A Republican member of the US&nbsp;House of Representatives inquired at a congressional hearing on Tuesday&nbsp;about what can only be considered a novel approach to reversing the effects of&nbsp;climate&nbsp;change.

At a hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee, Representative Louis Gohmert of Texas noted he had heard from a former official of NASA that the orbit of the Moon around the Earth and the orbit of the Earth around the Sun fluctuates slightly.

Indeed, variations in the celestial mechanics of the Moon's orbit had been known by the ancient Greeks. Astronomers today refer to these variations as an axial precession.

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But, Gohmert, in a hearing with an official of the National Forest System, a nook of the US&nbsp;federal government which, among other things, oversees the nation's timber supply, its management of wildfires, and the planting of undergrowth most beneficial to wildlife, expressed concern about the effects of&nbsp;climate&nbsp;change&nbsp;and asked whether the forest service bureaucracy might do something to reverse those effects by altering the orbit of the Moon.

"Is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM (the Bureau of Land Management) can do to&nbsp;change&nbsp;the course of the Moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the Sun? he asked, noting that an orbital adjustment would have a profound effect of the&nbsp;climate.

Jennifer Eberlein, associate deputy chief of the National Forest System, nonplussed at a question widely outside of her usual running lane, was at her diplomatic best.

"I would have to follow-up with you on that one, Mr. Gohmert," she replied.

A Republican member of the US House of Representatives inquired at a congressional hearing on Tuesday about what can only be considered a novel approach to reversing the effects of climate change.

A Republican member of the US House of Representatives inquired at a congressional hearing on Tuesday about what can only be considered a novel approach to reversing the effects of climate change. At a hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee, Representative Louis Gohmert of Texas noted he had heard from a former official of NASA that the orbit of the Moon around the Earth and the orbit of the Earth around the Sun fluctuates slightly. Indeed, variations in the celestial mechanics of the Moon's orbit had been known by the ancient Greeks. Astronomers today refer to these variations as an axial precession. But, Gohmert, in a hearing with an official of the National Forest System, a nook of the US federal government which, among other things, oversees the nation's timber supply, its management of wildfires, and the planting of undergrowth most beneficial to wildlife, expressed concern about the effects of climate change and asked whether the forest service bureaucracy might do something to reverse those effects by altering the orbit of the Moon. "Is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM (the Bureau of Land Management) can do to change the course of the Moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the Sun? he asked, noting that an orbital adjustment would have a profound effect of the climate. Jennifer Eberlein, associate deputy chief of the National Forest System, nonplussed at a question widely outside of her usual running lane, was at her diplomatic best. "I would have to follow-up with you on that one, Mr. Gohmert," she replied.

US lawmaker's idea to reverse climate change: Alter the orbit of the Moon

After raising doubts on U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's G-7 deal to impose a global minimum corporate tax and allow more countries to tax big multinational firms, several top Senate Republicans have rejected the deal.

US Republicans to oppose G7 tax deal

Hawley’s bill tackles some of the same problems as an antitrust bill introduced by Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar in February and contains some similar measures.

Republican senator wants to ban Big Tech from buying anything ever again

US President Joe Biden will push through his $2 trillion infrastructure plan without the support of Republican lawmakers if he cannot reach a bipartisan deal.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Sunday Biden would prefer that his plan have Republican backing but, if that does not work, he would likely support using a procedural strategy called reconciliation to allow Democrats to pass it in the Senate.

Biden’s plan would raise the corporate income tax rate after deductions to 28% from the current 21 per cent. His predecessor as president, Donald Trump, and Republican lawmakers cut the corporate rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent in 2017.

"As he has said, he was sent to the presidency to do a job for America. And if the vast majority of Americans, Democrats and Republicans, across the country support spending on our country and not allowing us to lose the race globally, then he`s going to do that," Granholm told CNN.

Since taking office in January, the Democratic president has repeatedly said he wants to work with Republicans. But the infrastructure plan so far looks unlikely to draw more bipartisan support than his first, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that passed with only Democratic support last month, using reconciliation.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, last week, vowed to fight it "every step of the way."

US President Joe Biden will push through his $2 trillion infrastructure plan without the support of Republican lawmakers if he cannot reach a bipartisan deal. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Sunday Biden would prefer that his plan have Republican backing but, if that does not work, he would likely support using a procedural strategy called reconciliation to allow Democrats to pass it in the Senate.

US President Joe Biden will push through his $2 trillion infrastructure plan without the support of Republican lawmakers if he cannot reach a bipartisan deal. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Sunday Biden would prefer that his plan have Republican backing but, if that does not work, he would likely support using a procedural strategy called reconciliation to allow Democrats to pass it in the Senate. Biden’s plan would raise the corporate income tax rate after deductions to 28% from the current 21 per cent. His predecessor as president, Donald Trump, and Republican lawmakers cut the corporate rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent in 2017. "As he has said, he was sent to the presidency to do a job for America. And if the vast majority of Americans, Democrats and Republicans, across the country support spending on our country and not allowing us to lose the race globally, then he`s going to do that," Granholm told CNN. Since taking office in January, the Democratic president has repeatedly said he wants to work with Republicans. But the infrastructure plan so far looks unlikely to draw more bipartisan support than his first, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that passed with only Democratic support last month, using reconciliation. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, last week, vowed to fight it "every step of the way."

Biden to push through infrastructure plan even without Republican support

Dozens of the most prominent Black business leaders in America are banding together to call on companies to fight a wave of restrictive voting bills being advanced by Republicans in at least 43 states. The campaign appears to be the first time that so many powerful Black executives have organized to directly call out their peers for failing to stand up for racial justice.

The effort, led by Kenneth Chenault, a former chief executive of American Express, and Kenneth Frazier, the chief executive of Merck, is a response to the swift passage of a Georgia law that they contend makes it harder for Black people to vote. As the debate about that bill raged in recent weeks, most major corporations — including those with headquarters in Atlanta — did not take a position on the legislation.

“There is no middle ground here,” Chenault said. “You either are for more people voting, or you want to suppress the vote.”

The executives did not criticize specific companies but instead called on all of corporate America to publicly and directly oppose new laws that would restrict the rights of Black voters and to use their clout, money and lobbyists to sway the debate with lawmakers.

“This impacts all Americans, but we also need to acknowledge the history of voting rights for African Americans,” Chenault said. “And as African American executives in corporate America, what we were saying is we want corporate America to understand that, and we want them to work with us.”

The letter was signed by 72 Black executives. They included Roger Ferguson Jr., chief executive of TIAA; Mellody Hobson and John Rogers Jr., co-chief executives of Ariel Investments; Robert Smith, chief executive of Vista Equity Partners; and Raymond McGuire, a former Citigroup executive who is running for mayor of New York.

In the days before the Georgia law was passed, almost no major companies spoke out against the legislation, which introduced stricter voter identification requirements for absentee balloting, limited drop boxes and expanded the legislature’s power over elections.

Big corporations based in Atlanta, including Delta Air Lines, Coca-Cola and Home Depot, offered general statements of support for voting rights, but none took a specific stance on the bills. The same was true for most of the executives who signed the new letter, including Frazier and Chenault.

Frazier said he had paid only peripheral attention to the matter before the Georgia law was passed Thursday. “When the law passed, I started paying attention,” he said.

When Frazier realized what was in the new law, and that similar bills were being advanced in other states, he and Chenault decided to take action. On Sunday, they began emailing and texting with a group of Black executives, discussing what more corporations could do.

“There seems to be no one speaking out,” Frazier said. “We thought if we spoke up, it might lead to a situation where others felt the responsibility to speak up.”

Among the other executives who signed the letter were Ursula Burns, a former chief executive of Xerox; Richard Parsons, a former chair of Citigroup and chief executive of Time Warner; and Tony West, chief legal officer at Uber. The group of leaders, with support from the Black Economic Alliance, bought a full-page ad in the Wednesday print edition of The New York Times.

The executives are hoping that big companies will help prevent dozens of similar bills in other states from becoming law.

“The Georgia legislature was the first one,” Frazier said. “If corporate America doesn’t stand up, we’ll get these laws passed in many places in this country.”

In 2017, Frazier was the first chief executive to publicly resign from President Donald Trump’s business advisory councils after the president’s equivocating response to white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. His resignation led other chief executives to distance themselves from Trump, and the advisory groups disbanded.

“As African American business executives, we don’t have the luxury of being bystanders to injustice,” Frazier said. “We don’t have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines when these kinds of injustices are happening all around us.”

Companies have taken stands on state legislation in recent years, often to powerful effect. In 2016 and 2017, as conservatives advanced so-called bathroom bills in states including Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia and Texas, big companies went so far as to threaten to take their business elsewhere if the laws were enacted. Those bills were never signed into law.

Last year, the Human Rights Campaign began persuading companies to sign on to a pledge that states their “clear opposition to harmful legislation aimed at restricting the access of LGBTQ people in society.” Dozens of major companies, including AT&amp;T, Facebook, Nike and Pfizer, signed on.

To Chenault, the contrast between the business community’s response to that issue and to voting restrictions that disproportionately harm Black voters was telling.

“You had 60 major companies — Amazon, Google, American Airlines — that signed on to the statement that states a very clear opposition to harmful legislation aimed at restricting the access of LGBTQ people in society,” he said. “So, you know, it is bizarre that we don’t have companies standing up to this.”

“This is not new,” Chenault added. “When it comes to race, there’s differential treatment. That’s the reality.”

Activists are calling for boycotts of Delta and Coca-Cola for their tepid engagement before the Georgia law was passed. And there are signs that other companies and sports leagues are becoming more engaged with the issue.

The head of the Major League Baseball Players Association said he “would look forward” to a discussion about moving the All-Star Game from Atlanta, where it is planned for July. And Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, released a statement Tuesday affirming his company’s commitment to voting rights.

“Voting is fundamental to the health and future of our democracy,” he said. “We regularly encourage our employees to exercise their fundamental right to vote, and we stand against efforts that may prevent them from being able to do so.”

That language echoed statements made by many big companies before the Georgia law was passed. The executives who signed the letter are likely to seek more.

“People ask, ‘What can I do?’” Chenault said. “I’ll tell you what you can do. You can publicly oppose any discriminatory legislation and all measures designed to limit Americans’ ability to vote.” 
&nbsp;

Dozens of the most prominent Black business leaders in America are banding together to call on companies to fight a wave of restrictive voting bills being advanced by Republicans in at least 43 states.

Dozens of the most prominent Black business leaders in America are banding together to call on companies to fight a wave of restrictive voting bills being advanced by Republicans in at least 43 states. The campaign appears to be the first time that so many powerful Black executives have organized to directly call out their peers for failing to stand up for racial justice. The effort, led by Kenneth Chenault, a former chief executive of American Express, and Kenneth Frazier, the chief executive of Merck, is a response to the swift passage of a Georgia law that they contend makes it harder for Black people to vote. As the debate about that bill raged in recent weeks, most major corporations — including those with headquarters in Atlanta — did not take a position on the legislation. “There is no middle ground here,” Chenault said. “You either are for more people voting, or you want to suppress the vote.” The executives did not criticize specific companies but instead called on all of corporate America to publicly and directly oppose new laws that would restrict the rights of Black voters and to use their clout, money and lobbyists to sway the debate with lawmakers. “This impacts all Americans, but we also need to acknowledge the history of voting rights for African Americans,” Chenault said. “And as African American executives in corporate America, what we were saying is we want corporate America to understand that, and we want them to work with us.” The letter was signed by 72 Black executives. They included Roger Ferguson Jr., chief executive of TIAA; Mellody Hobson and John Rogers Jr., co-chief executives of Ariel Investments; Robert Smith, chief executive of Vista Equity Partners; and Raymond McGuire, a former Citigroup executive who is running for mayor of New York. In the days before the Georgia law was passed, almost no major companies spoke out against the legislation, which introduced stricter voter identification requirements for absentee balloting, limited drop boxes and expanded the legislature’s power over elections. Big corporations based in Atlanta, including Delta Air Lines, Coca-Cola and Home Depot, offered general statements of support for voting rights, but none took a specific stance on the bills. The same was true for most of the executives who signed the new letter, including Frazier and Chenault. Frazier said he had paid only peripheral attention to the matter before the Georgia law was passed Thursday. “When the law passed, I started paying attention,” he said. When Frazier realized what was in the new law, and that similar bills were being advanced in other states, he and Chenault decided to take action. On Sunday, they began emailing and texting with a group of Black executives, discussing what more corporations could do. “There seems to be no one speaking out,” Frazier said. “We thought if we spoke up, it might lead to a situation where others felt the responsibility to speak up.” Among the other executives who signed the letter were Ursula Burns, a former chief executive of Xerox; Richard Parsons, a former chair of Citigroup and chief executive of Time Warner; and Tony West, chief legal officer at Uber. The group of leaders, with support from the Black Economic Alliance, bought a full-page ad in the Wednesday print edition of The New York Times. The executives are hoping that big companies will help prevent dozens of similar bills in other states from becoming law. “The Georgia legislature was the first one,” Frazier said. “If corporate America doesn’t stand up, we’ll get these laws passed in many places in this country.” In 2017, Frazier was the first chief executive to publicly resign from President Donald Trump’s business advisory councils after the president’s equivocating response to white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. His resignation led other chief executives to distance themselves from Trump, and the advisory groups disbanded. “As African American business executives, we don’t have the luxury of being bystanders to injustice,” Frazier said. “We don’t have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines when these kinds of injustices are happening all around us.” Companies have taken stands on state legislation in recent years, often to powerful effect. In 2016 and 2017, as conservatives advanced so-called bathroom bills in states including Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia and Texas, big companies went so far as to threaten to take their business elsewhere if the laws were enacted. Those bills were never signed into law. Last year, the Human Rights Campaign began persuading companies to sign on to a pledge that states their “clear opposition to harmful legislation aimed at restricting the access of LGBTQ people in society.” Dozens of major companies, including AT&T, Facebook, Nike and Pfizer, signed on. To Chenault, the contrast between the business community’s response to that issue and to voting restrictions that disproportionately harm Black voters was telling. “You had 60 major companies — Amazon, Google, American Airlines — that signed on to the statement that states a very clear opposition to harmful legislation aimed at restricting the access of LGBTQ people in society,” he said. “So, you know, it is bizarre that we don’t have companies standing up to this.” “This is not new,” Chenault added. “When it comes to race, there’s differential treatment. That’s the reality.” Activists are calling for boycotts of Delta and Coca-Cola for their tepid engagement before the Georgia law was passed. And there are signs that other companies and sports leagues are becoming more engaged with the issue. The head of the Major League Baseball Players Association said he “would look forward” to a discussion about moving the All-Star Game from Atlanta, where it is planned for July. And Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, released a statement Tuesday affirming his company’s commitment to voting rights. “Voting is fundamental to the health and future of our democracy,” he said. “We regularly encourage our employees to exercise their fundamental right to vote, and we stand against efforts that may prevent them from being able to do so.” That language echoed statements made by many big companies before the Georgia law was passed. The executives who signed the letter are likely to seek more. “People ask, ‘What can I do?’” Chenault said. “I’ll tell you what you can do. You can publicly oppose any discriminatory legislation and all measures designed to limit Americans’ ability to vote.”

Black executives call on corporations to fight restrictive voting laws

The former US President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a> does not like his name being used in vain, especially when it comes to asking for money. Now, since the impeachment trial, he has once again opposed the actions of the Republican National Committee (RNC).

Trump has asked members of the RNC to stop using his name and 'fame' for fundraising, as reported by local reports.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-senate-passes-bidens-19-trillion-covid-bill-on-party-line-vote-368516" hreflang="en">US Senate passes Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid bill on party-line vote</a>

"President Trump remains committed to the Republican party and electing America First conservatives but that doesn’t give anyone – friend or foe – permission to use his likeness without explicit approval," an advisor close to the former reality TV star was quoted by Politico.

As per the reports, Trump has sent out a notice to Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Campaign and National Republican Senate Campaign to stop using his name and his likeness on fundraising emails and merchandise.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-to-be-allowed-back-on-youtube-when-risk-of-violence-falls-368337" hreflang="en">Trump to be allowed back on YouTube when 'risk of violence' falls</a>

Since the impeachment trial, where a handful of party members voted against their former leader, the Republican Party has been struggling to put a lid on the bubbling civil war inside the party. This notice by Trump has only given a push to that struggle.

While Trump has asked the Republican bodies to stop using his name and likeness to raise funds, he is using his Save America SuperPAC to raise money to assist the Republican candidates for 2022 congressional candidates, who have been hand-picked by the former President.

This has come after Trump's infamous speech at the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/donald-trump-teases-2024-presidential-run-in-cpac-2021-speech-366953">Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) </a>where he singled out Republicans Senators Mitt Romney and Pat Toomey and House lawmakers Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger — who had protested against him in the impeachment trial.&nbsp;

During the speech, he also suggested that he will be making efforts to support the candidates opposing these Republicans and claimed that he is ready to beat the Democrats for the "third time" in the 2024 Presidential elections.

The former US President Donald Trump does not like his name being used in vain, especially when it comes to asking for money. Now, since the impeachment trial, he has once again opposed the actions of the Republican National Committee (RNC).

The former US President Donald Trump does not like his name being used in vain, especially when it comes to asking for money. Now, since the impeachment trial, he has once again opposed the actions of the Republican National Committee (RNC). Trump has asked members of the RNC to stop using his name and 'fame' for fundraising, as reported by local reports. Also read | US Senate passes Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid bill on party-line vote "President Trump remains committed to the Republican party and electing America First conservatives but that doesn’t give anyone – friend or foe – permission to use his likeness without explicit approval," an advisor close to the former reality TV star was quoted by Politico. As per the reports, Trump has sent out a notice to Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Campaign and National Republican Senate Campaign to stop using his name and his likeness on fundraising emails and merchandise. Also read | Trump to be allowed back on YouTube when 'risk of violence' falls Since the impeachment trial, where a handful of party members voted against their former leader, the Republican Party has been struggling to put a lid on the bubbling civil war inside the party. This notice by Trump has only given a push to that struggle. While Trump has asked the Republican bodies to stop using his name and likeness to raise funds, he is using his Save America SuperPAC to raise money to assist the Republican candidates for 2022 congressional candidates, who have been hand-picked by the former President. This has come after Trump's infamous speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) where he singled out Republicans Senators Mitt Romney and Pat Toomey and House lawmakers Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger — who had protested against him in the impeachment trial. During the speech, he also suggested that he will be making efforts to support the candidates opposing these Republicans and claimed that he is ready to beat the Democrats for the "third time" in the 2024 Presidential elections.

Donald Trump asks Republicans to stop using his name to raise funds

The top House Republican refused Wednesday to punish Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for spreading false and bigoted conspiracy theories and endorsing political violence against Democrats, condemning the Georgia freshman’s previous comments but declining to take away her posts on influential congressional committees.

After days of public silence and private agonizing over what to do about Greene — who has endorsed the executions of top Democrats, suggested that school shootings were staged and said that a space laser controlled by Jewish financiers started a wildfire — the minority leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, issued a tortured statement that harshly denounced her past statements, but then argued that she should face no consequences for them.

“Past comments from and endorsed by Marjorie Taylor Greene on school shootings, political violence, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories do not represent the values or beliefs of the House Republican Conference,” McCarthy said.

The contortions over what to do about Greene came days after Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the most powerful Republican in Washington, denounced her as a threat to his party and as more senators followed his lead.

The feuding played out behind closed doors well into Wednesday evening, as House Republicans debated stripping Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the chamber’s No. 3 Republican, of her leadership post, as a penalty for her vote to impeach President Donald Trump.

Cheney ultimately emerged victorious after a 145-61 secret ballot vote. The lopsided results also amounted to a vote of confidence in McCarthy, who delivered an impassioned closing speech, according to officials in the room. In the hourslong, often heated meeting, according to people familiar with the discussion, McCarthy stood by both Cheney and Greene, and stressed the importance of presenting a united front.

In his defense of Cheney, McCarthy told lawmakers that he wanted their leadership team to “stay together.” He reminded his colleagues that they elected him as their leader, and he asked them to let him lead by picking his team.

The challenge to Greene will continue Thursday, when House Democrats will call a vote of the full chamber to strip her of her committee assignments. McCarthy called it a “partisan power grab.”

He also warned that if they indulged the effort to strip Greene of her assignments, Democrats could try to target other Republicans, according to three people familiar with his comments, who insisted on anonymity to divulge the private exchange.

The top House Republican refused Wednesday to punish Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for spreading false and bigoted conspiracy theories and endorsing political violence against Democrats, condemning the Georgia freshman’s previous comments but declining to take away her posts on influential congressional committees.

The top House Republican refused Wednesday to punish Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for spreading false and bigoted conspiracy theories and endorsing political violence against Democrats, condemning the Georgia freshman’s previous comments but declining to take away her posts on influential congressional committees. After days of public silence and private agonizing over what to do about Greene — who has endorsed the executions of top Democrats, suggested that school shootings were staged and said that a space laser controlled by Jewish financiers started a wildfire — the minority leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, issued a tortured statement that harshly denounced her past statements, but then argued that she should face no consequences for them. “Past comments from and endorsed by Marjorie Taylor Greene on school shootings, political violence, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories do not represent the values or beliefs of the House Republican Conference,” McCarthy said. The contortions over what to do about Greene came days after Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the most powerful Republican in Washington, denounced her as a threat to his party and as more senators followed his lead. The feuding played out behind closed doors well into Wednesday evening, as House Republicans debated stripping Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the chamber’s No. 3 Republican, of her leadership post, as a penalty for her vote to impeach President Donald Trump. Cheney ultimately emerged victorious after a 145-61 secret ballot vote. The lopsided results also amounted to a vote of confidence in McCarthy, who delivered an impassioned closing speech, according to officials in the room. In the hourslong, often heated meeting, according to people familiar with the discussion, McCarthy stood by both Cheney and Greene, and stressed the importance of presenting a united front. In his defense of Cheney, McCarthy told lawmakers that he wanted their leadership team to “stay together.” He reminded his colleagues that they elected him as their leader, and he asked them to let him lead by picking his team. The challenge to Greene will continue Thursday, when House Democrats will call a vote of the full chamber to strip her of her committee assignments. McCarthy called it a “partisan power grab.” He also warned that if they indulged the effort to strip Greene of her assignments, Democrats could try to target other Republicans, according to three people familiar with his comments, who insisted on anonymity to divulge the private exchange.

Top House Republican condemns Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comments, but stands by her

President-elect Joe Biden has slammed Republican lawmakers who refused to wear masks while huddling in a secure location during the January 6 riot at the US Capitol despite the threat of coronavirus, telling them that "it's time to grow up".

At least four members of US Congress -- including Democratic leaders Pramila Jayapal, Brad Schneider and Bonnie Watson Coleman -- have tested positive for COVID-19 since the Capitol attack by Trump's supporters which left five people dead.

"Quite frankly, it was shocking to see members of the Congress while the Capitol was under siege by a deadly mob of thugs refusing to wear a mask while they were in secure locations," Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Delaware on Friday.

"I'm so proud of my congresswoman, right here in the state of Delaware, Lisa Blunt Rochester, trying to hand out masks while people are lying on the floor huddled up, and her Republican colleagues were refusing to put them on.

What the hell is the matter with you? It's time to grow up," he said.

"The result? At least four members of Congress today, including a cancer survivor, now have COVID-19 who were in those rooms," Biden said Congresswoman Coleman, who recently tested COVID-19 positive, is a 75-year-old cancer survivor.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has imposed fines this week on members who refuse to wear masks on the House floor, with a USD 500 penalty for a first offence and USD 2,500 for a second offence.

Biden said wearing a mask is not a political, but a lifesaving issue.

"For God's sake, wear a mask if not for yourself, for your loved ones, for your country. These are real matters of life and death. We need you to stick with the handwashing, social distancing, and avoid indoor gatherings with people outside your own household," he said.

"I hope we now know this is not a political issue. This is about saving lives. I know it's become a partisan issue, but what a stupid, stupid thing for it to happen. This is a patriotic act. We are asking you, we're in a war with this virus, and experts saying--have shown that wearing a mask from now until April will save as many as 50,000 lives," the Democratic leader said.

US is the worst-hit nation in the world with over 23,530,460 coronavirus cases and more than 392,100 deaths due to the disease.

Biden reiterated his plans to call on all Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days in office.

"The day we're inaugurated, we're going to ask you to mask up for the next 100 days.

This is not a political issue.

And I will issue an executive order to require a mask where I have the authority to do that, in federal worker--for federal workers on federal property, on interstate travel by train and planes," he said.

"We'll also be working with mayors and governors in red states and blue states and require mask--and ask them to require masking up in their cities and their states," he said.

The coronavirus pandemic, Biden said, can't solve US' problems as a divided nation.

"The only way we come through this is if we come through together as Americans, fellow Americans, as the United States of America.

Vice President-elect Harris and I ran on that vision.

And starting at noon on Wednesday, that's exactly how we're going to govern and ask for your help," he said.

President-elect Joe Biden has slammed Republican lawmakers who refused to wear masks while huddling in a secure location during the January 6 riot at the US Capitol despite the threat of coronavirus, telling them that "it's time to grow up".

President-elect Joe Biden has slammed Republican lawmakers who refused to wear masks while huddling in a secure location during the January 6 riot at the US Capitol despite the threat of coronavirus, telling them that "it's time to grow up". At least four members of US Congress -- including Democratic leaders Pramila Jayapal, Brad Schneider and Bonnie Watson Coleman -- have tested positive for COVID-19 since the Capitol attack by Trump's supporters which left five people dead. "Quite frankly, it was shocking to see members of the Congress while the Capitol was under siege by a deadly mob of thugs refusing to wear a mask while they were in secure locations," Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Delaware on Friday. "I'm so proud of my congresswoman, right here in the state of Delaware, Lisa Blunt Rochester, trying to hand out masks while people are lying on the floor huddled up, and her Republican colleagues were refusing to put them on. What the hell is the matter with you? It's time to grow up," he said. "The result? At least four members of Congress today, including a cancer survivor, now have COVID-19 who were in those rooms," Biden said Congresswoman Coleman, who recently tested COVID-19 positive, is a 75-year-old cancer survivor. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has imposed fines this week on members who refuse to wear masks on the House floor, with a USD 500 penalty for a first offence and USD 2,500 for a second offence. Biden said wearing a mask is not a political, but a lifesaving issue. "For God's sake, wear a mask if not for yourself, for your loved ones, for your country. These are real matters of life and death. We need you to stick with the handwashing, social distancing, and avoid indoor gatherings with people outside your own household," he said. "I hope we now know this is not a political issue. This is about saving lives. I know it's become a partisan issue, but what a stupid, stupid thing for it to happen. This is a patriotic act. We are asking you, we're in a war with this virus, and experts saying--have shown that wearing a mask from now until April will save as many as 50,000 lives," the Democratic leader said. US is the worst-hit nation in the world with over 23,530,460 coronavirus cases and more than 392,100 deaths due to the disease. Biden reiterated his plans to call on all Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days in office. "The day we're inaugurated, we're going to ask you to mask up for the next 100 days. This is not a political issue. And I will issue an executive order to require a mask where I have the authority to do that, in federal worker--for federal workers on federal property, on interstate travel by train and planes," he said. "We'll also be working with mayors and governors in red states and blue states and require mask--and ask them to require masking up in their cities and their states," he said. The coronavirus pandemic, Biden said, can't solve US' problems as a divided nation. "The only way we come through this is if we come through together as Americans, fellow Americans, as the United States of America. Vice President-elect Harris and I ran on that vision. And starting at noon on Wednesday, that's exactly how we're going to govern and ask for your help," he said.

Biden slams Republican lawmakers for not wearing masks during Capitol Hill attack

As the House prepared to move forward Wednesday with a vote to formally charge President Donald Trump with inciting violence against the government of the United States, a small but growing number of Republicans said they support the effort.

The vote is set to come exactly one week after the U.S. Capitol was breached by an angry mob of Trump loyalists.

In 2019, not a single Republican voted in favor of impeachment. House Republican leaders have said they would not formally lobby members of the party against voting to impeach the president this time, and these are the Republicans who have said that they intend to vote for impeachment.

Rep. John Katko

Katko, of New York, was the first Republican to publicly announce that he would back the impeachment proceedings. A former federal prosecutor, Katko said he looked at the facts of the siege, which began as lawmakers were working to certify the presidential election results.

“It cannot be ignored that President Trump encouraged this insurrection — both on social media ahead of Jan. 6, and in his speech that day,” Katko said in a statement. “By deliberately promoting baseless theories suggesting the election was somehow stolen, the president created a combustible environment of misinformation, disenfranchisement, and division. When this manifested in violent acts on Jan. 6, he refused to promptly and forcefully call it off, putting countless lives in danger.”

Not holding the president accountable for his actions would be “a direct threat to the future of our democracy,” he said.

Rep. Liz Cheney

Cheney, of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican, said Tuesday evening that she would vote to impeach, citing the president’s role in an insurrection that caused “death and destruction in the most sacred space in our Republic.”

“The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” she said in a statement. “Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the president. The president could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

Rep. Adam Kinzinger

Kinzinger, of Illinois, a frequent critic of Trump, joined his Republican colleagues on Tuesday evening, saying the nation was in uncharted waters. He said that Trump “encouraged an angry mob to storm the United States Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that the president of the United States broke his oath of office and incited this insurrection,” he said in a statement, adding that if the president’s actions “are not worthy of impeachment, then what is an impeachable offense?”

Rep. Fred Upton

Upton, of Michigan, issued a statement saying that he would vote to impeach after Trump “expressed no regrets” for what had happened at the Capitol.

“I would have preferred a bipartisan, formal censure rather than a drawn-out impeachment process,” Upton said. “I fear this will now interfere with important legislative business and a new Biden administration. But it is time to say: Enough is Enough.”

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler

Herrera Beutler, of Washington state, said that she would vote to impeach because she believed that the president had acted in violation of his oath of office.

“I understand the argument that the best course is not to further inflame the country or alienate Republican voters,” she said. “But I am a Republican voter. I believe in our Constitution, individual liberty, free markets, charity, life, justice, peace and this exceptional country. I see that my own party will be best served when those among us choose truth.”

As the House prepared to move forward Wednesday with a vote to formally charge President Donald Trump with inciting violence against the government of the United States, a small but growing number of Republicans said they support the effort.

As the House prepared to move forward Wednesday with a vote to formally charge President Donald Trump with inciting violence against the government of the United States, a small but growing number of Republicans said they support the effort. The vote is set to come exactly one week after the U.S. Capitol was breached by an angry mob of Trump loyalists. In 2019, not a single Republican voted in favor of impeachment. House Republican leaders have said they would not formally lobby members of the party against voting to impeach the president this time, and these are the Republicans who have said that they intend to vote for impeachment. Rep. John Katko Katko, of New York, was the first Republican to publicly announce that he would back the impeachment proceedings. A former federal prosecutor, Katko said he looked at the facts of the siege, which began as lawmakers were working to certify the presidential election results. “It cannot be ignored that President Trump encouraged this insurrection — both on social media ahead of Jan. 6, and in his speech that day,” Katko said in a statement. “By deliberately promoting baseless theories suggesting the election was somehow stolen, the president created a combustible environment of misinformation, disenfranchisement, and division. When this manifested in violent acts on Jan. 6, he refused to promptly and forcefully call it off, putting countless lives in danger.” Not holding the president accountable for his actions would be “a direct threat to the future of our democracy,” he said. Rep. Liz Cheney Cheney, of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican, said Tuesday evening that she would vote to impeach, citing the president’s role in an insurrection that caused “death and destruction in the most sacred space in our Republic.” “The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” she said in a statement. “Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the president. The president could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.” Rep. Adam Kinzinger Kinzinger, of Illinois, a frequent critic of Trump, joined his Republican colleagues on Tuesday evening, saying the nation was in uncharted waters. He said that Trump “encouraged an angry mob to storm the United States Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes.” “There is no doubt in my mind that the president of the United States broke his oath of office and incited this insurrection,” he said in a statement, adding that if the president’s actions “are not worthy of impeachment, then what is an impeachable offense?” Rep. Fred Upton Upton, of Michigan, issued a statement saying that he would vote to impeach after Trump “expressed no regrets” for what had happened at the Capitol. “I would have preferred a bipartisan, formal censure rather than a drawn-out impeachment process,” Upton said. “I fear this will now interfere with important legislative business and a new Biden administration. But it is time to say: Enough is Enough.” Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler Herrera Beutler, of Washington state, said that she would vote to impeach because she believed that the president had acted in violation of his oath of office. “I understand the argument that the best course is not to further inflame the country or alienate Republican voters,” she said. “But I am a Republican voter. I believe in our Constitution, individual liberty, free markets, charity, life, justice, peace and this exceptional country. I see that my own party will be best served when those among us choose truth.”

These are the Republicans who say they support impeaching Trump

In a city where people can strive for decades to land a plum government job, resignations on principle do not happen often and, when they do, often reverberate as selfless acts of valor.

But as <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Trump</a> administration officials from Cabinet members to junior White House aides quit this week — less than two weeks before their jobs would have ended anyway — over President Donald Trump’s incitement of a riot Wednesday at the Capitol, the reaction has combined applause for drawing a line on Trump’s behavior with caustic condemnation for what many see as self-serving, cost-free leaps toward public redemption.

“I don’t have any question that some of these are resignations of convenience, and resume resignations,” said Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who worked for three previous Republican presidents but has long been a critic of Trump.

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The test of how to judge such departures, he said, is complicated, and depends on how hard the exiting officials worked while on the inside to constrain presidential behavior they considered immoral or dangerous. But he said any claims by those officials that they were shocked by Wednesday’s events were dubious. “It was almost inevitable for the Trump presidency to end like this, or something like this,” he said.

The resignations include two Cabinet officials, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. Several White House aides also stepped down, including Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser; Rickie Niceta, the social secretary; Stephanie Grisham, the chief of staff to the first lady and a former White House press secretary; and Trump’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mick Mulvaney, who spent more than a year as Trump’s acting chief of staff.

Some, like Mulvaney and DeVos, who called the president’s language inciting the rioters “unconscionable,” were explicit about their disgust. Others, like Pottinger and Grisham, left quietly but for seemingly obvious reasons.

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To Trump’s die-hard supporters, they may be traitors. But the departed Trump administration officials had stood by the president through countless other episodes that shocked consciences across the country: the separation of migrant children from their parents at the border, Trump’s equivocal words about white supremacist groups, and his many weeks dedicated to undermining the presidential election result with false claims about voter fraud and at least one vague threat to a state election official.

Mulvaney in particular was known as an enabler of the president who did little to constrain Trump’s impulses.

Even some people critical of officials who remained in Trump’s employ through such episodes said the resignations created political pressure that might act as a check on Trump now. The resignations may even have contributed to his belated condemnation Thursday of the violence at the Capitol, and his assurance of a peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 20, they said.

“John Rhodes and Hugh Scott hadn’t been profiles in courage in standing up to Nixon. Still, it mattered when they did,” said William Kristol, a conservative writer and activist who has been critical of Trump, referring to the two senior-most Republicans in Congress who played a crucial role in persuading President Richard Nixon to resign in August 1974.

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Yet none of the departing Trump officials appear to be making the kind of self-sacrifice remembered in some famed resignations. Cyrus Vance resigned as secretary of state in 1980 in protest of President Jimmy Carter’s failed secret mission to rescue American hostages in Iran. Two senior Department of Health and Human Services officials quit in anger over President Bill Clinton’s decision to sign a sweeping 1996 welfare reform law. Trump’s first secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, quit after Trump’s sudden decision to remove U.S. troops from northeastern Syria.

At least one Trump administration official appears to have invited his own firing this week: Gabriel Noronha, a State Department press aide, tweeted Wednesday that Trump was “entirely unfit to remain in office, and needs to go.” In what could not have been a surprise to him, Noronha was dismissed the following day.

Others have been publicly rumored to be considering their plans, including the national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, who tweeted condemnations of Wednesday’s riot. O’Brien, who has spoken to friends about a future run for office, is said to be staying on for the sake of stability, but may have enjoyed reputational gain among Trump critics after a slew of news leaks cast him in a Hamlet-like role about his future.

But Trump officials confirmed Friday that five National Security Council senior directors, handling issues including Russia and weapons of mass destruction, had quietly resigned from their jobs since Wednesday.

In the cases of DeVos and Chao, some critics complained that by departing, they were forgoing an opportunity to do something far more consequential: join with other disgusted Cabinet officials in a potential effort to invoke the 25th Amendment and relieve Trump of his presidential duties.

“At this late a stage, resignations help little beyond serving as late attempts at self-preservation,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wrote on Twitter. “If Sec. Chao objects to yesterday’s events this deeply, she should be working the Cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment — not abdicating the seat that allows her to do so.”

Alyssa Farah, who left as White House communications director weeks before the deadly mayhem in the Capitol, said it was clear then that Trump’s post-election behavior was intolerable.

“I made the decision to step down in December because I saw where this was heading,” she told Politico in an interview published Friday.

In a city where people can strive for decades to land a plum government job, resignations on principle do not happen often and, when they do, often reverberate as selfless acts of valor.

In a city where people can strive for decades to land a plum government job, resignations on principle do not happen often and, when they do, often reverberate as selfless acts of valor. But as Trump administration officials from Cabinet members to junior White House aides quit this week — less than two weeks before their jobs would have ended anyway — over President Donald Trump’s incitement of a riot Wednesday at the Capitol, the reaction has combined applause for drawing a line on Trump’s behavior with caustic condemnation for what many see as self-serving, cost-free leaps toward public redemption. “I don’t have any question that some of these are resignations of convenience, and resume resignations,” said Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who worked for three previous Republican presidents but has long been a critic of Trump. Also read| In focus: US president has sole power to launch nuclear strike The test of how to judge such departures, he said, is complicated, and depends on how hard the exiting officials worked while on the inside to constrain presidential behavior they considered immoral or dangerous. But he said any claims by those officials that they were shocked by Wednesday’s events were dubious. “It was almost inevitable for the Trump presidency to end like this, or something like this,” he said. The resignations include two Cabinet officials, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. Several White House aides also stepped down, including Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser; Rickie Niceta, the social secretary; Stephanie Grisham, the chief of staff to the first lady and a former White House press secretary; and Trump’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mick Mulvaney, who spent more than a year as Trump’s acting chief of staff. Some, like Mulvaney and DeVos, who called the president’s language inciting the rioters “unconscionable,” were explicit about their disgust. Others, like Pottinger and Grisham, left quietly but for seemingly obvious reasons. Also read| US Speaker says House can move to impeach Trump if he doesn’t resign To Trump’s die-hard supporters, they may be traitors. But the departed Trump administration officials had stood by the president through countless other episodes that shocked consciences across the country: the separation of migrant children from their parents at the border, Trump’s equivocal words about white supremacist groups, and his many weeks dedicated to undermining the presidential election result with false claims about voter fraud and at least one vague threat to a state election official. Mulvaney in particular was known as an enabler of the president who did little to constrain Trump’s impulses. Even some people critical of officials who remained in Trump’s employ through such episodes said the resignations created political pressure that might act as a check on Trump now. The resignations may even have contributed to his belated condemnation Thursday of the violence at the Capitol, and his assurance of a peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 20, they said. “John Rhodes and Hugh Scott hadn’t been profiles in courage in standing up to Nixon. Still, it mattered when they did,” said William Kristol, a conservative writer and activist who has been critical of Trump, referring to the two senior-most Republicans in Congress who played a crucial role in persuading President Richard Nixon to resign in August 1974. Also read| Biden likes Trump's decision to skip inauguration, slams vaccine rollout Yet none of the departing Trump officials appear to be making the kind of self-sacrifice remembered in some famed resignations. Cyrus Vance resigned as secretary of state in 1980 in protest of President Jimmy Carter’s failed secret mission to rescue American hostages in Iran. Two senior Department of Health and Human Services officials quit in anger over President Bill Clinton’s decision to sign a sweeping 1996 welfare reform law. Trump’s first secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, quit after Trump’s sudden decision to remove U.S. troops from northeastern Syria. At least one Trump administration official appears to have invited his own firing this week: Gabriel Noronha, a State Department press aide, tweeted Wednesday that Trump was “entirely unfit to remain in office, and needs to go.” In what could not have been a surprise to him, Noronha was dismissed the following day. Others have been publicly rumored to be considering their plans, including the national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, who tweeted condemnations of Wednesday’s riot. O’Brien, who has spoken to friends about a future run for office, is said to be staying on for the sake of stability, but may have enjoyed reputational gain among Trump critics after a slew of news leaks cast him in a Hamlet-like role about his future. But Trump officials confirmed Friday that five National Security Council senior directors, handling issues including Russia and weapons of mass destruction, had quietly resigned from their jobs since Wednesday. In the cases of DeVos and Chao, some critics complained that by departing, they were forgoing an opportunity to do something far more consequential: join with other disgusted Cabinet officials in a potential effort to invoke the 25th Amendment and relieve Trump of his presidential duties. “At this late a stage, resignations help little beyond serving as late attempts at self-preservation,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wrote on Twitter. “If Sec. Chao objects to yesterday’s events this deeply, she should be working the Cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment — not abdicating the seat that allows her to do so.” Alyssa Farah, who left as White House communications director weeks before the deadly mayhem in the Capitol, said it was clear then that Trump’s post-election behavior was intolerable. “I made the decision to step down in December because I saw where this was heading,” she told Politico in an interview published Friday.

Bravery or self-preservation? Resignations of Trump officials draw skepticism

For the next three weeks, the integrity of American democracy is in the hands of people like Norman Shinkle, a proud Michigander who has, until recently, served in relative obscurity on the state board that certifies vote results.

But now Shinkle faces a choice born from the national election turmoil created by President Donald Trump, his preferred candidate, for whom he sang the national anthem at a campaign rally in Lansing, Michigan, last month.

Shinkle’s duty, as one of two Republicans on the four-member board, is to validate the will of Michigan voters and certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory before the Electoral College vote Dec. 14. Yet Shinkle is weighing whether to block certification at a board meeting scheduled for Monday, because of minor glitches that Trump and his allies have baselessly cast as evidence of widespread, election-invalidating fraud.

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He said he had received hundreds of phone calls, emails and text messages from people for or against certifying. “You can’t make up your mind before you get all the facts,” he said.

That Shinkle is equivocating over a once-routine step in the process — despite all 83 state counties submitting certified results and Biden leading by 154,000 votes — shows the damage inflicted by Trump on the American voting process and the faith that people in both parties have historically shared in the outcome of elections.

But this is also a moment of truth for the Republican Party: The country is on a knife’s edge, with GOP officials from state capitols to Congress choosing between the will of voters and the will of one man. In pushing his false claims to the limits, cowing Republicans into acquiescence or silence, and driving officials like Shinkle to nervous indecision, Trump has revealed the fragility of the electoral system — and shaken it.

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At this point, the president’s impact is not so much about overturning the election — both parties agree he has no real chance of doing that — but infusing the democratic process with so much mistrust and confusion that it ceases to function as it should.

Under an unending barrage of fraud charges, voters might begin to question the legitimacy of elected officials from the rival party as a matter of course. And the GOP risks being seen as standing for disenfranchisement and the undemocratic position that a high level of voting is somehow detrimental.

“What Trump is doing is creating a road map to destabilization and chaos in future years,” said Trevor Potter, a Republican who served as chair of the Federal Election Commission in the 1990s. “What he’s saying, explicitly, is if a party doesn’t like the election result they have the right to change it by gaming the system.”

Indeed, on Saturday night, Trump made his most explicit call yet for state legislatures to intervene with the aim of reversing the result, once again relying on false claims of fraud. “Hopefully the Courts and/or Legislatures will have the COURAGE to do what has to be done to maintain the integrity of our Elections, and the United States of America itself,” he wrote on Twitter.

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Trump’s gambit, never realistic to begin with, appears to be growing more futile by the day: Georgia became the first contested state Friday to certify its vote for Biden, and the president continues to draw losing rulings from judges who bluntly note his failure to present any evidence of significant fraud or irregularities. On Saturday, in perhaps the most stinging blow, a federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed a lawsuit by the Trump campaign seeking to invalidate ballots, ending Trump’s last major effort to delay certification of the state’s results.

Some fellow Republicans have started breaking with him, including Sen. Mitt Romney, a Trump critic, who said the president was seeking to “subvert the will of the people,” and Sen. Marco Rubio, who has acknowledged Biden is the president-elect.

On Friday, Republican lawmakers in Michigan also made clear, after meeting with Trump at the White House, that they would allow the normal certification process to play out without interfering, a potentially important signal ahead of the certification decision by the state elections board Monday.

But Saturday, the national and Michigan state party chairs issued a statement calling on the canvassing board to delay certification beyond its Monday deadline, to conduct an audit.

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If Shinkle and his fellow Republican on the state board, Aaron Van Langevelde, were to oppose certifying the results, the board would deadlock.

Democrats and election lawyers say the courts would almost certainly force the board to complete the certification process, well in time for the Electoral College deadline next month. And Gov. Gretchen Whitmer could replace the board members if they defy a court order. But they also agree a deadlocked vote would give Trump a new opportunity to cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the election system and Biden’s win, while also prolonging his own legally dubious and, so far, failing attempt to persuade Republicans who control the Statehouse to send pro-Trump delegates to the Electoral College.

Biden’s advisers say they are confident he will be awarded Michigan’s 16 Electoral College votes. But they acknowledge that the resulting national spectacle of court fights and new charges of fraud could prove “very harmful to the democratic process,” as Biden’s senior adviser, Bob Bauer, put it Friday.

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For the next three weeks, the integrity of American democracy is in the hands of people like Norman Shinkle, a proud Michigander who has, until recently, served in relative obscurity on the state board that certifies vote results.

But now Shinkle faces a choice born from the national election turmoil created by President Donald Trump, his preferred candidate, for whom he sang the national anthem at a campaign rally in Lansing, Michigan, last month.

Shinkle’s duty, as one of two Republicans on the four-member board, is to validate the will of Michigan voters and certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory before the Electoral College vote Dec. 14. Yet Shinkle is weighing whether to block certification at a board meeting scheduled for Monday, because of minor glitches that Trump and his allies have baselessly cast as evidence of widespread, election-invalidating fraud.

He said he had received hundreds of phone calls, emails and text messages from people for or against certifying. “You can’t make up your mind before you get all the facts,” he said.

That Shinkle is equivocating over a once-routine step in the process — despite all 83 state counties submitting certified results and Biden leading by 154,000 votes — shows the damage inflicted by Trump on the American voting process and the faith that people in both parties have historically shared in the outcome of elections.

But this is also a moment of truth for the Republican Party: The country is on a knife’s edge, with GOP officials from state capitols to Congress choosing between the will of voters and the will of one man. In pushing his false claims to the limits, cowing Republicans into acquiescence or silence, and driving officials like Shinkle to nervous indecision, Trump has revealed the fragility of the electoral system — and shaken it.

At this point, the president’s impact is not so much about overturning the election — both parties agree he has no real chance of doing that — but infusing the democratic process with so much mistrust and confusion that it ceases to function as it should.

Under an unending barrage of fraud charges, voters might begin to question the legitimacy of elected officials from the rival party as a matter of course. And the GOP risks being seen as standing for disenfranchisement and the undemocratic position that a high level of voting is somehow detrimental.

“What Trump is doing is creating a road map to destabilization and chaos in future years,” said Trevor Potter, a Republican who served as chair of the Federal Election Commission in the 1990s. “What he’s saying, explicitly, is if a party doesn’t like the election result they have the right to change it by gaming the system.”

Indeed, on Saturday night, Trump made his most explicit call yet for state legislatures to intervene with the aim of reversing the result, once again relying on false claims of fraud. “Hopefully the Courts and/or Legislatures will have the COURAGE to do what has to be done to maintain the integrity of our Elections, and the United States of America itself,” he wrote on Twitter.

Trump’s gambit, never realistic to begin with, appears to be growing more futile by the day: Georgia became the first contested state Friday to certify its vote for Biden, and the president continues to draw losing rulings from judges who bluntly note his failure to present any evidence of significant fraud or irregularities. On Saturday, in perhaps the most stinging blow, a federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed a lawsuit by the Trump campaign seeking to invalidate ballots, ending Trump’s last major effort to delay certification of the state’s results.

Some fellow Republicans have started breaking with him, including Sen. Mitt Romney, a Trump critic, who said the president was seeking to “subvert the will of the people,” and Sen. Marco Rubio, who has acknowledged Biden is the president-elect.

On Friday, Republican lawmakers in Michigan also made clear, after meeting with Trump at the White House, that they would allow the normal certification process to play out without interfering, a potentially important signal ahead of the certification decision by the state elections board Monday.

But Saturday, the national and Michigan state party chairs issued a statement calling on the canvassing board to delay certification beyond its Monday deadline, to conduct an audit.

If Shinkle and his fellow Republican on the state board, Aaron Van Langevelde, were to oppose certifying the results, the board would deadlock.

Democrats and election lawyers say the courts would almost certainly force the board to complete the certification process, well in time for the Electoral College deadline next month. And Gov. Gretchen Whitmer could replace the board members if they defy a court order. But they also agree a deadlocked vote would give Trump a new opportunity to cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the election system and Biden’s win, while also prolonging his own legally dubious and, so far, failing attempt to persuade Republicans who control the Statehouse to send pro-Trump delegates to the Electoral College.

Biden’s advisers say they are confident he will be awarded Michigan’s 16 Electoral College votes. But they acknowledge that the resulting national spectacle of court fights and new charges of fraud could prove “very harmful to the democratic process,” as Biden’s senior adviser, Bob Bauer, put it Friday.

Civil rights leaders are especially alarmed at Trump’s efforts, given that most of them have falsely portrayed cities with large Black populations, like Detroit and Philadelphia, as so corrupt that their votes shouldn’t count. The argument that Trump’s attempt is all for show and will not succeed has done little to allay their concern.

“How is it ‘show’ when you’re basically systematically delegitimizing Black voters by your rhetoric,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which filed suit against Trump in Michigan on Friday for trying to disenfranchise Black voters (it did so on behalf of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and three residents). “How can that be anything but incredibly dangerous,” she added.

Ifill marveled at the position of the Republican Party, which was the nation’s first true civil rights party from the time of slavery through the late 1950s, but now, under Trump’s unchallenged leadership, is effectively taking a stance against voting in entire cities and states.

“Civil rights haven’t moved — one party has moved, and that move has not been toward an embrace of democracy, it’s been away from it," she said.

If Trump has shown nothing else, it is that he has made the Republican Party — which initially sought to resist him — his own. Although a handful of prominent Republicans have rebuked his refusal to cede power, far more, across all levels of government, have either tacitly or explicitly embraced a new standard in presidential elections: No winner can be declared until the full Electoral College certification process is complete, no matter how clear the results after Election Day.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has acknowledged that he hadn’t “seen anything that would change the outcome” but told reporters Thursday that Biden “is not president-elect until the votes are certified.” Cornyn congratulated Trump as president-elect on the day the major news organizations projected him as the winner in 2016.

The president’s clout with his party is reinforced by the widespread support he has from millions of Americans; almost 74 million voted for him this year.

Former Sen. Jeff Flake, a staunch opponent of Trump, has urged Republicans to recognize Biden as president-elect. But he noted that Republicans worry about alienating Trump when they need his help for the upcoming Georgia runoffs, which will decide control of the Senate.

“If the Republicans abandon him, he may just abandon them," he said.

Trump’s baseless argument that this is still an election up for grabs was prevalent in interviews with Republicans across the country Friday.

Ginger Howard, a Republican national committeewoman from Georgia, said she still believed there were other avenues for Trump to pursue, despite the state’s certification of Biden as the winner there.

“There’s still recourse for sure, we’ve got some other options,” she said Friday without elaborating.

Jason Thompson, who represents Georgia to the Republican National Committee, also echoed Trump’s unfounded skepticism.

“It’s not like I’m saying there’s no way he won,” he said. “All I’m saying is we’ll never know for sure.”

In Pennsylvania, Trump has less opportunity to try to block certification than he does in Michigan and Wisconsin, where he has requested recounts in two counties. After the state’s 67 counties certify their votes — the deadline is Monday — they go to Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat, who has sole power to certify state results.

In Michigan, the president’s opportunity is limited if not nonexistent. On Friday, the state Bureau of Elections submitted its formal report recommending that the canvassing board affirm Biden’s win. Errors in some vote tabulations, which Trump has seized upon, were “attributable to human error,’' and “did not affect the actual tabulation of votes,” the elections bureau said.

That, said Christopher Thomas, an election adviser to the city of Detroit, means the canvassing board is obligated to affirm the vote. “The law doesn’t say you can decide or not — the law says if you get certified returns you go ahead and do what you’re supposed to do,” he said.

For the next three weeks, the integrity of American democracy is in the hands of people like Norman Shinkle, a proud Michigander who has, until recently, served in relative obscurity on the state board that certifies vote results.

For the next three weeks, the integrity of American democracy is in the hands of people like Norman Shinkle, a proud Michigander who has, until recently, served in relative obscurity on the state board that certifies vote results. But now Shinkle faces a choice born from the national election turmoil created by President Donald Trump, his preferred candidate, for whom he sang the national anthem at a campaign rally in Lansing, Michigan, last month. Shinkle’s duty, as one of two Republicans on the four-member board, is to validate the will of Michigan voters and certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory before the Electoral College vote Dec. 14. Yet Shinkle is weighing whether to block certification at a board meeting scheduled for Monday, because of minor glitches that Trump and his allies have baselessly cast as evidence of widespread, election-invalidating fraud. Also read| US judge dismisses Trump election lawsuit in Pennsylvania He said he had received hundreds of phone calls, emails and text messages from people for or against certifying. “You can’t make up your mind before you get all the facts,” he said. That Shinkle is equivocating over a once-routine step in the process — despite all 83 state counties submitting certified results and Biden leading by 154,000 votes — shows the damage inflicted by Trump on the American voting process and the faith that people in both parties have historically shared in the outcome of elections. But this is also a moment of truth for the Republican Party: The country is on a knife’s edge, with GOP officials from state capitols to Congress choosing between the will of voters and the will of one man. In pushing his false claims to the limits, cowing Republicans into acquiescence or silence, and driving officials like Shinkle to nervous indecision, Trump has revealed the fragility of the electoral system — and shaken it. Also read| US elections: Joe Biden wins Georgia after recount, says election official At this point, the president’s impact is not so much about overturning the election — both parties agree he has no real chance of doing that — but infusing the democratic process with so much mistrust and confusion that it ceases to function as it should. Under an unending barrage of fraud charges, voters might begin to question the legitimacy of elected officials from the rival party as a matter of course. And the GOP risks being seen as standing for disenfranchisement and the undemocratic position that a high level of voting is somehow detrimental. “What Trump is doing is creating a road map to destabilization and chaos in future years,” said Trevor Potter, a Republican who served as chair of the Federal Election Commission in the 1990s. “What he’s saying, explicitly, is if a party doesn’t like the election result they have the right to change it by gaming the system.” Indeed, on Saturday night, Trump made his most explicit call yet for state legislatures to intervene with the aim of reversing the result, once again relying on false claims of fraud. “Hopefully the Courts and/or Legislatures will have the COURAGE to do what has to be done to maintain the integrity of our Elections, and the United States of America itself,” he wrote on Twitter. Also read| Multiple blows narrow Donald Trump's options to retain presidency Trump’s gambit, never realistic to begin with, appears to be growing more futile by the day: Georgia became the first contested state Friday to certify its vote for Biden, and the president continues to draw losing rulings from judges who bluntly note his failure to present any evidence of significant fraud or irregularities. On Saturday, in perhaps the most stinging blow, a federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed a lawsuit by the Trump campaign seeking to invalidate ballots, ending Trump’s last major effort to delay certification of the state’s results. Some fellow Republicans have started breaking with him, including Sen. Mitt Romney, a Trump critic, who said the president was seeking to “subvert the will of the people,” and Sen. Marco Rubio, who has acknowledged Biden is the president-elect. On Friday, Republican lawmakers in Michigan also made clear, after meeting with Trump at the White House, that they would allow the normal certification process to play out without interfering, a potentially important signal ahead of the certification decision by the state elections board Monday. But Saturday, the national and Michigan state party chairs issued a statement calling on the canvassing board to delay certification beyond its Monday deadline, to conduct an audit. Also read| 'Don't be embarrassing': Czech President asks Donald Trump to step down If Shinkle and his fellow Republican on the state board, Aaron Van Langevelde, were to oppose certifying the results, the board would deadlock. Democrats and election lawyers say the courts would almost certainly force the board to complete the certification process, well in time for the Electoral College deadline next month. And Gov. Gretchen Whitmer could replace the board members if they defy a court order. But they also agree a deadlocked vote would give Trump a new opportunity to cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the election system and Biden’s win, while also prolonging his own legally dubious and, so far, failing attempt to persuade Republicans who control the Statehouse to send pro-Trump delegates to the Electoral College. Biden’s advisers say they are confident he will be awarded Michigan’s 16 Electoral College votes. But they acknowledge that the resulting national spectacle of court fights and new charges of fraud could prove “very harmful to the democratic process,” as Biden’s senior adviser, Bob Bauer, put it Friday. Also read| Twitter to hand over POTUS account to Biden, whether Trump concedes or not For the next three weeks, the integrity of American democracy is in the hands of people like Norman Shinkle, a proud Michigander who has, until recently, served in relative obscurity on the state board that certifies vote results. But now Shinkle faces a choice born from the national election turmoil created by President Donald Trump, his preferred candidate, for whom he sang the national anthem at a campaign rally in Lansing, Michigan, last month. Shinkle’s duty, as one of two Republicans on the four-member board, is to validate the will of Michigan voters and certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory before the Electoral College vote Dec. 14. Yet Shinkle is weighing whether to block certification at a board meeting scheduled for Monday, because of minor glitches that Trump and his allies have baselessly cast as evidence of widespread, election-invalidating fraud. He said he had received hundreds of phone calls, emails and text messages from people for or against certifying. “You can’t make up your mind before you get all the facts,” he said. That Shinkle is equivocating over a once-routine step in the process — despite all 83 state counties submitting certified results and Biden leading by 154,000 votes — shows the damage inflicted by Trump on the American voting process and the faith that people in both parties have historically shared in the outcome of elections. But this is also a moment of truth for the Republican Party: The country is on a knife’s edge, with GOP officials from state capitols to Congress choosing between the will of voters and the will of one man. In pushing his false claims to the limits, cowing Republicans into acquiescence or silence, and driving officials like Shinkle to nervous indecision, Trump has revealed the fragility of the electoral system — and shaken it. At this point, the president’s impact is not so much about overturning the election — both parties agree he has no real chance of doing that — but infusing the democratic process with so much mistrust and confusion that it ceases to function as it should. Under an unending barrage of fraud charges, voters might begin to question the legitimacy of elected officials from the rival party as a matter of course. And the GOP risks being seen as standing for disenfranchisement and the undemocratic position that a high level of voting is somehow detrimental. “What Trump is doing is creating a road map to destabilization and chaos in future years,” said Trevor Potter, a Republican who served as chair of the Federal Election Commission in the 1990s. “What he’s saying, explicitly, is if a party doesn’t like the election result they have the right to change it by gaming the system.” Indeed, on Saturday night, Trump made his most explicit call yet for state legislatures to intervene with the aim of reversing the result, once again relying on false claims of fraud. “Hopefully the Courts and/or Legislatures will have the COURAGE to do what has to be done to maintain the integrity of our Elections, and the United States of America itself,” he wrote on Twitter. Trump’s gambit, never realistic to begin with, appears to be growing more futile by the day: Georgia became the first contested state Friday to certify its vote for Biden, and the president continues to draw losing rulings from judges who bluntly note his failure to present any evidence of significant fraud or irregularities. On Saturday, in perhaps the most stinging blow, a federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed a lawsuit by the Trump campaign seeking to invalidate ballots, ending Trump’s last major effort to delay certification of the state’s results. Some fellow Republicans have started breaking with him, including Sen. Mitt Romney, a Trump critic, who said the president was seeking to “subvert the will of the people,” and Sen. Marco Rubio, who has acknowledged Biden is the president-elect. On Friday, Republican lawmakers in Michigan also made clear, after meeting with Trump at the White House, that they would allow the normal certification process to play out without interfering, a potentially important signal ahead of the certification decision by the state elections board Monday. But Saturday, the national and Michigan state party chairs issued a statement calling on the canvassing board to delay certification beyond its Monday deadline, to conduct an audit. If Shinkle and his fellow Republican on the state board, Aaron Van Langevelde, were to oppose certifying the results, the board would deadlock. Democrats and election lawyers say the courts would almost certainly force the board to complete the certification process, well in time for the Electoral College deadline next month. And Gov. Gretchen Whitmer could replace the board members if they defy a court order. But they also agree a deadlocked vote would give Trump a new opportunity to cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the election system and Biden’s win, while also prolonging his own legally dubious and, so far, failing attempt to persuade Republicans who control the Statehouse to send pro-Trump delegates to the Electoral College. Biden’s advisers say they are confident he will be awarded Michigan’s 16 Electoral College votes. But they acknowledge that the resulting national spectacle of court fights and new charges of fraud could prove “very harmful to the democratic process,” as Biden’s senior adviser, Bob Bauer, put it Friday. Civil rights leaders are especially alarmed at Trump’s efforts, given that most of them have falsely portrayed cities with large Black populations, like Detroit and Philadelphia, as so corrupt that their votes shouldn’t count. The argument that Trump’s attempt is all for show and will not succeed has done little to allay their concern. “How is it ‘show’ when you’re basically systematically delegitimizing Black voters by your rhetoric,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which filed suit against Trump in Michigan on Friday for trying to disenfranchise Black voters (it did so on behalf of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and three residents). “How can that be anything but incredibly dangerous,” she added. Ifill marveled at the position of the Republican Party, which was the nation’s first true civil rights party from the time of slavery through the late 1950s, but now, under Trump’s unchallenged leadership, is effectively taking a stance against voting in entire cities and states. “Civil rights haven’t moved — one party has moved, and that move has not been toward an embrace of democracy, it’s been away from it," she said. If Trump has shown nothing else, it is that he has made the Republican Party — which initially sought to resist him — his own. Although a handful of prominent Republicans have rebuked his refusal to cede power, far more, across all levels of government, have either tacitly or explicitly embraced a new standard in presidential elections: No winner can be declared until the full Electoral College certification process is complete, no matter how clear the results after Election Day. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has acknowledged that he hadn’t “seen anything that would change the outcome” but told reporters Thursday that Biden “is not president-elect until the votes are certified.” Cornyn congratulated Trump as president-elect on the day the major news organizations projected him as the winner in 2016. The president’s clout with his party is reinforced by the widespread support he has from millions of Americans; almost 74 million voted for him this year. Former Sen. Jeff Flake, a staunch opponent of Trump, has urged Republicans to recognize Biden as president-elect. But he noted that Republicans worry about alienating Trump when they need his help for the upcoming Georgia runoffs, which will decide control of the Senate. “If the Republicans abandon him, he may just abandon them," he said. Trump’s baseless argument that this is still an election up for grabs was prevalent in interviews with Republicans across the country Friday. Ginger Howard, a Republican national committeewoman from Georgia, said she still believed there were other avenues for Trump to pursue, despite the state’s certification of Biden as the winner there. “There’s still recourse for sure, we’ve got some other options,” she said Friday without elaborating. Jason Thompson, who represents Georgia to the Republican National Committee, also echoed Trump’s unfounded skepticism. “It’s not like I’m saying there’s no way he won,” he said. “All I’m saying is we’ll never know for sure.” In Pennsylvania, Trump has less opportunity to try to block certification than he does in Michigan and Wisconsin, where he has requested recounts in two counties. After the state’s 67 counties certify their votes — the deadline is Monday — they go to Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat, who has sole power to certify state results. In Michigan, the president’s opportunity is limited if not nonexistent. On Friday, the state Bureau of Elections submitted its formal report recommending that the canvassing board affirm Biden’s win. Errors in some vote tabulations, which Trump has seized upon, were “attributable to human error,’' and “did not affect the actual tabulation of votes,” the elections bureau said. That, said Christopher Thomas, an election adviser to the city of Detroit, means the canvassing board is obligated to affirm the vote. “The law doesn’t say you can decide or not — the law says if you get certified returns you go ahead and do what you’re supposed to do,” he said.

Duty or party? For Republicans, a choice on whether to enable Trump

The election of 2020 ended for Republican Party leaders a lot like the election of 2016 began: As much as they may want to move on from Donald Trump, he won’t let them — and neither will the voters.

After losing the White House to Joe Biden and the popular vote for the seventh time since 1980, and facing the possibility of once-unthinkable defeat in Arizona and Georgia, Republicans were grappling with how to untangle the man from a movement that is likely to dictate party politics for years.

Even in defeat, Republicans saw clear indicators of the enduring power of Trump-style populism. By the time Biden gave his victory speech Saturday evening, Trump had received 7.4 million more votes than he did in 2016 — 1 million more in the battleground of Florida alone. Republicans cut into the Democratic majority in the House with wins in several swing districts from Iowa to New York, where they followed Trump’s slash-and-burn playbook of branding his opponents as far-left hysterics.

No one seems to be under the illusion that Trump will fade quietly. All week, as he launched an extraordinary, baseless attack on the integrity of the election, few in his party challenged claims that he was being cheated of a victory. Privately, some began discussing the possibility that he may not concede, which would put them in the awkward position of having to choose whether to defend him until Biden’s inauguration in 2 1/2 months.

This dynamic presents a problem for the Republicans who will run for office after Trump is no longer the leader of the party — on paper, at least. In particular, Republicans in their 30s and 40s see a road map to the bigger and more diverse coalition that the party has tried to build for two decades, if they can salvage the more popular aspects of the president’s appeal to middle-class Americans while jettisoning the racial grievances he fanned.

From Senate offices, think tanks and off-the-record salons, the conversations about what’s next have grown in urgency now that the final months of the Trump presidency are at hand.

“He is sort of the king with no heirs,” said Oren Cass, executive director of American Compass, a group that hosts monthly online happy hours of Capitol Hill staff and policy experts to debate the successes and failures of the Trump agenda. Cass said Trump’s defeat sets up a clash between more conventional Republicans who, on one hand, took the attitude of “This too shall pass, and we can go back to doing to what we were doing before,” and those who think the president “called attention to a certain set of issues and voters that certainly the center-right wasn’t paying enough attention to.”

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who said he has tried to reimagine Trumpism with “a mute button” for the president, expressed a view that had taken hold among conservatives — one that would seem to rule out any reflective, autopsy-style self-assessment of how they lost.

The fact that Trump’s defeat was not the blowout critics had hoped, Rubio said, means that the anticipated repudiation of Trumpian politics was wrong. “Trump was going to get wiped out. The GOP was going to get wiped out,” he said, running through often-repeated predictions. “Meanwhile, Republicans are going to probably hold the Senate and make up to a 10-seat gain in the House.”

While Rubio said he cannot imagine a scenario in which Trump was not in the picture — “He’s not going to just vanish into a building” — the president’s strong support among Latino voters in Florida (47%) and Texas (40%) showed how the party could expand a “multiethnic, working-class coalition” that did not fit neatly inside the left-right paradigm.

Navigating the unavoidable, disruptive force that is Trump complicates an already difficult job for conservatives like Rubio, 49. First, Republicans need to persuade more voters of color that they are welcoming, despite embracing Trump and his divisive rhetoric.

They also need to demonstrate that Republicans can be the party for Americans who are struggling economically — many of whom were won over by Trump’s message — not just the party that cuts taxes for corporations and dismantles government regulations.

A “pro-worker” Republican Party, as described by the likes of Sen. Josh Hawley, 40, of Missouri, would require a sea change in the way its members tend to balk at spending when there is a Democratic president.

Hawley, like Rubio, has been vocal about the need to pass a second coronavirus relief package, breaking with Republicans who have expressed concerns about growing deficits. Some conservatives have proposed less conventional ways of appealing to voters on the party’s traditional issues like family values, paid family leave and child tax credits.

Yuval Levin, a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute who has been convening discussions with leading conservatives about the post-Trump landscape, said it would be unwise for Republicans not to embrace the pro-middle-class parts of the Trump agenda that he campaigned on in 2016 but then largely abandoned. “It’s not really even Trump’s message," Levin said. “He’s been president for four years, and his only legislative accomplishment is a perfectly traditional tax cut bill.”

If Trump did anything, Levin said, it was to shatter the notion that voters want Republicans to talk about smaller government. “A lot of people have been instinctively, reflexively saying, ‘We can’t be spending this kind of money right now.’ And I’m thinking, what voters want that? Who’s saying don’t give us money?” he said.

For starters, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. He, Nikki Haley and other Republicans who want a starring role in the party’s post-Trump reboot have revived Tea Party-like critiques of government stimulus. Earlier this year, Haley resigned from the board of Boeing after the company asked for federal aid to help weather the pandemic-induced recession. She cited her “strong convictions that this is not the role of government.”

Other conservatives say that Republicans need to accept that Trump realigned the party’s coalition away from wealthy, well-educated people in the suburbs and that they should not obsess over winning those voters back.

“We are, by and large, no longer the party of white-college graduates,” said Rachel Bovard, senior director of policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute. “That was the Reagan coalition, and the Reagan coalition doesn’t exist anymore.”

Florida provided a model for what the future could look like. Trump easily won there, two Democratic members of Congress lost their seats, and voters approved a measure to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026 — with 61% support. In a postelection memo, the Trump campaign noted how its improvement over 2016 came not from suburban or rural counties but “from larger, more urban counties.”

Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican elected twice in a heavily Democratic state, is credited with showing how his party can appeal in Black communities and with other traditionally left-leaning constituents by focusing on a middle-class message. He has one of the highest approval ratings of any governor in the country, with equal support from white and Black voters.

Unlike other Republicans, Hogan has been public in his criticism of the president and said he cast a write-in vote for Ronald Reagan. Reflecting on 2020, he argued that when Republicans look at how they lost, the answer won’t be voter fraud but rather a president who insisted on making his reelection about resentment and blame instead of how he would make the U.S. economy work for everyone. “One, he didn’t focus on the things that he ran on the first time. And he didn’t accomplish a lot for those folks,” Hogan said. “Two, the tone of anger and division turned off voters who might have been receptive to that message.”

Still, Hogan said, the election was neither a total repudiation of Trump or an embrace of Democrats. “It wasn’t a rejection of the Republican Party,” he said. “It was not an acceptance of the far-left.”

Republicans disagree on how deeply Trump has changed the party. In their most hopeful assessment, they argued that his influence was most noticeable in matters of style and tone, and that was not permanent. Dwindling are the days, some said, of Republican candidates bringing cardboard cutouts of Trump to campaign events, cursing in their ads and competing for the honor to claim they first embodied his belligerent style as someone who was “Trump before Trump.”

“We’ve got to figure out again how to be happy warriors like Reagan,” said Scott Walker, the former governor of Wisconsin who lost his seat in the Democratic rebound of 2018. He is now chief executive of Young America’s Foundation, where he is focused on college students, a group that has recoiled from the Republican Party under Trump.

Republicans, he said, need to do a better job of settling on a message that is more inclusive and begins “with the premise that even those you disagree can be inherently good.” 
&nbsp;

The election of 2020 ended for Republican Party leaders a lot like the election of 2016 began: As much as they may want to move on from Donald Trump, he won’t let them — and neither will the voters.

The election of 2020 ended for Republican Party leaders a lot like the election of 2016 began: As much as they may want to move on from Donald Trump, he won’t let them — and neither will the voters. After losing the White House to Joe Biden and the popular vote for the seventh time since 1980, and facing the possibility of once-unthinkable defeat in Arizona and Georgia, Republicans were grappling with how to untangle the man from a movement that is likely to dictate party politics for years. Even in defeat, Republicans saw clear indicators of the enduring power of Trump-style populism. By the time Biden gave his victory speech Saturday evening, Trump had received 7.4 million more votes than he did in 2016 — 1 million more in the battleground of Florida alone. Republicans cut into the Democratic majority in the House with wins in several swing districts from Iowa to New York, where they followed Trump’s slash-and-burn playbook of branding his opponents as far-left hysterics. No one seems to be under the illusion that Trump will fade quietly. All week, as he launched an extraordinary, baseless attack on the integrity of the election, few in his party challenged claims that he was being cheated of a victory. Privately, some began discussing the possibility that he may not concede, which would put them in the awkward position of having to choose whether to defend him until Biden’s inauguration in 2 1/2 months. This dynamic presents a problem for the Republicans who will run for office after Trump is no longer the leader of the party — on paper, at least. In particular, Republicans in their 30s and 40s see a road map to the bigger and more diverse coalition that the party has tried to build for two decades, if they can salvage the more popular aspects of the president’s appeal to middle-class Americans while jettisoning the racial grievances he fanned. From Senate offices, think tanks and off-the-record salons, the conversations about what’s next have grown in urgency now that the final months of the Trump presidency are at hand. “He is sort of the king with no heirs,” said Oren Cass, executive director of American Compass, a group that hosts monthly online happy hours of Capitol Hill staff and policy experts to debate the successes and failures of the Trump agenda. Cass said Trump’s defeat sets up a clash between more conventional Republicans who, on one hand, took the attitude of “This too shall pass, and we can go back to doing to what we were doing before,” and those who think the president “called attention to a certain set of issues and voters that certainly the center-right wasn’t paying enough attention to.” Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who said he has tried to reimagine Trumpism with “a mute button” for the president, expressed a view that had taken hold among conservatives — one that would seem to rule out any reflective, autopsy-style self-assessment of how they lost. The fact that Trump’s defeat was not the blowout critics had hoped, Rubio said, means that the anticipated repudiation of Trumpian politics was wrong. “Trump was going to get wiped out. The GOP was going to get wiped out,” he said, running through often-repeated predictions. “Meanwhile, Republicans are going to probably hold the Senate and make up to a 10-seat gain in the House.” While Rubio said he cannot imagine a scenario in which Trump was not in the picture — “He’s not going to just vanish into a building” — the president’s strong support among Latino voters in Florida (47%) and Texas (40%) showed how the party could expand a “multiethnic, working-class coalition” that did not fit neatly inside the left-right paradigm. Navigating the unavoidable, disruptive force that is Trump complicates an already difficult job for conservatives like Rubio, 49. First, Republicans need to persuade more voters of color that they are welcoming, despite embracing Trump and his divisive rhetoric. They also need to demonstrate that Republicans can be the party for Americans who are struggling economically — many of whom were won over by Trump’s message — not just the party that cuts taxes for corporations and dismantles government regulations. A “pro-worker” Republican Party, as described by the likes of Sen. Josh Hawley, 40, of Missouri, would require a sea change in the way its members tend to balk at spending when there is a Democratic president. Hawley, like Rubio, has been vocal about the need to pass a second coronavirus relief package, breaking with Republicans who have expressed concerns about growing deficits. Some conservatives have proposed less conventional ways of appealing to voters on the party’s traditional issues like family values, paid family leave and child tax credits. Yuval Levin, a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute who has been convening discussions with leading conservatives about the post-Trump landscape, said it would be unwise for Republicans not to embrace the pro-middle-class parts of the Trump agenda that he campaigned on in 2016 but then largely abandoned. “It’s not really even Trump’s message," Levin said. “He’s been president for four years, and his only legislative accomplishment is a perfectly traditional tax cut bill.” If Trump did anything, Levin said, it was to shatter the notion that voters want Republicans to talk about smaller government. “A lot of people have been instinctively, reflexively saying, ‘We can’t be spending this kind of money right now.’ And I’m thinking, what voters want that? Who’s saying don’t give us money?” he said. For starters, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. He, Nikki Haley and other Republicans who want a starring role in the party’s post-Trump reboot have revived Tea Party-like critiques of government stimulus. Earlier this year, Haley resigned from the board of Boeing after the company asked for federal aid to help weather the pandemic-induced recession. She cited her “strong convictions that this is not the role of government.” Other conservatives say that Republicans need to accept that Trump realigned the party’s coalition away from wealthy, well-educated people in the suburbs and that they should not obsess over winning those voters back. “We are, by and large, no longer the party of white-college graduates,” said Rachel Bovard, senior director of policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute. “That was the Reagan coalition, and the Reagan coalition doesn’t exist anymore.” Florida provided a model for what the future could look like. Trump easily won there, two Democratic members of Congress lost their seats, and voters approved a measure to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026 — with 61% support. In a postelection memo, the Trump campaign noted how its improvement over 2016 came not from suburban or rural counties but “from larger, more urban counties.” Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican elected twice in a heavily Democratic state, is credited with showing how his party can appeal in Black communities and with other traditionally left-leaning constituents by focusing on a middle-class message. He has one of the highest approval ratings of any governor in the country, with equal support from white and Black voters. Unlike other Republicans, Hogan has been public in his criticism of the president and said he cast a write-in vote for Ronald Reagan. Reflecting on 2020, he argued that when Republicans look at how they lost, the answer won’t be voter fraud but rather a president who insisted on making his reelection about resentment and blame instead of how he would make the U.S. economy work for everyone. “One, he didn’t focus on the things that he ran on the first time. And he didn’t accomplish a lot for those folks,” Hogan said. “Two, the tone of anger and division turned off voters who might have been receptive to that message.” Still, Hogan said, the election was neither a total repudiation of Trump or an embrace of Democrats. “It wasn’t a rejection of the Republican Party,” he said. “It was not an acceptance of the far-left.” Republicans disagree on how deeply Trump has changed the party. In their most hopeful assessment, they argued that his influence was most noticeable in matters of style and tone, and that was not permanent. Dwindling are the days, some said, of Republican candidates bringing cardboard cutouts of Trump to campaign events, cursing in their ads and competing for the honor to claim they first embodied his belligerent style as someone who was “Trump before Trump.” “We’ve got to figure out again how to be happy warriors like Reagan,” said Scott Walker, the former governor of Wisconsin who lost his seat in the Democratic rebound of 2018. He is now chief executive of Young America’s Foundation, where he is focused on college students, a group that has recoiled from the Republican Party under Trump. Republicans, he said, need to do a better job of settling on a message that is more inclusive and begins “with the premise that even those you disagree can be inherently good.”

Trump lost the race. But Republicans know it's still his party.

Jennifer Lawrence created headlines last week when she revealed that she supported the Democrats despite hailing from a family of Republicans. On Tuesday, the actress took to Twitter to reveal that how she grew up in a Republican household and changed her political standing during Barack Obama's tenure as President of the United States.&nbsp; 
 
"I would like to clarify my voting record, which is the subject of many circulating headlines," she tweeted. "I grew up in a Republican family and voted for John McCain in 2008, but through Obama`s presidency, and growing up to realize I was voting against my own rights, I am proud to say I am a Democrat #Obama #HRC #BidenHarris," she added.&nbsp;

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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Obama?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Obama</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HRC</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BidenHarris?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BidenHarris</a> <a href="https://t.co/UgAoPhgZJV">pic.twitter.com/UgAoPhgZJV</a>
— Jennifer Lawrence - Represent.Us (@JLawrence_RepUs) <a href="https://twitter.com/JLawrence_RepUs/status/1321141203228766208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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For the upcoming US presidential election, Lawrence is casting her ballot for Democratic Party`s candidate Joe Biden.&nbsp;

During her chat on `Absolutely Not,` the Oscar-winning actor said that she understood "the fiscal benefits of the Republican policies," but found that "the social issues weren`t in line with" her own beliefs. 
 
Lawrence had also said that she found former President Barack Obama`s presidency to be tamer in comparison to Donald Trump led current administration. 
&nbsp;

Jennifer Lawrence created headlines last week when she revealed that she supported the Democrats despite hailing from a family of Republicans. On Tuesday, the actress took to Twitter to reveal that how she grew up in a Republican household and changed her political standing during Barack Obama's tenure as President of the United States.

Jennifer Lawrence created headlines last week when she revealed that she supported the Democrats despite hailing from a family of Republicans. On Tuesday, the actress took to Twitter to reveal that how she grew up in a Republican household and changed her political standing during Barack Obama's tenure as President of the United States. "I would like to clarify my voting record, which is the subject of many circulating headlines," she tweeted. "I grew up in a Republican family and voted for John McCain in 2008, but through Obama`s presidency, and growing up to realize I was voting against my own rights, I am proud to say I am a Democrat #Obama #HRC #BidenHarris," she added. #Obama #HRC #BidenHarris pic.twitter.com/UgAoPhgZJV — Jennifer Lawrence - Represent.Us (@JLawrence_RepUs) October 27, 2020 × For the upcoming US presidential election, Lawrence is casting her ballot for Democratic Party`s candidate Joe Biden. During her chat on `Absolutely Not,` the Oscar-winning actor said that she understood "the fiscal benefits of the Republican policies," but found that "the social issues weren`t in line with" her own beliefs. Lawrence had also said that she found former President Barack Obama`s presidency to be tamer in comparison to Donald Trump led current administration.

Jennifer Lawrence says she has been voting against her own rights as a Republican

Coronavirus has taken US political circles by storm ever since US President Donald Trump was found to be positive for infection. Trump, who notoriously played down coronavirus pandemic in the initial stages of its outbreak in the US has become a target of criticism as well as jokes.

But another amusing incident took place on Saturday as a Senator declared on national television that he was coronavirus positive, only to retract his statement later.

His defense? He said he 'misspoke' on TV.

On Saturday morning, Rick Scott, the Republican Senator from Florida said during his interview on Fox News that he was positive.

"I was tested yesterday, I think for the 6th time, and I tested positive again," he said during the interview.

However he later took to Twitter to clarify.

"I misspoke this morning in my @FoxNews interview. I was tested yesterday for COVID and tested NEGATIVE," read the tweet.

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I misspoke this morning in my <a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FoxNews</a> interview. I was tested yesterday for COVID and tested NEGATIVE.
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1312406170594926593?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2020</a></blockquote>
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At least three Republican colleagues US Senators Mike Lee of Utah, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin have been diagnosed with the virus in recent days. A few moments before he misspoke, Scott had said that senators were still doing their jobs.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-having-trouble-breathing-at-hospital-report-332269">Trump having 'trouble breathing' at hospital: Report</a>

"They're talking to people. They're trying to do their job every day," Scott said.

A short time later, Scott's spokesman, Chris Hartline, tweeted, ?For everyone calling and texting right now, Senator Scott misspoke on tv this morning. He tested negative for COVID yesterday." 
&nbsp;

Coronavirus has taken US political circles by storm ever since US President Donald Trump was found to be positive for infection. Trump, who notoriously played down coronavirus pandemic in the initial stages of its outbreak in the US has become a target of criticism as well as jokes.

Coronavirus has taken US political circles by storm ever since US President Donald Trump was found to be positive for infection. Trump, who notoriously played down coronavirus pandemic in the initial stages of its outbreak in the US has become a target of criticism as well as jokes. But another amusing incident took place on Saturday as a Senator declared on national television that he was coronavirus positive, only to retract his statement later. His defense? He said he 'misspoke' on TV. On Saturday morning, Rick Scott, the Republican Senator from Florida said during his interview on Fox News that he was positive. "I was tested yesterday, I think for the 6th time, and I tested positive again," he said during the interview. However he later took to Twitter to clarify. "I misspoke this morning in my @FoxNews interview. I was tested yesterday for COVID and tested NEGATIVE," read the tweet. I misspoke this morning in my @FoxNews interview. I was tested yesterday for COVID and tested NEGATIVE. — Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) October 3, 2020 × At least three Republican colleagues US Senators Mike Lee of Utah, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin have been diagnosed with the virus in recent days. A few moments before he misspoke, Scott had said that senators were still doing their jobs. Also Read | Trump having 'trouble breathing' at hospital: Report "They're talking to people. They're trying to do their job every day," Scott said. A short time later, Scott's spokesman, Chris Hartline, tweeted, ?For everyone calling and texting right now, Senator Scott misspoke on tv this morning. He tested negative for COVID yesterday."

Florida senator declares he's COVID-19 positive, says later he 'misspoke'

Florida's attorney general is calling for a probe into billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's fundraising of nearly $20 million to help convicted felons vote in the key swing state.

The magnate has separately pledged millions geared toward rallying Latino voters in Florida, saying they "will play a critical role in the election."

"President Trump has fueled division in our country including through his relentless attacks on the Hispanic community," said Bloomberg, 78, an independent who has thrown his financial weight behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden after a dismal run for the presidency earlier this year.

The pro-Biden organization "Priorities USA" on Thursday said the ex-mayor had given it $6 million to campaign among the Latino electorate, a group that in Florida often skews right given the strong presence of anti-Communist voters of Cuban origin.&nbsp;

That sum is a small part of some $100 million the media mogul said he was ready to spend in the southeastern state, which is home to more than 21 million people.

On Wednesday, the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition — an organization working to re-enfranchise former convicts — said it had received some $20 million, much of it raised by Bloomberg's network, to help previously incarcerated citizens pay fines and fees in order to reestablish their rights to vote.

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According to The New York Times, Bloomberg raised some $16 million of that sum.

Some 800,000 people — the majority black or Latino — are prevented from voting because Florida law says they must first repay their debts to the state.&nbsp;

The rules stem from a law signed in 2019 by Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, a Trump supporter.&nbsp;

Bloomberg's foray into the Florida campaign seems to have left many Republicans in the vital electoral state with a bad taste.

Florida's top prosecutor, Republican Ashley Moody, said she would launch a probe into whether any potential campaign violations would occur from the donations made to the organization supporting the voting rights of ex-convicts.

"This transparent political ploy is just the latest example of Republicans attempting to keep Floridians disenfranchised," a Bloomberg spokesperson responded in a statement to AFP.

For years Florida has been a key state in US presidential votes: Victory margins are often within less than a percentage point, and Bloomberg's move to help former felons could play a decisive role. &nbsp;

Current polling suggests Trump needs to win the state to stay in power.

Florida's attorney general is calling for a probe into billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's fundraising of nearly $20 million to help convicted felons vote in the key swing state.

Florida's attorney general is calling for a probe into billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's fundraising of nearly $20 million to help convicted felons vote in the key swing state. The magnate has separately pledged millions geared toward rallying Latino voters in Florida, saying they "will play a critical role in the election." "President Trump has fueled division in our country including through his relentless attacks on the Hispanic community," said Bloomberg, 78, an independent who has thrown his financial weight behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden after a dismal run for the presidency earlier this year. The pro-Biden organization "Priorities USA" on Thursday said the ex-mayor had given it $6 million to campaign among the Latino electorate, a group that in Florida often skews right given the strong presence of anti-Communist voters of Cuban origin. That sum is a small part of some $100 million the media mogul said he was ready to spend in the southeastern state, which is home to more than 21 million people. On Wednesday, the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition — an organization working to re-enfranchise former convicts — said it had received some $20 million, much of it raised by Bloomberg's network, to help previously incarcerated citizens pay fines and fees in order to reestablish their rights to vote. × According to The New York Times, Bloomberg raised some $16 million of that sum. Some 800,000 people — the majority black or Latino — are prevented from voting because Florida law says they must first repay their debts to the state. The rules stem from a law signed in 2019 by Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, a Trump supporter. Bloomberg's foray into the Florida campaign seems to have left many Republicans in the vital electoral state with a bad taste. Florida's top prosecutor, Republican Ashley Moody, said she would launch a probe into whether any potential campaign violations would occur from the donations made to the organization supporting the voting rights of ex-convicts. "This transparent political ploy is just the latest example of Republicans attempting to keep Floridians disenfranchised," a Bloomberg spokesperson responded in a statement to AFP. For years Florida has been a key state in US presidential votes: Victory margins are often within less than a percentage point, and Bloomberg's move to help former felons could play a decisive role. Current polling suggests Trump needs to win the state to stay in power.

Michael Bloomberg's fundraising for Florida ex-convicts draws scrutiny

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he might give his acceptance speech for the second term nomination from the White House. It is seen as a breach of longtime tradition.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he might give his acceptance speech for the second term nomination from the White House. It is seen as a breach of longtime tradition. Also read: China says US cabinet visit to Taiwan 'endangering peace' In an interview with the Fox News, Trump said: "We're thinking about it. It would be the easiest from the standpoint of security." The speech is set to be held on August 27. This will be the biggest formal moment in Trump's campaign for a second term in office. Initially, the event was to take place in Charlotte, North Carolina which was to witness mass gatherings of Republic Party members. But the plan was scrapped due to surge in coronavirus in the state resulting in a lockdown. The bid to restage the event at a new location in Florida also met with the same fate. According to the rule, incumbent presidents are required to separate their campaigning from taxpayer-funded governing and holding the acceptance speech in the White House will breach the code. Trump said on Fox News that logistics and costs were his primary concern. "It's a very big operation," he said. "We're thinking about doing it from the White House because there's no movement. It's easy. And I think it's a beautiful setting." It's "by far the least expensive from the country standpoint," he said. Trump, however, added that "if for some reason if someone had difficulty with it, I could go somewhere else." Republican delegates are set to meet in a scaled-back session in Charlotte to nominate Trump on August 24. (Inputs from AFP)

Donald Trump might give his acceptance speech for second term nomination from the White House

President Donald Trump's Republican lawmaker, Louie Gohmert has tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday. &nbsp;

Gohmert, who made a habit of walking around the Congress without a mask, was prepared to leave for his native Texas with Donald Trump.&nbsp;

House Democrats were angered by the news and urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to order the wearing of masks on the chamber floor -- with the punishment of removal for anyone disobeying.

The 66-year-old lawmaker was asymptomatic and downplayed his diagnosis.

He has worn a mask in recent weeks and has said on Wednesday that moving it around on his face because it is uncomfortable "puts some germs in the mask" and maybe this caused his infection.

Gohmert was tested in the White House as he was to accompany Trump in a visit to Texas.&nbsp;

"So I'm asymptomatic, I don't have any of the symptoms that are listed as part of COVID-19, but apparently I have the Wuhan virus," Gohmert said in a video using a term that angers China.

According to Gohmert, he has worn the mask more in the last week or two than in all of the past four months (when the pandemic began). He added that he wore a mask during Tuesday's hearing with Barr also. However, he was seen without it a few times during the hearing and was seen walking and talking with Barr.

"Wear a damn mask," said Democratic representative Jennifer Wexton from Virginia.

"I don't know who needs to hear this, but if you're a Member of Congress who refuses to wear a mask on Capitol Hill, you're not only putting your colleagues at risk -- you're endangering the staff who works here, including many of my constituents," she said.

(Inputs from AFP)

President Donald Trump's Republican lawmaker, Louie Gohmert has tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday. Gohmert, who made a habit of walking around the Congress without a mask, was prepared to leave for his native Texas with Donald Trump.

President Donald Trump's Republican lawmaker, Louie Gohmert has tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday. Gohmert, who made a habit of walking around the Congress without a mask, was prepared to leave for his native Texas with Donald Trump. House Democrats were angered by the news and urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to order the wearing of masks on the chamber floor -- with the punishment of removal for anyone disobeying. The 66-year-old lawmaker was asymptomatic and downplayed his diagnosis. He has worn a mask in recent weeks and has said on Wednesday that moving it around on his face because it is uncomfortable "puts some germs in the mask" and maybe this caused his infection. Gohmert was tested in the White House as he was to accompany Trump in a visit to Texas. "So I'm asymptomatic, I don't have any of the symptoms that are listed as part of COVID-19, but apparently I have the Wuhan virus," Gohmert said in a video using a term that angers China. According to Gohmert, he has worn the mask more in the last week or two than in all of the past four months (when the pandemic began). He added that he wore a mask during Tuesday's hearing with Barr also. However, he was seen without it a few times during the hearing and was seen walking and talking with Barr. "Wear a damn mask," said Democratic representative Jennifer Wexton from Virginia. "I don't know who needs to hear this, but if you're a Member of Congress who refuses to wear a mask on Capitol Hill, you're not only putting your colleagues at risk -- you're endangering the staff who works here, including many of my constituents," she said. (Inputs from AFP)

Lawmaker Louie Gohmert tests positive for COVID-19 ahead of his visit to Texas with Donald Trump

Trump's party has come out in support of the US President Donald Trump and has accused Twitter of being biased against conservatives.

Two US&nbsp;Republican lawmakers on Wednesday accused Twitter of being biased against conservatives. The lawmakers&nbsp;Jim Jordan and James Sensenbrenner have accused Twitter of not keeping content moderation as neutral and has alleged that the social media platform is more harsh towards&nbsp;the conservatives.

They have demanded information about the social media platform's reactions to two tweets by President Donald Trump.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/technology/facebook-boycott-leaders-disappointed-after-meeting-with-ceo-zuckerberg-311586">Also watch:&nbsp;Facebook boycott leaders 'disappointed' after meeting with CEO Zuckerberg</a>

The lawmakers specifically&nbsp;raised concerns on Twitter's reaction on Trump's tweet where he claimed to&nbsp;use "serious force" to keep protesters from creating an autonomous zone in Washington, D.C. Twitter had attached a warning message with the tweet stating that the content&nbsp;violated a policy against abusive behavior.

The other tweet they highlighted was where Trump's tweet was published with a warning message claiming the tweet, establishing a possible link between mailed ballots and voter fraud,&nbsp;could confuse voters.

"Twitter’s discrimination against conservative voices is extremely alarming. These actions give rise to concerns that the company is systematically engaged in the disparate treatment of political speech and is deceiving users of the platform by not uniformly applying its terms of service," they wrote in a letter to Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter.

They also accused a Twitter official of using&nbsp;using insulting language to talk about the president and a White House official. However, they did not name the official.

Twitter has acknowledged the letter, but has not issued a reply to the same.

Trump's party has come out in support of the US President Donald Trump and has accused Twitter of being biased against conservatives. Two US Republican lawmakers on Wednesday accused Twitter of being biased against conservatives.

Trump's party has come out in support of the US President Donald Trump and has accused Twitter of being biased against conservatives. Two US Republican lawmakers on Wednesday accused Twitter of being biased against conservatives. The lawmakers Jim Jordan and James Sensenbrenner have accused Twitter of not keeping content moderation as neutral and has alleged that the social media platform is more harsh towards the conservatives. They have demanded information about the social media platform's reactions to two tweets by President Donald Trump. Also watch: Facebook boycott leaders 'disappointed' after meeting with CEO Zuckerberg The lawmakers specifically raised concerns on Twitter's reaction on Trump's tweet where he claimed to use "serious force" to keep protesters from creating an autonomous zone in Washington, D.C. Twitter had attached a warning message with the tweet stating that the content violated a policy against abusive behavior. The other tweet they highlighted was where Trump's tweet was published with a warning message claiming the tweet, establishing a possible link between mailed ballots and voter fraud, could confuse voters. "Twitter’s discrimination against conservative voices is extremely alarming. These actions give rise to concerns that the company is systematically engaged in the disparate treatment of political speech and is deceiving users of the platform by not uniformly applying its terms of service," they wrote in a letter to Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter. They also accused a Twitter official of using using insulting language to talk about the president and a White House official. However, they did not name the official. Twitter has acknowledged the letter, but has not issued a reply to the same.

Republican lawmakers accuse Twitter of being biased against conservatives

The United States is first, it has surpassed all other nations but not in a good way. The Trump administration is successfully failing in the coronavirus battle.

The United States is first, it has surpassed all other nations but not in a good way. The Trump administration is successfully failing in the coronavirus battle. America is first in the death toll with more than 30,000 lives lost. It is first in the number of active cases with 639,000 and counting. It is first in cascading job losses with 20 million people have sought unemployment benefits as of last week. A "Trump-made disaster". The pandemic in the United States has been a deliberate disaster from the very beginning. Protesters from Lansing, Michigan with most of them being Trump supporters are marching in thousands, placards that praise Donald Trump. Masks and gloves have been replaced by flags and rifles. Do you know what these people are protesting against? Social distancing, reducing interactions and the Michigan governor who has decided to extend the lockdown. The effectiveness of measures to contain the virus is being used as a rationale for revoking these measures. Do you know what this is according to the US President? A mutiny. Trump took to Twitter and said: "Tell the democrat governors that mutiny on the bounty was one of my all-time favourite movies. A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch." Tell the Democrat Governors that “Mutiny On The Bounty” was one of my all time favorite movies. A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain. Too easy! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 14, 2020 × On the contrary, the country has recorded its highest ever spike in the death toll with more than 2,600 people deaths in the last 24 hours. The US government gave a $3.7 million grant --- to the Wuhan lab accused of allegedly leaking this virus. The Chinese lab at the centre of coronavirus scrutiny was using American money to research bats and pangolins. There are countless reports to back this.The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a government agency awarded this grant to the lab. Matt Gaetz, Trump's fellow Republican and a Congressman from Florida himself has confessed to it. He said that for years, American taxpayers were unknowingly funding experiments at this lab that may have caused this pandemic. Did Donald Trump know about this? That is a question to be asked. Trump's coronavirus "game-changer", hydroxychloroquine has been called "dangerous" by the CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency is by far the most powerful intelligence body in the world. It has warned its employees against using hydroxychloroquine. The warning was reportedly published on a website for the CIA staff. "At this point, the drug is not recommended to be used by patients." "It is part of ongoing investigational studies." "There are potentially significant side effects, including sudden cardiac death." US Senators could be using crucial coronavirus briefings to make stock decisions. Senator Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler -- both Republicans ---- have been accused of trading stocks after receiving private briefings about the virus. How is it problematic? Because Senators are powerful people. They receive and have access to information not everybody has. They cannot and must not use this information for an unfair advantage at the stock market... The US Justice Department has launched an investigation --- so has the FBI. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), America's biggest professional wrestling company. It hails nearly $1 billion in annual revenue. Its chairman, Vince McMahon is said to be an old friend of the US president. He has been listed as an advisor to restart the US economy. On April 9, the wrestling company has been declared an 'essential service' amid the coronavirus lockdown and within 24 hours of it being declared essential by Florida governor Ron Desantis. The wife of the chairman of this company. Linda McMahon made a political donation of 20 million dollars to help re-elect Donald Trump. WWE live-shows are still on despite one of its performers catching the virus. This has been Donald Trump's approach to the coronavirus crisis and his defenders may disagree.

Trump administration fails to cope as COVID-19 pandemic takes heavy toll

US&nbsp;President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/michael-bloomberg-and-donald-trump-two-men-to-watch-in-us-election-280746">Donald Trump</a> on Friday said he has "the legal right" to interfere in criminal cases, capping a tumultuous week that raised questions about whether he is eroding the independence of the US&nbsp;legal system.

Trump's criticism of the judge, jury and prosecutors in the criminal case of his longtime adviser Roger Stone prompted an unusual rebuke from Attorney General <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-attorney-general-william-barr-refuses-to-testify-before-house-judiciary-committee-on-mueller-report-215205">William Barr</a>, his top law enforcement official, and spurred new demands for investigation from the Democrats who unsuccessfully tried to remove the Republican president from office.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/michael-bloomberg-and-donald-trump-two-men-to-watch-in-us-election-280746">Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump: Two men to watch in US election</a>

It was the latest in a string of aggressive actions by Trump since the Republican-controlled Senate acquitted him of impeachment charges last week.

Trump has transferred or fired government officials who testified about his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate a potential political rival in November's presidential election.

He also dropped his nomination of former US&nbsp;Attorney Jessie Liu, who oversaw the Stone case, for another government post in the Treasury Department.

Sources close to the president said Trump has a greater sense of freedom following his Senate acquittal.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/donald-trump-takes-impeachment-victory-lap-over-vicious-democrats-279141">Donald Trump takes impeachment victory lap over 'vicious' Democrats</a>

"You have to remember, he's not 'of' government. He gets frustrated when people tell him something can't get done. He's like: 'Just get it done,'" said one administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Barr has privately told Trump for "some time" that his public statements were making it hard for him to run the Justice Department effectively, according to a source familiar with the matter.

He went public on Thursday, telling ABC News that Trump's attacks made it "impossible" for him to do his job. "It's time to stop the tweeting," he said.

Trump "has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case," Barr added.

The president responded on Friday morning.&nbsp;

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“The President has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case.” A.G. Barr This doesn’t mean that I do not have, as President, the legal right to do so, I do, but I have so far chosen not to!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1228311415192215553?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Administration officials said Barr did not clear his remarks with Trump. They said Trump shrugged them off when told about them by aides.

Trump's insistence that he has the right to interfere in criminal cases runs counter to the practice of previous US&nbsp;presidents, who have generally kept an arms-length distance from the Justice Department since the Watergate scandal of the 1970s that led then-President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trumps-behaviour-worse-than-nixon-head-of-impeachment-probe-263752">Richard Nixon</a> to resign from office.

"Trump goes farther than Nixon, though. He's proud to openly corrupt the justice system and use it to target his enemies and protect his friends," Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said in a prepared statement.

Also read: Trump's behaviour worse than Nixon: Head of impeachment probe

Trump's running commentary on the Stone case calls into question whether Barr can oversee US&nbsp;law enforcement in an independent manner, said Bruce Green, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at Fordham School of Law.

"Given the sequence of events, it's doubtful that Barr's effort to distance himself from the president's tweets will be enough of a cure," Green told Reuters.

Barr has been an outspoken defender of the president and has aggressively sought to implement his agenda, frequently drawing charges from Democrats and former Justice Department officials that he is politicizing the rule of law.

The Justice Department on Tuesday asked for a lighter sentence for Stone, scaling back prosecutors' initial request that he serve 7 to 9 years after being found guilty of lying to Congress, obstruction and witness tampering. That prompted all four prosecutors to resign from the case in apparent protest.

On Friday, Barr appointed an outside prosecutor to review the criminal case against Michael Flynn, another former Trump adviser who awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.

Barr has also ordered an investigation into the Obama administration's activities in 2016 as it examined possible ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign, and has gone after states and cities that have adopted "sanctuary" policies to protect unauthorized immigrants from deportation.

Barr's Justice Department sought to quash the whistleblower complaint about Trump's effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden, which led to the president's impeachment.

He confirmed earlier this week that the department is taking evidence from Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who has been seeking information in Ukraine about Biden.

Democrats who control the House of Representatives called for Barr to testify next month over the matter and asked the department's watchdog to investigate but have little other recourse.

Like Barr, Trump's Republican allies in Congress have said they wish he would be less outspoken on Twitter, even as they have consistently defended his actions.

The Senate on Thursday sought to impose some restrictions on Trump, voting to limit his ability to wage war with Iran and questioning whether one of his nominees is qualified to serve on the board of the Federal Reserve.

Meanwhile, the president has moved to rebuild his staff with those he sees as loyalists, including former communication director Hope Hicks, who worked closely with Trump in his business before serving as his 2016 campaign press secretary.

He also rehired his former personal assistant Johnny McEntee to lead his personnel office, who sources say will be tasked with ensuring that new hires are loyal to the president.

Trump is about to launch a week of re-election activities, starting with a fundraising dinner on Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

On Sunday, he will seek to appeal to blue-collar voters by attending the Daytona 500 NASCAR race, where he will be named the grand marshal, the first president to have that distinction.

On Tuesday he goes on a three-day swing through California, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado.

US President Donald Trump on Friday said he has "the legal right" to interfere in criminal cases, capping a tumultuous week that raised questions about whether he is eroding the independence of the US legal system.

US President Donald Trump on Friday said he has "the legal right" to interfere in criminal cases, capping a tumultuous week that raised questions about whether he is eroding the independence of the US legal system. Trump's criticism of the judge, jury and prosecutors in the criminal case of his longtime adviser Roger Stone prompted an unusual rebuke from Attorney General William Barr, his top law enforcement official, and spurred new demands for investigation from the Democrats who unsuccessfully tried to remove the Republican president from office. Also read: Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump: Two men to watch in US election It was the latest in a string of aggressive actions by Trump since the Republican-controlled Senate acquitted him of impeachment charges last week. Trump has transferred or fired government officials who testified about his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate a potential political rival in November's presidential election. He also dropped his nomination of former US Attorney Jessie Liu, who oversaw the Stone case, for another government post in the Treasury Department. Sources close to the president said Trump has a greater sense of freedom following his Senate acquittal. Also read: Donald Trump takes impeachment victory lap over 'vicious' Democrats "You have to remember, he's not 'of' government. He gets frustrated when people tell him something can't get done. He's like: 'Just get it done,'" said one administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Barr has privately told Trump for "some time" that his public statements were making it hard for him to run the Justice Department effectively, according to a source familiar with the matter. He went public on Thursday, telling ABC News that Trump's attacks made it "impossible" for him to do his job. "It's time to stop the tweeting," he said. Trump "has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case," Barr added. The president responded on Friday morning. “The President has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case.” A.G. Barr This doesn’t mean that I do not have, as President, the legal right to do so, I do, but I have so far chosen not to! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 14, 2020 × Administration officials said Barr did not clear his remarks with Trump. They said Trump shrugged them off when told about them by aides. Trump's insistence that he has the right to interfere in criminal cases runs counter to the practice of previous US presidents, who have generally kept an arms-length distance from the Justice Department since the Watergate scandal of the 1970s that led then-President Richard Nixon to resign from office. "Trump goes farther than Nixon, though. He's proud to openly corrupt the justice system and use it to target his enemies and protect his friends," Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said in a prepared statement. Also read: Trump's behaviour worse than Nixon: Head of impeachment probe Trump's running commentary on the Stone case calls into question whether Barr can oversee US law enforcement in an independent manner, said Bruce Green, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at Fordham School of Law. "Given the sequence of events, it's doubtful that Barr's effort to distance himself from the president's tweets will be enough of a cure," Green told Reuters. Barr has been an outspoken defender of the president and has aggressively sought to implement his agenda, frequently drawing charges from Democrats and former Justice Department officials that he is politicizing the rule of law. The Justice Department on Tuesday asked for a lighter sentence for Stone, scaling back prosecutors' initial request that he serve 7 to 9 years after being found guilty of lying to Congress, obstruction and witness tampering. That prompted all four prosecutors to resign from the case in apparent protest. On Friday, Barr appointed an outside prosecutor to review the criminal case against Michael Flynn, another former Trump adviser who awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI. Barr has also ordered an investigation into the Obama administration's activities in 2016 as it examined possible ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign, and has gone after states and cities that have adopted "sanctuary" policies to protect unauthorized immigrants from deportation. Barr's Justice Department sought to quash the whistleblower complaint about Trump's effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden, which led to the president's impeachment. He confirmed earlier this week that the department is taking evidence from Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who has been seeking information in Ukraine about Biden. Democrats who control the House of Representatives called for Barr to testify next month over the matter and asked the department's watchdog to investigate but have little other recourse. Like Barr, Trump's Republican allies in Congress have said they wish he would be less outspoken on Twitter, even as they have consistently defended his actions. The Senate on Thursday sought to impose some restrictions on Trump, voting to limit his ability to wage war with Iran and questioning whether one of his nominees is qualified to serve on the board of the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, the president has moved to rebuild his staff with those he sees as loyalists, including former communication director Hope Hicks, who worked closely with Trump in his business before serving as his 2016 campaign press secretary. He also rehired his former personal assistant Johnny McEntee to lead his personnel office, who sources say will be tasked with ensuring that new hires are loyal to the president. Trump is about to launch a week of re-election activities, starting with a fundraising dinner on Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. On Sunday, he will seek to appeal to blue-collar voters by attending the Daytona 500 NASCAR race, where he will be named the grand marshal, the first president to have that distinction. On Tuesday he goes on a three-day swing through California, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado.

Emboldened, Donald Trump defends right to interfere in criminal cases

After months of back-and-forth, United States President Donald Trump was recently acquitted of all charges. Earlier, Trump was impeached in the House, but this trajectory failed to hold its ground in the Senate, where the majority is Republicans, who voted to protect him. All this happened in the backdrop of the US going to elections in nine months.

Trump, a former businessman, became the third president in US history to survive an impeachment trial.

<h6><img alt="ppp" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="440b4a8d-884b-4fe9-9bd3-7159f1145ec0" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Untitled%20design%20%287%29_19.jpg" /> 
The presidential limo waits for US&nbsp;President Donald Trump in front of the White House before the State of the Union address in Washington, US, February 4, 2020 | Reuters 
&nbsp;</h6>

On December 18, Donald Trump was charged with two articles of impeachment including abuse of power and the obstruction of Congress. The voting in the Senate happened mostly along party lines, as it earlier did in the Democratic majority House of Representatives.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/donald-trump-blasts-new-york-city-for-protecting-alien-who-killed-a-92-year-old-woman-278791" hreflang="en">Donald Trump blasts New York City for protecting 'alien' who killed a 92-year-old woman</a> 
 
"President Trump has been totally vindicated and it's now time to get back to the business of the American people," Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said.

To be impeached in the Senate, Donald Trump required two-thirds majority in the 100-seat Senate, as per the US Constitution.

In the Senate, the call was close, as 52 people chose to acquit him, while 48 people voted in favour of the impeachment charge of abusing power.&nbsp;

The Democrats had accused Trump of abusing power by requesting Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, Trump's Democratic rival. Mitt Romney was the only Republican Senator who voted to convict Trump on this charge, alongside the Democrats, none of whom voted to acquit.

<h6><img alt="hhhh" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="761d46d9-cdb9-466b-96a2-a76ac5140c79" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Untitled%20design%20%288%29_19.jpg" /> 
This still image taken from a US Senate webcast shows House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) during the impeachment trial in the Senate Chamber at the US Capitol on February 3, 2020 in Washington, DC | AFP 
&nbsp;</h6>

On the other charge of obstruction of Congress, the Senate voted 53-47 to acquit him. He was suspected of blocking witnesses and documents that were sought by the House. All Republicans voted to acquit him, while no Democrats did.

The voting process was overseen by the United States Chief Justice John Roberts, as senators voted one by one.

The president was not physically present there, and Reuters reported that he watched the whole process from his White House dining room along with his aides.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/State-of-the-Union-address-us-house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-tears-up-text-as-trump-ends-state-of-the-union-address-278666">US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tears up text as Trump ends State of the Union address</a> 
 
At 10.30 PM IST (5 PM GMT) today, Donald Trump is expected to address the country, Trump said he would "to discuss our Country's VICTORY on the Impeachment Hoax!"

As always, the notorious president took to Twitter quickly and posted a video showing campaign signs 2024 onward upto eternity, dissolving into ''Trump 4EVA''. However, the US Constitution can easily prevent this, as no president is allowed to hold office for more than two elected four-year terms. 
 
According to the Democrats, the trial is a sham, for Republicans allowed no witnesses or new evidence.&nbsp;

Over the course of impeachment, Trump has repeatedly referred to it as an attempted coup and an attempt to reverse his 2016 victory.

<h6><img alt="ppp" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="83d01788-a99c-45f9-8ffb-51a3c6f78635" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Untitled%20design%20%289%29_21.jpg" /> 
Protesters carry signs outside the Capitol in Washington, DC, on February 5, 2020, after the US Senate acquited the US president in his impeachment trial. The US Senate acquitted President Donald Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress following a historic two-week trial | AFP 
&nbsp;</h6>

Even though Trump was acquitted, Democrats intend to go forward with the investigations still. According to Reuters, the Democrats want access to Trump's financial records.

Many Democrats hope that as more facts are unearthed, people would vote to not bring him back to power.

"No doubt, the president will boast he received total exoneration. But we know better. We know this wasn't a trial by any stretch of the definition," said Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/latest-donald-trump-update-news-our-borders-are-secure-our-values-are-renewed-%20Trump-in-State-of-the-Union-address" hreflang="en">Maduro an illegitimate ruler, a tyrant who brutalizes his people: Trump in State of the Union address</a>

Approval ratings, which are considered the holy grail of US presidential politics, have kept Trump safe, with consistent numbers throughout his term. That's mostly owing to his core conservative supporters: caucasian men, rural Americans, evangelical Christians, and conservative Catholics.

Based on the data of Reuters/Ipsos poll, which happened on Monday, claims that 42 per cent American adults are happy with his performance, which 54 per cent expressed dismay.

As it turns out, his approval ratings remain unaffected by the impeachment trial, which yielded similar figures in September, when the inquiry was launched. He received 43 per cent approval and 53 per cent disapproval back then.

As the race to presidential elections gets stronger, Trump is expected to claim the Republican Party's nomination at the party convention in August.&nbsp;

A glimpse of his presidential vision was on display during the State of the Union address yesterday, whereby the theme was renewal of Americanism, economic independence and growth, alongside immigration policies that are hardline.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/explained-what-is-the-state-of-the-union-address-278582" hreflang="en">EXPLAINED: What is the State of the Union address</a>

After months of back-and-forth, United States President Donald Trump was recently acquitted of all charges. Earlier, Trump was impeached in the House, but this trajectory failed to hold its ground in the Senate, where the majority is Republicans, who voted to protect him.

After months of back-and-forth, United States President Donald Trump was recently acquitted of all charges. Earlier, Trump was impeached in the House, but this trajectory failed to hold its ground in the Senate, where the majority is Republicans, who voted to protect him. All this happened in the backdrop of the US going to elections in nine months. Trump, a former businessman, became the third president in US history to survive an impeachment trial. The presidential limo waits for US President Donald Trump in front of the White House before the State of the Union address in Washington, US, February 4, 2020 | Reuters On December 18, Donald Trump was charged with two articles of impeachment including abuse of power and the obstruction of Congress. The voting in the Senate happened mostly along party lines, as it earlier did in the Democratic majority House of Representatives. Also read: Donald Trump blasts New York City for protecting 'alien' who killed a 92-year-old woman "President Trump has been totally vindicated and it's now time to get back to the business of the American people," Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said. To be impeached in the Senate, Donald Trump required two-thirds majority in the 100-seat Senate, as per the US Constitution. In the Senate, the call was close, as 52 people chose to acquit him, while 48 people voted in favour of the impeachment charge of abusing power. The Democrats had accused Trump of abusing power by requesting Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, Trump's Democratic rival. Mitt Romney was the only Republican Senator who voted to convict Trump on this charge, alongside the Democrats, none of whom voted to acquit. This still image taken from a US Senate webcast shows House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) during the impeachment trial in the Senate Chamber at the US Capitol on February 3, 2020 in Washington, DC | AFP On the other charge of obstruction of Congress, the Senate voted 53-47 to acquit him. He was suspected of blocking witnesses and documents that were sought by the House. All Republicans voted to acquit him, while no Democrats did. The voting process was overseen by the United States Chief Justice John Roberts, as senators voted one by one. The president was not physically present there, and Reuters reported that he watched the whole process from his White House dining room along with his aides. Also read: US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tears up text as Trump ends State of the Union address At 10.30 PM IST (5 PM GMT) today, Donald Trump is expected to address the country, Trump said he would "to discuss our Country's VICTORY on the Impeachment Hoax!" As always, the notorious president took to Twitter quickly and posted a video showing campaign signs 2024 onward upto eternity, dissolving into ''Trump 4EVA''. However, the US Constitution can easily prevent this, as no president is allowed to hold office for more than two elected four-year terms. According to the Democrats, the trial is a sham, for Republicans allowed no witnesses or new evidence. Over the course of impeachment, Trump has repeatedly referred to it as an attempted coup and an attempt to reverse his 2016 victory. Protesters carry signs outside the Capitol in Washington, DC, on February 5, 2020, after the US Senate acquited the US president in his impeachment trial. The US Senate acquitted President Donald Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress following a historic two-week trial | AFP Even though Trump was acquitted, Democrats intend to go forward with the investigations still. According to Reuters, the Democrats want access to Trump's financial records. Many Democrats hope that as more facts are unearthed, people would vote to not bring him back to power. "No doubt, the president will boast he received total exoneration. But we know better. We know this wasn't a trial by any stretch of the definition," said Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat. Also read: Maduro an illegitimate ruler, a tyrant who brutalizes his people: Trump in State of the Union address Approval ratings, which are considered the holy grail of US presidential politics, have kept Trump safe, with consistent numbers throughout his term. That's mostly owing to his core conservative supporters: caucasian men, rural Americans, evangelical Christians, and conservative Catholics. Based on the data of Reuters/Ipsos poll, which happened on Monday, claims that 42 per cent American adults are happy with his performance, which 54 per cent expressed dismay. As it turns out, his approval ratings remain unaffected by the impeachment trial, which yielded similar figures in September, when the inquiry was launched. He received 43 per cent approval and 53 per cent disapproval back then. As the race to presidential elections gets stronger, Trump is expected to claim the Republican Party's nomination at the party convention in August. A glimpse of his presidential vision was on display during the State of the Union address yesterday, whereby the theme was renewal of Americanism, economic independence and growth, alongside immigration policies that are hardline. EXPLAINED: What is the State of the Union address

US President Donald Trump acquitted of impeachment charges in Republican-majority Senate

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/.../india-to-tweak-proposed-content-regulations-to- ease-burden-on-some-sources-272997">Facebook</a>&nbsp;Inc said on Thursday it was making&nbsp;some&nbsp;changes to its approach to&nbsp;political&nbsp;ads, including allowing&nbsp;users&nbsp;to turn off certain ad-targeting tools, but the updates stop far short of critics' demands and what rival companies have pledged to do.

The world's biggest social network has vowed to curb&nbsp;political&nbsp;manipulation of its platform, after failing to counter alleged Russian interference and the misuse of user data by defunct&nbsp;political&nbsp;consulting firm <a href="https://www.wionews.com/.../brazil-fines-facebook-16-million-for-improper- sharing-of-user-data-271120">Cambridge Analytica</a> in 2016.

But&nbsp;ahead&nbsp;of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/.../three-swing-district-democrats-back-joe-bidens- presidential-bid-272511">US&nbsp;presidential&nbsp;election</a>&nbsp;in November 2020,&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;is struggling to quell criticism of its relatively hands-off&nbsp;ads&nbsp;policies. In particular, it has come under fire after it exempted politicians'&nbsp;ads&nbsp;from fact-checking standards applied to other content on its network.

Facebook&nbsp;said that in addition to rolling out a tool enabling individual&nbsp;users&nbsp;to choose to&nbsp;see&nbsp;fewer&nbsp;political&nbsp;and social issue&nbsp;ads&nbsp;on&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;and its photo-sharing app Instagram, it will also make more ad audience data publicly available.

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/facebook-executive-says-it-helped-put-trump-in-white-house-272838">Facebook executive says it helped put Trump in White House</a>

In contrast, Twitter Inc banned&nbsp;political&nbsp;ads&nbsp;in October, while Alphabet Inc's Google said it would stop letting advertisers target&nbsp;election&nbsp;ads&nbsp;using data such as public voter records and general&nbsp;political&nbsp;affiliations.

Other online platforms like Spotify, Pinterest and TikTok have also issued bans.

In a blog post,&nbsp;Facebook's director of product management Rob Leathern said the company considered imposing limits like Google's but decided against them as internal data indicated most&nbsp;ads&nbsp;run by&nbsp;US&nbsp;presidential candidates are broadly targeted, at audiences larger than 250,000 people.

"We have based (our policies) on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all," Leathern wrote.

The expanded ad audience data features will be rolled out in the first quarter of this year and&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;plans to deploy the&nbsp;political&nbsp;ads&nbsp;control&nbsp;starting in the United States early this summer, eventually expanding this preference to more locations.

Another change will be to allow&nbsp;users&nbsp;to choose to stop&nbsp;seeing&nbsp;ads&nbsp;based on an advertiser's "Custom Audience" and that will apply to all types of advertising, not only&nbsp;political&nbsp;ads.

The "Custom Audiences" feature lets advertisers upload lists of personal data they maintain, like email addresses and phone numbers.&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;then matches that information to user accounts and shows the advertiser's content to those people.

However,&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;will not give&nbsp;users&nbsp;a blanket option to turn off the feature, meaning they will have to opt-out of&nbsp;seeing&nbsp;ads&nbsp;for each advertiser one by one, a spokesman told Reuters.

The change will also not affect ad targeting via&nbsp;Facebook's Lookalike Audiences tool, which uses the same uploads&nbsp;of personal data to direct&nbsp;ads&nbsp;at people with similar characteristics to those on the lists, the spokesman said.

Leathern said in the post the company would make new information publicly available about the audience size of&nbsp;political&nbsp;ads&nbsp;in the company's Ad Library, showing approximately&nbsp;how&nbsp;many people the advertisers aimed to reach.

The changes follow a New York Times report this week of an internal memo by senior&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;executive Andrew Bosworth, who told employees the company had a duty not to tilt the scales against&nbsp;US&nbsp;President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/.../could-iran-us-tensions-mean-troubled-waters- ahead-in-the-strait-of-hormuz-273207">Donald Trump</a>'s re-election&nbsp;campaign.

Bosworth, a close confidant of Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg who subsequently made his post public, wrote that he believed&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;was responsible for Trump's&nbsp;election&nbsp;in 2016, but not because of misinformation or Trump's work with Cambridge Analytica.

Rather, he said, the Trump campaign used&nbsp;Facebook's advertising tools most effectively.

&nbsp;

Facebook Inc said on Thursday it was making some changes to its approach to political ads, including allowing users to turn off certain ad-targeting tools, but the updates stop far short of critics' demands and what rival companies have pledged to do.

Facebook Inc said on Thursday it was making some changes to its approach to political ads, including allowing users to turn off certain ad-targeting tools, but the updates stop far short of critics' demands and what rival companies have pledged to do. The world's biggest social network has vowed to curb political manipulation of its platform, after failing to counter alleged Russian interference and the misuse of user data by defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica in 2016. But ahead of the US presidential election in November 2020, Facebook is struggling to quell criticism of its relatively hands-off ads policies. In particular, it has come under fire after it exempted politicians' ads from fact-checking standards applied to other content on its network. Facebook said that in addition to rolling out a tool enabling individual users to choose to see fewer political and social issue ads on Facebook and its photo-sharing app Instagram, it will also make more ad audience data publicly available. Also Read: Facebook executive says it helped put Trump in White House In contrast, Twitter Inc banned political ads in October, while Alphabet Inc's Google said it would stop letting advertisers target election ads using data such as public voter records and general political affiliations. Other online platforms like Spotify, Pinterest and TikTok have also issued bans. In a blog post, Facebook's director of product management Rob Leathern said the company considered imposing limits like Google's but decided against them as internal data indicated most ads run by US presidential candidates are broadly targeted, at audiences larger than 250,000 people. "We have based (our policies) on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all," Leathern wrote. The expanded ad audience data features will be rolled out in the first quarter of this year and Facebook plans to deploy the political ads control starting in the United States early this summer, eventually expanding this preference to more locations. Another change will be to allow users to choose to stop seeing ads based on an advertiser's "Custom Audience" and that will apply to all types of advertising, not only political ads. The "Custom Audiences" feature lets advertisers upload lists of personal data they maintain, like email addresses and phone numbers. Facebook then matches that information to user accounts and shows the advertiser's content to those people. However, Facebook will not give users a blanket option to turn off the feature, meaning they will have to opt-out of seeing ads for each advertiser one by one, a spokesman told Reuters. The change will also not affect ad targeting via Facebook's Lookalike Audiences tool, which uses the same uploads of personal data to direct ads at people with similar characteristics to those on the lists, the spokesman said. Leathern said in the post the company would make new information publicly available about the audience size of political ads in the company's Ad Library, showing approximately how many people the advertisers aimed to reach. The changes follow a New York Times report this week of an internal memo by senior Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth, who told employees the company had a duty not to tilt the scales against US President Donald Trump's re-election campaign. Bosworth, a close confidant of Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg who subsequently made his post public, wrote that he believed Facebook was responsible for Trump's election in 2016, but not because of misinformation or Trump's work with Cambridge Analytica. Rather, he said, the Trump campaign used Facebook's advertising tools most effectively.

Ahead of US election, Facebook gives users some control over how they see political ads

Trump impeachment: What rules will the House use in televised hearings?

Top senate republicans appeared to be less convinced from the 5 days ceasefire between Syria and Turkey

Top republican senators slam Donald Trump

Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden called for the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump for the first time on October 9 in his strongest indictment of the Republican leader's actions involving Ukraine.

Trump should be impeached says Biden

US President Donald Trump on Saturday opened a new front in the impeachment battle that threatens his administration, blasting a prominent member of his party for criticizing his push to get foreign nations to probe a leading Democratic rival.

The Republican president, who launched a stream of invective at Democrats and the media this week as an impeachment probe in Congress widened, tweeted that US Senator Mitt Romney was a "pompous 'ass' who has been fighting me from the beginning."

Romney, who lost the 2012 election to Democratic incumbent President Barack Obama, criticized Trump on Friday for asking China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, who is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

The Utah Republican said Trump's appeal to China was "wrong and appalling."

In a later tweet, Trump said he was hearing that people in Utah regretted electing Romney to the Senate in 2018. "I agree! He is a fool who is playing right into the hands of the Do-Nothing Democrats! #IMPEACHMITTROMNEY," Trump wrote.

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I’m hearing that the Great People of Utah are considering their vote for their Pompous Senator, Mitt Romney, to be a big mistake. I agree! He is a fool who is playing right into the hands of the Do Nothing Democrats! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IMPEACHMITTROMNEY?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IMPEACHMITTROMNEY</a>
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1180559858699030529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">×</a></div>

Trump also defended again as "appropriate" the July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that triggered the impeachment inquiry in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and said his call for China to investigate Biden and his son Hunter was linked to corruption, not politics.

Another Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, on Saturday also criticized Trump for exhorting China to investigate the Bidens, calling it "completely inappropriate" in remarks to reporters at an event in her home state, according to the Bangor Daily News.

"I thought the president made a big mistake by asking China to get involved in investigating a political opponent," Collins said, according to the local report.

House Democrats are examining whether there are grounds to impeach Trump based on a whistleblower's complaint that said he asked Zelenskiy to help probe the Bidens. Hunter Biden was on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company for several years.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either the former vice president or his son.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Trump ally, said on Saturday the State Department had issued an initial response to a request by the House Foreign Affairs Committee for documents tied to US contacts with the Ukrainian government. The panel issued Pompeo a subpoena on September 27.

"The State Department sent a letter last night to Congress, which is our initial response to the document request. We will obviously do all the things we are required to by law," Pompeo said in a news conference in Greece. He did not elaborate on the contents of the letter.

An official from the House Foreign Affairs Committee said in a statement to Reuters that Pompeo had "failed to meet the deadline to produce documents required by the subpoena," but confirmed the State Department had contacted the three House committees involved in the probes.

"We hope the department will cooperate in full promptly," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

'Gotcha game'

Pompeo, who has acknowledged he listened to the July 25 call between Trump and Zelenskiy, objected last week to efforts by Democrats to obtain depositions from current and former department officials.

Asked at another event on Saturday if there were any red flags in the Ukraine saga that required further investigation, Pompeo said he did not think the audience was interested in hearing about the issue."This is what's wrong, when the world doesn't focus on the things that are right, the things that matter, the things that impact real people's lives and instead you get caught up in silly gotcha game?" he said.He also addressed a notion Trump has long held that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US presidential election, a theory that runs counter to the US intelligence community's findings that it was Russia that meddled in the campaign.

Pompeo said, "governments have an obligation and indeed a duty to make sure that elections happen with integrity, without interference from any government, whether that's the Ukrainian government or any other."

Lawmakers are looking at whether Trump jeopardized national security and the integrity of US elections for personal political gain. Trump has called the impeachment investigation a "hoax" and accused the media and Democrats of corruption.

Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, told Reuters in a phone interview on Saturday that the president in the July 25 call had not offered his Ukrainian counterpart any "quid pro quo" for his cooperation in probing Biden and his son.

"One thing clear about the conversation is, there's no quid pro quo," said the former New York mayor, who has emerged as a central figure in the scandal. The House Intelligence Committee has issued a subpoena to Giuliani, setting an Oct. 15 deadline for him to turn over documents related to his work with Ukrainians on Trump's behalf.

House Democrats subpoenaed the White House for documents on Friday. White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said the subpoena "changes nothing" and that it would be ultimately shown that Trump did nothing wrong.

The probe could lead to approval of articles of impeachment - or formal charges - against Trump in the House. A trial on whether to remove Trump from office would then be held in the Republican-controlled Senate.

A two-thirds majority of the senators present would be needed to oust Trump, which means 20 Republicans would have to jump ship if all the Democrats and the two independents who caucus with Democrats form a united front.

Although Trump's Senate firewall has no visible cracks so far, Romney's willingness to step out of formation and criticise Trump over his calls for foreign investigations of a political opponent could act as a catalyst for others.

Romney savaged Trump during the 2016 campaign, calling him a "con man" who was unfit for the presidency, but the two men later set aside their differences. Trump endorsed Romney's political comeback last year.

US President Donald Trump on Saturday opened a new front in the impeachment battle that threatens his administration, blasting a prominent member of his party for criticizing his push to get foreign nations to probe a leading Democratic rival.

US President Donald Trump on Saturday opened a new front in the impeachment battle that threatens his administration, blasting a prominent member of his party for criticizing his push to get foreign nations to probe a leading Democratic rival. The Republican president, who launched a stream of invective at Democrats and the media this week as an impeachment probe in Congress widened, tweeted that US Senator Mitt Romney was a "pompous 'ass' who has been fighting me from the beginning." Romney, who lost the 2012 election to Democratic incumbent President Barack Obama, criticized Trump on Friday for asking China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, who is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. The Utah Republican said Trump's appeal to China was "wrong and appalling." In a later tweet, Trump said he was hearing that people in Utah regretted electing Romney to the Senate in 2018. "I agree! He is a fool who is playing right into the hands of the Do-Nothing Democrats! #IMPEACHMITTROMNEY," Trump wrote. I’m hearing that the Great People of Utah are considering their vote for their Pompous Senator, Mitt Romney, to be a big mistake. I agree! He is a fool who is playing right into the hands of the Do Nothing Democrats! #IMPEACHMITTROMNEY — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2019 × Trump also defended again as "appropriate" the July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that triggered the impeachment inquiry in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and said his call for China to investigate Biden and his son Hunter was linked to corruption, not politics. Another Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, on Saturday also criticized Trump for exhorting China to investigate the Bidens, calling it "completely inappropriate" in remarks to reporters at an event in her home state, according to the Bangor Daily News. "I thought the president made a big mistake by asking China to get involved in investigating a political opponent," Collins said, according to the local report. House Democrats are examining whether there are grounds to impeach Trump based on a whistleblower's complaint that said he asked Zelenskiy to help probe the Bidens. Hunter Biden was on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company for several years. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by either the former vice president or his son. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Trump ally, said on Saturday the State Department had issued an initial response to a request by the House Foreign Affairs Committee for documents tied to US contacts with the Ukrainian government. The panel issued Pompeo a subpoena on September 27. "The State Department sent a letter last night to Congress, which is our initial response to the document request. We will obviously do all the things we are required to by law," Pompeo said in a news conference in Greece. He did not elaborate on the contents of the letter. An official from the House Foreign Affairs Committee said in a statement to Reuters that Pompeo had "failed to meet the deadline to produce documents required by the subpoena," but confirmed the State Department had contacted the three House committees involved in the probes. "We hope the department will cooperate in full promptly," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 'Gotcha game' Pompeo, who has acknowledged he listened to the July 25 call between Trump and Zelenskiy, objected last week to efforts by Democrats to obtain depositions from current and former department officials. Asked at another event on Saturday if there were any red flags in the Ukraine saga that required further investigation, Pompeo said he did not think the audience was interested in hearing about the issue."This is what's wrong, when the world doesn't focus on the things that are right, the things that matter, the things that impact real people's lives and instead you get caught up in silly gotcha game?" he said.He also addressed a notion Trump has long held that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US presidential election, a theory that runs counter to the US intelligence community's findings that it was Russia that meddled in the campaign. Pompeo said, "governments have an obligation and indeed a duty to make sure that elections happen with integrity, without interference from any government, whether that's the Ukrainian government or any other." Lawmakers are looking at whether Trump jeopardized national security and the integrity of US elections for personal political gain. Trump has called the impeachment investigation a "hoax" and accused the media and Democrats of corruption. Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, told Reuters in a phone interview on Saturday that the president in the July 25 call had not offered his Ukrainian counterpart any "quid pro quo" for his cooperation in probing Biden and his son. "One thing clear about the conversation is, there's no quid pro quo," said the former New York mayor, who has emerged as a central figure in the scandal. The House Intelligence Committee has issued a subpoena to Giuliani, setting an Oct. 15 deadline for him to turn over documents related to his work with Ukrainians on Trump's behalf. House Democrats subpoenaed the White House for documents on Friday. White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said the subpoena "changes nothing" and that it would be ultimately shown that Trump did nothing wrong. The probe could lead to approval of articles of impeachment - or formal charges - against Trump in the House. A trial on whether to remove Trump from office would then be held in the Republican-controlled Senate. A two-thirds majority of the senators present would be needed to oust Trump, which means 20 Republicans would have to jump ship if all the Democrats and the two independents who caucus with Democrats form a united front. Although Trump's Senate firewall has no visible cracks so far, Romney's willingness to step out of formation and criticise Trump over his calls for foreign investigations of a political opponent could act as a catalyst for others. Romney savaged Trump during the 2016 campaign, calling him a "con man" who was unfit for the presidency, but the two men later set aside their differences. Trump endorsed Romney's political comeback last year.

Et tu, Mitt? Trump blasts Republican senator as impeachment battle heats up

Joe Walsh and Bill Weld, two of the three Republicans challenging President Donald Trump for their party's 2020 presidential nomination, are set to meet in a debate on Tuesday, hoping to bring attention to their long-shot candidacies.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/donald-trump-says-hassan-rouhani-meeting-not-scheduled-as-speculation-swirls-251612">Trump </a>will not take part in the event in New York hosted by the website Business Insider, nor will the third candidate seeking the Republican nomination, former South Carolina governor and congressman Mark Sanford.

The debate featuring Walsh, a radio talk-show host and former US congressman from Illinois, and Weld, a former Massachusetts governor, is not sanctioned by the Republican Party, which has thrown its full support behind Trump. Sanford cited a scheduling conflict for missing the event.

Walsh, Weld and Sanford, in a joint article published in the Washington Post this month, called Trump "a serial self-promoter" who is steering the party away from "personal responsibility, fiscal sanity, and rule of law."

Trump is expected to coast to victory in his quest for the Republican nomination before facing the Democratic Party's nominee in the November 2020 election. A Sept. 16-20 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that 82 per cent of registered Republicans approved of Trump's job performance.

Walsh, Weld, and Sanford complained about being shut out of the nomination contest. Republican Party officials in Alaska, Arizona, Kansas, Nevada and South Carolina already have said they would not host nominating contests in their states next year, cutting off any chance for the challengers to win delegates who will choose the Republican candidate at the party's convention.

"We're in the process of doing serious and lasting harm to the Republican Party brand," Sanford told Reuters on Friday. "We need to stand up and have a robust conversation about what it means to be Republicans."

Trump has dismissed his challengers as a "joke" and "laughingstock," calling them the "Three Stooges," a reference to a popular mid-20th-century comedy team that portrayed inept bunglers.

Asked to explain Trump's decision not to participate in the debate, Erin Perrine, a deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, said, "Pointless."

Walsh, 57, served in the House of Representatives for two years and then became a radio talk-show host. Weld, 74, touts a fiscally conservative record as well as his work on gay rights and environmental issues. He ran unsuccessfully for vice president in 2016 on the Libertarian Party's ticket

Joe Walsh and Bill Weld, two of the three Republicans challenging President Donald Trump for their party's 2020 presidential nomination, are set to meet in a debate on Tuesday, hoping to bring attention to their long-shot candidacies.

Joe Walsh and Bill Weld, two of the three Republicans challenging President Donald Trump for their party's 2020 presidential nomination, are set to meet in a debate on Tuesday, hoping to bring attention to their long-shot candidacies. Trump will not take part in the event in New York hosted by the website Business Insider, nor will the third candidate seeking the Republican nomination, former South Carolina governor and congressman Mark Sanford. The debate featuring Walsh, a radio talk-show host and former US congressman from Illinois, and Weld, a former Massachusetts governor, is not sanctioned by the Republican Party, which has thrown its full support behind Trump. Sanford cited a scheduling conflict for missing the event. Walsh, Weld and Sanford, in a joint article published in the Washington Post this month, called Trump "a serial self-promoter" who is steering the party away from "personal responsibility, fiscal sanity, and rule of law." Trump is expected to coast to victory in his quest for the Republican nomination before facing the Democratic Party's nominee in the November 2020 election. A Sept. 16-20 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that 82 per cent of registered Republicans approved of Trump's job performance. Walsh, Weld, and Sanford complained about being shut out of the nomination contest. Republican Party officials in Alaska, Arizona, Kansas, Nevada and South Carolina already have said they would not host nominating contests in their states next year, cutting off any chance for the challengers to win delegates who will choose the Republican candidate at the party's convention. "We're in the process of doing serious and lasting harm to the Republican Party brand," Sanford told Reuters on Friday. "We need to stand up and have a robust conversation about what it means to be Republicans." Trump has dismissed his challengers as a "joke" and "laughingstock," calling them the "Three Stooges," a reference to a popular mid-20th-century comedy team that portrayed inept bunglers. Asked to explain Trump's decision not to participate in the debate, Erin Perrine, a deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, said, "Pointless." Walsh, 57, served in the House of Representatives for two years and then became a radio talk-show host. Weld, 74, touts a fiscally conservative record as well as his work on gay rights and environmental issues. He ran unsuccessfully for vice president in 2016 on the Libertarian Party's ticket

Two of Trump's Republican challengers to debate without him

Congress should move quickly with an $8&nbsp;billion&nbsp;sale&nbsp;of F-16&nbsp;fighter jets to&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;as the self-ruled island faces pressure from China's increased military presence in the region, leading US&nbsp;Democratic&nbsp;and&nbsp;Republican&nbsp;lawmakers&nbsp;said on Friday.

China denounced the planned&nbsp;sale, one of the biggest yet by the United States to&nbsp;Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province. It warned of unspecified "countermeasures."

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, a&nbsp;Republican, welcomed the proposed&nbsp;sale&nbsp;of the Lockheed Martin Corp F-16V jets.&nbsp;

"These fighters are critical to improving&nbsp;Taiwan's ability to defend its sovereign airspace, which is under increasing pressure from the People’s Republic of China," he said in a statement.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/china-irked-by-us-taiwan-arms-deal-243606/embed" width="560" height="350" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" autoplay=1 allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jim Inhofe, and fellow&nbsp;Republican&nbsp;Senator John Cornyn said&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;"remains an important pillar of security and stability" in the region.&nbsp;

The&nbsp;sale&nbsp;of the jets would "deter aggression given Beijing's increasing assertiveness and military buildup," they said in a joint statement.

Similarly, the&nbsp;Democratic&nbsp;chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, and the panel's ranking&nbsp;Republican, Michael McCaul, said in a joint statement that the deal "sends a strong message" about US commitment to security and democracy in the region.

Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, both&nbsp;Republicans, also issued statements&nbsp;backing the deal.

Washington has no formal ties with self-ruled and&nbsp;democratic&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;but is bound by law to help provide it with the means to defend itself.

It is the main arms supplier to&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;and there is broad support for this in Congress.

China has never renounced the use of force to bring&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;under its control and has repeatedly denounced US arms&nbsp;sales to the island.

Friday's New York Times quoted unnamed US officials as saying that the<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/to-survive-trade-war-some-us-importers-embark-on-major-revamps-of-product-lines-238323"> Trump administration, which is engaged in a major trade war with China</a>, was moving forward with the&nbsp;sale and said the State Department gave informal notification of the plan to the House and Senate foreign affairs committees on Thursday.

The paper said once those committees gave the go-ahead, which would probably come within days or weeks, there would follow a formal notification to Congress, which would trigger 30 days for objections.

The State Department and the White House declined to comment. China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Beijing had made solemn representations to the United States over the planned&nbsp;sale.

China's state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Hua as saying that it was a serious violation of the "one-China principle," under which Washington recognise Beijing and not Taipei, and undermined China's sovereignty and security interests.

Hua urged the US to stop arms&nbsp;sales to and military contact with&nbsp;Taiwan, otherwise, the Chinese side would "certainly take countermeasures," Xinhua said.

After the United States approved&nbsp;sales of tanks and Raytheon Co's &nbsp;anti-aircraft Stinger missiles to&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;in July, China said it was "ready to go to war" if people "try to split Taiwan&nbsp;from the country."

Beijing said it would impose sanctions on US companies involved in any deals.

On Thursday,&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;unveiled its largest defence spending increase in more than a decade, to T$411.3&nbsp;billion&nbsp;($13.11&nbsp;billion.)

Congress should move quickly with an $8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan as the self-ruled island faces pressure from China's increased military presence in the region, leading US Democratic and Republican lawmakers said on Friday.

Congress should move quickly with an $8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan as the self-ruled island faces pressure from China's increased military presence in the region, leading US Democratic and Republican lawmakers said on Friday. China denounced the planned sale, one of the biggest yet by the United States to Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province. It warned of unspecified "countermeasures." Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, a Republican, welcomed the proposed sale of the Lockheed Martin Corp F-16V jets. "These fighters are critical to improving Taiwan's ability to defend its sovereign airspace, which is under increasing pressure from the People’s Republic of China," he said in a statement. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jim Inhofe, and fellow Republican Senator John Cornyn said Taiwan "remains an important pillar of security and stability" in the region. The sale of the jets would "deter aggression given Beijing's increasing assertiveness and military buildup," they said in a joint statement. Similarly, the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, and the panel's ranking Republican, Michael McCaul, said in a joint statement that the deal "sends a strong message" about US commitment to security and democracy in the region. Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, both Republicans, also issued statements backing the deal. Washington has no formal ties with self-ruled and democratic Taiwan but is bound by law to help provide it with the means to defend itself. It is the main arms supplier to Taiwan and there is broad support for this in Congress. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control and has repeatedly denounced US arms sales to the island. Friday's New York Times quoted unnamed US officials as saying that the Trump administration, which is engaged in a major trade war with China, was moving forward with the sale and said the State Department gave informal notification of the plan to the House and Senate foreign affairs committees on Thursday. The paper said once those committees gave the go-ahead, which would probably come within days or weeks, there would follow a formal notification to Congress, which would trigger 30 days for objections. The State Department and the White House declined to comment. China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Beijing had made solemn representations to the United States over the planned sale. China's state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Hua as saying that it was a serious violation of the "one-China principle," under which Washington recognise Beijing and not Taipei, and undermined China's sovereignty and security interests. Hua urged the US to stop arms sales to and military contact with Taiwan, otherwise, the Chinese side would "certainly take countermeasures," Xinhua said. After the United States approved sales of tanks and Raytheon Co's anti-aircraft Stinger missiles to Taiwan in July, China said it was "ready to go to war" if people "try to split Taiwan from the country." Beijing said it would impose sanctions on US companies involved in any deals. On Thursday, Taiwan unveiled its largest defence spending increase in more than a decade, to T$411.3 billion ($13.11 billion.)

Democratic, Republican lawmakers back F-16 sales to Taiwan

US President Donald Trump will address the nation on Monday after two shootings left 29 people dead and sparked accusations that his rhetoric was part of the problem.

The rampages turned innocent snippets of everyday life into nightmares of bloodshed: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/walmart-to-keep-selling-guns-despite-recent-shootings-at-its-stores-in-el-paso-240710">20 people were shot dead while shopping at a crowded Walmart</a> in El Paso, Texas on Saturday morning, and nine more outside a bar in a popular nightlife district in Dayton, Ohio just 13 hours later.

Trump will again find himself in the role of consoler-in-chief after a tragedy which he has struggled with in the past when he speaks at 10:00 am (1400 GMT).

Following the shootings, Trump said "hate has no place in our country," but he also blamed mental illness for the violence.

"These are real people that are very, very seriously mentally ill," he said, despite the fact that police have not confirmed this to be the case.

"We have to get it stopped. This has been going on for years... and years in our country," he said.

In Texas, 26 people were wounded, and 27 in Ohio, where the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/sister-of-gunman-among-nine-dead-in-ohio-mass-shooting-240691">shooter was killed in roughly 30 seconds</a> by police who were patrolling nearby.

100 round drum magazine

Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl told a news conference that the quick police response was "crucial," preventing the shooter from entering a bar where "there would have been... catastrophic injury and loss of life."

Biehl said the shooter wore a mask and a bullet-proof vest and was armed with an assault rifle fitted with a 100 round drum magazine.

Police named the gunman as a 24-year-old white man called Connor Betts and said his sister was among those killed. She had gone with him to the scene of the shootings.

Six of the nine people shot dead were black, but Biehl said Betts' motive was still unclear.

In Texas, police said the suspect surrendered on a sidewalk near the scene of the massacre. He was described in media reports as a 21-year-old white man named Patrick Crusius.

He was believed to have posted online a manifesto denouncing a "Hispanic invasion" of Texas. El Paso, on the border with Mexico, is majority Latino.

'Amplifying and condoning' hate

Seven of the 20 people killed in the El Paso shooting were Mexican, the country's foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said Sunday.

The manifesto posted shortly before the shooting also praises the killing of 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in March.

Police said the suspected shooter has been charged with murder offences that can carry the death penalty, and a federal official said investigators are treating the El Paso shooting as a case of domestic terrorism.

At the Walmart in El Paso, terrified shoppers cowered in aisles or ran out of the store as gunfire echoed.

Most of the victims were inside the store but some were also in the parking lot outside, police said.

"Shooting kids and women and men, to him it mostly mattered that they were Hispanic," said Manuel Sanchez, a resident of the city.

These were the 250th and 251st mass shootings this year in the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an NGO that defines a mass shooting as an incident in which at least four people are wounded or killed.

Despite a string of horrific mass shootings in the US, where gun culture is deep-rooted, efforts to strengthen firearms regulations remain divisive.

The latest two shootings ended a particularly tragic week for gun violence in America: three people died in a shooting at a food festival last Sunday in California, and two more Tuesday in a shooting in a Walmart in Mississippi.

On Twitter, Trump described the El Paso attack as "an act of cowardice."

But critics said the president's habit of speaking in derogatory terms about immigrants is pushing hatred of foreigners into the political mainstream and encouraging white supremacism.

"To pretend that his administration and the hateful rhetoric it spreads doesn't play a role in the kind of violence that we saw yesterday in El Paso is ignorant at best and irresponsible at worst," said the Southern Poverty Law Center, a major civil rights group.

It cited Trump actions like calling Mexican migrants rapists and drug dealers and doing nothing when a crowd at a Trump rally chanted "send her back" about a Somali-born congresswoman.

The Republican mayor of El Paso, Dee Margo, seemed to discount any race element to the Texas shooting, telling Fox News the gunman was "deranged."

But multiple Democratic presidential hopefuls said Trump bears some of the blame for the violence.

"Our president isn't just failing to confront and disarm these domestic terrorists, he is amplifying and condoning their hate," Mayor Pete Buttigieg tweeted.

"Mr President: stop your racist, hateful and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Your language creates a climate which emboldens violent extremists," Senator Bernie Sanders wrote on Twitter.

US President Donald Trump will address the nation on Monday after two shootings left 29 people dead and sparked accusations that his rhetoric was part of the problem.

US President Donald Trump will address the nation on Monday after two shootings left 29 people dead and sparked accusations that his rhetoric was part of the problem. The rampages turned innocent snippets of everyday life into nightmares of bloodshed: 20 people were shot dead while shopping at a crowded Walmart in El Paso, Texas on Saturday morning, and nine more outside a bar in a popular nightlife district in Dayton, Ohio just 13 hours later. Trump will again find himself in the role of consoler-in-chief after a tragedy which he has struggled with in the past when he speaks at 10:00 am (1400 GMT). Following the shootings, Trump said "hate has no place in our country," but he also blamed mental illness for the violence. "These are real people that are very, very seriously mentally ill," he said, despite the fact that police have not confirmed this to be the case. "We have to get it stopped. This has been going on for years... and years in our country," he said. In Texas, 26 people were wounded, and 27 in Ohio, where the shooter was killed in roughly 30 seconds by police who were patrolling nearby. 100 round drum magazine Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl told a news conference that the quick police response was "crucial," preventing the shooter from entering a bar where "there would have been... catastrophic injury and loss of life." Biehl said the shooter wore a mask and a bullet-proof vest and was armed with an assault rifle fitted with a 100 round drum magazine. Police named the gunman as a 24-year-old white man called Connor Betts and said his sister was among those killed. She had gone with him to the scene of the shootings. Six of the nine people shot dead were black, but Biehl said Betts' motive was still unclear. In Texas, police said the suspect surrendered on a sidewalk near the scene of the massacre. He was described in media reports as a 21-year-old white man named Patrick Crusius. He was believed to have posted online a manifesto denouncing a "Hispanic invasion" of Texas. El Paso, on the border with Mexico, is majority Latino. 'Amplifying and condoning' hate Seven of the 20 people killed in the El Paso shooting were Mexican, the country's foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said Sunday. The manifesto posted shortly before the shooting also praises the killing of 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in March. Police said the suspected shooter has been charged with murder offences that can carry the death penalty, and a federal official said investigators are treating the El Paso shooting as a case of domestic terrorism. At the Walmart in El Paso, terrified shoppers cowered in aisles or ran out of the store as gunfire echoed. Most of the victims were inside the store but some were also in the parking lot outside, police said. "Shooting kids and women and men, to him it mostly mattered that they were Hispanic," said Manuel Sanchez, a resident of the city. These were the 250th and 251st mass shootings this year in the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an NGO that defines a mass shooting as an incident in which at least four people are wounded or killed. Despite a string of horrific mass shootings in the US, where gun culture is deep-rooted, efforts to strengthen firearms regulations remain divisive. The latest two shootings ended a particularly tragic week for gun violence in America: three people died in a shooting at a food festival last Sunday in California, and two more Tuesday in a shooting in a Walmart in Mississippi. On Twitter, Trump described the El Paso attack as "an act of cowardice." But critics said the president's habit of speaking in derogatory terms about immigrants is pushing hatred of foreigners into the political mainstream and encouraging white supremacism. "To pretend that his administration and the hateful rhetoric it spreads doesn't play a role in the kind of violence that we saw yesterday in El Paso is ignorant at best and irresponsible at worst," said the Southern Poverty Law Center, a major civil rights group. It cited Trump actions like calling Mexican migrants rapists and drug dealers and doing nothing when a crowd at a Trump rally chanted "send her back" about a Somali-born congresswoman. The Republican mayor of El Paso, Dee Margo, seemed to discount any race element to the Texas shooting, telling Fox News the gunman was "deranged." But multiple Democratic presidential hopefuls said Trump bears some of the blame for the violence. "Our president isn't just failing to confront and disarm these domestic terrorists, he is amplifying and condoning their hate," Mayor Pete Buttigieg tweeted. "Mr President: stop your racist, hateful and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Your language creates a climate which emboldens violent extremists," Senator Bernie Sanders wrote on Twitter.

Donald Trump to address the nation after US shootings leave 29 dead

President Donald Trump said he will watch the first Democratic debate on television on Wednesday night, even though he will be flying to Japan and considers the event "boring." Trump, a Republican, also suggested he might offer some tweeted responses to what he hears from the 10 Democratic presidential candidates on the stage in the first of back-to-back debate nights in Miami.

Highlights From Democratic Debate

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/donald-trump-defiant-as-lawmakers-blast-his-racist-attacks-on-four-congresswomen-236257">US President Donald Trump</a> said Monday that a "compromise" bipartisan budget agreement has been reached that will boost federal spending by $320 billion and suspend the debt limit beyond the next presidential election.

The deal, should it pass Congress as expected, would allow the federal government to borrow more money and avoid a disastrous default in the coming months, while significantly raising budget caps on defence and domestic outlays.

Trump tweeted that the deal was struck between the White House and the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/unbowed-trump-intensifies-attacks-on-four-democratic-congresswomen-236766">top Democratic</a> and <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-critic-justin-amash-quits-republican-party-233128">Republican leaders</a> in both chambers of Congress "on a two-year Budget and Debt Ceiling, with no poison pills," which could have otherwise derailed the legislation.

The agreement raises the discretionary spending caps for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, pairing it with a suspension of the statutory debt ceiling until the end of July 2021, nearly nine months after the 2020 election.

"This was a real compromise to give another big victory to our Great Military and Vets!" Trump added.

The agreement has faced resistance from conservative Republicans who oppose adding hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending to the US debt.

Democratic leaders hailed it as a victory for securing robust funding for critical domestic priorities, describing the deal as the largest-ever increase in base funding above the so-called sequestration levels outlined in a 2011 law.

"With this agreement, we strive to avoid another government shutdown, which is so harmful to meeting the needs of the American people and honouring the work of our public employees," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement.

The deal assures that Washington remains on a borrowing binge, a significant setback for the White House's stated goal of reining in expenditures.

The agreement includes roughly $75 billion in spending increase offsets, substantially less than Trump's administration had sought.

Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, had been negotiating the deal with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and the pair were racing against the clock to wrap it up by Friday when the House of Representatives goes on a six-week recess.

Mnuchin warned last week that, barring an agreement, the government could run out of money in early September before Congress reconvenes.

Don't 'bankrupt' country

The compromise, with its boosted spending and narrow savings, is expected to push the annual budget deficit to more than $1 trillion next year.

Shortly before the deal was announced, David McIntosh, president of the conservative, pro-free-enterprise group Club for Growth, said Mnuchin "would best serve @realDonaldTrump if he insists on a better #spendingdeal that doesn't bankrupt our country."

Some conservatives in Congress also expressed discomfort with the extra red ink, especially given the soaring deficit.

"I encouraged President Trump yesterday to hold the line in the budget negotiations," said Congressman Mike Johnson, who chairs the conservative House Republican Study Committee.

The Democratic-led House goes on summer break July 26, but the Senate, controlled by Trump's Republicans, is in session for an additional week.

Both Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called on their chambers to pass the deal in the coming days and send it to Trump for his signature.

Officials have issued dire warnings that without an increase in the borrowing limit, the US could default on its debt for the first time and they have been urging the legislature to act.

Because the federal government traditionally runs a budget deficit, it has no choice but to borrow to finance government operations, including salaries, retirement benefits, social spending and other expenses already approved by Congress.

US President Donald Trump said Monday that a "compromise" bipartisan budget agreement has been reached that will boost federal spending by $320 billion and suspend the debt limit beyond the next presidential election.

US President Donald Trump said Monday that a "compromise" bipartisan budget agreement has been reached that will boost federal spending by $320 billion and suspend the debt limit beyond the next presidential election. The deal, should it pass Congress as expected, would allow the federal government to borrow more money and avoid a disastrous default in the coming months, while significantly raising budget caps on defence and domestic outlays. Trump tweeted that the deal was struck between the White House and the top Democratic and Republican leaders in both chambers of Congress "on a two-year Budget and Debt Ceiling, with no poison pills," which could have otherwise derailed the legislation. The agreement raises the discretionary spending caps for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, pairing it with a suspension of the statutory debt ceiling until the end of July 2021, nearly nine months after the 2020 election. "This was a real compromise to give another big victory to our Great Military and Vets!" Trump added. The agreement has faced resistance from conservative Republicans who oppose adding hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending to the US debt. Democratic leaders hailed it as a victory for securing robust funding for critical domestic priorities, describing the deal as the largest-ever increase in base funding above the so-called sequestration levels outlined in a 2011 law. "With this agreement, we strive to avoid another government shutdown, which is so harmful to meeting the needs of the American people and honouring the work of our public employees," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement. The deal assures that Washington remains on a borrowing binge, a significant setback for the White House's stated goal of reining in expenditures. The agreement includes roughly $75 billion in spending increase offsets, substantially less than Trump's administration had sought. Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, had been negotiating the deal with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and the pair were racing against the clock to wrap it up by Friday when the House of Representatives goes on a six-week recess. Mnuchin warned last week that, barring an agreement, the government could run out of money in early September before Congress reconvenes. Don't 'bankrupt' country The compromise, with its boosted spending and narrow savings, is expected to push the annual budget deficit to more than $1 trillion next year. Shortly before the deal was announced, David McIntosh, president of the conservative, pro-free-enterprise group Club for Growth, said Mnuchin "would best serve @realDonaldTrump if he insists on a better #spendingdeal that doesn't bankrupt our country." Some conservatives in Congress also expressed discomfort with the extra red ink, especially given the soaring deficit. "I encouraged President Trump yesterday to hold the line in the budget negotiations," said Congressman Mike Johnson, who chairs the conservative House Republican Study Committee. The Democratic-led House goes on summer break July 26, but the Senate, controlled by Trump's Republicans, is in session for an additional week. Both Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called on their chambers to pass the deal in the coming days and send it to Trump for his signature. Officials have issued dire warnings that without an increase in the borrowing limit, the US could default on its debt for the first time and they have been urging the legislature to act. Because the federal government traditionally runs a budget deficit, it has no choice but to borrow to finance government operations, including salaries, retirement benefits, social spending and other expenses already approved by Congress.

US President Donald Trump, Democrats reach two-year budget deal that raises debt ceiling

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