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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Vivian Ho (now) and Joanna Walters and Tom Lutz (earlier)

Tense calm in Washington as small pro-Trump groups gather at state capitols across US – as it happened

People walk down Pennsylvania Avenue near the US Capitol on 17 January.
People walk down Pennsylvania Avenue near the US Capitol on 17 January. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

Evening summary

  • Demonstrations at state capitols across the country remained fairly calm and nonviolent, despite concerns and the mobilization of the national guard.
  • CBC is reporting that one of Joe Biden’s first acts in office will be to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline permit via executive action.
  • Parler’s website goes back online, but is still unavailable in the app store.

Updated

The FBI announced that authorities had arrested the guitarist of heavy metal band Iced Earth in connection to the Capitol riot.

Jon Schaffer was allegedly among those who sprayed Capitol police with bear spray.

“We absolutely DO NOT condone nor do we support riots or the acts of violence that the rioters were involved in on January 6th at the US Capitol building,” his bandmates wrote in a statement on their Instagram pages. “We hope that all those involved that day are brought to justice to be investigated and answer for their actions.”

Jason Kenney, the premier of Alberta, Canada, has responded to the report that Joe Biden will cancel the Keystone XL pipeline permit via executive action on his first day in office.

“The Keystone XL pipeline represents tens of thousands of good paying jobs that the American economy needs right now,” he wrote.

Critics of the project have long said that the creation of these jobs come at the expense of the environment and Native communities. Projects like Keystone XL are directly linked to violence against and trafficking of Native women and girls, due to the installation of “man camps”, temporary housing for mostly male pipeline workers.

Updated

The website for popular rightwing social media platform Parler is back online, but the app is still not in stores.

The conservative hub, which virtually vanished after the violence at the Capitol, posted a message on its website from its chief executive, John Matze, dated from Saturday: “Hello world, is this thing on?” the message read.

The message came with a note from the company saying that Parler would “resolve any challenge before us and plan to welcome all of you back soon”.

“We believe privacy is paramount and free speech essential, especially on social media,” the note read. “Our aim has always been to provide a nonpartisan public square where individuals can enjoy and exercise their rights to both.”

A little over a week ago, Apple Inc suspended the Parler from its App Store, shortly after Alphabet-owned Google banned it from Google Play. The app is still unavailable for download on both platforms.

Amazon then suspended Parler from its web hosting service, effectively taking the site offline unless it can find a new company to host its services.

Updated

A small group of heavily masked men have gathered outside the boarded-up state capitol in Salem, Oregon.

Updated

In Sacramento, California, another state where the national guard had mobilized in case of violence, few protesters actually showed up:

Updated

Protests seemed quiet and all but wrapped up by the afternoon in Lansing, Michigan.

Lansing has seen its share of armed protesters in just this past year alone. Gretchen Whitmer, the state’s governor, became the target of a foiled kidnapping plot by a group of rightwing domestic terrorists so tensions were understandably high.

Police said there were no incidents or arrests.

Outgoing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has released a statement responding to the arrest of Alexei Navalny earlier on Sunday.

The Russian opposition politician was been detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on his return from treatment abroad after a suspected poisoning attempt on his life by Russia’s FSB spy agency.

“Confident political leaders do not fear competing voices, nor commit violence against or wrongfully detain political opponents,” the statement interestingly read.

Report: Biden to cancel Keystone XL pipeline permit

One of the first acts of President-elect Joe Biden in office will be to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline permit via executive action, sources tell CBC News.

Keystone XL is a controversial 1,179-mile pipeline which would transport around 830,000 barrels of oil a day from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska.

The pipeline was approved in 2010, suspended in 2015 after Barack Obama refused to grant the required presidential permits and then revived by Donald Trump shortly after his inauguration in 2017. Opponents of Keystone XL have warned about the environmental and cultural impact of the project on sacred Native American land – concerns that became realized after the existing Keystone pipeline, which follows a similar route, leaked 383,000 gallons of tar sands into a swath of North Dakota wetlands in 2019.

Updated

Hey all, Vivian Ho taking over the blog.

It appears that the FBI has arrested a New Mexico county commissioner in connection with the violence at the Capitol.

Couy Griffin, who represents district two in Otero county, was arrested near Capitol Hill today.

Griffin said in a county commission meeting this week that he was going to Washington with guns for the inauguration.

Updated

Late afternoon summary.

There is a tense tranquility in a tightly-locked-down downtown Washington, DC, and troops on alert at state legislatures across the country, where small, largely inconsequential pockets of right-wingers have popped up here and there.

As the calm continues, we will keep readers abreast of developments on this and any other US political stories over the coming few hours.

My Guardian colleague Vivian Ho, in California, will take the live blog reins now and bring you more news.

Here are the main events of the last few hours:

  • Honduran migrants fleeing extreme hardship and danger are making their way north in hopes of crossing Guatemala and heading towards the US, but have run into security forces committed to stopping them.
  • The National Security Agency is “moving forward” to install Michael Ellis, a former GOP political operative and White House official, as the agency’s top lawyer, angering many.
  • Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s incoming national security adviser, demanded Russia release opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who was held upon returning to Moscow after being poisoned last year.
  • Twitter has suspended Georgia right-winger Marjorie Taylor Greene for 12 hours, citing violations of the social media platform’s policies by the conspiracy theory believer. The rules are increasingly invoked over the tweeting of potentially dangerous untruths by prominent figures. Donald Trump has been tossed.
  • Dribs and drabs of right-wing Trump zealots have gathered outside some state capitols, but so far without incident.

Updated

Guatemalan forces clash with migrant group, Biden team seeks end to immediate exodus while it works on policy reforms

Guatemalan security forces today used sticks and tear gas to beat back a large group of migrants traveling together and bound for the United States. The events occurred just days before the advent of a new US administration, which urged this immediate batch of travelers to abandon the journey, as it seeks to overhaul immigration law, among other pressing policy decisions.

Guatemalan forces in Vado Hondo try to block Honduran migrants from heading north towards the US.
Guatemalan forces in Vado Hondo try to block Honduran migrants from heading north towards the US. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Between 7,000 and 8,000 migrants, including families with young children, have entered Guatemala since Friday, authorities said, fleeing excruciating poverty and violence in a region hammered by the coronavirus pandemic and back-to-back hurricanes in November, in addition to already-entrenched hardships and security, climate change and economic threats amid lack of government support

A large section of the group clashed early on Sunday with Guatemalan security officials, some 3,000 of whom had mustered by the village of Vado Hondo, about 34 miles from the borders of Honduras and El Salvador, Reuters reports.

“We want the Guatemalans to let us past,” said Joaquin Ortiz, a Honduran in the migrant caravan. “Because we’re not leaving here. We’re going to carry on. I want to get through because it’s horrible in our country. There’s nothing in Honduras.”

The coronavirus pandemic has battered Honduras’ economy, which last year suffered its worst contraction on record.

The large contingent of Guatemalan security officers managed stopped the migrants from advancing beyond Vado Hondo, with perhaps as many as half of the people in the group dispersing into the nearby hills or heading back the way they came, according to a Reuters witness.

Elmer Espinal is traveling with his months-old daughter. He said they were tear gassed by the Guatemalan security forces.

“My daughter almost choked,” said Espinal, a Honduran native. “I want a future for my girls ... there’s no work over there in Honduras.”

Mexico is preparing to stop them at its southern border with hundreds of security forces, arguing it must contain the spread of the virus.

Video footage shared by the Guatemalan government showed hundreds of migrants, bounded by a hillside, pressing into a wall of security forces, which used sticks to repel the surge. An unspecified number of people were injured, authorities said.

On Saturday evening, the Mexican foreign ministry pressed Central American authorities to halt the caravan’s progress, pointing to the need to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Mexico, it said, was committed to orderly and regulated migration and would oppose any form of unauthorized entry.
The first large migrant group, or so-called caravan, of the year came within days of Joe Biden taking office on Wednesday promising to adopt a more humane approach to migration than hardliner Donald Trump.

Still, a Biden transition official, speaking on background to Reuters, advised people not to make for the United States.

“Overcoming the challenges created by the chaotic and cruel policies of the last four years, and those presented by Covid-19, will take time,” said the official.

“In the meantime, the journey to the United States remains extraordinarily dangerous, and those in the region should not believe anyone peddling the lie that our border will be open to everyone next month,” the official added.

The incoming administration will work to address the root causes of migration, expand lawful pathways and rethink asylum processing, the official said.

Joe Biden will wait for a recommendation from his intelligence advisers on whether to share classified information with Donald Trump after the Republican leaves office, the president-elect’s top aide said earlier today.

A sign left near the Nevada state legislature by someone protesting anti-government and far-right groups supporting Donald Trump and his incorrect claim of electoral fraud in the November 3 presidential election.
A sign left near the Nevada state legislature by someone protesting anti-government and far-right groups supporting Donald Trump and his incorrect claim of electoral fraud in the November 3 presidential election. Photograph: Ronda Churchill/AFP/Getty Images

Ron Klain, the incoming White House chief of staff, made the comment after former principal deputy director of national intelligence, Sue Gordon, wrote an op-ed arguing against sharing such information with Trump once he has left the presidency.

“With this simple act - which is solely the new president’s prerogative - Joe Biden can mitigate one aspect of the potential national security risk posed by Donald Trump, private citizen,” Gordon said in a Washington Post piece headlined “A former president Trump won’t ‘need to know.’ Cut off his intelligence.”

Asked about Gordon’s recommendation, Klain told CNN’s “State of the Union” program that Biden would want to hear from his own intelligence professionals before making any decision, Reuters reports.

“We’ll certainly look for a recommendation from the intelligence professionals in the Biden administration ... and we will act on that recommendation,” he said.

Gordon, who resigned in 2019, was in the aforementioned post from 2017 and said any former president was a foreign intelligence target but Trump “might be unusually vulnerable to bad actors with ill intent,” citing, among other things, his business interests abroad.

“It is not clear that he understands the tradecraft to which he has been exposed, the reasons the knowledge he has acquired must be protected from disclosure, or the intentions and capabilities of adversaries,” she added.

Democratic House Intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff was more blunt, telling CBS’ “Face The Nation”: “I don’t think he can be trusted with it.”

NSA to rush in GOP operative as its top lawyer

The National Security Agency is “moving forward” to install Michael Ellis, a former GOP political operative and White House official, as the agency’s top lawyer, the agency said Sunday and the Washington Post reports.

The announcement came a day after acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller ordered the NSA director, General Paul Nakasone, to immediately place Ellis in position as the agency’s general counsel.

Ellis had been selected for the job in November by the Pentagon general counsel after a civil service competition. But Nakasone was not in favor of Ellis’s selection and sought to delay his installation, according to several people familiar with the issue, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

Ellis is likely to start work on Tuesday, the day before the Biden administration takes office, said several individuals.

Though Nakasone is not the hiring authority — the decision is made by the Pentagon general counsel — by tradition the NSA director weighs in on the selection.

“Mr. Ellis accepted his final job offer yesterday afternoon,” the NSA said in a statement Sunday. “NSA is moving forward with his employment.”

The Pentagon declined to comment.

Ellis was selected under pressure from the White House, people familiar with the matter said at the time. The move drew criticism from national security legal experts as an attempt to politicize a career position.”

Former Clinton administration Cabinet figure and army general Barry McCaffrey is one who is appalled.

Finally! New report that National Guard troops on watch at the US Capitol have been provided with cots to sleep on, not just the cold marble floors.

There was incredulity at pictures last week of the troops obliged to sprawl out all over the literally rock-hard floors. Were they not being put up in all those empty Washington hotels and canceled AirBnB rooms between shifts, what with the capital being a virtual ghost town for visitors now, the average onlooker thought?

Apparently not. Soldiers are trained for hardship but everyone knows some decent zzz’s = much improved alertness and productivity when it comes to protecting Congress from murderous insurrectionists exhorted to march on the Capitol by Donald Trump in his futile intention to force an overturning of the election.

Even so, a cot in a corridor isn’t even Motel 6 let alone the Four Seasons. Closer to Four Seasons Total Landscaping perhaps?

Latest reports suggest there are more troops than trolls at the US Capitol and state capitols around the nation this hour.

Talking of Janet Yellen, the incoming Treasury Secretary is expected to affirm the United States’ commitment to market-determined foreign exchange rates when she testifies on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

Yellen speaking in Delaware last month, as Biden listens.
Yellen speaking in Delaware last month, as Biden listens. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

Yellen is to become the first female US Treasury Sec, having been the first woman chair of the Federal Reserve.

The Wall Street Journal has an exclusive this afternoon.

The Journal says, in part:

Yellen is expected to affirm the U.S.’s commitment to market-determined exchange rates when she testifies on Capitol Hill Tuesday, and she will make clear the U.S. doesn’t seek a weaker dollar for competitive advantage, according to Biden transition officials familiar with her hearing preparation.

The remarks would represent a return to the U.S.’s hands-off approach to the dollar, which President Trump had deviated from by often publicly calling for a lower dollar.

Ms. Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chairwoman, is set to appear before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday as it considers her nomination to be the next U.S. Treasury secretary, succeeding Steven Mnuchin.

If asked about the new administration’s dollar policy, officials responsible for briefing Ms. Yellen said she is prepared to say, “The value of the U.S. dollar and other currencies should be determined by markets. Markets adjust to reflect variations in economic performance and generally facilitate adjustments in the global economy.”

Yellen is also expected to say the intentional targeting of exchange rates to gain an unfair advantage in trade is unacceptable.

“The United States doesn’t seek a weaker currency to gain competitive advantage,” she is prepared to say, according to the officials. “We should oppose attempts by other countries to do so.”

That too is consistent with the pre-Trump norm when administrations, while generally eschewing any view on the dollar’s appropriate level, would criticize countries they saw as artificially influencing their own currency’s value for competitive advantage.

You can read more here (warning: WSJ has a paywall). This post was just updated, because Yellen was previously mis-titled.

Updated

An op-ed in the LA Times today is called Trump’s Toxic Splash, a fabulous gem from illustrator Steve Brodner.

It shows some of the stars in the incoming Biden firmament and onlookers depicted at Wednesday’s inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris glumly covered in splats of red goo that take the shine off their special day.

And Joe Biden stoically being sworn in by a grim and similarly-spattered supreme court chief justice John Roberts, with a doleful Jill Biden between them.

Incoming Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen looks most startled, AOC most disgusted, press sec Jen Psaki affronted, John Kerry sort of inane/inscrutable, James Clyburn dignified but outraged and Harris dismayed, while the Obamas (esp Michelle) look like they’ve seen it all before, with an expression that reminds us “Yeah, we had to have tea with him at the White House, remember?” Mitch McConnell looks utterly hapless. Utter genius.

Screengrab of Steve Brodner art in the LA Times today.
Screengrab of Steve Brodner art in the LA Times today. Photograph: LA Times

Updated

Rebekah Jones, the founder of Florida’s coronavirus database who has clashed publicly with Governor Ron DeSantis in a dispute over data manipulation, said she would surrender on Sunday after a warrant was issued for her arrest.

The state department of law enforcement said it would not reveal details of the allegations against the 31-year-old data analyst until she was in custody. The agency had been investigating allegations Jones illegally accessed a state messaging system and staged an armed raid at her Tallahassee home last month.

Jones, who was fired by the Florida department of health in May for insubordination after claiming she was ordered to censor and manipulate information on the database she founded and managed, said she was told the charge was unrelated to that investigation, and accused DeSantis of retaliation.

“The governor will not win his war on science and free speech,” she said in tweets that also confirmed her intention to turn herself in to police on Sunday night. “He will not silence those who speak out.”

The episode prolongs a bitter dispute that began last year when Jones claimed she was told to change data to support the Republican governor’s plan to reopen the state economy despite soaring Covid-19 cases.

Jones was fired by health officials and DeSantis was swift with his own retribution, subjecting Jones to a public character assassination and dismissing her as an insubordinate and disgruntled former employee.

Since her dismissal she has continued to amass and disseminate state Covid-19 information online, maintaining a rival to the official database and more recently compiling and publishing information on cases in Florida schools.

Jones’s December arrest followed an allegation by the Florida health department that an unknown person or persons hacked into a state system used to send emergency communications and sent an unauthorised message to members of a team responsible for coordinating public health and medical response.

We’ll have more on this story on the site in a few moments.

New reward for info on the involuntary “Trump” sea cow.

In the wake of federal wildlife officials in Florida reportedly seeking information on the perpetrators of an attack on a manatee, which apparently had the word “Trump” scraped into its back, a star has weighed in.

“Guardians of the Galaxy” star Dave Bautista offers $20K reward for information on the person who defiled the peaceable, mostly herbivorous bloorpie.

The actor, former wrestler and martial arts expert, a native of the Sunshine State, has upped the outstanding $5,000 award offered previously by the Center for Biological Diversity, The Hill reported this afternoon.

“If there’s not already a reward for the arrest and conviction of the low life scummy MAGATs that did this I’ll throw in $20,000,” he vowed in a tweet. “And I promise there will be bonuses to that reward!”

The animal was found in the Homosassa River, in the Crystal River areas of Florida where many of the mammals live.

Updated

Biden admin Nat Sec adviser calls for Moscow to release Navalny

The national security adviser selected to serve the incoming US president, Joe Biden, this afternoon demanded Russia release opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who was held upon returning to Moscow after being poisoned last year.

Jake Sullivan called on Russia to release Navalny “immediately”. We’ll bring you more details as soon as they emerge.

Navalny has been detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on his return from treatment abroad after a suspected poisoning attempt on his life by Russia’s FSB spy agency, my colleagues in London reported a little earlier today.

Navalny, whose investigations into corruption in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle have sparked protests and angered the country’s most powerful men, had vowed to return home despite signs the Kremlin was preparing to arrest him.

Police detained Navalny shortly after his flight from Berlin landed on Sunday evening. It was due to touch down at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, where hundreds of supporters had gathered. The authorities closed the airport at the last minute, and diverted Navalny’s plane to Sheremetyevo, away from waiting media.

Twitter suspends far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene

The social media platform has suspended the Georgia right-winger and QAnon believer, for 12 hours. The immediate reason has not yet been revealed.

My Guardian colleague Daniel Strauss just reported this breaking news.

Marjorie Taylor Greene became the first supporter of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory to win a US House seat.

Greene, a Republican businesswoman, won in November in Georgia’s 14th congressional district. Greene’s Democratic opponent had dropped out in September.

The incoming congresswoman has faced national scrutiny for racist and bigoted statements and her support of QAnon, a baseless conspiracy theory rooted in antisemitic tropes whose followers believe Donald Trump is secretly fighting against a cabal of Democrats, billionaires and celebrities engaged in child trafficking.

The FBI has identified the movement as a potential domestic terrorism threat, and it has repeatedly inspired vigilante violence.

United States Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (Republican of Georgia) makes remarks during the debate on H. Res. 24, the US House Impeachment resolution in the US Capitol in Washington, DC. This will be the second occasion where the US House has brought charges against US President Donald J. Trump.
United States Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (Republican of Georgia) makes remarks during the debate on H. Res. 24, the US House Impeachment resolution in the US Capitol in Washington, DC. This will be the second occasion where the US House has brought charges against US President Donald J. Trump. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

This is the same Marjorie Taylor Greene who was addressing the US Congress and the world during the impeachment process in the House last week all while wearing a mask saying “censored”.

And there was this gem earlier today:

Updated

Some counter-protesters have begun showing up outside statehouses to send a message against the far-right groups that have threatened to disrupt the inauguration of the president-elect, Joe Biden.

There was a stepped-up law enforcement presence at the capitol in Columbia, South Carolina, as authorities across the country prepared for potential unrest in the days leading up to Joe Biden’s inauguration.
There was a stepped-up law enforcement presence at the capitol in Columbia, South Carolina, as authorities across the country prepared for potential unrest in the days leading up to Joe Biden’s inauguration. Photograph: Meg Kinnard/AP

Any demonstrations so far today add up to dribs and drabs, a situation most in America surely hope will prevail for the rest of the day, the week and beyond.

In Columbia, South Carolina, a group of about half a dozen people stood on the opposite side of the Statehouse lawn from pro-Trump loyalists, with one holding a sign that read: “What are you so PROUD of, BOYS?”

It was a reference to the far-right Proud Boys. The groups did not appear to be interacting, The Associated Press reports.

In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Stephen Rzonca, who lives a few minutes from the state Capitol, said he came to greet any possible demonstrators, although there were none as of midday.

“I’m fundamentally against the potential protesters coming here to de-legitimize the election, and I don’t want to be passive in expressing my disapproval of them coming into this city,” Rzonca said.

And before demonstrators arrived in Lansing, the Michigan state capital, a truck showed up with a sign supporting Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer, who was the target of a foiled kidnapping plot last year.

At the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, as federal officers, District of Columbia police and National Guard troops patrolled the area, a lone protester walked the sidewalk wearing a sign that said “Renounce Trump!”

“Look at this world that has been created by Trump,” said the woman, a retiree who lives in the area. She said she was afraid to reveal her name, gesturing at the barricades and largely empty streets.

Members of the Minnesota National Guard drive by the Minnesota Capitol building before an expected gathering of Trump supporters in St. Paul.
Members of the Minnesota National Guard drive by the Minnesota Capitol building before an expected gathering of Trump supporters in St. Paul. Photograph: Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images

Talking of the US’s vaccination administration program, which got off to a very rocky start in December by falling majorly short of the government’s own stated goal of vaccinating 20m people by the end of 2020 (it achieved about a tenth of that in the end), West Virginia is becoming a leader.

Pharmacist Ric Griffith stands in his family’s business in Kenova, WV.
Pharmacist Ric Griffith stands in his family’s business in Kenova, WV. Photograph: John Raby/AP

Griffith & Feil Drug has been in business since 1892, a family-owned, small-town pharmacy. This isn’t their first pandemic, The Associated Press reports.

More than a century after helping West Virginians confront the Spanish flu in 1918, the drugstore in Kenova, a community of about 3,000 people, is helping the state lead the nation in Covid-19 vaccine distribution.

West Virginia has emerged as an unlikely success in the nation’s otherwise chaotic vaccine administration program, largely because of the state’s decision to reject a federal partnership with the CVS and Walgreens pharmacy chains and instead enlist ‘mom-and-pop’ pharmacies to vaccinate residents.

More shots have gone into people’s arms per capita across West Virginia than in any other state, with at least 7.5% of the population receiving the first of two shots, according to federal data.

West Virginia was the first in the nation to finish offering first doses to all long-term care centers before the end of December, and the state expects to give second doses at those facilities by the end of January.

“Boy, have we noticed that. I think the West Virginia model is really one that we would love for a lot more states to adopt,” said John Beckner, a pharmacist who works at the Alexandria, Virginia-based National Community Pharmacists Association, which advocates for pharmacies across the country.

It’s early in the process, but that has not stopped Republican governor Jim Justice from proclaiming that the vaccine effort runs counter to preconceived notions about ‘the Mountaineer State’.

“Little old West Virginia, that was thought of for hundreds of years, you know, as a place where maybe we were backward or dark or dingy,” Justice said last week.
Instead, it turns out that “West Virginia has been the diamond in the rough,” Justice said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

Some 250 local pharmacists set up clinics in rural communities. The fact that residents who may be wary of the vaccine seem to trust them makes a difference.

“As my uncle always told me, these people aren’t your customers, they’re your friends and neighbors,” said Ric Griffith, the pharmacist at Griffith & Feil in Kenova, and also mayor of the town near the Kentucky state line.

You can read the rest of The AP’s story here.

Biden emphasizes masks as coronavirus lifesavers

As the US finds itself on the cusp of 400,000 deaths from the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic a year ago, incoming president Joe Biden has put out another plain-speaking plea for Americans to wear face masks to help prevent the spread of the disease.

“I know masks have become a partisan issue — but it’s a patriotic act. Experts say wearing a mask from now until April will save more than 50,000 lives,” the Democratic leader just tweeted.

This hour, the Johns Hopkins coronavirus research center in Baltimore, the global statistics that the Guardian follows most closely, reports that the US has reached 396,549 recorded deaths from Covid-19, and 23.8m cases, by far the highest figures in the world.

The next highest death toll is Brazil, with just over 209,000 deaths. The UK is the fifth highest (after third-placed India and fourth-placed Mexico), with almost 90,000 deaths. The pandemic has never been under control in the US as a nation at any time in the last 12 months.

Earlier this weekend, Biden reiterated that things were getting worse and that would continue before things become fundamentally better as vaccinations rein in the outbreak.

Trickles of armed right-wingers beginning to cluster

Small groups of pro-Trump demonstrators, some armed, have begun gathering outside statehouses, including in Michigan, Ohio and South Carolina this afternoon.

Two demonstrators with rifles standing outside the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, today.
Two demonstrators with rifles standing outside the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, today. Photograph: Paul Sancya/AP

The nation is on tense, high alert for any unrest that could on any scale echo the violence of January 6 at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, as both chambers of Congress were in session to certify Joe Biden’s presidential election victory over Donald Trump in (it bears repeating as often as possible) what local, state and federal officials called “the most secure” election in American history.

In Lansing, Michigan, state police troopers walked around the state Capitol grounds as a small group of demonstrators stood near a chain-link fence surrounding the 142-year-old building, The Associated Press reports this afternoon.

Several National Guard vehicles were on a nearby street. One armed man falsely gave his name as Duncan Lemp, a Maryland man who was killed in a no-knock police raid and became a martyr for a loose network of gun-toting, anti-government extremists.

A supporter of Trump wore a red “Make American Great Again” hat while standing on the lawn with a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag. The back of his shirt read: “PATRIOT NOT RACIST NOT TERRORIST.”

Texas also on alert, an Austin observer notes.

In Columbus, Ohio, about two dozen people, several carrying long guns, gathered outside the Capitol as dozens of state troopers and National Guard members guarded multiple points around the Statehouse, including every entrance. Nearly every business around the downtown capital square was boarded up.

Several dozen people were gathering at the South Carolina Statehouse, some carrying American flags.

It was not immediately clear if some in the group in downtown Columbia, SC, were also counter-protesters supportive of the incoming Biden-Harris administration.

The Capitol itself has been surrounded with metal barricades for several days, and state lawmakers have announced they will not hold their scheduled in-person session this week because of the possible unrest.

Updated

This is Joanna Walters in New York taking over the live blog from my colleague Tom Lutz. Do stay tuned for what is likely to be a lively/tense/chilly afternoon in US political news.

Here’s a quick summary of main events so far today:

  • Incoming Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, a day before the US annual holiday celebrating the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, returned to the pulpit at the church where he and MLK served as pastor. Warnock’s victory in the Georgia run-off election earlier this month helped hand control of the US Senate to the Democrats in the Biden-Harris administration.
  • More than a third of governors have called out National Guard troops to help protect their state capitols and aid local law enforcement officers. Several governors have issued states of emergency, and others closed their capitols (state legislatures) to the public until after Biden’s inauguration day on Jan 20, 2021, in a bid to ward off right-wing extremist Donald Trump-loyalists.
  • Top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci asserted that Joe Biden’s promise to carry out 100m coronavirus vaccinations in his first 100 days in power is “absolutely a doable thing”.
  • Downtown Washington, DC, is in a militarized almost-total lockdown this weekend, through the inauguration. The Guardian’s Julian Borger and Lois Beckett are on assignment in the nation’s capital and report that the White House, the US Capitol, the National Mall and several blocks on either side, are sealed off by thousands of national guard troops.
  • Joe Biden will sign a series of executive orders in his first days in office, taking on the damage done at home and abroad by Trump, including on the economy, the coronavirus, immigration and the climate crisis.

Updated

Senator-elect Warnock preaches at MLK church

Away from the capital, the Capitol and the capitols in the state capitals (a sentence I’ve always dreamt of writing, at least since the days of A-level US politics), one of Georgia’s two new Democratic senators has been doing his old day job, the Associated Press reports…

A day before the nation’s annual holiday celebrating life of the Rev Martin Luther King Jr, Senator-elect Raphael Warnock returned to the pulpit at the church that was King’s spiritual home, calling for the nation to adhere to “God’s vision of equity”.

Warnock’s wide-ranging holiday message included a tribute to King and a remembrance of his last days organising an anti-poverty crusade before he was shot dead in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.

“The tragedy is that the minimum wage had more purchasing power in 1968 than the minimum wage does in 2021,” he said at one point.

Warnock decried the pain and death of the Covid-19 pandemic. And he called the 6 January attack on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump “an unthinkable attack on the very house of the people by those who are driven by the worst impulses, stirred up by demagogues.”

Election victories over incumbent Republicans by Jon Ossoff and Warnock ensured a 50-50 Senate split, positioning Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote for Democratic control. But Ossoff and Warnock cannot join the chamber until Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger certifies the final vote tally. Raffensperger, a Republican, has said he could act as soon as Tuesday.

Warnock didn’t mention the outgoing president by name in his sermon but included clear criticisms of Trump as he named “crooked places” he said God seeks to make straight.

“You don’t like the facts? Just create some ‘alternative facts,”’ Warnock said, referencing a term once used by former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway. “Just exchange science for fiction, or your own imagination.”

Things are quiet so far at the Michigan state capitol, which saw fierce protests last year over Covid-19:

Rightwing groups plotted to kidnap Michigan’s governor last year amid lockdown protests.

The Associated Press has news from capitols around the country as they prepare for pro-Trump protests on Sunday:

More than a third of governors had called out the National Guard to help protect their state capitols and aid local law enforcement officers. Several governors issued states of emergency, and others closed their capitols to the public until after Biden’s inauguration day.

Some state legislatures also canceled sessions or pared back their work for the coming week, citing security precautions. Texas, where police in riot gear guarded the Capitol on Sunday, was among the states closing their capitol grounds through the inauguration.

“The Texas Department of Public Safety is aware of armed protests planned at the Texas State Capitol this week and violent extremists who may seek to exploit constitutionally protected events to conduct criminal acts,” said Steve McCraw, the agency’s director.

A supporter of Donald Trump walks past Austin’s Texas state capitol on Saturday
A supporter of Donald Trump walks past Austin’s Texas state capitol on Saturday. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP

More than 100 troopers in riot gear were stationed outside the Capitol in Austin earlier this week as lawmakers began a new legislative session. In Richmond, Virginia police braced for possible demonstrations early Sunday, with security fencing erected around the Statehouse.

In Columbus, Ohio, nearly every business around the downtown capitol square was boarded up. In Lansing, Michigan, police with dogs patrolled on foot, and a helicopter hovered overhead. In Atlanta, armored vehicles were stationed on Capitol grounds.

Wisconsin national guard troops armed with rifles, shields and body armor arrived near the state Capitol on Sunday morning. A man who drove a vehicle up the steps of the Capitol building was arrested overnight for driving while intoxicated.

Away from today’s protests, Victoria Bekiempis has news of the fight against Covid-19 as deaths from the virus approach 400,000 in the US:

Joe Biden’s promise to carry out 100m coronavirus vaccinations in his first 100 days in power is “absolutely a doable thing”, Dr Anthony Fauci said on Sunday.

The president-elect has announced ambitious initiatives to combat Covid-19 and its economic toll, seeking to overcome the struggles and failures of the Trump administration, which has presided over a slow start to the biggest vaccination drive in US history.

The challenge is steep: Ron Klain, the incoming White House chief of staff, told CNN on Sunday, Biden’s team projected another 100,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the first five weeks of the administration.

Ashley Van Dyke receives a Covid-19 shot as a mass-vaccination of healthcare workers takes place at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles
Ashley Van Dyke receives a Covid-19 shot as a mass-vaccination of healthcare workers takes place at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Photograph: Irfan Khan/AFP/Getty Images

According to Johns Hopkins University, by Sunday morning 23,760,523 cases and 395,855 deaths had been recorded in the US.

“It’s going to take a while to turn this around,” Klain said.

Fauci, the top US infectious disease doctor, told NBC’s Meet the Press: “I can tell you one thing that’s clear is that the issue of getting 100m [vaccination] doses in the first 100 days, is absolutely a doable thing. What the president-elect is going to do is where we need be, to invoke the [Defense Production Act] to get the kinds of things they need, whatever they may be, be they tests, be they vaccines or what have you.

“In other words, to just not be hesitant to use whatever mechanisms we can to get everything on track and on the flow that we predict. But the feasibility of his goal is absolutely clear, there’s no doubt about it. That can be done.”

You can read the full story below:

Julian Borger and Lois Beckett are on the ground in Washington DC as the capital – and the US as a whole – prepares for a day of protest. Here is their latest update:

In Washington, a large area including the White House, the Capitol, the National Mall in between, and several blocks on either side, was sealed off by thousands of national guard troops. High steel fences on concrete stands protected key government buildings.

Members of the national guard have been mobilized on the streets of Washington DC
Members of the national guard have been mobilized on the streets of Washington DC. Photograph: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

In the run-up to Wednesday’s inauguration, 20,000 troops will garrison the city, from national guards from DC and neighbouring states. By several measures, it is a bigger response than the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The scenes of recent days, with large numbers of soldiers resting in the corridors of the Capitol, have not been seen since the Civil War.

The protected area was divided into a highly restricted “red zone” and around that a “green zone”, accessible to its residents, an echo of the Iraq war, and the fortified government and diplomatic area in central Baghdad.

By lunchtime on Sunday, the city was quiet, with white supremacist militia leaders telling their followers to stay away.

In an email to supporters Thursday, Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, joined other extremists in begging Trump to declare martial law, but he also told supporters they should not gather at state capitols to protest, warning them of “false-flag traps.”

Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the neo-fascist Proud Boys, told USA Today that his group was not mobilizing as part of inauguration protests, saying, “I feel like this part of the battle is over.”

Jamie Raskin, the House Democrat leading the impeachment of Donald Trump, remembered his son Tommy on Sunday and said: “I’m not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021. It’s not going to happen.”

Tommy Raskin, a Harvard law student who struggled with depression, died on New Year’s Eve. He was 25.

His father, a constitutional law professor and representative from Maryland, was this week named as lead impeachment manager for Trump’s second Senate trial. The president was impeached for the second time for inciting the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, in which five people died, to further his baseless claim that the election was stolen.

Trump’s trial could start immediately after Joe Biden takes power on Wednesday. Raskin discussed the impeachment on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. He was also asked about his son.

“Tommy was a remarkable person,” he said. “He had overwhelming love for humanity and for our country, in his heart, and really for all the people of the world. We lost him on the very last day of that God awful year, 2020, and he left us a note, which said ‘Please forgive me, my illness won today, look after each other, the animals and the global poor for me, all my love Tommy.’

Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace, who worked for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, says the president put her life, as well as those of her children, at risk in the run-up to violence at the Capitol this month.

“We feared for our lives, many of us that day, and our staff. And, as you know, my children were supposed to be up there,” she told NBC’s Meet The Press. “And if they had been, there like they were supposed to be, I would have been devastated. And so, we do need to find a way to hold the president accountable.”

Mace was asked about many of her Republican colleagues in the House continuing to push back on the results of the presidential election, even after a pro-Trump mob invaded the Capitol.

“I will tell you for me, as a new member, it was enormously disappointing. I literally had to walk through a crime scene where that young woman was shot and killed to get into the chamber to vote that night to certify what was supposed to be a ceremonial vote to certify the Electoral College,” she said. “And yet, my colleagues continued to object, and they knew this was a failing motion.”

I keep hearing that Joe Biden will govern from the “center”. He has no choice, they say, because he will have razor-thin majorities in Congress and the Republican party has moved to the right.

Rubbish. I’ve served several Democratic presidents who have needed Republican votes. But the Republicans now in Congress are nothing like those I’ve dealt with. Most of today’s GOP live in a parallel universe. There’s no “center” between the reality-based world and theirs.

Last Wednesday, fully 93% of House Republicans voted against impeaching Trump for inciting insurrection, even after his attempted coup threatened their very lives.

The week before, immediately following the raid on the Capitol, two-thirds of House Republicans and eight Republican senators refused to certify election results on the basis of Trump’s lies about widespread fraud – lies rejected by 60 federal judges as well as Trump’s own departments of justice and homeland security.

Prior to the raid, several Republican members of Congress repeated those lies on television and Twitter and at “Stop the Steal” events – encouraging Trump followers to “fight for America” and start “kicking ass”.

This is the culmination of the growing insanity of the GOP over the last four years. Trump has remade the Republican party into a white supremacist cult living within a counter-factual wonderland of lies and conspiracies.

You can read the full article below:

Donald Trump supporters will gather at capitols in all 50 states today, spurred on by the president’s baseless claims that the election was stolen from him. Arkansas’s Republican governor Asa Hutchinson told Fox News Sunday that he believes Trump bears responsibility for the violence at the US Capitol this month, and which some fear could be repeated today.

“[Trump] asked all the people to come to Washington for the rally and then he used very aggressive language in the rally itself and he misled people as to what happened during the election, that it was stolen and that our checks and balances are not working,” Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson said that he has been monitoring the protests at the Arkansas capitol today but did not believe intelligence suggested he will need to call in the national guard.

“We’re using civilian law enforcement, we’ll have response teams there, we’ll have beefed-up presence at the capitol for Tuesday,” he said. “We don’t have any specific intelligence that there’s going to be violence associated with those rallies but we want to be extra cautious. Every state has to look at their own intelligence matrix and make those kind of judgments.”

HR McMaster, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has told CNN that another run for office by the president would be “terribly divisive”.

He said that he did not support any particular candidate but did not necessarily oppose the move to impeach Trump for a second time over the recent violence at the US Capitol. He told CNN that “nobody is above the law.”

New York Times releases bombshell pardon-lobbying report

An associate of Rudy Giuliani told a former CIA officer a presidential pardon was “going to cost $2m”, the New York Times reported on Sunday in the latest bombshell to break across the last, chaotic days of Donald Trump’s presidency.

The report detailed widespread and in some cases lucrative lobbying involving people seeking a pardon as Trump’s time in office winds down. The 45th president, impeached twice, will leave power on Wednesday with the inauguration of Joe Biden.

The former CIA officer John Kiriakou, who was jailed in 2012 for leaking the identity of an operative involved in torture, told the Times he laughed at the remark from the associate of Giuliani, the former New York mayor who as Trump’s personal attorney is reportedly a possible pardon recipient himself.

“Two million bucks – are you out of your mind?” Kiriakou reportedly said. “Even if I had two million bucks, I wouldn’t spend it to recover a $700,000 pension.”

An associate of Kiriakou reported the conversation to the FBI, the Times said.

Read more:

Updated

Washington DC’s Democratic mayor, Muriel Bowser, has appeared on CNN’s Meet The Press this morning. After the invasion of the US Capitol earlier this month, there will be a huge security presence around DC for Joe Biden’s inauguration. Host Chuck Todd said the capital looks like an “armed camp” and asked how long it will continue to do so.

“[The bigger question is] ... how serious is our country going to take domestic white extremism?” said Bowser. “And I think what we saw here last week is that we didn’t take it seriously enough. We never believed that so-called patriots would attempt to overthrow their government and kill police officers, but that’s exactly what happened.

“So I do think we have to take another posture in our city that is more domestic terrorist-focused and external to our country and enact accordingly. Now, we don’t want to see fences, we definitely don’t want to see armed troops on our streets, but we do have to take a different posture.”

She also agreed with Todd that there is more security around the Capitol than at any moment since 9/11.

“I think this will be an inauguration unlike any other. I think it was already destined to be given Covid concerns and some of the limited seating and public access,” she said. “But having our fellow Americans storm the Capitol, in an attempt to overthrow the government, certainly warrants heightened security.”

A CNN poll puts Donald Trump’s approval rating at a new low as the end of his presidency nears, with his numbers dropping among Republicans as well as Democrats.

In the poll, which was released on Sunday, 34% of those surveyed said they approved of Trump’s presidency. The previous low was 35% and before the election in November Trump’s approval rating stood at 42%.

Despite Trump’s part in the violence at the US Capitol earlier this month, 80% of Republicans said they approved of his presidency. However, that was down from 94% in October. Two percent of Democrats approved of Trump in the latest poll.

Most of those surveyed (54%) said Trump should be removed from office following the events at the Capitol. Ninety percent of Democrats agreed Trump should be forced out, and 10% of Republicans.

Biden to sign series of executive orders

Joe Biden will sign a series of executive orders in his first days in office, attempting to roll back damage done at home and abroad by Donald Trump, whom the Democrat will replace as president on Wednesday.

Biden, 78, has already outlined plans to send an immigration bill and a Covid stimulus and relief package to a newly Democratic-controlled Congress. On Friday he said he would shake up the delivery of vaccines against Covid-19, mired in chaos under Trump.

According to a memo from chief of staff Ron Klain released on Saturday, Biden plans to return the US to the Paris climate accords and the Iran nuclear deal, overturn Trump’s travel ban against some Muslim-majority countries, restrict evictions and foreclosures under the pandemic and institute a mask mandate on federal property.

President Biden will enjoy Democratic control of both houses of Congress, if by a slender margin in the House and by Kamala Harris’s casting vote as vice-president in a 50-50 Senate. But Senate business, including confirmation for Biden’s cabinet nominees, will soon be dominated by Trump’s impeachment trial.

On Sunday, Klain told CNN’s State of the Union: “It’s important for the Senate to do its constitutional duty, but also to do its constitutional duty to move forward on these appointments, on the urgent action the country needs.

“During the last time President Trump was tried the Senate was able to hold confirmation hearings for nominees during the morning [and] was able to conduct other business. I hope that the Senate leaders on a bipartisan basis find a way to move forward on all their responsibilities. This impeachment trial is one of them but getting people into the government and getting action on coronavirus is another one of those responsibilities.”

Read more:

Updated

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics at the end of what has been a busy week. As Donald Trump enters his final days in power, the US is braced for potential unrest with the president’s supporters expected to gather for protests in Washington DC and all 50 state capitols.

Here’s where we are so far:

Updated

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