Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Lois Beckett in San Francisco (now) and Daniel Strauss in Des Moines (earlier)

Russian hackers reportedly targeted Ukrainian firm at center of impeachment – as it happened

Donald Trump boards Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House to attend the College Football Playoff National Championship in New Orleans.
Donald Trump boards Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House to attend the College Football Playoff National Championship in New Orleans. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Live political reporting continues on Tuesday’s blog:

Summary

Closing out our live political news coverage for the evening. There are now 294 days until the 2020 presidential election. An updated summary of the news from today:

  • Russian military hackers targeted Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company at the center of Trump’s impeachment, the New York Times reported. It’s not clear what the Russian hackers were looking for, but they may have been seeking dirt on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.
  • Senior White House officials told CBS News that they believe four or more Republican senators, including Collins, Romney, Murkowski and Gardner may vote to call witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial.
  • The Department of Energy will release records of former secretary Rick Perry’s communications with Ukrainian officials starting in late January.
  • The U.S. A attorney general, William Barr, said that the December shooting at a Florida military base has been deemed an act of terrorism.
  • CNN reported that a during a private meeting between Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders in 2018, Sanders said he didn’t think a woman could win the 2020 presidential election. Sanders and his campaign manager said the claim was a lie, and Sanders’ campaign manager said that if Warren herself weighed in, she would say that it was a lie. After a long day of silence, Warren put out a statement saying the report was true.
  • A top member of the Sanders campaign denied that reported campaign talking points about Warren were meant to “trash” her.
  • Donald Trump mocked Senator Cory Booker’s announcement that he is ending his presidential campaign.

Warren confirms Sanders privately told her a woman could not win

After a long day of silence from the Warren campaign, Elizabeth Warren has gone on the record with a statement confirming the report that Bernie Sanders told her in a private meeting that a woman could not win the White House in 2020.

“I thought a woman could win; he disagreed,” Warren said in the statement. “I have not interest in discussing this private meeting any further.”

Updated

Russian military hackers reportedly targeted Ukranian company at center of Trump’s impeachment

Russian hackers from a military intelligence unit targeted the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, that is at the center of the Trump’s impeachment, the New York Times reports, citing a Silicon Valley security firm that says it detected the hacking.

“The timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens – the same kind of information that Mr Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment,” the Times reports.

Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, served on the board of Burisma when his father was Barack Obama’s vice-president.

Updated

At least four Republicans may vote to call witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial, White House officials tell CBS News

Senior White House officials told CBS News they believe that at least four Republicans, and perhaps more, may join Democrats in voting to call witnesses in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

The potential Republican votes for calling witnesses, per CBS News:

  • Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
  • Susan Collins of Maine
  • Mitt Romney of Utah
  • Cory Gardner of Colorado, “possibly”

Possible additional votes:

  • Rand Paul of Kentucky is seen as “wild card”
  • Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is seen as an “institutionalist”

Read the full story from CBS News, as well as this caution from a Washington Post reporter:

Updated

Department of Energy will release Rick Perry’s communications with Ukranian officials

Save the date:

Perry resigned as energy secretary last year amid questions about his involvement in the Ukraine scandal.

Updated

Sanders campaign manager: ‘It is a lie’

Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager is calling the report that Sanders told Elizabeth Warren in 2018 that a woman couldn’t win the 2020 presidential race “a lie”. He also said that Warren herself “would say that it is not true, that it is a lie”.

The CNN report, describing what happened during a private 2018 meeting between the two candidates, cites four sources: “two people Warren spoke with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting”.

In a previous statement, Sanders himself accused members of Warren’s staff, who weren’t present for the one-on-one conversation, of “lying about what happened”.

Updated

An update on US-China trade news:

Senator Chuck Schumer on Monday blasted the Trump administration for what he described as its decision to “back down” from labeling China as a currency manipulator. Reuters reported.

“China is a currency manipulator – that is a fact,” Schumer said in a statement released by his office.

Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, on Monday reported the US treasury department would lift its designation of China as a currency manipulator in a semi-annual report due to be released soon. The United States and China are due to sign a phase one trade deal this week.

Updated

Reporter presses Trump on claim about embassies being targeted

Lois Beckett here in our west coast office, taking over live politics coverage for this evening.

Donald Trump is headed to the College Football Playoff National Championship in New Orleans.

As Trump boarded a plane to New Orleans, a journalist asked Trump about his previous claim to Fox News that Iran had “probably” been planning to attack four embassies across the Middle East, and that this had informed his decision to approve the assassination of the top Iranian general Qassem Suleimani. Trump’s defense secretary, Mark Esper, said yesterday that he had not seen specific evidence that was the case.

“Mr President, what did the intelligence show about the threat to the four embassies?” a reporter asked.

“Here’s what’s been consistent: We killed Suleimani,” the president responded.

Updated

Evening summary

Alright, I’m handing the reins over to Lois Beckett. Here’s where things stand at this hour:

  • The US attorney general, William Barr, said that the December shooting at a Florida military base has been deemed an act of terrorism.
  • CNN reported that a during a private meeting between Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders in 2018, Sanders said he didn’t think a woman could win the 2020 presidential election.
  • A top member of the Sanders campaign denied that recently reported talking points about Warren were meant to “trash” her.
  • Donald Trump mocked Senator Cory Booker’s announcement that he is ending his presidential campaign.

Updated

Another national poll finds Biden leading Democratic primary field

Joe Biden leads in another national poll of Democratic primary voters.

The Quinnipiac University poll released Monday afternoon found Biden leading the field with 25% support followed by Senator Bernie Sanders with 19% support. Senator Elizabeth Warren came in next with 16% support followed by former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 8% support.

The poll’s findings underscore Biden’s frontrunner status within the primary. Most polls have shown him leading the field in key states and nationally.

The poll comes the same day a Monmouth poll of Iowa Democratic voters also found Biden leading the primary field.

Updated

Sanders co-chair denies campaign talking points were to trash Warren

The co-chair of Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign denied that a set of talking points distributed by the campaign to volunteers was an effort to “trash” Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Nina Turner, a former Ohio state legislator and the co-chair of the Sanders campaign, said in an interview with Hill.TV that the Sanders campaign “would never” trash Warren or any other candidate.

The comments on Monday come in response to increasing tension between the Sanders campaign and the Warren campaign over a set of talking points the Sanders campaign distributed to its volunteers that urged them to describe Warren’s supporters as “highly-educated, more affluent people” and argue to voters that Warren could not expand the electorate.

In response Warren said that Sanders was trying to “trash” her campaign. Warren said she was disappointed with the Sanders campaign when asked about the talking points during a gaggle with reporters over the weekend. Turner though denied that was the intention.

“I was really sad to see that because as Senator Warren laid out that Senator Sanders knows her — she knows him,” Turner said. “She knows that he would never do anything like that so when she says he sent out his volunteers, nothing could be further from the truth,” Turner said.

The back and forth between Sanders and Warren, who until the past few days avoided criticizing each other, comes just before the last Democratic primary debate before the Iowa caucuses.

Pensacola shooting ruled an “an act of terrorism”

The Florida shooting last month by a Saudi Air Force officer that resulted in three dead Americans was ruled an act of terrorism, Attorney General William Barr said on Monday.

In announcing that ruling on the Pensacola, Florida ruling Barr also said that 21 Saudi military trainees would be taken out of the United States in response to the investigation of the shooting, according to Reuters.

Barr’s announcement came at a news conference to discuss the findings of the investigation into the shooting.

The investigation found that Royal Saudi Air Force Second Lieutenant Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani was driven by “jihadist ideology” and that pushed him to conduct the shooting. Alshamrani was fatally shot by a deputy sheriff during the shooting on Dec. 6.

The investigation did not find any evidence of other Saudi trainees at the base having knowledge or helping Alshamrani.

“This was an act of terrorism,” Barr said at the press conference. “The evidence showed that the shooter was motivated by jihadist ideology. During the course of the investigation, we learned that the shooter posted a message on Sept. 11 of this year stating, ‘The countdown has begun.’”

Updated

Tension ramps up between Sanders and Warren camps

During a private meeting at the end of 2018 between Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders the two liberals agreed not to attack each other in the upcoming presidential race.

And in response to Warren explaining why she could be a formidable candidate, Sanders said he doubted a woman could be elected president, according to a new report in CNN.

That recounting is based on the accounts of four people, according to CNN, “two people Warren spoke with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting.”

The report comes amid rising tensions between the Sanders campaign and the Warren campaign. Over the weekend Politico reported that the Sanders campaign had distributed talking points to supporters suggesting they describe Warren’s supporters and elite and that the Massachusetts senator is incapable of expanding her party’s voting base. In response, Warren said Sanders was trying to “trash” her.

At the 2018 meeting Warren said she disagreed with Sanders’ assessment, according to three of the four people the CNN report cites.

In a statement to CNN Sanders denied how the meeting was characterized.

“It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn’t win,” Sanders said in the statement. “It’s sad that, three weeks before the Iowa caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren’t in the room are lying about what happened. What I did say that night was that Donald Trump is a sexist, a racist and a liar who would weaponize whatever he could. Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course! After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016.”

Warren’s campaign, similarly, declined to comment.

Updated

Trump teases Booker on dropping out

Donald Trump knocked Senator Cory Booker in response to the New Jersey senator’s decision to drop out of the 2020 Democratic primary on Monday.

The tweet was a marked contrast to even Booker’s rivals within the Democratic primary who praised the senator’s bid for the presidency.

Some former candidates also weighed in.

A clip of Booker running into entrepreneur and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang also circulated online through Yang’s traveling press secretary.

Afternoon summary

Here’s where things stand at this hour:

  • The big news of the day so far is that Democratic 2020 candidate Cory Booker has essentially quit the race for president, after announcing he was suspending his campaign.
  • Joe Biden has had a good result from some new polling
  • Donald Trump is weighing in over healthcare with Michael Bloomberg, and escalating tension between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
  • We are watching for any and all developments regarding the Trump impeachment inquiry, as the House prepares some time this week to deliver the congressional charges against the president (aka the articles of impeachment) to the Senate.

A new Monmouth University poll of Iowa voters finds former Vice President Joe Biden pulling away from the rest of the Democratic primary field.

The poll, released Monday, found Biden leading the field with 24 percent support followed by Senator Bernie Sanders with 18 percent support. Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg got 17 percent support followed by Senator Elizabeth Warren with 15 percent and Senator Amy Klobuchar with 8 percent.

The poll was conducted before Senator Cory Booker dropped out of the race on Monday. No other candidate was able to break double digits in the poll or even reach the high single digits.

The poll’s findings underscore Biden’s frontrunner status even as other candidates have both surged and then lost support in early state polling in the primary. The poll comes just a few weeks before the Iowa caucus.

Senator Bernie Sanders suggested during the 2020 presidential campaign that he might be willing to release a list of potential candidates he would appoint to the Supreme Court if elected president.

In a wide ranging interview with The New York Times published on Monday the Vermont senator was asked if he would be willing to release a slate of potential names.

Donald Trump released a list of possible candidates in 2016 which helped attract some conservative Republicans to Trump’s campaign.

When the Times editorial board asked if he would do something similar, Sanders responded “maybe” and that it’s “not a bad idea.”

Here’s what he said:

Maybe. I mean, it’s something, you know — it’s the same thing, who’s my vice president? Got to kind of win the nomination first. I’m kind of struggling to do that. And I want to do that. But you know, it’s not a bad idea. It’s a reasonable idea. My wife agrees with you. Yeah. I’ll take that into consideration. Nothing wrong with that. As to who I’ll potential nominees for the Supreme Court would be. Yep. All right. So if you see that in The New York Times, you know where it came from.

Donald Trump is having a busy day on Twitter, including going after the Democrats over their reaction to the assassination of Gen Qassem Suleimani.

“The Fake News Media and their Democrat Partners are working hard to determine whether or not the future attack by terrorist Suleimani was ‘eminent’ [sic – he means “imminent”] or not, & was my team in agreement,” the president wrote, in a tweet that was deleted and reissued, spelling fixed.

He was referring in part to a sticky Sunday for his defense secretary, Mike Esper, and national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, as they were asked about the intelligence behind the strike, which was carried out without Congress being informed.

“The answer to both is a strong YES,” Trump continued, “but it doesn’t really matter because of his horrible past!”

He added:

The Democrats and the Fake News are trying to make terrorist Suleimani into a wonderful guy, only because I did what should have been done for 20 years. Anything I do, whether it’s the economy, military, or anything else, will be scorned by the Rafical [sic] Left, Do Nothing Democrats!

It seems obvious to note that the Democrats have not made the Iranian general out to have been “a wonderful guy”, but they have hit the administration hard over the background to the strike and the crisis it stoked with Iran.

Prior to his own tweets, Trump also re-tweeted a string of messages concerning the #NancyPelosiFakeNews hashtag, which has proliferated with video of the House Speaker discussing the Suleimani strike on ABC News on Sunday.

Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi Photograph: Jeff Neira/ABC via Getty Images

On ABC, Pelosi discussed protests in Iran after Tehran admitted to shooting down an airliner, killing 176 people. She said some protests were against “the fact that that plane went down and many students were on the plane and were out on the street” and also said there were anti-regime protests before Trump ordered the strike which killed Suleimani. Republican sources picked up on the phrase “different reasons why people are in the street” and gleefully ran with it out of context.

Not hugely presidentially, as ever, Trump also retweeted the following image of Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer:

Here’s our latest report on the protests in Iran:

Cory Booker suspends presidential campaign

Senator Cory Booker announced Monday that he is suspending his presidential campaign.

He sent the following email to supporters announcing the move:

Friend,

Nearly one year ago, I got in the race for president because I believed to my core that the answer to the common pain Americans are feeling right now, the answer to Donald Trump’s hatred and division, is to reignite our spirit of common purpose to take on our biggest challenges and build a more just and fair country for everyone.

I’ve always believed that. I still believe that. I’m proud I never compromised my faith in these principles during this campaign to score political points or tear down others. And maybe I’m stubborn, but I’ll never abandon my faith in what we can accomplish when we join together.

I will carry this fight forward -- I just won’t be doing it as a candidate for president this year.

Updated

Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg shot back over Twitter at Donald Trump’s jab at him on healthcare.

The Justice Department in the Trump administration is currently party to a lawsuit seeking to overturn the preexisting conditions still in place as part of the Affordable Care Act. At times Trump has promised to keep and protect that aspect of the law while also, quixotically, vowing to completely gut Obamacare.

Trump weighs in on escalating tensions between Warren and Sanders

Donald Trump weighed in on the escalating tensions between senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on Monday. In the process he misspelled his nickname for Warren – Pocahontas.

The tweet comes in the aftermath of a weekend in which Sanders and Warren began to take still-somewhat subtle jabs at each other. It started when Politico reported that the Sanders campaign is urging volunteers to describe Warren as the preferred candidate of elite Democratic voters. “She’s bringing in no new bases to the Democratic Party,” the talking points suggested.

In response, Warren told reporters that she was disappointed that the Vermont senator was sending out supporters to “trash” her campaign. Warren and Sanders, until now, had retained a pretty consistent detente with each other in the primary, refusing to openly attack each other. But now the gloves are coming off.

“Let’s be clear: As a party, and as a country, we can’t afford to repeat the factionalism of the 2016 primary,” Warren campaign manager Roger Lau wrote in a fundraising email to supporters. “To win in November, we need a nominee who can unite a broad coalition of Democrats — who will excite every part of the Democratic party and inspires more people to join the fight.”

Updated

Former vice-president Joe Biden rolled out a set of endorsements Monday underscoring two aspects of the Democratic primary Biden’s campaign is focusing on in the final days before the Iowa caucuses.

First, Biden’s team announced that Representative Colin Allred had backed him. Allred is the tenth black member of Congress to back the former president.

The endorsement underscores the support Biden enjoys among the black Democratic community. But Biden isn’t the only one who’s been winning support among black lawmakers lately. Last week Representative Anthony Brown endorsed former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, one of Biden’s chief rivals in the 2020 Democratic primary.

Biden’s campaign also announced on Monday that Iowa attorney general Tom Miller is now backing him. Miller was one of the few Democrats to support Montana Governor Steve Bullock before he dropped out of the Democratic primary.

Miller is the latest in a string of Iowa endorsements that Biden’s campaign has rolled out. He’s been endorsed by Representative Abby Finkenauer, former agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack, and Cedar Rapids state Representative Kirsten Running-Marquardt. Such endorsements are coveted in the lead up to the Iowa caucuses.

Updated

Donald Trump dinged former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg on Twitter calling the 2020 Democratic candidate “Mini Mike Bloomberg,” and saying that he fought to keep the pre-existing conditions protections in Obamacare while also getting rid of the law’s individual mandate.

The justice department in the Trump administration is currently party to a lawsuit that would overturn the preexisting conditions protections.

Trump, in the early days of his administration, tried to gut as much of the Affordable Care Act as he could. Bloomberg’s presidential campaign has been airing an ad attacking Trump on healthcare. The narrator in the ad that says that as president “Mike will provide universal access to affordable healthcare.” Watch the ad here:

Updated

Hello live blog readers. This is my first time doing this so forgive me for being a novice.

Let’s start with the latest on impeachment. Less than a month ago it was clear Donald Trump preferred a showy TV-style impeachment trial. But on Sunday the president indicated a reversal.

It’s a bit of character for a president who loves being ostentatious and confrontational. The tweet comes just a few days before the likely beginning of the trial later in the week.

On the Democratic side, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is set to meet with the Democratic caucus on Tuesday to discuss impeachment. Pelosi could introduce a resolution later that day.

Here’s what else we’re watching as the day unfolds:

  • The president is traveling to New Orleans tonight to watch the College football playoff national championship.
  • A number of Democratic presidential candidates are in Iowa doing a few more campaign stops before tomorrow’s debate at Drake University. John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg, and Joe Biden have events scheduled today and John Kerry and Jill Biden have events scheduled for Biden. Bruce Mann is doing an event for Elizabeth Warren.
  • We’re also alert to ongoing reports of a Bernie-Biden feud, of course.
  • White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien told Axios that Trump has “reached out to the North Koreans” in an effort to resume negotiations.
Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
New York woman is excited to walk into Amex airport lounge for the first time—until some men start making fun of her: ‘I already was so insecure’
A New York influencer celebrates getting her first American Express Platinum card by checking out one of the credit card’s exclusive airport lounges. A group of men make a rude comment about her appearance that ruins her mood. She gets her revenge after another member recognizes her.
The Mary Sue
The Mary Sue
Menstrual pads and tampons can contain toxic substances – here’s what to know about this emerging health issue
About half of the global population menstruates at some point in their lives. Disposable products, such as tampons and pads, are some of the most popular products used around the globe to manage menstrual flow.
The Conversation
The Conversation
‘It’s not your house’: Homeowner floored after finding TikTok scammer trying to rent out the condo she owns
She found a video of her own home up for rent on TikTok.
We Got This Covered
We Got This Covered
“You have to go to a clinic”: Clavicular’s candid remarks about intimacy spark debate and laughter across the internet
Clavicular went viral after joking about intimacy during a podcast appearance, turning an awkward question into a widely shared clip. His humor sparked debate over authenticity, shock value, and internet fame. The streamer also dismissed viral slang tied to his name, calling it meaningless social media noise, while his mix…
The Times of India
The Times of India
Charli XCX: Popularity of Brat was ‘heavy, confusing and very vulnerable change’
The singer was speaking on BBC One’s The Graham Norton Show.
Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Can a rhythm be owned? What a reggaeton lawsuit reveals about how copyright misunderstands music
A little-known American lawsuit could end up reshaping popular music. A US federal court is preparing to rule on a landmark copyright dispute. At its centre is an interesting question: can a short rhythmic pattern – one that appears in thousands of reggaeton tracks – be owned?
The Conversation
The Conversation
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play