On January 6, “Republican tempers were running so hot against Trump that forcing them to choose sides in the Senate that week could easily have resulted in his impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from any future run for the White House,” The Intercept reported, based on the forthcoming book “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump.”
It would have been a massive break if it happened. GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate had generally grinned and beared it through the four years Trump had been in the White House, even when he said or did things that went against their stated beliefs. But the up-close violence of the insurrection changed things, according to the book written by two reporters from The Washington Post and Politico. Had the House gone through with impeaching Trump that very evening, a vote to convict may have won the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to succeed, removing Trump from office and barring him from running again.
Reality was much more tepid. The Democrat-controlled House did vote to impeach Trump a week after January 6, and a month later, when he had already left the White House, the Republican-held Senate took a vote on whether to convict him. While 57 senators, including seven Republicans and all Democrats, voted to do so, that was 10 votes short of the supermajority needed, meaning Trump escaped punishment for the insurrection – at least for now.
Key events
Speaking alongside vice-president Kamala Harris at a White House ceremony to celebrate the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah, Joe Biden made a prediction: Harris may be the first female vice president, but she won’t be the last, and a woman may succeed him in the presidency as well.
The speech just wrapped up, and you can watch it here:
The president changed his schedule up a bit, and decided to speak at the new year ceremony before his planned speech on Hurricane Ian.
While Joe Biden didn’t speak publicly at Ketanji Brown Jackson’s investiture to the supreme court, he offered a brief comment about it on Twitter:
This morning, I attended Justice Jackson’s investiture. She’s a brilliant legal mind, extraordinarily qualified, and is making history today.
In fact, we’ve appointed 84 federal judges so far. No group of that many judges has been appointed as quickly, or been that diverse.
— President Biden (@POTUS) September 30, 2022
While running for president, Biden pledged to nominate a Black woman to the court, and Jackson satisfied that promise. As for the 84 federal judges appointed, that’s a nod to the rapid clip of judicial confirmations Democrats have achieved in the Senate, where they have prioritized leaving their mark on the federal judiciary.
President Joe Biden will soon deliver remarks on Hurricane Ian, which did terrible damage to Florida earlier this week, and now threatens Georgia and South Carolina.
Here’s the White House’s live stream of the speech:
For the latest news on the devastating storm, check out The Guardian’s live blog:
For all the supreme court’s pomp and ceremony, a new poll finds Americans increasingly are holding it in low regard.
According to Monmouth University, a majority of Americans find it out of touch with their beliefs:
NATIONAL POLL: 59% say US Supreme Court is out of touch with most Americans’ values and beliefs. Just 34% say #SCOTUS is in touch.
OUT OF TOUCH by PARTY:
DEM – 83%
IND – 62%
REP – 32%https://t.co/WJdcwK5yzJ— MonmouthPoll (@MonmouthPoll) September 30, 2022
Director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute Patrick Murray puts it this way: “The Supreme Court was not on the radar for many Americans until this summer. Recent decisions have moved some from being on the fence to having a negative opinion of the court.”
Monmouth’s poll was released a day after Gallup reported trust in and approval of the supreme court had hit historic lows, driven by a dramatic loss of faith among Democrats disapproving of the court’s rightward shift.
The newest supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had a star-studded investiture ceremony today, featuring president Joe Biden, who appointed her to the bench, vice-president Kamala Harris, attorney general Merrick Garland and the rest of the supreme court.
The event was ceremonial, since Jackson had already been sworn in by Harris. It feature brief remarks from chief justice John Roberts, who administered an oath to Jackson. While cameras were not allowed inside the court during the ceremony, the pair later strolled down its front steps, where Jackson was greeted by her husband:
Jackson is expected to join the court’s three-member liberal bloc, which often ends up in the minority in decisions written by the six-member conservative majority.
Russia showing ‘its contempt for peaceful nations everywhere’ after annexing Ukrainian regions: Biden
The White House has strongly condemned Russian president Vladimir Putin’s annexation of four regions of Ukraine, saying the move is “phony” and illegal under international law.
Here’s the full statement from president Joe Biden:
The United States condemns Russia’s fraudulent attempt today to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory. Russia is violating international law, trampling on the United Nations Charter, and showing its contempt for peaceful nations everywhere.
Make no mistake: these actions have no legitimacy. The United States will always honor Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders. We will continue to support Ukraine’s efforts to regain control of its territory by strengthening its hand militarily and diplomatically, including through the $1.1 billion in additional security assistance the United States announced this week. In response to Russia’s phony claims of annexation, the United States, together with our Allies and partners, are announcing new sanctions today. These sanctions will impose costs on individuals and entities — inside and outside of Russia — that provide political or economic support to illegal attempts to change the status of Ukrainian territory. We will rally the international community to both denounce these moves and to hold Russia accountable. We will continue to provide Ukraine with the equipment it needs to defend itself, undeterred by Russia’s brazen effort to redraw the borders of its neighbor. And I look forward to signing legislation from Congress that will provide an additional $12 billion to support Ukraine. I urge all members of the international community to reject Russia’s illegal attempts at annexation and to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.
Washington responded to the move with a fresh battery of sanctions targeting hundreds of people and companies. The Guardian’s live blog has the latest on Russia’s decision, and the ongoing war in Ukraine:
Pivotal Democrat Manchin grows weary of evenly split Senate
If you paid even a slight amount of attention to American politics over the past two years or so, you probably heard one name come up repeatedly: Joe Manchin.
The Democratic senator representing West Virginia has become a one-man chokepoint for much of the legislation proposed by his party, whose control of the Senate is so slim they can’t afford a single defection on bills that Republicans refused to support. One of the party’s most conservative senators, Manchin is known for his opposition to changing the filibuster to make it easier to pass legislation in the chamber – a stand on which he was joined by Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema – and for opposing several proposals to fight climate change, which earned him the ire of activists who said he was beholden to the fossil fuel industry.
Democrats also control the House, but it is the even 50-50 split in the Senate that gives Manchin so much power. One might think he enjoys it, but NBC News reports today that is apparently not the case. “I’m just praying to God it’s not 50-50 again,” he told the network when they spoke to him in the run-up to the 8 November midterms, where voters could widen Democrats’ majority in the chamber, or return it to Republican control. “I’d like for Democrats to be 51-49. But whatever happens, I hope it’s not a 50-50.”
Manchin didn’t open up much about why he felt this way, saying only, “It is what it is. You’ve got to do your job.”
Speaking of the midterms, The Cook Political Report has a good summary of where things stand in the race for control of the House, which Republicans are generally seen as having a good chance of retaking:
The aftershocks from the January 6 insurrection extend far beyond Trump.
In Arizona, Mark Finchem, a Republican running for the post of secretary of state overseeing elections, was on the defensive last night when his Democratic opponent accused him in a debate of being an insurrectionist for attending the rally preceding the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
“The last time I checked, being at a place where something’s happening is not illegal,’’ replied Finchem, The East Valley Tribune reports. Finchem attended Trump’s speech before the crowd attacked the building, but there’s no proof he entered the Capitol itself.
The Tribune reports that Finchem had earlier said he “went to Washington to deliver a ‘book of evidence’ to federal lawmakers about claimed irregularities in the 2020 vote in Arizona – material that came out of a hearing in Phoenix involving attorney Rudy Giuliani and other Trump supporters.” He also posted a photo of the Capitol rioters, writing, this is “what happens when people feel they have been ignored, and Congress refuses to acknowledge rampant fraud.’’
His Democratic opponent Adrian Fontes rejected Finchem’s explanation, saying, “What he did is engage in a violent insurrection and try to overturn the very Constitution that holds this nation together.”
Arizona voters will decide the race in the 8 November midterm elections.
A judge appointed by Donald Trump delivered a ruling in his favor yesterday amid the ongoing investigation of government secrets found at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Hugo Lowell reports:
A federal judge ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump would not have to provide a sworn declaration that the FBI supposedly “planted” some of the highly-sensitive documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort, as he has suggested, until his lawyers have reviewed the seized materials.
The order from US district court judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the special master case and is a Trump appointee, also pushed back several key interim deadlines that consequently extends the review’s final date of completion from the end of November to mid-December.
Cannon’s ruling means Trump does not have to confirm under oath his insinuations that the FBI manufactured evidence – one of several assertions he has made, without evidence, in recent weeks that could be used against him should he be charged over illegal retention of government documents.
Here’s a revelation from “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America”, another forthcoming book on his presidency, about how Trump came up with his reason for keeping his tax returns secret. Martin Pengelly reports:
According to a new book, Donald Trump came up with his famous excuse for not releasing his tax returns on the fly – literally, while riding his campaign plane during the 2016 Republican primary.
Every American president or nominee since Richard Nixon had released his or her tax returns. Trump refused to do so.
In her eagerly awaited book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman describes the scene on Trump’s plane just before Super Tuesday, 1 March 2016.
Trump, she says, was discussing the issue with aides including Corey Lewandowski, then his campaign manager, and his press secretary, Hope Hicks. The aides, Haberman says, pointed out that as Trump was about to be confirmed as the favourite for the Republican nomination, the problem needed to be addressed.
On January 6, “Republican tempers were running so hot against Trump that forcing them to choose sides in the Senate that week could easily have resulted in his impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from any future run for the White House,” The Intercept reported, based on the forthcoming book “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump.”
It would have been a massive break if it happened. GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate had generally grinned and beared it through the four years Trump had been in the White House, even when he said or did things that went against their stated beliefs. But the up-close violence of the insurrection changed things, according to the book written by two reporters from The Washington Post and Politico. Had the House gone through with impeaching Trump that very evening, a vote to convict may have won the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to succeed, removing Trump from office and barring him from running again.
Reality was much more tepid. The Democrat-controlled House did vote to impeach Trump a week after January 6, and a month later, when he had already left the White House, the Republican-held Senate took a vote on whether to convict him. While 57 senators, including seven Republicans and all Democrats, voted to do so, that was 10 votes short of the supermajority needed, meaning Trump escaped punishment for the insurrection – at least for now.
Trump was at his most vulnerable on January 6 – but Pelosi nixed impeachment
Good morning, US politics blog readers.
Things could have gone very differently on January 6, a forthcoming book by journalists from Politico and the Washington Post reports. Enraged at Donald Trump’s apparent incitement of the mob that attacked the Capitol, a group of House Democrats moved to impeach him that very evening at a moment when enough Republicans in the Senate may have voted to convict and remove him from office.
But according to a report in the Intercept, which obtained Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump before its release, House speaker Nancy Pelosi vetoed moving immediately against the then president, and the push to convict ultimately failed.
The anecdote is the latest from the many books released since Trump left the White House exploring what went on behind closed doors during his presidency, but stands out for bringing to light a true turning point in American history, when one consequential course of action won out over another.
Anyway, here’s what’s going on in politics today:
-
Nancy Pelosi will hold her weekly press conference at 11am eastern time today in the Capitol, and you can bet she’ll be asked to comment on the Intercept’s report.
-
Hurricane Ian is moving towards South Carolina after ravaging Florida. Follow the Guardian’s live blog for the latest on the storm.
-
President Joe Biden is attending the investiture ceremony for supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at 10 am eastern time, then will make a White House speech about the response to Hurricane Ian at 11.30am.