Closing summary
We’re closing the US politics blog now, but you can follow developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict on our 24-hour news blog here.
Thanks for joining us today. Joe Biden railed against Donald Trump-inspired Republicans he said formed the “most extreme political organization that exists in American history” for their efforts to overturn abortion and LBGTQ+ rights.
Here’s what else we followed:
- The cost of borrowing increased after the US federal reserve announced Wednesday it was raising its benchmark overnight interest rate 0.5%, the biggest jump in 22 years. Officials said it would help temper soaring inflation.
- New York’s congressional primaries are on track for August after a federal judge denied a voters’ group’s demand to force them to take place next month. The state is redrawing district maps after another judge ruled the originals favorable to Democrats and thus unlawful.
- Derek Chauvin will receive 20 to 25 years in prison for violating George Floyd’s civil rights as the former Minneapolis officer was murdering him, the judge overseeing a federal civil rights trial said.
- Acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf delayed intelligence about Russia’s interference in the 2020 election to protect then-president Trump, a watchdog report has found.
- Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau promised to defend abortion rights in the wake of the supreme court’s draft ruling to eliminate decades-old protections in the US.
- An overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of preserving abortion rights, new polls have found, voters preferring by a two to one ratio to maintain the 1973 Roe v Wade opinion that safeguarded women’s access to the procedure.
The White House press secretary Jen Psaki has defended Joe Biden’s comments earlier today condemning Republicans’ “extremism” in seeking to overturn abortion rights in the supreme court and promoting anti-LBGTQ+ legislation in numerous states.
Biden was forthright in his criticism at his morning briefing, assailing the Donald Trump-inspired wing of the party.
“This Maga crowd”, Biden said, referring to Trump’s ‘make America great again’ electioneering slogan, “is really the most extreme political organization that exists in American history”.
At her afternoon press briefing, Psaki said Biden was speaking his mind after reading the supreme court’s draft ruling ending almost a half-century of women’s rights to abortion:
What you’re hearing play out is the president’s own reaction to what he found in these documents, and his view that the protection of privacy, and the protection of the ability of women to make decisions about their health care with their doctors, about people to be able to choose who they marry, reminded him how important those protections are.
Asked about Biden considering the Republican stance “extreme”, Psaki said:
Republicans have wanted to talk about [the leak of the draft ruling] and not about whether they support the protection of a woman’s right to choose, a woman’s right to make decisions with her doctor about her health care.
[That’s] maybe not a surprise given by more than a two to one margin Americans want the supreme court to support abortion rights.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has tested positive for Covid-19.
The White House secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the news at her afternoon press briefing, noting he is not considered a close contact of Joe Biden.
A statement from the department of state says Blinken is vaccinated and boosted and experiencing only mild symptoms.
New: Secretary of State Anthony Blinken tested positive for Covid-19 this afternoon, per spokesman. He tested negative on Tuesday and as recently as this morning. Blinken was at the White House correspondents dinner.
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) May 4, 2022
Joe Biden thanked American athletes from recent summer and winter Olympic games, and the Paralympics, at the White House on Wednesday, hailing Team USA for bringing some unity to a pandemic-weary nation.
At a reception on the south lawn, the president and first lady Jill Biden greeted about 600 athletes from this year’s winter games in Beijing and the coronavirus-delayed summer event staged last year in Tokyo, according to the Associated Press.
“You represent the very soul of America. It’s been a very divided nation... but you brought us together. No matter the divisions, when we see you compete, we feel a common pride in those three letters: USA,” Biden said at the event also attended by vice-president Kamala Harris and first gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Among the athletes in attendance were swimmer and seven-time gold medalist Katie Ledecky, bobsledder Elena Meyers Taylor and ice dancer Zachary Donahue, as well as competitors from the past two Paralympic games.
Biden noted that Team USA athletes won 260 medals in Beijing and Tokyo.
The 2020 Tokyo games were delayed one year due to Covid-19 and took place last summer, largely without spectators. Jill Biden led the US delegation to Japan.
At the Beijing Olympics this past winter, also held mostly without spectators, the US staged a diplomatic boycott due to China’s human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
Jill Biden said Wednesday Americans were “grateful for the gifts” they gave the country at a difficult time.
“These games may not have been exactly as you once imagined with stadiums packed with people and all of your loved ones screaming from the sidelines,” she said.
“Olympian or a Paralympian is a rare accomplishment in a normal time, but you did it during a global pandemic. You are forever one of the most elite, most celebrated athletes in this world.”
Guess the supreme court leaker has become something of a parlour game in Washington, not least because Republicans in Congress sought to make it the focus of coverage on Tuesday rather than the immeasurable damage overturning Roe v Wade will do to women’s lives across the US.
Today, Mika Brzezinski, who with Joe Scarborough forms MSNBC’s Morning Joe power couple, lambasted Mitch McConnell: “The old white guy, Mitch, is going to tell us what the story of the day is?
“That’s rich, Mitch … the bottom line is this is setting women back in so many different ways with so many different consequences, and you’re going to tell us that the story is the leak?”
Other pundits have suggested McConnell might be – gasp – playing something of a dastardly double game. In short, the theory is that the leak may not have come from the liberal side of the court, as much of the right is thunderously proclaiming, but instead from someone connected to a conservative justice.
Here’s Rick Wilson, of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project and before that countless Republican campaigns.
“I’ve seen enough. The supreme court leak looks, smells, and tastes like a giant kayfabe. [In pro wrestling, the fact or convention of presenting staged performances as genuine or authentic.]
“It’s not that I have some secret insight into the court. It’s that I’m a damn anthropologist of the rightwing media ecosystem in which I operated for decades.
“The sweeping media and political class lockstep on the right – histrionics hair-tearing about the leak – are just too coordinated given the short timeframe from release-to-presser. The intervals are too tight and the messages too word-for-word.
“To quote the political philosopher Ian Fleming, ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.’ By 7am ET [on Tuesday], the usual suspects on the rightwing media gulag were on EXACTLY the same outrage ‘HOW DARE YOU SIR!’ tone and message.”
So there you go.
My colleague Chris Michael has taken a look at each of the nine US supreme court justices, and their positions on abortion rights:
With Roe v Wade on the brink of defeat, following the leak of a supreme court opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito and signed by four other conservative judges, the court’s views – and track record – on abortion are under extreme scrutiny. Here’s what the nine justices have actually said over the years about it:
Federal reserve raises interest rate 0.5%, largest hike in 22 years
The cost of borrowing is increasing after the US federal reserve announced Wednesday it was raising its benchmark overnight interest rate 0.5%, the biggest jump in 22 years.
“Household spending and business fixed investment remain strong. Job gains have been robust,” the fed’s board of governors said in a statement, the Associated Press reports.
The government will also begin trimming bond holdings next month as it attempts to temper soaring inflation, the statement added.
The announcement follows Joe Biden’s speech at the White House this morning, in which he promoted his administration’s success in reducing the US federal deficit, but which was more notable for his attacks on the “extremism” of Donald Trump-inspired Republicans seeking to overturn abortion and LBGTQ+ rights.
The Federal Reserve intensified its drive to curb the worst inflation in 40 years by raising its short-term interest rate by a sizable half-percentage point.
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 4, 2022
It is the agency's most aggressive hike since 2000.https://t.co/0H2eDZoyph
Democrats see runaway inflation as a vote-loser for November’s midterm elections, at which control of both chambers of Congress is at stake.
Raising interest rates so aggressively now could be a double-edged sword, analysts believe. It might help to bring down inflation, but will increase the cost of borrowing, including mortgages and credit card debt.
The Guardian has reported extensively about the impact of inflation on the US economy and citizens:
Updated
California’s Stanford University is to establish a school of sustainability, focusing on the climate emergency, after receiving a $1.1bn endowment from venture capitalist John Doerr, Reuters reports.
The Stanford Doerr school of sustainability will be the university’s first new school in 70 years, and will open in the fall, according to a statement.
“Climate and sustainability is going to be the new computer science,” Doerr told the New York Times in an interview published Wednesday. He made his estimated fortune of more than $11bn investing in companies including Alphabet Inc and Amazon.
Doerr joins billionaires including Jeff Bezos and Michael Bloomberg, who in recent years have donated money to combat climate change.
Progressive politicians such as the independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders say the climate crisis cannot be solved by the charity of individual billionaires, and that governments need to set up proper taxation systems to make sure billionaires pay their fair share.
Stanford says Doerr’s gift is the largest ever to a university for the establishment of a new school, and is the second largest gift to an academic institution, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
A Manhattan federal judge is allowing New York to proceed with plans to move June congressional and state Senate primaries to August, but asked the state board of elections to seek final approval from a federal judge in Albany, the Associated Press reports.
US district judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday rejected the application for a temporary restraining order from a group of New York voters who wanted to keep the possibility of 28 June primaries open.
Represented by Democratic attorney Marc Elias, the group there was still time to draft new maps for a June primary after state appeals judges found the original maps were unconstitutional.
An independent court expert is crafting new maps by 20 May under the oversight of a state judge in Steuben county, who ordered the delay of the June primaries to 23 August.
The voters said a 2012 court order by Albany-based district judge Gary Sharpe compelled the primaries to take place in June, but Kaplan said the New York board can easily talk to Sharpe about moving the date.
Updated
Interim summary
It’s lunchtime, so a chance for a quick back on how the day is going:
- Joe Biden said the Donald Trump-inspired Maga crowd is “the most extreme political organization in history” as he condemned efforts to overturn Roe v Wade abortion protections.
- Derek Chauvin will receive 20 to 25 years in prison for violating George Floyd’s civil rights as the former Minneapolis officer was murdering him, the judge overseeing a federal civil rights trial said.
- Acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf delayed intelligence about Russia’s interference in the 2020 election to protect then-president Trump, a watchdog report has found.
- Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau promised to defend abortion rights in the wake of the supreme court’s draft ruling to eliminate decades-old protections in the US.
- An overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of preserving abortion rights, new polls have found, voters preferring by a two to one ratio to maintain the 1973 Roe v Wade opinion that safeguarded women’s access to the procedure.
The judge overseeing the federal civil rights cases of four former Minneapolis police officers in the killing of George Floyd said Wednesday that he has accepted the terms of Derek Chauvin’s plea agreement and will sentence him to 20 to 25 years in prison.
When the white former office is sentenced he will serve the term concurrently with the state criminal sentence he is currently serving (and appealing), of 22.5 years, following his conviction last spring for the May 2020 murder of Floyd, a Black father who had moved from Houston to Minneapolis to start a new chapter after being released from prison.
Chauvin pleaded guilty December 15 to violating Floyd’s civil rights, admitting for the first time that he kept his knee on Floyd’s neck even after he became unresponsive resulting in the Black man’s death, The Associated Press reports.
He admitted he willfully deprived Floyd of his right to be free from unreasonable seizure, including unreasonable force by a police officer.
Under the plea agreement, which Chauvin signed, both sides agreed Chauvin should face a sentence ranging from 20 to 25 years, with prosecutors saying they would seek 25.
He could have faced life in prison on the federal count.
US district judge Paul Magnuson deferred accepting the agreement pending the completion of a pre-sentence investigation. He has not set a sentencing date for Chauvin.
Chauvin waived his right to contest his federal conviction if Magnuson accepted the plea agreement.
Magnuson also has not set sentencing dates for three other ex-officers who were convicted of related federal civil rights charges in February.
The pre-sentence investigations for Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng are still underway. They’re scheduled to go on trial next month in state court on charges of aiding and abetting Chauvin in Floyd’s murder.
Herschel Walker’s no-show at another debate in Georgia of Republican senate hopefuls on Tuesday saw the Donald-Trump endorsed former football star mercilessly ribbed by his rivals.
Pointing to Walker’s empty podium at the Atlanta Press Club, Latham Saddler, a Navy veteran among a crowded field for the party’s nomination in November’s midterms. said: “This is our fifth debate or forum he hasn’t showed up.
A simple question for Herschel Walker is, what do you think the US Senate does? It’s the deliberative body of Congress.
It’s what you do as a US senator, you get up there and you debate ideas. And Herschel Walker can’t get up here.”
Walker’s empty podium is introduced at the debate pic.twitter.com/Jvh51diVJt
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 3, 2022
The void where Walker should have been has become an almost defining sight of the campaign to challenge Democrat Raphael Warnock in November.
But while his apparent complacency won’t affect him winning the nomination - he leads the field by a country mile according to the latest RealClearPolitics polling – it might cost him in November. Warnock currently leads by five points in a head-to-head matchup.
Not that Walker, a controversial character with a turbulent past, according to the Associated Press, seems too concerned. While his rivals were highlighting his absence, Walker’s communications director Mallory Blount was tweeting out insults:
Herschel is meeting with hundreds of voters in Burke County.
— Mallory Blount (@malloryblount) May 3, 2022
Hope y’all have fun obsessing over @HerschelWalker at the debate! #gapol #gasen #debate https://t.co/vmkiMd41rl pic.twitter.com/Dm27PPbKys
Updated
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed to defend abortion rights as the decades-old battle over the issue exploded anew this week in Canada’s southern neighbor, with the US Supreme Court apparently set to overturn the decades-old ruling that legalized the procedure nationwide, Reuters reports.
A woman’s free choice is a choice to be made by her alone. Every woman in Canada has the right to a legal and safe abortion,” Trudeau told reporters before a meeting of Liberal lawmakers in Ottawa on Wednesday.
A draft supreme court decision, leaked late on Monday, showed a majority of justices prepared to overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade decision that protects abortion rights. The court on Tuesday confirmed the authenticity of the leaked document and ordered an investigation.
We know that unfortunately, what we’re seeing with our neighbors in the south and even in debates within the Conservative Party of Canada, that we need to ensure that there are protections in place so that we never see people backtracking on that right,” Trudeau said.
He added that Canada will consider legal options if such rights are at risk of violation in the country.
We have asked the ministers to take a look at this (review of the legal framework) very quickly and we’ll see what the timeline is for that,” Trudeau said.
Canada’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in a historic 1988 ruling. Ostensibly, since then, abortion has been a medical procedure like any other. But barriers to access persist, especially for people living outside urban areas.
Canada’s top court is unlikely to re-criminalize abortion any time soon.
But if the supreme court overturns Roe v Wade, that could embolden anti-abortion movements and galvanize pro-choice activists, Canadian observers and advocates on both sides of the divisive issue noted.
Biden: 'Maga crowd most extreme political organization in US history'
Joe Biden has just been at the podium in the White House, slamming Donald Trump-supporting Republicans as “the most extreme political organization in American history”.
Billed as an economic progress report to tout what he says is a record reduction in the federal deficit, the president wasted no time in attacking “the Maga crowd”, named for Trump’s ‘make America great again’ electioneering slogan.
He slammed Republicans’ economic policies, and saved his fiercest comments for a question on the draft ruling by Republican-appointed judges on the US supreme court seeking to overturn almost half a century of abortion protections, and assaults on LBGTQ+ rights in Republican controlled states.
What are the next things that are going to be attacked? Because this Maga crowd is really the most extreme political organization that exists in American history.
This is about a lot more than abortion... What happens if you have a state change the law, saying that children who are LGBTQ can’t be in classrooms with other children? Is that legit?
Biden also laid into “my predecessor” Donald Trump, who failed to reduce the federal deficit at any stage of his single term of office.
It didn’t happen to single quarter under my predecessor, not once. The bottom line is the deficit went up every year under my predecessor before the pandemic and during the pandemic.
And it’s gone down both years since I’ve been here. Period. That’s the facts.
With soaring inflation, and the economy uppermost in voters’ minds ahead of November’s midterms, Biden is keen to showcase his achievements. He said the federal deficit had dropped $350bn in his first in office, and was “on track” for another record $1.5tn drop this year.
But it was his comments on “the Maga crowd” that caught the most attention.
I don’t want to hear Republicans talking about deficits and their ultra Maga agenda. I want to hear about fairness. I want to hear about decency... about ordinary people.
Updated
DHS secretary 'delayed Russia intelligence' to benefit Trump: report
NBC is reporting that Donald Trump’s acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf twice held up intelligence on Russian interference ahead of the 2020 election because it would make the then-president “look bad”.
The network cites a report by the homeland security department’s watchdog, and claims a “Trump political appointee” delayed the release of an intelligence analysis stating that “Russian malign influence actors” were spreading unsubstantiated allegations about the health of then-candidate Joe Biden to reduce voters’ confidence in him.
Russia, NBC states, was using both overt and covert channels and linked the efforts to similar operations during the 2016 presidential election. But Wolf did not want the analysis released because he felt it would reflect badly on Trump, the network says.
Trump named Wolf as acting DHS secretary in November 2019, and he remained in office until January 2021, despite a federal judge ruling his appointment unlawful in November 2020.
He was not named in the report by the DHS inspector general, but in a Wednesday statement to NBC admitted he was the Trump appointee referenced. He denied his actions were malign.
The IG, Wolf said, “did not find any credible evidence that I directed anyone to change the substance of the report because it ‘made President Trump look bad’.”
“Buried in the report is the fact that the grossly false whistleblower complaint against me was withdrawn”.
The inspector general’s report was sparked by a complaint from a worker concerned that “top DHS officials were violating laws and policies by lying to Congress and manipulating intelligence reports to conform with President Donald Trump’s political agenda,” NBC reported at the time.
Voters in Michigan roundly rejected a Republican candidate for the state’s House who said women being raped should “lie back and enjoy it”.
Party officials criticized Robert Regan for the comments he made during an online roundtable discussion in March.
“Having three daughters, and I tell my daughters, ‘Well if rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it so’. That’s not how we roll, that’s not how I won this election. We go right at it,” he said days after winning his party’s primary for the vacant 74th district seat.
According to preliminary results of Tuesday’s ballot published by the Detroit Free Press, Regan was upset by Democrat Carol Glanville in a district seat that has only ever been served by Republicans, receiving 40% of the vote to Glanville’s 51%.
“West Michigan values of integrity, decency, and care for the common good won tonight,” Glanville tweeted.
Regan, a rightwing extremist, was previously in the news when he announced his candidacy in July 2020, when his daughter urged voters: “For the love of God, please do not vote for my dad,” as reported by the Guardian here.
West Michigan values of integrity, decency, and care for the common good won tonight. The people of the 74th District have spoken, and I hear you. We are united in fundamental ways, and I will take our values and concerns to the Capitol to affect positive change. Thank you! pic.twitter.com/V1fCaRShFG
— Carol Glanville (@caglanville) May 4, 2022
Updated
Author JD Vance won the Senate Republican primary in Ohio on Tuesday, securing a victory after receiving Donald Trump’s endorsement in the hotly contested race.
Vance was leading the crowded pack of primary candidates with 32% of the vote when the Associated Press called the race, about two hours after polls closed. Former state treasurer Josh Mandel looked likely to finish second, and state Senator Matt Dolan, who saw a last-minute surge in support, rounded out the top three.
Addressing supporters in Cincinnati, Vance thanked Trump for his endorsement and attacked the media for highlighting his past criticism of the former president. “They wanted to write a story that this campaign would be the death of Donald Trump’s America First agenda,” Vance said. “It ain’t the death of the America First agenda.”
Vance, the bestselling author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy, will now face Democratic congressman Tim Ryan in November to determine who will fill the seat of retiring Republican Senator Rob Portman. Ryan, who ran for president in 2020, easily fended off a primary challenge from progressive candidate Morgan Harper.
Delivering a message of unity to his supporters on Tuesday, Ryan promised to “build a home for Ohioans” regardless of their political party. “The work is just beginning. The fight is just beginning. We’re going to heal the country – heal Ohio and in turn heal the United States of America,” Ryan said in Columbus.
The Ohio race could prove crucial in determining control of the Senate, as Republicans look to retake the upper chamber this November. The Senate is currently evenly split 50-50, but Democrats have the majority thanks to the tie-breaking vote of Kamala Harris.
If Republicans can pick up just one seat in the midterm elections, they will regain control of the Senate, and holding Portman’s seat will be key to those efforts.
Vance starts his general-election campaigning with a clear advantage in the race, as Trump defeated Joe Biden in Ohio by 8 points in 2020. Democrats across the country are also at a disadvantage, as the president’s party usually loses seats in the midterm elections and Biden’s approval rating has been mired in the low 40s for months.
Read more:
The Guardian’s Lauren Burke was at the supreme court on Tuesday, watching numbers of protestors swell as word spread of justices’ draft ruling on abortion:
Outside the US supreme court the morning after a bombshell leak revealed justices are poised to overturn Roe v Wade, the day began with dozens of protesters. By the afternoon, thousands had arrived to make their voices heard – with many on opposite sides of America’s abortion debate.
The possibility of a repeal of the landmark 1973 decision brought energized and sometimes emotional supporters of Roe to protests in major cities from New York to San Francisco. But the supreme court was ground zero.
Members of the US Capitol police closed the street in front of the supreme court building as protesters filled and took over the area, holding signs and large banners.
It was a tense atmosphere that brought anti-abortion and pro-choice protesters into close range, outside the building where nine of the most powerful individuals in the US decide the nation’s future.
“I’m here because I was here in 2016 and couldn’t fucking believe that I had to tell people that women are people – but clearly we do,” said Cindy from Great Falls, Virginia, who asked that her last name be withheld. While she didn’t expect to change the court’s mind, she said, “it’s really nice to see a bunch of like minded people and get the vibe and I’m pissed – that’s why I’m here – I’m pissed”.
“I hope that this will motivate people to vote because I think that’s the only thing that’s gonna help,” she added.
As the number of protesters built steadily throughout the morning, Democratic senators gathered nearby on the Senate steps for a press conference.
“This is a five alarm fire,” said Senator Patty Murray, as demonstrators’ chants rang out across the grassy lawn separating the capitol from the supreme court.
Read the full report here:
An overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of preserving abortion rights, two new polls have found, as the US supreme court moves towards ending almost half a century of protections.
A Politico/Morning Consult study found voters are two to one in favor of preserving the 1973 Roe v Wade opinion that safeguarded protected women’s access to abortions.
The poll conducted Tuesday, shortly after Politico’s bombshell publication of the draft ruling from the supreme court overturning Roe, showed exactly 50% of respondents wanted it maintained. 28% wanted it overturned, and 22% were undecided.
A separate Washington Post/ABC poll reports 54% in favor of preserving Roe, and 28% against, while an even higher number of Americans, 70%, think abortion is a private issue between patient and doctor.
The figures are sure to bolster Democrats who plan to campaign on the abortion issue for the upcoming midterm elections. While the party is unlikely to be able to pass legislation enshrining abortion rights because of opposition in the Senate, its base will be fired up by a wave of resistance, already manifesting itself in protests taking place nationwide.
“Those Republican leaders who are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women, we say, ‘How dare they? How dare they tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body?’” vice-president Kamala Harris said at a conference on women’s reproductive rights in Washington DC on Tuesday night.
Joe Biden is going further, warning on Tuesday that more freedoms could be at risk.
“It would mean that every other decision relating to the notion of privacy is thrown into question,” the president told reporters on Tuesday of the draft ruling.
“If what is written is what remains, it goes far beyond the concern of whether or not there is the right to choose. It goes to other basic rights, who you marry... whether or not you decide to conceive a child, whether or not you can have an abortion, a range of other decisions, how you raise your child.”
According to the Politico poll, 68% of Democrats and 52% of independents say Roe should not be overturned, and a narrow majority of Republicans, 51%, believe it should.
And as numerous Republican controlled states introduce or harden anti-abortion legislation in expectation of the supreme court’s final ruling, due in late June or July, a majority of respondents in the Washington Post/ABC poll say they are moving in the wrong direction.
Asked if their state should make abortion easier to access, 33% said yes, 25% said it should be harder, and 36% want it left as it is.
Good morning, and welcome to our midweek politics blog. The nation is still reeling from the bombshell news from the US supreme court that justices appear ready to strike down almost half a century of abortion rights, despite overwhelming opposition.
Polling suggests the court’s position is vastly at odds with public opinion. In the wake of the leak of the panel’s draft ruling on Monday night, a Politico/Morning Consult study found voters are two to one in favor of preserving the 1973 Roe v Wade opinion that protected women’s rights to abortions.
Its findings are almost identical to a separate Washington Post/ABC poll that reports 54% in favor of preserving Roe, and 28% against, while an even higher number of Americans think abortion is a private issue between patient and doctor. We’ll have more analysis of the abortion issue coming up.
Head over to our 24-hour news blog here for developments in the Ukraine conflict.
And here’s what we’re looking at in the US today:
- Donald Trump’s reputation as a kingmaker was enhanced in Ohio, where his preferred candidate JD Vance beat out other Republicans chasing the party’s nomination for US Senate.
- Trump is also under scrutiny in a watchdog report claiming one of his cabinet appointees delayed intelligence about Russian interference in the 2020 election for political gain.
- Joe Biden will speak on the economy at lunchtime, specifically the need for “fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction”, the White House says.
- The White House press secretary Jen Psaki will deliver her daily briefing at 2.30pm.
