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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Lois Beckett (now) and Joan E Greve in Washington (earlier)

Trump campaign knew voter fraud claims were baseless soon after election loss, says report – as it happened

Donald Trump is seen on a screen speaking to supporters during a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 presidential election results in Washington on 6 January.
Donald Trump is seen on a screen speaking to supporters during a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 presidential election results in Washington on 6 January. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Evening summary

We are wrapping up another day of US politics coverage. Here are today’s highlights:

  • The Biden administration is facing public criticism from powerful Democrats about its continued use of a Trump-era border policy, Title 42, which denies migrants at the US border the ability to seek asylum. Senator Chuck Schumer, among others, have spoken out against the Biden administration’s use of Title 42, in the context of a still-unfolding scandal about US Border Patrol treatment of Haitian migrants.
  • Kamala Harris expressed her support for a “thorough investigation” of the treatment of Haitian immigrants at the US-Mexican border. The vice-president said the footage of US border patrol agents confronting Haitian immigrants on horseback and potentially using whips on them was “horrible”. “Human beings should never be treated that way,” Harris said. “And I’m deeply troubled about it.”
  • Adam Schiff said the select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection is “going straight to subpoenas where we think we’re dealing with recalcitrant witnesses.” The Democratic congressman told reporters that he expects some of the panel’s requests to be complied with, but he added, “Where we do meet resistance, we intend to push back hard and fast.”
  • Newly released court documents show that the Trump campaign knew its allegations against Dominion Voting Systems were baseless within weeks of the 2020 election. The New York Times reports that the former president’s campaign drafted an internal memo on November 19 that debunked election conspiracy theories involving Dominion and its voting machines. And yet, Trump’s legal team continued to peddle the false allegations against Dominion.
  • Congressional Democrats are facing multiple crises as they attempt to advance Joe Biden’s economic agenda. Intraparty divisions remain over both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the $3.5tn reconciliation package, while lawmakers are trying to simultaneously suspend the debt ceiling and extend government funding past the end of the month. Republicans remain adamant that they will not assist in any effort to increase the debt ceiling, even though Democrats helped them do just that during Donald Trump’s presidency.
  • Biden addressed the UN general assembly and outlined his approach to foreign policy. As the US president receives criticism for his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal and weathers France’s outrage over a nuclear submarine deal with Australia, Biden promised “a new era of relentless diplomacy”. “US military power must be our tool of last resort, not our first,” Biden said.
  • In response to the ongoing criticism of Facebook’s role in vaccine misinformation, racist rhetoric, lies about the 2020 election and other crises, Mark Zuckerberg signed off on a plan to insert positive information about the company intoFacebook users’ news’ feeds, the New York Times reported.
  • Meanwhile, US medical staff at the front lines of the country’s 1,900 Covid-19 deaths a day, the most since March, are speaking out about the “heart-wrenching, soul-crushing” effects of witnessing the deaths of unvaccinated people amid widespread misinformation.

Updated

‘Heart-wrenching, soul-crushing’: US COVID-19 deaths are topping 1,900 a day

COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have climbed to an average of more than 1,900 a day for the first time since early March, with experts saying the virus is preying largely on a distinct group: 71 million unvaccinated Americans, the Associated Press reports.

The increasingly lethal turn has filled hospitals, complicated the start of the school year, delayed the return to offices and demoralized health care workers.

“It is devastating,” said Dr. Dena Hubbard, a pediatrician in the Kansas City, Missouri, area who has cared for babies delivered prematurely by cesarean section in a last-ditch effort to save their mothers, some of whom died. For health workers, the deaths, combined with misinformation and disbelief about the virus, have been “heart-wrenching, soul-crushing.”

Trans youth in Texas show up to testify against third round of anti-trans bills

For The 19th, Orion Rummler reports from Texas on the emotional toll of having to advocate against multiple rounds of anti-trans legislation at the state level.

“Some of the things they say about trans children, it’s heartbreaking,” one Texan said.

The people showing up to testify at the capitol during marathon sessions are not necessarily representative of trans Texans and their families overall, Rummler reported.

White parents of trans kids are typically the face of the debate over anti-trans legislation, Victoria Kirby York, deputy executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, told The 19th: “It paints a picture of who the harm is hitting that doesn’t get at the data.”

‘Project Amplify’: Facebook reportedly using news feed to boost pro-Facebook stories

When a plan to use Facebook’s news feed to show users positive content about the company was discussed at a January internal meeting, several Facebook executives were “shocked,” the New York Times reported.

Mark Zuckerberg signed off on the policy last month, according to the Times, part of what reporters characterized as a broader shift within Facebook to apologize less when faced with evidence of the platform’s role in vaccine misinformation, racist rhetoric, and other democratic crises.

The effort also reportedly focused on cutting down on internal leaks from within the company.

Updated

Gabby Petito confirmed dead of homicide as search for fiance continues

The FBI says a county coroner has confirmed that human remains found in remote northern Wyoming along the border of Grand Teton national park are those of 22-year-old Gabby Petito, who disappeared while on a cross-country road trip with a fiance who is now being sought by authorities in Florida.

The Teton county coroner, Brent Blue, determined her manner of death was homicide, but did not disclose a cause of death pending final autopsy results, officials said Tuesday.

The national attention to Petito’s disappearance and death has prompted broader conversations about the ongoing crisis of missing and murdered women, particularly indigenous women.

‘Chaotic’ scene as White House aides block questions to Biden about border policies

Boris Johnson took questions from British reporters during an Oval Office meeting with Joe Biden, but White House aides shut down American reporters’ attempts to ask the president about the US border. The government’s treatment of Haitian migrants at the border has sparked broad condemnation this week.


Biden did attempt to answer a reporter’s question, but his answer was “undecipherable,” CBS News reports.

Update: a CBS News reporter tweeted that part of the president’s answer was decipherable once they played the tape back later: “Violence is not justified.”

Updated

Democrats speak out about Biden administration’s use of Trump border policy

Powerful Democratic lawmakers have been speaking out about the Biden administration’s treatment of Haitian migrants at the border, and prominent celebrities are also highlighting the policy and calling for the Biden administration to change course.

Democrats from Texas and Oregon have also been highlighting the policy, which BuzzFeed News immigration reporter Hamed Aleaziz wrote had not previously generated a broad public discussion.

“Title 42 has been a policy that hasn’t produced outrage/protest on a wide scale,” Aleaziz wrote on Tuesday. “Biden rarely talks about it and his administration discusses it as an unfortunate necessity. Schumer, in this clip, is framing it as a choice.”

Other prominent Americans, including filmmaker Ava Duvernay, also put a spotlight on Title 42.

The Associated Press has more background on the policy and its history:

Updated

After ‘horrible’ border images, Democrats press administration to end use of Title 42

The White House is facing sharp condemnation from Democrats for its handling of the influx of Haitian migrants at the U.S. southern border, after images of U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback using aggressive tactics went viral this week, the Associated Press reports.

In response, Democrats on Capitol Hill are calling on the Biden administration to end its use of a pandemic-era authority to deport migrants without giving them an opportunity to seek asylum in the United States.

The provision in question, known as Title 42, was put in place by the Trump administration in March 2020 to justify restrictive immigration policies in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. But the Biden administration has used Title 42 to justify the deportation of Haitian migrants who in recent days have set up an encampment in and around the small city of Del Rio, Texas. The provision gives federal health officials powers during a pandemic to take extraordinary measures to limit transmission of an infectious disease.

A federal judge late last week ruled the regulation was improper and gave the government two weeks before its use was to be halted, but the Biden administration on Monday appealed the decision. Shortly after the judge’s decision on Friday, Homeland Security officials formed a plan to begin immediately turning the groups of Haitian migrants around, working against the clock.

“The Biden administration pushing back on this stay of expulsions is another example of broken promises to treat migrants with respect and humanity when they reach our borders to exercise their fundamental right to asylum,” said Karla Marisol Vargas, senior attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project and co-counsel on the litigation.

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke out earlier on Tuesday, saying the photos of the Border Patrol agents’ treatment of migrants left her deeply troubled, and that “Human beings should never be treated that way.”

Reflecting the urgency of the political problem for the administration, Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas also said Tuesday the images “horrified” him, a seeming shift in tone from a day earlier, when he and others were more sanguine about the situation at the border.

Abortion clinics north of Texas flooded with patients after severe state ban

“The journey from Texas – whose surface area is almost 270,000 square miles – to other states poses its own challenge. For many, the trip will be impossible. For others, it will be harrowing,” Shefali Luthra reports for The 19th.

“One minor, who was raped by a family member, traveled eight hours from Galveston to Oklahoma to get an abortion,” according to the DOJ briefing. “Another patient facing violence at the hands of her husband is ‘discreetly attempting to leave Texas without her husband finding out,’ and is ‘desperate’ and ‘selling personal items’ to scrape together the funds needed for an out-of-state abortion.”

Read the full story here:

New poll shows Biden’s approval rate has dropped to 31% in Iowa

Nearly two-thirds of Iowa adults disapprove of Biden’s job as president, according to a new Des Moines Register poll. Biden’s support is now lower than Trump’s worst results in the same poll, the newspaper reported, and his handling of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan has the lowest approval of the issues surveyed.

The mid-September poll surveyed 805 Iowa adults, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, according to the Des Moines Register.

Activision Blizzard confirms SEC investigation into sexual misconduct allegations

This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live US politics coverage from our West Coast bureau in Los Angeles.

Activision Blizzard has confirmed an investigation by US regulators following allegations of sexual misconduct and discrimination at one of the world’s most high-profile video game companies.

The California-based company said on Tuesday that it was complying with a recent Securities and Exchange Commission subpoena sent to current and former employees and executives and the company itself on “employment matters and related issues”.

Today so far

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Lois Beckett, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Congressional Democrats are facing multiple crises as they attempt to advance Joe Biden’s economic agenda. Intraparty divisions remain over both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the $3.5tn reconciliation package, while lawmakers are trying to simultaneously suspend the debt ceiling and extend government funding past the end of the month. Republicans remain adamant that they will not assist in any effort to increase the debt ceiling, even though Democrats helped them do just that during Donald Trump’s presidency.
  • Biden addressed the UN general assembly and outlined his approach to foreign policy. As the US president receives criticism for his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal and weathers France’s outrage over a nuclear submarine deal with Australia, Biden promised “a new era of relentless diplomacy”. “US military power must be our tool of last resort, not our first,” Biden said.
  • Kamala Harris expressed her support for a “thorough investigation” of the treatment of Haitian immigrants at the US-Mexican border. The vice-president said the footage of US border patrol agents confronting Haitian immigrants on horseback and potentially using whips on them was “horrible”. “Human beings should never be treated that way,” Harris said. “And I’m deeply troubled about it.”
  • Adam Schiff said the select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection is “going straight to subpoenas where we think we’re dealing with recalcitrant witnesses.” The Democratic congressman told reporters that he expects some of the panel’s requests to be complied with, but he added, “Where we do meet resistance, we intend to push back hard and fast.”
  • Newly released court documents show that the Trump campaign knew its allegations against Dominion Voting Systems were baseless within weeks of the 2020 election. The New York Times reports that the former president’s campaign drafted an internal memo on November 19 that debunked election conspiracy theories involving Dominion and its voting machines. And yet, Trump’s legal team continued to peddle the false allegations against Dominion.

Lois will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid spoke with House majority leader Steny Hoyer about the dust-up over Iron Dome funding in Democrats’ government spending bill, per Walla News.

Hoyer reportedly told Lapid that the funding hold-up was “technical” and Democratic leaders remain committed to getting the money approved soon.

House Democrats have reportedly stripped $1bn in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome defense system from their government spending bill, after progressives expressed criticism of the provision.

Axios reports:

There has never a situation where military aid for Israel was held up because of objections from members of Congress. While the funding will get a vote in its current defense bill, the clash underscores the deep divisions within the Democratic party over Israel. ...

The funding has been a key priority for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), but its supporters ultimately caved after several progressive members like Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) threatened to vote against the short-term funding bill, which also includes language to raise the debt ceiling.

‘The Iron Dome will be included in the final, bipartisan and bicameral fiscal year 2022 Defense bill,’ said a House Appropriations committee spokesperson.

Some House Democrats have criticized their progressive colleagues for targeting the Iron Dome spending, arguing that the technology has helped protect civilian lives.

“Whatever your views on the Israeli-[Palestinian] conflict, using a system that just saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives as a political chit is problematic,” Democratic congresswoman Elissa Slotkin said on Twitter.

Justin Trudeau went into Monday’s federal election with one of the world’s highest Covid-19 vaccination rates, billions spent on pandemic aid and the hope that he could convert the earned goodwill into a majority government.

He fell short of that aim: after a 36-day campaign and a C$610m election, the makeup of parliament remained largely unchanged, with the Liberals holding roughly 158 seats – short of the 170 needed for a majority.

The Liberals received a smaller share of the popular vote than any other winning party in the country’s history – suggesting the prime minister’s popularity is waning, despite his party’s electoral advantages. And while the math in parliament remained largely the same, three of Trudeau’s cabinet ministers didn’t win re-election.

Trudeau will be forced to navigate a parliament that he needs to woo in order to survive. But it may yet give him the rare opportunity to pass sweeping, legacy-defining legislation.

When he called the election in mid August, Trudeau was asked about his future as party leader if the Liberals once again fell short of majority government. Trudeau declined to answer, but said that more work was required on crucial issues such as child-care and housing, adding that he is “nowhere near done yet”.

Joe Biden spoke to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today after his country’s snap election, the White House said.

According to the White House’s readout of the conversation, Biden congratulated Trudeau on securing another term as prime minister.

“The two leaders underscored the strong and deep friendship between the United States and Canada, and discussed their shared commitment to strengthening the resilience and competitiveness of the U.S. and Canadian economies and coordinating on COVID-19 pandemic response,” the White House said.

“The President expressed to Prime Minister Trudeau his desire to continue working closely and deepening collaboration with Canada – one of our nation’s top partners.”

Although Trudeau was able to stay in office, his Liberal party did not meet its goal of securing a majority of parliament seats, meaning the prime minister will still need to work with other parties to advance his agenda.

Vice-President Kamala Harris met with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson before his afternoon sit-down with Joe Biden at the White House.

“As you will discuss with the president, the relationship between our two countries is a long and enduring one, one that we value,” Harris told Johnson.

The prime minister added, “It’s a great honor and privilege for me to be here, to meet you for the first time.”

Joe Biden will meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson this afternoon, hours after the US president addressed the UN general assembly.

Johnson shared a photo of himself boarding an Amtrak train from New York to Washington for the bilateral meeting.

The prime minister’s choice of transportation will likely delight “Amtrak Joe”.

Donald Trump’s advisers continued to level false allegations against Dominion Voting Systems even after the former president’s campaign had concluded they were baseless.

The New York Times reports:

According to emails contained in the documents, Zach Parkinson, then the campaign’s deputy director of communications, reached out to subordinates on Nov. 13 asking them to ‘substantiate or debunk’ several matters concerning Dominion. The next day, the emails show, Mr. Parkinson received a copy of a memo cobbled together by his staff from what largely appear to be news articles and public fact-checking services.

Even though the memo was hastily assembled, it rebutted a series of allegations that [campaign lawyer Sidney] Powell and others were making in public. It found:

  • That Dominion did not use voting technology from the software company, Smartmatic, in the 2020 election.
  • That Dominion had no direct ties to Venezuela or to [George] Soros.
  • And that there was no evidence that Dominion’s leadership had connections to left-wing ‘antifa’ activists, as Ms. Powell and others had claimed.

According to the Times, it is unclear whether Trump himself saw the memo at the time. Regardless, the former president’s lies about voter fraud have been repeatedly fact-checked by numerous news outlets, and he has continued to spread them.

Trump campaign knew within weeks that election fraud claims were baseless - report

Newly released court documents show that Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign knew within weeks of the election that accusations against Dominion Voting Systems were false.

The New York Times reports:

Two weeks after the 2020 election, a team of lawyers closely allied with Donald J. Trump held a widely watched news conference at the Republican Party’s headquarters in Washington. At the event, they laid out a bizarre conspiracy theory claiming that a voting machine company had worked with an election software firm, the financier George Soros and Venezuela to steal the presidential contest from Mr. Trump.

But there was a problem for the Trump team, according to court documents released on Monday evening.

By the time the news conference occurred on Nov. 19, Mr. Trump’s campaign had already prepared an internal memo on many of the outlandish claims about the company, Dominion Voting Systems, and the separate software company, Smartmatic. The memo had determined that those allegations were untrue.

Trump has continued to peddle lies about fraud in the 2020 election up until now, almost a year after ballots were cast.

The former president has also extended those baseless claims to more recent elections, claiming they were also tainted by widespread fraud. Trump has, of course, presented absolutely no evidence to support those outlandish allegations.

Updated

House Democrats move forward with plan to vote on infrastructure bill next week

House Democrats are moving forward with their plan to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill next week, despite pushback from progressive lawmakers.

House majority leader Steny Hoyer confirmed this morning that the vote on the infrastructure bill will happen next Monday or Tuesday.

Hoyer added that the lower chamber will vote to advance the $3.5tn reconciliation package “as soon as it’s ready,” per Politico.

The announcement marks a defeat for progressives, who have insisted that they will not support the infrastructure bill without receiving assurances about the future of the reconciliation package.

Dozens of House progressives have indicated they are willing to block the infrastructure bill if necessary, which could potentially lead to the proposal’s defeat.

Given Democrats’ very narrow majority in the House, the future of the infrastructure bill may hang on how many Republicans choose to support it.

Vaccine mandates for the US military are meant to identify “sincere Christians … free thinkers” and “men with high testosterone levels”, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed on Monday night.

Tucker Carlson.
Tucker Carlson. Photograph: The Rubin Report

Such people, he said, “do not love Joe Biden” and would therefore “leave immediately”.

“It’s the takeover of the US military,” Carlson said.

The rightwing host has a hugely influential platform, reaching an average 3.3 million viewers in August. Despite vaccinations or daily Covid tests being required by Fox News, Carlson’s employer, he has consistently cast doubt on vaccines and other measures to combat Covid-19.

On Monday, Katie Lane, whose 45-year-old father was not vaccinated and who died of Covid-19 in Washington state, told CNN he “watched some Tucker Carlson videos on YouTube, and some of those videos involved some misinformation about vaccines, and I believe that played a role”.

On Monday, the US death toll passed 675,000, the estimated toll from the flu pandemic of 1918. The vast majority of hospitalisations and deaths are among unvaccinated people.

Updated

Jesse Benton, and Doug Wead, two Republican operatives, have been charged with funneling $25,000 from an unnamed Russian to a presidential campaign in 2016.

The indictment does not name the campaign but at the time of the alleged contribution, September 2016, Donald Trump was the Republican nominee for president against Hillary Clinton.

As the Associated Press reports, “according to court papers, Wead, 75, of Bonita Springs, Florida, told a Russian foreign national he could meet an unnamed presidential candidate at a political event in exchange for a contribution. It is illegal to solicit campaign contributions from foreigners.”

The US justice department alleges that Wead, also an author, and Benton, a former senior aide to the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Senator Rand Paul, from the same state, orchestrated a cover-up of the illegal donation.

There is no indication that Trump or other campaign aids knew where the money came from.

The AP again: “Both men appeared in court on Monday. Benton’s attorney did not immediately return messages seeking comment. Wead attorney Jay Sekulow” – formerly a lawyer for Trump when he was president – “said Wead pleaded not guilty.”

Last December, Trump pardoned Benton for a 2012 conviction for bribery.

Schiff: 6 January committee 'going straight to subpoenas'

Adam Schiff, a senior Democratic member of the House select committee investigating the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, said on Monday the panel was “going straight to subpoenas where we think we’re dealing with recalcitrant witnesses.”

Adam Schiff.
Adam Schiff. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

“In some cases, we’re making requests we think will be complied with,” Schiff also told reporters, as relayed by Politico.

The select committee contains only two Republicans: prominent Trump critics Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. The minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, withdrew co-operation when the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, rejected his suggestion of panel slots for Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana, key allies of Donald Trump.

Jordan in particular has been the focus of reporting on what he knew and when about the 6 January attack, around which five people died and which Trump supporters mounted after a “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House, at which Trump told them to “fight like hell” in service of his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud.

Jordan and other members of Congress including McCarthy are seen as potential witnesses to be called by the 6 January committee.

Most observers expect them to fiercely resist such summons. Some have claimed “executive privilege” may shield Republicans from discussing communications with Trump in January. Schiff, the chair of the House intelligence committee, said such claims were “bogus” and said the Biden justice department is unlikely to approve them.

“Where we do meet resistance, we intend to push back hard and fast,” Schiff said, without naming any prospective witnesses. Whether simple Republican refusal to play ball can be overcome without lengthy court battles remains of course to be seen.

Here’s Sidney Blumenthal’s take on whether Jordan can be compelled to appear before the committee – informed by events in Virginia and in Congress in the years immediately before the civil war:

Updated

Today so far

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Congressional Democrats are facing multiple crises as they attempt to advance Joe Biden’s economic agenda. Intraparty divisions remain over both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the $3.5tn reconciliation package, while lawmakers are trying to simultaneously suspend the debt ceiling and extend government funding past the end of the month. Republicans remain adamant that they will not assist in any effort to increase the debt ceiling, even though Democrats helped them do just that during Donald Trump’s presidency.
  • Biden addressed the UN general assembly and outlined his approach to foreign policy. As the US president receives criticism for his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal and weathers France’s outrage over a nuclear submarine deal with Australia, Biden promised “a new era of relentless diplomacy”. “US military power must be our tool of last resort, not our first,” Biden said.
  • Kamala Harris expressed her support for a “thorough investigation” of the treatment of Haitian immigrants at the US-Mexican border. The vice-president said the footage of US border patrol agents confronting Haitian immigrants on horseback and potentially using whips on them was “horrible”. “Human beings should never be treated that way,” Harris said. “And I’m deeply troubled about it.”

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Harris supports 'thorough investigation' into treatment of Haitian immigrants

Kamala Harris said she supports carrying out a “thorough investigation” into the treatment of Haitian immigrants at the US-Mexican border.

The vice-president’s comments come after footage surfaced of US border patrol agents rounding up Haitian immigrants on horseback and potentially using whips to push them back as they attempted to enter the country.

Asked about the footage by a reporter, Harris said the images were “horrible,” and she intends to speak to homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the matter.

“Human beings should never be treated that way,” Harris said. “And I’m deeply troubled about it.”

The White House has similar criticized the border agents’ behavior, with press secretary Jen Psaki saying yesterday, “I don’t think anyone seeing that footage would think it was acceptable or appropriate.”

As the Guardian’s Sam Levine notes, Chuck Schumer’s pledge that Democrats will go it alone on voting rights legislation marks a shift in tone for the Senate majority leader.

However, Democrats will still have to contend with the obstacles presented by the Senate filibuster, which seems unlikely to be changed anytime soon.

Schumer pledges Democrats will 'move on our own' with voting rights, despite filibuster challenges

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer warned that Democrats will “move on our own” if Republicans continue to block voting rights legislation.

Speaking on the Senate floor moments ago, Schumer pledged that the upper chamber would vote on the Freedom to Vote Act, the compromise voting rights bill unveiled by Democrats last week.

“It is my intention to hold a vote for the Freedom to Vote Act here on the Senate floor,” Schumer said. “If Republicans are unwilling to move forward, Democrats will have to move on our own.”

Of course, advancing the legislation would almost certainly require altering the Senate filibuster, and a handful of key Democrats, including Joe Manchin, remain opposed to that proposal.

Updated

In his speech at the UN general assembly meeting, Joe Biden emphasized the US priority in defending allies and the country’s interests, including in terrorist attacks, but said that while the country is prepared to use force if necessary, the “US military power must be our tool of last resort, not our first.”

“It should not be used as an answer to every problem we see around the world,” he said.

Biden noted that “bombs and bullets cannot defend against Covid-19 or its future variants.”

“To fight this pandemic, we need a collective act of science and political will. We need to act now to get shots in arms as fast as possible and expand access to oxygen treatments to save lives.”

Updated

The AP reports:

Thousands of Haitian migrants at the Mexico-US border in Texas face a ramped-up US exclusion effort, with six expulsion flights to Haiti on Tuesday. Mexico has begun bussing some away.

More than 6,000 had been removed from an encampment at Del Rio, Texas, US officials said on Monday as they defended a strong response that included immediately expelling migrants to their impoverished Caribbean country and faced criticism for using horse patrols to stop them entering the town.

Some Haitian migrants returned to Mexico, while others struggled to decide where to take their chances.

Marie Pierre, 43, stood on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande as night fell, with hundreds of others, unsure what to do.

She said border patrol agents separated her from her 19-year-old son in Texas and she didn’t know if he had been deported. She waited for a chance to charge her phone, hoping to get news from family in Florida.

Meanwhile, back on Capitol Hill, House Democratic leaders are still expressing optimism about the likelihood of their government spending bill passing the Senate.

“It is our hope that Senate Republicans will also do the right thing and stop playing politics around the debt limit,” House Democratic caucus chair Hakeem Jeffries said at a press conference.

Jeffries said that “at least a handful of Republicans” have indicated they are open to supporting the proposal, but it will take at least 10 Republican “yes” votes to get the bill through the Senate.

And Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell remains adamant that he will not support any effort to raise the debt ceiling.

Biden: US is 'opening a new era of relentless diplomacy'

Joe Biden is speaking at the UN general assembly, his first speech as US president.

Biden noted the 4.5m people who have died from Covid-19, saying, “Our shared grief is a poignant reminder that our collective future will hinge on our ability to recognize our common humanity, to act together.”

“This is the clear and urgent choice that we face here at the dawning of what must be a decisive decade for our world. A decade that will quite literally, determine our futures as a global community,” Biden added.

“In my view, how we answer these questions in this moment, whether we choose to fight for our shared future or not. all reverberate for generations yet to come.”

Biden briefly addressed the US removal of troops in Afghanistan, saying, “Instead of continuing to fight the wars of the past, we are fixing our eyes and devoting our resources to the challenges that hold the keys to our collective future.”

“We’re opening a new era of relentless diplomacy of using the power of our development aid to invest in new ways of listing people up around the world,” he said, adding that the US is turning its focus on “regions of the world” that are most “consequential”, including the Indo-Pacific region.

Read more updates from the UN in the Guardian’s separate live blog:

According to Politico, House minority whip Steve Scalise said this morning that Republican leadership will be encouraging members to vote against Democrats’ government spending bill.

If all House Republicans oppose the bill, then nearly every Democrat in the chamber will need to support it in order to get it passed.

And those hurdles will come before the bill heads over to the evenly divided Senate, where it currently has no path to the 60 votes needed for passage.

Congresswoman Rose DeLauro, the Democratic chairwoman of the House appropriations committee, said the spending bill “meets the continuing needs of people who live paycheck to paycheck”.

“It is critical that Congress swiftly pass this legislation to support critical education, health, housing and public safety programs and provide emergency help for disaster survivors and Afghan evacuees,” DeLauro said in a statement.

Noting that the bill includes funds for relocating Afghan refugees and responding to natural disasters, DeLauro added, “By extending funding through December 3, this legislation will allow Congress to negotiate full-year government funding bills that make historic and transformative investments to benefit working families. As we take that step today, providing help for people in desperate need is a moral imperative.”

House Democrats release text of government spending bill

The House appropriations committee has released the text of a bill to keep the government funded past the end of the month and raise the debt ceiling.

If enacted, the bill would continue government funding through December 3 and suspend the debt ceiling until December 16.

The legislation would also invest $28.6bn in natural disaster response and $6.3bn in efforts to relocate Afghan refugees.

However, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to oppose any effort to raise the debt ceiling, so it remains unclear how this bill could make it through the upper chamber.

The blog will have more details coming up. Stay tuned.

Democrats are trying to put pressure on Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell over his insistence that Republicans will not help raise the debt ceiling.

“Two years ago, @LeaderMcConnell said: ‘America can’t default. That would be a disaster.’ Yet, now he and @SenateGOP are trying to force the first-ever default of the U.S.,” House speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Twitter.

“All Members must come together in a spirit of bipartisanship to protect the full faith and credit of the U.S.”

But McConnell has somewhat of a notorious history for not giving in to pressure campaigns, with his handling of supreme court openings likely being the most famous example of that.

And so far, McConnell has given no indication of softening his position on the debt ceiling, even though Democrats helped Republicans raise the debt ceiling while Donald Trump was president.

The intraparty arguments over Democrats’ $3.5tn reconciliation package have raised concerns that the bill, which is considered the lynchpin of Joe Biden’s economic agenda, could fail.

Politico reports:

Moderate Senate Democrats Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) continue to be a major headache for party leadership’s $3.5 trillion target. The Senate parliamentarian just nixed the party’s yearslong push to enact broad immigration reform. House members may tank the prescription drugs overhaul the party has run on for years. And a fight continues to brew over Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) push to expand Medicare.

‘If any member of Congress is not concerned that this could fall apart, they need treatment,’ said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), who warned his party ‘will pay for it at the polls’ if it fails in enacting Biden’s agenda. ‘Our caucus has the feeling of freedom to support or oppose leadership.’

Democrats wrestle with multiple challenges as government shutdown looms

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

Congressional Democrats are trying to put out fires on multiple fronts as they seek to simultaneously advance their economic agenda and avoid a government shutdown.

Democratic leaders are scrambling to get both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the $3.5tn reconciliation package to Joe Biden’s desk.

Nancy Pelosi talks with reporters after a pair of votes at the Capitol yesterday.
Nancy Pelosi talks with reporters after a pair of votes at the Capitol yesterday. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

However, progressive lawmakers have threatened to torpedo the infrastructure bill unless they receive guarantees that the reconciliation package will also pass, while moderate Democrats are demanding that the reconciliation package be scaled down.

Meanwhile, Democratic leaders are also trying to avoid a government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, essentially daring Republicans to help them do so.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has insisted that Republicans will not help Democrats with increasing the debt ceiling, even though the two parties acted together to raise the debt ceiling during Donald Trump’s presidency.

Democrats are pairing a government spending proposal and a debt ceiling suspension in one bill, meaning the US could face a government shutdown and an economic catastrophe if Republicans follow through on McConnell’s threat.

Negotiations over all of those proposals will continue today on Capitol Hill. Stay tuned.

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