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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Erin Durkin (now) in New York and Ben Jacobs (earlier) Washington

White House backs down in fight with CNN over Jim Acosta – as it happened

Closing summary

We’re bringing today’s blog to a close. Here’s where things stand:

  • The White House folded in its with CNN, sending a letter saying it is restoring reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials. But officials issued a new threat that they would take action against journalists who ask more than one question at press conferences in the future.
  • Senate Democrats sued the federal government to block Matt Whitaker from serving as acting attorney general without Senate confirmation.
  • Sixteen Democrats released a letter vowing not to support Nancy Pelosi for House Speaker.
  • Donald Trump doubled down on his criticism of Admiral William McRaven, who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Here’s a look at the truth of his claims.

Join us again tomorrow for the latest. Until then, you can sign up to our morning briefing for a summary of the day’s top stories and must-reads.

Updated

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Donald Trump is “undermining his position as commander in chief” with his criticism of Navy Admiral William McRaven, who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

“This president owes Admiral McRaven and all of the seals involved in that operation an apology,” Panetta, who was CIA director at the time of the bin Laden operation, told MSNBC. “He’s undermining his position as commander in chief.”

He called the raid that killed bin Laden “one of the proudest moments in recent history.” “This president ought to recognize that it’s that kind of valor and courage that is important in order to protect the security of this country,” he said.

California Sen. Kamala Harris will release a kid-friendly, picture book version of her upcoming memoir, according to the Associated Press.

The picture book is called “Superheroes Are Everywhere.” It will be released around the same time as the adult version of the memoir, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.”

The Democrat, considered a potential 2020 presidential contender, told the AP she hoped her story would “empower young people” and make them “caring, thoughtful, passionate citizens.”

White House restores CNN reporter's credential

The White House has backed down in a fight to yank the White House credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta, the network says.

The administration sent a letter to Acosta confirming that his hard pass will be restored.

But the letter included a new threat to Acosta and other reporters, saying it will institute rules that reporters at press conferences will get one question. If Acosta does not comply, “we will take action,” the letter says.

The credential had been subject of a legal fight between CNN and the White House, with a judge ordering it to be temporarily restored.

“Having received a formal reply from your counsel to our letter of November 16, we have made a final determination in this process: your hard pass is restored,” the new letter said. “Should you refuse to follow these rules in the future, we will take action in accordance with the rules set forth above. The President is aware of this decision and concurs.”

Press secretary Sarah Sanders and communications director Bill Shine, having dropped a false claim that Acosta put his hands on an intern, say in the letter that he “failed to abide” by “basic, widely understood practices” at a press conference where he asked Trump multiple questions. They say they’re imposing new rules limiting each journalist to “a single question” with follow ups allowed “at the discretion of the President or other White House officials.”

Updated

Billionaire Tom Steyer will start running a TV ad promoting Donald Trump’s impeachment Tuesday, the Hill reported.

The ad encourages voters to push their newly-elected Congressional representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings.

“Americans rose up this November and rejected Donald Trump,” Steyer says in the ad.


“You gave Democrats the power to hold him in check,” he adds. “A majority vote in the House can impeach him and expose his lawless behavior for all to see. They just need the will.”

Scott Lloyd, the Trump administration’s controversial director of an office responsible for separated children, has been reassigned.

Lloyd was director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services. He’s being moved to a senior adviser position at HHS’s Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Politico reported.

Lloyd has drawn fire for his oversight of migrant children - including kids forcibly separated from their parents and adolescents who crossed the border on their own - in federal custody. Democrats have sought his removal for his efforts to block pregnant immigrant teen girls from getting abortions, according to Politico.

Twenty state attorneys general are urging the Trump administration to back off a new official definition of gender that excludes transgender people.

The group sent a letter to Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar and Education secretary Betsy DeVos Monday.

“The definition reportedly under consideration—which would constrain prohibitions on sex discrimination in federally funded programs and activities to exclude discrimination based on gender identity—is contrary to medical consensus, unsupported by any legitimate governmental interest, and against the weight of applicable law. We urge you to reject it,” they wrote.

“Despite clear evidence of the serious harms that discrimination continues to inflict on the transgender community, the Administration seems intent not only on rolling back existing federal civil rights protections for this vulnerable population, but also denying transgender people even basic recognition. There is no sound basis in science, policy, or law for taking such a drastic step backward.”

Senator Ron Wyden is pushing the Trump administration to issue a public report on the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Reuters reported.

Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and Senate intelligence committee member, made the call after reports that the CIA has concluded Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had personally ordered his murder at a Saudi consulate.

Intelligence chiefs should “come out and provide the American people and the Congress with a public assessment of who ordered the killing,” Wyden told Reuters.

Donald Trump has refused to listen to an audio recording of the journalist’s murder, telling Fox News he doesn’t want to hear it because, “It’s a suffering tape. It’s a terrible tape.”

A special assistant to former President Barack Obama says that if Donald Trump were president at the time, he never could have kept his mouth shut long enough to carry out the Osama bin Laden raid.

Sixteen House Democrats have signed onto a letter publicly released Monday vowing to oppose Nancy Pelosi for speaker on the House floor.

A federal court in San Francisco is currently hearing arguments in the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging Donald Trump’s order barring people who enter the country illegally from applying for asylum.

Follow updates from the Guardian’s Oliver Laughland:

The Navy SEAL who reportedly fired the shot that killed Osama bin Laden responded to criticism from Donald Trump, saying the mission was “bipartisan” and the military “wanted to get him as soon as we could.”

Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill also quipped that he “didn’t want to trip over my own beard” and “We could only fly so fast, bro.”

The Christmas tree has arrived at the White House.

Updated

Another House race has wrapped up. In Texas’s 23rd congressional district, Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones has conceded to incumbent Republican Will Hurd.

The majority Hispanic district was won by Hillary Clinton by three points in 2016. However, Hurd, an African American former CIA agent, struck moderate tones on immigration and worked hard to avoid defeat in the district that stretches along the US-Mexico border.

The Republican Party is now joining Trump’s criticism of Admiral McRaven.

Robert Draper has a long and insightful profile of Nancy Pelosi for the New York Times Magazine that captures her longstanding grip in power among House Democrats.

The election of Ilhan Omar to Congress may lead to the end of a nearly two century old rule banning the wearing of head coverings on the floor of Congress.

Omar, an observant Muslim, wears a hijab. The rule is expected to be relaxed to allow religious head coverings like kippahs and hijabs but not all hats.

Michelle Wolf seems to be viewing the White House Correspondents Association decision to have a distinguished historian as the speaker at their dinner next year as a personal affront.

Author Ron Chernow will speak about the First Amendment and freedom of the press in lieu of having a comedian do a routine. Chernow has won a Pulitzer Prize. Wolf’s show on Netflix was cancelled after three months.

Even more of the drama has now drained out of the Democratic leadership scramble in the House. Diana DeGette of Colorado, who was challenging Jim Clyburn to be whip has now dropped her bid.

George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner and the only Bush family member to publicly support Trump has rebuked the president for his comments about McRaven.

In one of the five House races that have yet to be called, incumbent Republican Mia Love is expanding her lead over Democrat Ben McAdams in Utah’s Fourth District.

Love was one of the incumbent Republicans whom Trump criticized by name for not associating with him during his post-midterms press conference but she now seems far more likely to return to Capitol Hill.

The two turkeys that are potentially up for a pardon by President Donald Trump tomorrow now have names. They are “Peas” and “Carrots.”

A top Republican on Capitol Hill warns Trump about further criticism of White House chief of staff John Kelly.

One potential dark horse Democratic candidate for 2020 is California congressman Eric Swalwell.

The Baltimore Sun profiles Swalwell with a particular focus on his time attending the University of Maryland. Swalwell, a cable news fixture who has made several trips to Iowa, is expected to announce a decision on a presidential bid in the coming months.

Trump’s aggressive trade policies are already having an impact on the global economy as Chinese imports of American soybeans have cratered this year.

Senate Democrats sue administration over Whitaker appointment

Three Senate Democrats, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, are suing the federal government to block Matt Whitaker from serving as acting attorney general.

Updated

Admiral McRaven responded to Trump’s criticisms, now repeated on Twitter, yesterday

Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s indefatigable fact checker notes that the last presidential tweet is predicated on a longstanding false claim made by Trump.

Presidential buzz is building around Congressman Beto O’Rourke who mounted an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate against Ted Cruz this year.

However, while Texas also has an incumbent Republican senator up for re-election in 2020, it appears less likely that that race will be an option for O’Rourke.

One of the most important figures in Washington next year will be Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland who will lead the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.

This panel plays a key role in oversight and the Democrat will be a critical figure in investigations of the Trump administration over the next two years.

Ben Terris of the Washington Post profiled Cummings, who has gone through health issues in recent years as well.

Trump criticizes past presidents for not capturing Bin Laden

The President of the United States is doubling down on his criticism of retired admiral Bill McRaven from his interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday for not killing Osama Bin Laden soon enough.

Updated

President Donald Trump will hold two campaign rallies in Mississippi on the eve of the state’s special election runoff for Senate to support appointed incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith.

Trump will hold evening rallies in Tupelo and Biloxi at opposite ends of the state on Hyde-Smith’s behalf. She faces Democrat Mike Espy in a runoff to fill the Senate seat vacated by Thad Cochran’s retirement earlier this year.

The Koch Network is hitting the airwaves in the coming days to thank lawmakers from both parties for supporting its agenda, specifically criminal justice reform.

The bipartisan effort represents a shift by the libertarian leaning Koch Network as the GOP has become increasingly Trumpist in ideology.

There will not be a comedian at the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner in 2019. Instead, author Ron Chernow will be the speaker.

The dinner last year was marked by controversy after the performance of comedian Michelle Wolf was criticized by many. The then head of the WHCA said Wolf’s routine “was not in the spirit of our mission.”

Perhaps the definitive account of what happened to Republicans in Orange County comes from Mark Z. Barabak, Joe Mozingo, and Michael Finnegan at the Los Angeles Times.

They lay out the changing demographics of the jurisdiction and the rise of Trump.

As they describe it, “for Republicans in Orange County, the decline happened slowly, then all at once.”

Democrats now control 45 of California’s 53 congressional seats.

Democrats will likely add another victory in upper Midwest today as Brad Schimel, the incumbent Republican attorney general in Wisconsin is expected to concede to Democrat Josh Kaul.

The final outstanding House race in California was called yesterday and Democrat Gil Cisneros beat out Republican Young Kim, who was hoping to become the first Korean American woman in Congress.

Cisneros’s win in the state’s 39th congressional districts means that Democrats now control every House seat in Orange County, the traditionally conservative suburbs outside Los Angeles that once was ground zero for the California Republican Party.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert and law professor at UC Irvine, has an important piece out on Slate about the aftermath of the Georgia gubernatorial election, which was riddled with allegations of voter suppression.

Hasen, a progressive, argues that Democrats should tone their rhetoric claiming that election was stolen, a phrase Ohio senator Sherrod Brown used last week.

Rhetoric about stolen elections feeds a growing cycle of mistrust and delegitimization of the election process, an attack pushed by President Donald Trump and other Republicans who have been yelling “voter fraud” every time they are behind in the count. I’ve already set out my fear that Trump could refuse to concede the 2020 presidential election if he is ahead in the count on election night and then ballot counts inevitably shift toward Democrats as the counting continues. A democratic polity depends on losers accepting election results, even if the election was not conducted perfectly. I would hold “stolen” election rhetoric for conduct even more outrageous than Kemp’s decisions, which, while odious, either have not been found to be illegal or that courts allowed to remain in place for this election.

One of the more bizarre minor melodramas of the midterms is taking place in Iowa where a former Democratic state representative, Dan Kelley, funded a hitpiece in another state legislative district alleging that the incumbent Democrat there, Scott Ourth, was responsible for the suicide of a former congressional chief of staff.

It turns out that the money for the letter had been funneled through Ourth’s opponent, the uniquely named Rebel Snodgrass. The result is a campaign finance investigation in Iowa. The entire saga, written up by Patrick Rynard at Iowa Starting Line, reads like All The President’s Men remade by the Coen Brothers in small town Iowa.

The end of the Florida recount means that all Senate races of the midterms have been called (with the exception of the Mississippi’s special election runoff on 27 November because, obviously, it hasn’t happened yet).

However, there are still five unresolved House races so, if you’re feeling nostalgic for the midterms, you still have a little bit of excitement left.

Updated

A new memoir by a former Trump White House aide has earned a seven-figure advance.

Cliff Sims, a former Trump campaign and administration aide, has a January book coming out called Team of Vipers.

In his author’s note, Sims wrote

I suspect that posterity will look back on this bizarre time in history like we were living on the pages of a Dickens novel.” He added: “Lincoln famously had his Team of Rivals. Trump had his Team of Vipers. We served. We fought. We brought our egos. We brought our personal agendas and vendettas. We were ruthless. And some of us, I assume, were good people.

Updated

Democrats have one silver lining after the end of Florida’s recount madness which saw incumbent senator Bill Nelson concede to Republican Rick Scott on Sunday.

For the first time in 12 years, they have won a statewide office in Florida. The recount ended with Nikki Freed winning election to be Florida agriculture commissioner.

The Democrat won by emphasizing her support for gun control and legal marijuana which energized urban and suburban voters who might normally be less than captivated by a race for agriculture commissioner.

Updated

White House-CNN legal battle over access continues

The White House has renewed its war on Jim Acosta. After a federal court restored Acosta’s pass under a restraining order, the White House notified Acosta that it would immediately revoke his access to the building once the restraining order expired.

The result is that CNN and Acosta are going back to court seeking an injunction guarantee his access to the White House.

Updated

Good morning. Congress is out, all the recounts are over and the White House is getting a Christmas tree delivered today.

It’s Monday in American politics.

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