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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Vivian Ho in Oakland (now) and Ben Jacobs in Washington (earlier)

Joe Biden reportedly tells supporters he's running for president – as it happened

Joe Biden reportedly told supporters he was concerned he wouldn’t be able to raise money as quickly as other Democratic contenders have.
Joe Biden reportedly told supporters he was concerned he wouldn’t be able to raise money as quickly as other Democratic contenders have. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Evening summary

Thanks for sticking with us, folks.

Utah Senator and former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney weighed in on President Trump’s comments on the late Senator John McCain.

Romney has always been fiercely protective of McCain. Last year, he responded to White House aide Kelly Sadler’s remarks dismissing McCain’s opposition to a CIA director nominee: “It doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway,” she said.

Report: Biden is running

Former Vice President Joe Biden quietly reached out to “at least a half-dozen supporters” Tuesday to inform them of his intentions to run for president, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Biden has hinted before that he was close to jumping into the already crowded race, but “expressed concern” to the supporters he spoke to on Tuesday that “he wouldn’t be able to raise millions of dollars in online donations immediately the way some other Democratic candidates have,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Trump nominates former Delta exec to head FAA

President Trump has named former Delta Air Lines executive Steve Dickson as his pick to lead the Federal Aviation Administration, the Hill is reporting.

The nomination comes amid criticism over the FAA’s handling of the Boeing’s 737 Max 8 aircraft in the aftermath of the Ethiopian Airlines crash this month that killed 157 people, and the Lion Air crash in Indonesia in October that killed 189.

While countries around the world were quick to ground the aircraft pending an investigation into the airworthiness, the Trump administration was one of the last to do so.

The position has been filled on an acting basis since January 2018, with Trump reportedly considering his personal pilot to oversee the agency.

Dickson, a former Air Force pilot, will require Senate confirmation before taking the job, according to the Hill. He retired from Delta last year as senior vice president of flight operations.

Hey all, Vivian Ho taking over for Ben Jacobs.

In his lawsuit, California Congressman Devin Nunes claims to be a victim of Twitter trolls like “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and “Devin Nunes’ Cow,” but in taking legal action, he’s actually fallen victim to the Streisand Effect.

Devin Nunes’ Mom and Devin Nunes’ Cow are now joined by Devin Nunes’ Grandma, Devin Nunes’ Goat, and Devin Nunes’ Lawyer, amongst others.

Summary

  • President Donald Trump praised his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro at a joint press conference at the White House. Trump particularly cited Bolsonaro use of the phrase “fake news.”
  • New court filings revealed that special counsel Robert Mueller started collecting Michael Cohen’s emails in July 2017, nine months before the raid on Cohen’s hotel and office
  • Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will stay on “a little longer.” Rosenstein had been expected to step down in March.

Updated

In 2012, Beto O’Rourke campaigned as a fiscal conservative in his first race for Congress.

CNN reports that O’Rourke called the size of government “extravagant” and pushed for “significant” cuts in spending. In particular, O’Rourke attacked his opponent, incumbent Silvestre Reyes, for voting against the bipartisan super committee which proposed significant spending cuts. The proposal failed and led to the ongoing budget cuts because of sequestration.

Florida legalized medical marijuana on Monday more than two years after voters approved it in a referendum.

Legislation was signed by newly elected Republican governor Ron DeSantis, who has been pro-medical marijuana and overturns a ban signed by his predecessor Rick Scott.

Top Trump Administration officials are headed to China next week for new trade talks.

Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer are traveling to Beijing to continue the ongoing talks between the U.S. and China over trade.

A new national poll of the 2020 presidential primary shows Joe Biden maintaining a healthy lead.

The poll conducted by SSRS for CNN has Joe Biden at 28%, Bernie Sanders at 20%, Kamala Harris at 12% and Beto O’Rourke at 11%.

Longshot 2020 Democratic candidate Andrew Yang has come out against circumcision.

Yang, who qualified for the debate stage this month by getting 65,000 individual donations, told the Daily Beast he opposed to the practice.

The Democratic candidate revealed in a little-noticed tweet last week that he was against the ritualized practice of cutting a newborn’s foreskin. But in an interview with The Daily Beast, he said that if he were elected he would incorporate that view into public policy, mainly by pushing initiatives meant to inform parents that they don’t need to have their infants circumcised for health reasons.

“It’s sort of pushed on parents in many situations,” Yang said, describing pressure to circumcise a child as a “cultural onus” imposed on families.

Trump spoke with President Emmanuel Macron of France today. The White House provides the following readout of their conversation:

President Trump spoke by telephone with President Emmanuel Macron of France earlier today. They discussed the situation in Syria, cooperation within the G7 framework, and the status of trade talks between the United States and the European Union.

Trump praises Bolsonaro

Donald Trump on Tuesday praised Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro for using the phrase “fake news”, as the two men reveled in their similarities during a summit in Washington.

“I’m very proud to hear the president use the term ‘fake news,’” Trump said of his Brazilian counterpart while standing by his side at a joint press conference in the White House Rose Garden.
Trump’s comments came as Bolsonaro urged Brazil and the US to “stand side-by-side in their efforts to ensure liberty and respect for traditional family lifestyles with respect to God ... and against politically correct attitudes and against fake news”.

The admiration between the two men was mutual, as Bolsonaro, the far-right leader of Brazil, expressed his belief that Trump would be reelected to a second term.

Questions from the press were limited to a handful of organizations that included the Daily Caller, a Trump-friendly conservative website often cited by the president.

The outlet asked Trump about his attacks on social media companies, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, which he president accused of bias earlier in the day.
“It seems to be if they are conservative, if they are Republicans, in a certain group, there is discrimination,” Trump said.

The president went on to suggest, without evidence, that there was “collusion” between the platforms, stating: “Something has to be going on ... The hatred they have for a certain group of people that happen to be in power.”

“I do think we have to get to the bottom of it,” Trump added. “It’s fair to say we have to do something about it.”

Updated

The NHL champion Washington Capitols will visit Trump at the White House.

Although a number of pro teams that won championships have skipped the traditional White House visit including the Golden State Warriors and Philadelphia Eagles, the AP reports the Capitols will make the short trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Only a few of the 81 people and entities that the House Judiciary Committee have requested documents from have responded by the deadline.

Politico reports:

A small fraction of the 81 individuals and entities connected to President Donald Trump have turned over documents to the House Judiciary Committee by Monday’s deadline as part of the panel’s sweeping obstruction of justiceinvestigation, according to Republican aides.

The committee had received just eight responses as of Tuesday morning, GOP counsels to the committee said. The vast majority of the 8,195 pages of material in those responses was provided by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who handed over 2,688 pages; Trump confidant Thomas Barrack, who supplied 3,349 pages; and the National Rifle Association, which turned over 1,466 pages, the Republicans said.

Liz Mair, the prominent anti-Trump Republican consultant who was sued by Congressman Devin Nunes yesterday, just put out a statement.

Nunes sued both Twitter and Mair as well as two anonymous Twitter accounts for criticizing him on the Internet.

George Conway explained his anti-Trump tweets as a coping mechanism so he doesn’t yell at his wife, top White House aide Kellyanne Conway about the President.

He told the Washington Post: “It’s so maddening to watch. The mendacity, the incompetence, it’s just maddening to watch. The tweeting is just the way to get it out of the way, so I can get it off my chest and move on with my life that day. That’s basically it. Frankly, it’s so I don’t end up screaming at her about it.”

Trump attacked Conway this morning on Twitter as “a total loser.”

The last time a constitutional amendment was proposed to abolish the Electoral College, it passed the House but failed to reach the two thirds majority threshold to be submitted to states for ratification.

However, one likely presidential candidate did vote on the measure then. Joe Biden voted to keep the Electoral College.

The press conference has just ended and Trump adds “talks with China are going very well” before he and Bolsonaro walk back into the White House.

Bolsonaro says “I do believe Donald Trump is going to be re-elected, fully.”

Trump says he doesn’t support adding additional Supreme Court justices to the court, which a number of Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed.

Trump recognizes Bolsonaro’s son in the audience before taking a second question.

Bolsonaro approvingly cites Trump talking about his secret strategy to defeat ISIS during a presidential debate.

On Venezuela, Trump says “we haven’t done the toughest of sanctions yet.”

Bolsonaro says he and Trump stand together against “fake news.”

Trump says that he intends to designate Brazil as “a major non-NATO ally” or even “a NATO ally.”

Updated

Trump says Maduro “is really nothing more than a Cuban puppet” when talking about Venezuela.

Trump says that he and Bolsonaro have “many views that are similar” at the top of the press conference.

Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have now entered the Rose Garden to begin their joint press conference

Mark Salter, a longtime aide to John McCain who also been a vocal Trump critic, replied on Twitter to Trump’s attack on the late Arizona senator.

Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who is pondering a presidential bid, is on the trail in South Carolina. The three-term Democrat is playing coy about whether he’ll run for office.

Donald Trump Jr has written a column on Brexit for the Daily Telegraph.

The son of President Donald Trump cites the efforts by opponents to block the UK leaving the European Union as parallel to those “establishment elites” have tried to impede Trump’s agenda in the United States.

Why is this important for us Americans? Because Brexit is an example of how the establishment elites try to subvert the will of the people when they’re given the chance.

Here in the United States, we’ve seen similar efforts to overturn legitimate election results. When my father beat the Washington establishment in a historic outcome in 2016, just a few months after the Brexit vote, we mistakenly presumed there would be a peaceful and respectful transition of power from the Democrats to the Republicans, just as there has always been in this country.

Instead, the Democrats and deep-state operatives in our justice system have been colluding to subvert the will of the American people, with high-level officials even discussing a scheme to try to remove him from office using the 25th Amendment of our constitution.

In a way, you could say that Brexit and my father’s election are one and the same – the people of both the UK and the US voted to uproot the establishment for the sake of individual freedom and independence, only to see the establishment try to silence their voices and overturn their mandates.

Updated

A controversial bill in Florida, which could undo parts of a landmark referendum that restored voting rights to millions of former felons, made its first advances in the state legislature on Tuesday.

Florida has for decades enforced some of America’s hardest felony disenfranchisement laws, blocking around 1.5 million people from voting due to prior offenses. In November 2018 a statewide referendum to amend Florida’s constitution and allow the majority of former felons to vote passed with a 65% majority. Since January eligible former convicts have registered to vote under new provisions.

But Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that advocates claim will blunt the effect of the referendum by requiring all former felons to pay back all court fees and fines before being eligible to vote again. The bill would also stop anyone with a prior felony sex offense conviction, including prostitution, from regaining the vote.

On Tuesday the bill was voted out of the Florida House Criminal Justice Subcommittee with the Republican majority voting in favour. It will now advance to a full committee hearing.

Neil Volz, political director for the Florida Rights Restoration, which played a pivotal role in grassroots organizing during the referendum, told the Guardian he was “deeply disappointed” with the outcome of today’s vote.

“Today was partisan politics being injected back into Amendment 4. And when partisan politics take over it’s always the people who lose,” Volz said.

Advocates like Volz argue the results of the referendum should mean all former felons, barring those with murder or serious sex offense convictions, should eventually have their rights restored.

Proponents of the new bill say the language of the referendum is too vague and should be clarified through further legislation.

America First Policies, an outside money group tied to Donald Trump, has launched an ad campaign to support two key Trump allies on Capitol Hill.

The group will spend $100,000 to run ads promoting Congressman Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio.

The ad asks supporters to call their congressional offices and thank them for standing with Trump.

The Washington Post profiled Beto O’Rourke and his wife Amy in an exhaustive piece that shares a sense of their marriage and how the former Texas congressman came to mount his presidential bid.

It includes details about their first date and how they came to be married as well:

Amy and Beto crossed the border, to Juarez, and ended up at a bar called Martino’s, where they drank martinis and laughed about how they both had big noses. A Mexican crew filming a commercial in the bar tried to get the couple to kiss on camera, and Beto got them out of it by saying Amy was his sister.

He proposed on April Fools’ Day, four months after they’d first met. It seemed appropriate. That’s how Amy knew him then and even now — impulsive and puckish: He told her on one of their first dates that he planned to name his first son Ulysses (which they did, about a year after marrying, followed by a Molly and a Henry). He dubbed their dog Roosevelt before realizing that the dog was a girl (who now goes by Rosie).

Trump also told reporters that he knew “exactly” what he wants to see in Venezuela. However, he did not divulge what that is, saying “all options are on the table.”

Trump repeated his criticism of John McCain while in the Oval Office with Bolsonaro just now.

“I was never a fan of John McCain and I never will be.”

Trump gave Bolsonaro a soccer jersey inside the Oval Office where Trump also said he was “honored” that people compared Bolsonaro’s campaign to his.

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is now just arriving at the White House where he is being greeted by Trump.

The two will hold a joint press conference at 1:45 and may give some remarks together in the Oval Office prior to that as well. Bolsonaro is a hard right populist who has spoken often of his admiration for Trump.

Updated

Cory Booker will be the latest Democrat to do a townhall on CNN.

The New Jersey Democrat will do a televised townhall later this month in South Carolina.

Howard Schultz, the coffee mogul considering a third party presidential bid, will appear on a Fox News town hall in early April.

The event will be televised on April 4 from 6:30 to 7:30 and cohosted by Bret Baier and Martha McCollum. Schultz has faced significant criticism from Democrats as he has floated a third party bid who view him as a spoiler who would help Donald Trump’s chances in a general election.

Beto O’Rourke seemed to indicate agreement with Elizabeth Warren today about getting rid of the electoral college. The Massachusetts senator endorsed that proposal last night during a CNN town hall.

The Trump Administration is clashing with Juan Guaido, the leader of the Venezuelan opposition who has been recognized as the country’s president.

The issue is whether to grant temporary protected status to the 70,000 Venezuelans illegally in the United States as refugees from the Maduro regime.

The effort to protect Venezuelans, which is also supported by Senator Marco Rubio and top State Department official Elliott Abrams, represents a clash between two of Trump’s top priorities: a hard line on immigration and restoring democratic government to Venezuela.

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign has been outspending all Democrats combined on Facebook and Google.

Trump has spent $4.5 million online so far. The closest Democrat to that total is Elizabeth Warren who has spent $595,000.

Much of the spending is still happening on Facebook as Axios reports:

The Facebook ad spend by all candidates is far-outpacing Google ad spend, according to the data. Overall, all candidates are spending roughly 3 times as much on Facebook ads than on Google ads. The Trump campaign is investing even more heavily on Facebook, spending 3.5 times as much there as on it is on Google.

The Trump administration is preparing to stonewall congressional Democrats in their efforts to exercise oversight over the administration.

Politico reports:

In their early response to an onslaught of Democratic requests, Trump officials are breaking from norms set by previous administrations of both parties, according to people who worked in the White House or Capitol Hill during the presidencies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Over the last two months, Trump’s intent has become clear: He doesn’t plan to negotiate with Congress over their demands for information and witnesses the way his predecessors did. Instead, House Democrats are going to have to fight him for everything.

Congressman Devin Nunes of California is suing Twitter, an anti-Trump Republican operative and two Twitter accounts for defamation.

Nunes, the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, filed suit for $250 million.

He specifically cites two parody accounts, @devinnunesmom, which was suspended last year as well as @devincow for mocking him.

Politico reports that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is likely to be permanently appointed the position.

Mulvaney, who also serves has the head of the Office of Management and Budget, has been acting as chief of staff since John Kelly’s departure last year. Prior to joining Trump’s administration, Mulvaney was elected to four terms as a congressman from South Carolina.

A top aide to Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign has signed back on for 2020.

CNN reports that Claire Sandburg will be Sanders’s national organizing director.

Claire Sandberg led the Vermont lawmaker’s distributed organizing team during his last primary bid and comes on now as the 2020 campaign’s director of organizing -- a senior leadership position traditionally associated with a job title like national field director. The hiring marks an unlikely reconciliation given Sandberg’s headline-grabbing departure from Our Revolution, a group formed to keep up Sanders’ “political revolution” on the heels of his first presidential campaign.Sandberg returns to the fold after making peace with Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ polarizing former campaign manager and close confidant, who has since moved into a senior adviser role. She will lead what is expected to be a massive, coordinated operation designed to channel Sanders’ grassroots support into more proactive volunteer-initiated activities

Rosenstein staying "a little longer" at DOJ

Rod Rosenstein, the number two official at the Justice Department is planning on stay “a little longer.” Rosenstein, who oversaw the Mueller probe until the confirmation of William Barr to be attorney general, had been planning to leave in March. However, he has decided to postpone his resignation.

Beto O’Rourke is starting his morning on the campaign trail with ice cream in central Pennsylvania.

The former Texas congressman has been traveling a zig-zag route from Iowa last week to New Hampshire, where he will hold his first campaign event on Tuesday. He’s made stops in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio.

Three former Hawaii governors are supporting a primary challenge to Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.

Ben Cayetano, Neil Abercrombie and John Waihee are all supporting state senator Kai Kahele as he attempts to unseat Gabbard, a four-term congresswoman who is also running for President.

Gabbard has become a controversial figure for her refusal to condemn Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad and past anti-LGBT comments which she has apologized for.

Former Speaker Paul Ryan has joined the board of Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News.

President Donald Trump attacked George Conway, the husband of top White House aide Kellyanne Conway, as a “total loser” on Twitter this morning.

George Conway, a conservative lawyer, has long been a vocal critic of Trump and has recently been suggesting Trump has a personality disorder on Twitter.

Conway seemed nonplussed by the attack.

Mueller began collecting Cohen's emails in July 2017, files show

The search warrant also reveals that special counsel Robert Mueller started collecting Cohen’s emails in July 2017. This is nearly a year before the raid on Cohen’s office and only weeks after Mueller’s appointment to be special counsel.

Updated

Everything related to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal appears to be redacted in the Cohen documents that were released this morning.

Documents related to FBI raid on Michael Cohen released

Good morning.

President Donald Trump attacked the husband of top aide Kellyanne Conway as “a loser” on Twitter this morning, Elizabeth Warren endorsed abolishing the electoral college at a townhall last night and the search warrant and other supporting documents that led to the raid on former Trump fixer Michael Cohen’s office last year have been released.

It’s Tuesday in American politics.

Updated

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