens of legal challenges claiming that vote and vote-counting irregularities cost him victories in Georgia and in other political battleground states.  Trump rejected the claims by Raffensperger and Germany that the Georgia outcome was legitimate. Throughout the call, he repeated that he had won the state.  “There’s no way I lost Georgia,” he said at one point. “There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”  FILE – Cobb County Election officials sort ballots during an audit in Marietta, Ga., Nov. 13, 2020.The president linked his fate in the state to Tuesday’s Senate runoff elections in which incumbent Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler respectively face Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock in contests that will determine control of the U.S. Senate during the first two years of the Biden presidency.  Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 8 MB480p | 11 MB540p | 15 MB720p | 29 MB1080p | 58 MBOriginal | 72 MB Embed” />Copy Download Audio“You have a big election coming up,” Trump told Raffensperger, “and because of what you’ve done to the president — you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam.”  Trump’s call to Raffensperger was his latest effort to pressure state officials and lawmakers to overturn the votes in political battleground states that Biden won or name Trump supporters as electors instead of ones supporting Biden. But none of the state officials have acceded to Trump’s complaints and demands. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 1 MB480p | 1 MB540p | 1 MB1080p | 4 MBOriginal | 8 MB Embed” />Copy Download Audio
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President Donald Trump put forth an array of fuzzy accounting and false claims in a phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state seeking a reversal of his election defeat. In the hourlong conversation Saturday with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump suggested that the Republican find enough votes to hand Trump the victory.  The Associated Press obtained the full audio of Trump’s conversation with Georgia officials from a person on the call. The AP is not publishing the full audio in keeping with its policy of not amplifying disinformation and unproven allegations. A look at Trump’s claims on the call and how they compare with the facts:  TRUMP: “If we can go over some of the numbers, I think it’s pretty clear we won, we won very substantially in Georgia.” THE FACTS: Trump lost Georgia in an election the state has certified for Democrat Joe Biden. Republican election officials have affirmed the election was conducted and counted fairly.  With ballots counted three times, including once by hand, Georgia’s certified totals show Trump lost to Biden by 11,779 votes out of nearly 5 million cast. Raffensperger certified the totals with officials saying they’ve found no evidence that Trump won.  No credible claims of fraud or systemic errors have been sustained. Judges have turned away legal challenges to the results, although at least one is still pending in state court.  TRUMP: “People should be happy to have an accurate count. … We have other states I believe will be flipping to us shortly.” THE FACTS: No reversal of the election outcome is in the offing in any states. Biden defeated Trump by about 7 million popular votes nationwide and by a tally of 306-232 in the Electoral College, including winning key states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona. Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, found no evidence of widespread election fraud. Trump’s allegations of massive voting fraud have been dismissed by a succession of judges and refuted by state election officials and an arm of his own administration’s Homeland Security Department. A group of Senate Republicans, led by Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, say they plan to object to the election results when Congress meets Wednesday to tally Biden’s Electoral College victory over Trump. The objections will force votes in both the House and Senate, but none are expected to prevail.   TRUMP: “We have anywhere from 250 (thousand) to 300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls, much of that had to do with Fulton County, which hasn’t been checked.” THE FACTS: Trump appears to be referring to large numbers of votes that were tabulated in the early hours of Wednesday morning after Election Day and later. The arrival of those votes was expected because many of Georgia’s 159 counties had large stacks of mail-in ballots that had to be tabulated after polls closed and in-person ballots were counted. News organizations and officials had warned in the days leading up to the election that the results would likely come in just as they did: In-person votes, which tend to be counted more quickly, would likely favor the president.   And mail-in-ballots, which take longer to count since they must be removed from envelopes and verified before they are counted, would favor Biden. States tend to count mail-in ballots at the end of the process.  TRUMP: “We think … if (there is) a real check of signatures going back in Fulton County, you’ll find at least a couple of hundred thousand of forged signatures.” THE FACTS: It would be impossible for anyone to have forged hundreds of thousands of signatures on mail-in ballots in Fulton County because there were only about 147,000 mail-in ballots in Georgia’s most populous county, with about 116,000 of them going to Biden.   TRUMP, saying thousands of voters moved out of Georgia, registered in another state, and then improperly cast ballots in Georgia: “They came back in, and they voted. That was a large number.” THE FACTS: Not so. Trump supporters are working from a list of questionable accuracy, according to Ryan Germany, the general counsel for Raffensperger’s office. He told Trump during the call that those claims have been investigated and that in many cases, voters “moved back years ago. It’s not like it happened just before the election. There’s something about that data that it’s just not accurate.”  TRUMP: “It doesn’t pass the smell test, because we hear they’re shredding thousands and thousands of ballots and now what they’re saying (is) ‘Oh, we’re just cleaning up the office.'”  THE FACTS: The shredding in question was taking place in suburban Cobb County, not in Fulton County as Trump said. Cobb County elections officials said November 24 that none of the items shredded by a contractor were “relevant to the election or the re-tally” and instead were things like old mailing labels, other papers with voter information, old emails and duplicates of absentee ballot applications.  TRUMP, about a legal settlement that Georgia signed with the state Democratic Party over how signatures on absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots are verified: “You can’t check signatures, you can’t do that. … You’re allowed to do harvesting, I guess, in that agreement. That agreement is a disaster for this country.” THE FACTS: There is nothing in the March 6 consent decree that prevents Georgia’s election clerks from scrutinizing signatures. The legal settlement addresses accusations about a lack of statewide standards for judging signatures on absentee ballot envelopes. Raffensperger has said that not only is it entirely possible to match signatures, but that the state requires it.  Ballot harvesting, the practice of collecting numbers of absentee ballots and delivering them back to elections officials, remains illegal in Georgia.  TRUMP, referring to investigations into his baseless claims of voter fraud: “You have your never-Trumper U.S. attorney there.”  THE FACTS: The U.S. attorney in Atlanta is a Trump appointee. Byung J. “BJay” Pak is a longtime Republican who also served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2011 until 2017. He was nominated by Trump to become the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia in 2017. In announcing his nomination, the White House said that Pak and five other nominees for U.S. attorney’s posts “share the president’s vision for ‘Making America Safe Again.'” Pak had previously also worked as an assistant U.S. attorney.   TRUMP, citing 18,000 “suspicious” votes: “The tape that’s been shown all over the world … they said very clearly there was a major water main break. Everybody fled the area and then they came back … there were no Republican poll watchers … and there was no law enforcement. … It was stuffed with votes. They weren’t in an official voter box; they were in what looked to be in suitcases or trunks. … The minimum number it could be … was 18,000 ballots, all for Biden.” THE FACTS: State and Fulton County election officials say that the surveillance video Trump refers shows no improper behavior, but normal ballot processing using not suitcases, but ballot containers on wheels. Officials said that the entire video showed the same workers had earlier packed the ballot containers with valid, uncounted ballots.  Republicans have said that their observers were told to leave Fulton County’s vote counting center, but elections officials said they left after confusion that arose because election workers thought they were done for the night.  An independent monitor and an investigator oversaw the vote count, according to state and county officials. Trump also refers to a phony confession attributed by a woman allegedly involved in the incident that was posted on social media.   TRUMP: “In other states we think we found tremendous corruption with Dominion machines, but we’ll have to see.”  THE FACTS: No such corruption has been found. There’s “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised,” said the federal agency that oversees election security, in a statement joined by state and electoral-industry officials. 
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Representative Nancy Pelosi was elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Sunday for her fourth term, with a narrower Democratic majority in the chamber and challenges ahead.“As speaker of the House, it is my great honor to preside over this sacred ritual of renewal, as we gather under the dome of this temple of democracy to begin the 117th Congress,” Pelosi said Sunday after her election. The Democrat from California surpassed the necessary majority of votes Sunday afternoon, with two Democrats voting for other candidates and three more voting present.  The Democrat from California, who has led her party in the House since 2003 and is the only woman to be speaker, received 216 votes Sunday afternoon, with two Democrats voting for other candidates and three others voting present. A few members were unable to vote because they had tested positive for the coronavirus or had other health problems.After losing multiple congressional races in the November election, Democrats hold a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the new 117th Congress, with 222 Democrats to 211 Republicans. Before swearing in Pelosi, dean of the House, Representative Don Young, an Alaska Republican, called for unity.“I’ll be honest, I do not like what I see. It’s time we hold hands and talk to one another,” he said, receiving a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle. “You will be the speaker of the House — not of the party,” he added, addressing Pelosi.Pelosi welcomed the new Congress into session Sunday, emphasizing the importance of the lawmakers’ role as the country battles the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic crisis.“As we are sworn in today, we accept a responsibility as daunting and demanding as any that previous generations of leadership have faced,” she said.“Each of our communities has been drastically affected by the pandemic and economic crisis: 350,000 tragic deaths, each one a sadness that we carry in our hearts; over 20 million infections; millions without jobs – a toll almost beyond comprehension,” she added.Pelosi also paid tribute in her speech to Elijah Cummings and John Lewis, two representatives with years of service who championed civil rights, who died in 2019 and 2020, respectively, and to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the U.S. Supreme Court justice, a legal and feminist icon, who also died in 2020.FILE – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 12, 2020.Before speaking on the House floor after Pelosi’s election, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, tweeted, “The last Congress was a failure. In fact, it was the least productive Congress in nearly 50 years. The American people deserve better.”The last Congress was a failure. In fact, it was the least productive Congress in nearly 50 years.The American people deserve better.I’m about to give a speech right before new Members of Congress are sworn-in. Watch here: https://t.co/5zXyrK785h— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) January 3, 2021“I wish I could say that the majority in Congress is committed to changing for the common good and focusing on what really matters, but I’m concerned that early actions are pointing in the wrong direction,” he said in his remarks. McCarthy received 209 votes as speaker to Pelosi’s 216.For the first time since May, lawmakers had to be present for the vote instead of using a proxy system set up amid the pandemic. The vote lasted several hours as lawmakers were brought into the hall in small groups to avoid large crowd numbers.The new Congress faces several challenges, among them defeating the pandemic that so far has cost more than 350,000 U.S. lives, and reviving the U.S. economy.The 80-year-old Pelosi has indicated that after this two-year period she will not seek another term as speaker of the House, in accordance with a deal made with Democrats in 2018 who wanted her to step aside as speaker then.    
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In an extraordinary phone call, U.S. President Donald Trump pleaded Saturday with election officials in the southern U.S. state of Georgia to find him enough votes to overturn his pivotal loss there to President-elect Joe Biden. “So, look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state,” Trump told the state’s top elections official, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, FILE – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a news conference in Atlanta, Nov. 11, 2020.Raffensperger replied a few hours later, “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.” Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out FILE – Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., speaks to the media, at the White House in Washington.Reaction to the call was swift Sunday afternoon. “Absolutely appalling,” Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger, of Illinois, said of the call on Twitter. “To every member of Congress considering objecting to the election results, you cannot — in light of this — do so with a clean conscience. #RestoreOurGOP”  This is absolutely appalling. To every member of Congress considering objecting to the election results, you cannot- in light of this- do so with a clean conscience. FILE – Supporters of President Donald Trump hold signs during a rally outside the Georgia State Capitol, in Atlanta, Nov. 13, 2020.The president linked his fate in the state to Tuesday’s Senate runoff elections in which two incumbent Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively face Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock in contests that will determine control of the U.S. Senate during the first two years of the Biden presidency. “You have a big election coming up,” Trump told Raffensperger, “and because of what you’ve done to the president — you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam.” “Because of what you’ve done to the president,” Trump said, speaking of himself in the third person, “a lot of people aren’t going out to vote, and a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative, because they hate what you did to the president. OK? They hate it. And they’re going to vote. And you would be respected, really respected, if this can be straightened out before the (Tuesday) election.” Trump’s call to Raffensperger is Trump’s latest effort to pressure state officials and lawmakers to overturn the votes in their political battleground states that Biden won or name Trump supporters as electors instead of ones supporting Biden.  
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More than 100 Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives and a dozen senators say they will join an almost assuredly futile effort Wednesday to try to block certification of the Electoral College vote showing that Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in the November election. The certification of the 306-232 Electoral College vote favoring Biden, a fixture on the Washington political scene for nearly a half century, is the last step before he is set to be inaugurated as the country’s 46th president on January 20.Both chambers of Congress would need to uphold the challenges to Biden’s victory for the election outcome to be upended. But Democrats narrowly control the House and are certain to certify Biden’s win, while the Democratic minority in the Senate, along with some Republicans who have acknowledged Biden’s win, are likely to do the same in the Senate.Trump, who for weeks has made baseless claims that he was defrauded of election to a second four-year term, continues to cheer on protests against his loss, an outcome that will make him the fifth U.S. president in the country’s 245-year history to lose a re-election bid after a single term in office.“An attempt to steal a landslide win,” Trump said on Twitter over the weekend. “Can’t let it happen!”He tweeted a video calling for his supporters to mass in Washington on Wednesday to protest certification of Biden as the election winner, saying it “could be the biggest event” in the city’s history.President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, in West Palm Beach, Florida, Dec. 31, 2020.Trump has lost dozens of court challenges to the outcome of the election, including twice at the Supreme Court. In the latest instance, a federal appellate court Saturday night upheld the dismissal, by a Trump-appointed lower court judge, of a lawsuit seeking to give Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, power to reject Biden’s winning electoral slates in several states and instead choose slates of Trump electors to overturn the election outcome and keep him in power.Pence is set to preside Wednesday in what is, at most times, a ceremonial role at a joint session of Congress over the tabulation of the electoral votes that have already been certified by officials in the country’s 50 states and national capital city of Washington.On Saturday evening, Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, said in a statement that the vice president “shares the concerns of millions of Americans about voter fraud and irregularities in the last election.”The vice president, the statement continued, “welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on Jan. 6th.”Vice President Mike Pence speaks during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, Dec. 22, 2020, in West Palm Beach, Florida.But ultimately, as has occurred several other times in U.S. history, Pence, as vice president and the presiding officer over the Senate, will be tasked with announcing his own defeat to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and that of Trump to Biden, once the electoral vote is counted and the Republican challenges heard and presumably rejected.Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri announced last week that he would challenge the Biden victory, coupled with the House protest of dozens of lawmakers led by Congressman Mo Brooks of Alabama. Hawley’s protest, specifically challenging Biden’s victory in the eastern state of Pennsylvania with 20 electoral votes, was joined Saturday by 11 other Republican senators led by Ted Cruz of Texas and included four senators elected in November being sworn into the new session of Congress on Sunday.The 11 called for a 10-day audit of election returns in “disputed states,” saying they would vote to reject the electors from those states until the audit was completed.Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican, did not join the protest against the vote in his state, saying that “a fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders. The effort by Senators Hawley, Cruz, and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in swing states like Pennsylvania directly undermines this right.”One of the vocal Trump supporters, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” show on Sunday that he joined the protest against the Electoral College outcome because, “We’ve got tens of millions of people who think this election was stolen.”But another Trump supporter, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said proposing a commission two weeks ahead of the inauguration “is not effectively fighting for President Trump. It appears to be more of a political dodge than an effective remedy.”As they announced their protest on Saturday, Cruz and the other senators acknowledged the presumed futility of their effort, saying, “We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise” against overturning Biden’s victory.The Senate’s top Republican lawmaker, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, after weeks of refusing to acknowledge Biden’s victory, congratulated Biden and Harris as the election winners after the Electoral College votes were cast in mid-December. McConnell was unsuccessful in urging Republican lawmakers to forego challenging the outcome.Trump also tweeted Sunday morning about the outcome in the southern state of Georgia, where he lost to Biden by just under 12,000 votes out of the 5 million ballots that were cast.“I spoke to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger yesterday about Fulton County and voter fraud in Georgia,” Trump said. “He was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!” Raffensperger, a Republican, replied, “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.”FILE – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a news conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Nov. 30, 2020.The Georgia vote was counted initially, and then twice recounted, with Biden winning all three times, the first time a Democratic presidential candidate carried the state since 1992.Jody Hice, a Georgia Republican congressman being sworn in for a fourth term on Sunday, was re-elected on the same ballot as Trump lost in the state.But Hice said in a tweet that his first concern in the new Congress would be to “Fight for fair elections by objecting to fraud on Jan 6! Liberty must be defended!”  
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Vandals have targeted the homes of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell and Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with graffiti, fake blood and a pig’s head, U.S. media said.”Were’s [sic] my money,” and “Mitch kills the poor,” was daubed on McConnell’s front door and window in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. media reported.A pig’s head and fake blood were left outside Pelosi’s San Francisco home on Jan. 2, according to local media Saturday.The houses of the top Republican and Democrat were targeted following intense debate over a COVID-19 stimulus bailout for Americans.A long-awaited $900 billion pandemic relief package was finally approved Christmas Eve, with the Democrat-led House of Congress approving an increase in aid from $600 to $2,000.But the Republican-led Senate has not approved the increase — despite furious calls to do so from President Donald Trump.On Wednesday, McConnell had told reporters: “The Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrats’ rich friends who don’t need the help.”Kentucky Metro police said the incident occurred around 5 a.m. local time Saturday (1000 GMT) according to local news channel WAS11. It was unclear if anyone was home at the time.McConnell called the graffiti a “radical tantrum,” and added: “Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society.”In San Francisco, Pelosi’s garage door was sprayed with a crossed-out “$2K,” followed by “Cancel rent!” and “We want everything!”The city’s police Special Investigations Division was looking into the incident, NBC News reported.
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Evan Liberty was reading in the top bunk of his cell one evening late last month when a prison supervisor delivered news he had hoped for.“He says, ‘Are you ready for this?’” Liberty recalled. “I said, ‘Uh, I’m not sure. What is going on?’ He said, ‘Presidential pardon. Pack your stuff.’”Liberty is one of four former Blackwater contractors pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump in one of Trump’s final acts in office, freeing them from prison after a 2007 shooting rampage in Baghdad that killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians. Even for a president who has repeatedly exercised his pardon power on personal associates and political supporters, Trump’s clemency for the contractors was met with especially intense condemnation, both in the United States and the Middle East.Historically, presidential pardons have been reserved for nonviolent crimes, not manslaughter or murder, and the traditional process led by the Justice Department values acceptance of responsibility and remorse from those convicted of crimes. The Blackwater contractors meet none of that criteria. They were convicted in the killings of unarmed Iraqi women and children and have long been defiant in their assertions of innocence.In an interview with The Associated Press, his first since being released from prison, Liberty, 38, again expressed little remorse for actions he says were defensible given the context.“I feel like I acted correctly,” he said of his conduct in 2007. “I regret any innocent loss of life, but I’m just confident in how I acted, and I can basically feel peace with that.”‘Overall wild thing’The Blackwater rampage marked one of the darkest chapters of the Iraq war, staining the U.S. government reputation and prompting an international outcry about the role of contractors in military zones. The guards have long maintained they were targeted by insurgent gunfire at the traffic circle where the shooting occurred. Prosecutors argued there was no evidence to support that claim, noting that many victims were shot while in their cars or while taking shelter or trying to flee.After a months-long trial in 2014, a jury convicted the men in the deaths of 14 civilians and of injuring even more. A judge called the shootings an “overall wild thing” that cannot be condoned.Liberty said he understands many may view him undeserving of clemency but attributes it to what he insists is a misguided narrative of the shooting. In the interview, he maintained that he did not shoot in the direction of any of the victims. “I didn’t shoot at anybody that wasn’t shooting at me,” he said.He said he and the others would “never take an innocent life. We responded to a threat accordingly.”Liberty, whose 30-year sentence was cut by roughly half last year, isn’t certain how he came to be pardoned and said he has not spoken with Trump. But the group does have supporters, some with ties to the White House. The Blackwater firm, whose name has since changed, was founded by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, a Trump ally whose sister, Betsy DeVos, is education secretary. Their cause also was championed by Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, an Army veteran.Trump’s approach to pardons has been heavily influenced by personal appeals from allies. Throughout his presidency, including in his most recent round of pardons, he’s wiped away punishments for political backers, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and a pair of Republican congressmen who were early supporters of his 2016 campaign. Trump has also shown a willingness to intervene on behalf of service members accused of war crimes.In announcing the Blackwater pardons, the White House cited the men’s military service, the support they received and the tangled history of a case that zigzagged for years in Washington’s federal court, turning on radically different interpretations of the shooting.‘They haven’t apologized’Criticism was swift. A Washington Post editorial called the pardons a “unique threat to national security” and suggested the guards had committed “astonishing acts of inhumanity.” Iraqi citizens who spoke to reporters described old wounds being reopened. Soon after the announcement, a photograph of a smiling 9-year-old victim circulated widely online. The boy’s father told the BBC that Trump “broke my life again.”“They haven’t denied doing what they did,” said Paul Dickinson, who represented victims in a lawsuit over the shootings. “They haven’t apologized for what they did. They haven’t admitted any wrongdoing in what they did.”Blackwater guards, who as State Department contractors were responsible for providing diplomatic security, were already seen as operating with impunity in Iraq. The rampage further escalated international scrutiny of them, prompted multiple investigations and strained U.S.-Iraqi relations.On Sept. 16, 2007, the guards were summoned to create an evacuation route for a diplomat after a car bomb explosion.By prosecutors’ account, the shooting began after the guards’ four-vehicle convoy took up positions at Baghdad’s crowded Nisour Square, where the contractors launched an unprovoked attack using sniper fire, machine guns and grenade launchers. Liberty says he fired only in the direction of an Iraqi police post; the guards had been concerned by infiltration by insurgents of police ranks. But prosecutors say he and the others fired indiscriminately.Defense lawyers say the shooting began only after a white Kia broke from the traffic and moved toward the convoy in ways the guards perceived as threatening and a potential car bomb. In a narrative disputed by prosecutors, the guards say they fired in response to insurgent gunfire. One contractor who received immunity described hearing the incoming “pop” of what sounded like AK-47 rounds shortly before another guard fired.The case was bitterly contested for more than a decade, with the Justice Department reviving the prosecution after an original indictment was dismissed because of government missteps and flying in dozens of Iraqi witnesses to testify. Liberty and two others, Paul Slough and Dustin Heard, were convicted of manslaughter. Another, Nicholas Slatten, was convicted of first-degree murder.A fifth guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty and testified against the others. He admitted firing multiple rounds into the Kia — which actually contained a medical student and his mother — but denied having seen Iraqis pointing guns or that he felt threatened. Defense lawyers sought to undercut his credibility by noting that he’d previously told a different story.The lawyers challenged the verdict, citing in part newly discovered evidence — an Iraqi witness statement — they said contradicted what the jury was told.Slatten’s murder conviction was thrown out, but he was retried and convicted. The 30-year sentences for the others were shortened after a federal appeals court said the punishments were excessive even though what happened “defies civilized description.”After six years behind bars, Liberty had tried to not get his hopes up about a pardon.“Dumbfounded” when the news came, he grabbed a photograph of his grandfather, a list of Spanish vocabulary he’d been studying and a motivational book on discipline, leaving the rest behind.The New Hampshire native and Marine veteran said he is uncertain of future plans, though he’s passionate about physical fitness and interested in assisting veterans’ organizations. He says he’s grateful to his supporters and to Trump for what he calls a “second chance at life.”“I feel like it’s my duty to go out and do something positive and live a good life because they gave me a second chance, so that’s basically my goal.”
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A growing number of Republican lawmakers are joining President Donald Trump’s extraordinary effort to overturn the election, pledging to reject the results when Congress meets next week to count the Electoral College votes and certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win.Senator Ted Cruz of Texas on Saturday announced a coalition of 12 senators who have been enlisted for Trump’s effort to subvert the will of American voters.This follows the declaration from Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who was the first to buck Senate leadership by saying he would join with House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies during Wednesday’s joint session of Congress.Hawley and Cruz are both among potential 2024 presidential contenders.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had urged his party not to try to overturn what nonpartisan election officials have concluded was a free and fair vote.Some criticismSome Republican senators criticized their colleagues’ plans.Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said in a statement Saturday that she would vote to affirm the election and urged senators in both parties to join her in “maintaining confidence in the Electoral College and our elections so that we ensure we have the continued trust of the American people.”Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska urged his colleagues to “reject this dangerous ploy,” which he said threatens the nation’s civic norms.FILE – Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., is pictured at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 3, 2020.Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said in a statement Saturday that “a fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders. The effort by Senators Hawley, Cruz and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in swing states like Pennsylvania directly undermines this right.”The dozen GOP senators largely acknowledged Saturday they would not succeed in preventing Biden, who won in the Electoral College 302-232, from being inaugurated on January 20. But their challenges, and those from House Republicans, represent the most sweeping effort to undo a presidential election outcome since the Civil War.”We do not take this action lightly,” Cruz and the other senators said in a joint statement.Audit soughtThey vowed to vote against certain state electors Wednesday unless Congress appointed an electoral commission to immediately conduct an audit of the election results. They are zeroing in on the states where Trump has raised unfounded claims of voter fraud. Congress is unlikely to agree to their demand.The group, which presented no new evidence of election problems, includes Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Mike Braun of Indiana, and Senators-elect Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite the consensus of nonpartisan election officials and even Trump’s attorney general that there was none. Of the roughly 50 lawsuits the president and his allies have filed challenging election results, nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. He’s also lost twice at the U.S. Supreme Court.The days ahead are expected to do little to change the outcome.The convening of the joint session to count the Electoral College votes is usually routine. While objections have surfaced before — in 2017, several House Democrats challenged Trump’s win — few have approached this level of intensity.FILE – Vice President Mike Pence speaks during an event in the South Court Auditorium at the White House complex in Washington, Dec. 16, 2020.Caught in the middle is Vice President Mike Pence, who faces growing pressure from Trump’s allies over his ceremonial role in presiding over the session Wednesday.Several Republicans have indicated they are under pressure from constituents back home to show they are fighting for Trump in his baseless campaign to stay in office.Senator John Thune, the second-ranking Republican, indicated in remarks to reporters at the Capitol that Republican leadership is not putting its muscle behind Trump’s demands but is allowing senators to choose their course.”This is an issue that’s incredibly consequential, incredibly rare historically and very precedent-setting,” he said. “This is a big vote.”Pence will be carefully watched as he presides over what is typically a routine vote count in Congress but is now heading toward a prolonged showdown that could extend into Wednesday night, depending on how many challenges are mounted.Gohmert suitA judge in Texas dismissed a lawsuit from Representative Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Arizona electors trying to force Pence to step outside mere ceremony and shape the outcome of the vote. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, dismissed the suit late Friday.McConnell convened a conference call with Republican senators Thursday specifically to address the coming joint session and logistics of tallying the vote, according to several Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the private call.The Republican leader pointedly called on Hawley to answer questions about his challenge to Biden’s victory, according to two of the Republicans.But there was no response because Hawley was a no-show, the Republicans said.
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U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said Saturday that he would be among a dozen Republican senators who will challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory when Electoral College results are tallied in Congress next week — a largely symbolic move that has little chance of preventing Biden from taking office.The Republicans join Senator Josh Hawley, who earlier this week became the first sitting member of the Senate to announce he would challenge the election result. A number of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives also plan on contesting the vote tally.In a statement, Cruz and the other senators said they intended to vote to reject electors from swing states that have been at the center of President Donald Trump’s unproven assertions of election fraud and would call for the establishment of a commission to investigate claims of fraud on an emergency basis.Cruz was joined in the statement by Senators Ron Johnson, James Lankford, Steve Daines, John Kennedy, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Braun, along with Cynthia Lummis, Tommy Tuberville, Bill Hagerty and Roger Marshall, all of whom will be sworn in Sunday as senators in the new Congress.Biden will be sworn into office on January 20.
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Congress has overridden President Donald Trump’s veto of a defense policy bill, a first by lawmakers since Trump took office nearly four years ago.In an extraordinary New Year’s Day session, the Republican-controlled Senate easily turned aside the veto, dismissing Trump’s objections to the $740 billion bill and handing him a rebuke weeks before his term ends.Trump had lashed out at lawmakers from his own party on Twitter, charging earlier this week that “Weak and tired Republican ‘leadership’ will allow the bad Defense Bill to pass.”Trump called the looming override vote a “disgraceful act of cowardice and total submission by weak people to Big Tech. Negotiate a better Bill, or get better leaders, NOW!”The 81-13 vote in the Senate followed an earlier 322-87 override vote in the House of the widely popular defense measure. The bill provides a 3% pay raise for U.S. troops and guides defense policy, cementing decisions about troop levels, new weapons systems and military readiness, personnel policy and other military goals. Many programs, including military construction, can go into effect only if the bill is approved.’Tremendous opportunity’Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said before the vote that Congress has passed the National Defense Authorization Act every year for 59 years in a row, “and one way or another, we are going to complete the 60th annual NDAA and pass it into law before this Congress concludes on Sunday.”The bill “looks after our brave men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform,” McConnell said. “But it’s also a tremendous opportunity: to direct our national security priorities to reflect the resolve of the American people and the evolving threats to their safety, at home and abroad. It’s our chance to ensure we keep pace with competitors like Russia and China.”The Senate override was delayed after Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who normally votes with the Democrats, objected to moving ahead until McConnell allowed a vote on a Trump-backed plan to increase individual COVID-19 relief payments to $2,000.McConnell did not allow that vote; instead he used his parliamentary power to set a vote limiting debate on the defense measure, overcoming a filibuster threat by Sanders and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.Without a bipartisan agreement, a vote on the bill could have been delayed until Saturday night. Lawmakers, however, agreed to an immediate roll call Friday once the filibuster threat was stopped.In this image from video, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., speaks on the Senate floor at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Feb. 5, 2020.Among the 13 senators voting to uphold the veto were some of Trump’s most ardent Republican supporters, including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Texas’ Ted Cruz, and some of the most liberal Democrats including Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.Trump rejected the defense measure last week, saying it failed to limit social media companies he contended were biased against him during his failed reelection campaign. Trump also opposed language that allows for the renaming of military bases that honor Confederate leaders from the U.S. Civil War.Senator Jim Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was disappointed with Trump’s veto and called the bill “absolutely vital to our national security and our troops.””This is the most important bill we have,” Inhofe said. “It puts members of the military first.”Trump has succeeded throughout his four-year term in enforcing party discipline in Congress, with few Republicans willing to publicly oppose him. The bipartisan overrides on the defense bill showed the limits of Trump’s influence in the final weeks of his term.COVID relief billEarlier this week, 130 House Republicans voted against a Trump-backed bill providing $2,000 COVID-19 relief checks, with many arguing they were unnecessary and would increase the federal budget deficit.The Democrat-controlled House approved the larger payments, but the plan is dead in the Senate.Besides his concerns about social media and military base names, Trump also said the defense bill restricted his ability to conduct foreign policy, “particularly my efforts to bring our troops home.” Trump was referring to provisions in the bill that impose conditions on his plan to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan and Germany. The measures require the Pentagon to submit reports certifying that the proposed withdrawals would not jeopardize U.S. national security.Trump has vetoed eight other bills, but those were all sustained because supporters did not gain the two-thirds vote needed in each chamber for the bills to become law without Trump’s signature.
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After weeks of vowing to win his fight to remain in office, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a video Thursday looking back on what he called “historic victories” and said: “We have to be remembered for what’s been done.” Trump, who has yet to formally concede his November election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden, posted the message on Twitter after returning to Washington early from his Florida resort amid a fight with Congress over a defense bill and coronavirus aid checks. Trump praised his administration’s accomplishments, which he said included its handling of the coronavirus pandemic and rebuilding the economy. Trump, who had COVID-19 in October, frequently played down the severity of the pandemic and oversaw a response many health experts have criticized as disorganized, cavalier and that sometimes ignored the science behind virus transmission. Trump said that the United States had produced a COVID-19 vaccine in record time and that he had correctly predicted this would come before the year ended. Pedestrians wear protective masks during the coronavirus pandemic in Times Square in New York, Dec. 31, 2020.The United States is among the countries hardest hit by COVID-19 and leads the world in fatalities, with more than 344,000 deaths officially attributed to the virus, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Trump had been scheduled to attend a New Year’s Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago resort. The White House has given no reason for his early return to Washington, but it coincided with Trump’s fight with Congress over his veto of a major defense bill and his demand for increased COVID-19 stimulus checks, as well as a spike in tensions with Iran. Trump ignored shouted questions from reporters about Iran and whether he would attend Biden’s January 20 inauguration as he arrived back at the White House. Biden was expected see in the new year at his beach house in Delaware, although he was to appear on the ABC special “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2021.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the chamber, dealt a likely death blow on Wednesday to Trump’s bid to boost coronavirus aid to Americans, declining to schedule a swift vote on a bill to raise relief checks to $2,000 from the $600 included in a $892 billion relief package passed by Congress earlier this month. Unsupported claims Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress have largely stuck with him through four turbulent years, but he is angry that they have not fully backed his unsupported claims of election fraud or supported him over the stimulus checks and veto. He attacked Republican leaders in tweets this week as “pathetic” and accused the party of having a “death wish” if it did not increase stimulus payments for struggling Americans. FILE – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky walks to the Senate floor on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 30, 2020.McConnell on Thursday again rejected a vote on a standalone bill that would increase the stimulus checks, calling it “socialism for rich people” and “a terrible way to get help to families who actually need it.” The bill was passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on Monday. McConnell also said there should be nothing controversial about approving the $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which Trump vetoed because it does not repeal certain legal protections for tech companies. “We’ve enacted an annual NDAA for 59 straight years and counting,” McConnell said. “In the next few days – the easy way or the hard way – we’re going to do our job once again. This body will fulfill our responsibility to the men and women who protect our country.” The House voted to overturn Trump’s veto on Monday. The Senate will convene again Friday at noon EST (1700 GMT) for a rare New Year’s Day session in which lawmakers are expected to cast the first of two procedural votes aimed at overriding the veto. If that succeeds, the Senate is expected to hold a second procedural vote on Saturday followed by a final vote on passage. Tensions with Iran U.S.-Iran tensions, meanwhile, have again spiked. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Thursday accused Washington of trying to fabricate a pretext for attacking his country and vowed Tehran would defend itself even though it does not seek war. Two U.S. B-52 bombers flew over the Middle East on Wednesday in what U.S. officials said was a message of deterrence to Iran ahead of the first anniversary of a U.S. drone strike that killed top Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani on January 3, 2020.
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David Perdue, one of two Republican U.S. senators facing a runoff election in Georgia next week that will determine control of the Senate, is quarantining after coming in close contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus, his campaign said Thursday.Perdue was notified of the contact Thursday and has tested negative, his campaign said.It did not say how close the contact was or when it occurred, how long his quarantine would last or how it would impact any campaign events, adding that more information would be provided later.Perdue faces Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff in an election Tuesday that will help determine whether Republicans will keep control of the Senate under Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.Fellow incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler faces Democrat Raphael Warnock in another runoff election Tuesday. More than 2.8 million people in Georgia have voted early.
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Two crucial Senate runoff elections will be held in the southern state of Georgia next week, with inflammatory accusations still circulating about the state’s handling of last month’s presidential election. As Mike O’Sullivan reports, the rhetoric about election fraud has reached dangerous levels, casting a cloud over the Jan. 5 runoffs.
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