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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Vivian Ho in San Francisco (now) and Lauren Gambino in Washington (earlier)

Mayors of targeted cities voice support for immigrant communities – as it happened

The raids are reportedly set to begin on Sunday.
The raids are reportedly set to begin on Sunday. Photograph: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Evening summary

President Trump sat down for an interview with Chuck Todd of “Meet the Press,” talking about his decision to call off the retaliatory strike against Iran.

“I thought about it for a second and I said, you know what, they shot down an unmanned drone, plane, whatever you want to call it, and here we are sitting with a 150 dead people that would have taken place probably within a half an hour after I said go ahead,” Trump said. “And I didn’t like it, I didn’t think, I didn’t think it was proportionate.”

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio retweeted this message in response to Trump’s planned immigration raids:

Here’s Denver weighing in on this Sunday’s planned immigration raids:

Updated

Chicago responds to the planned immigration raids this Sunday:

Updated

Cities braces for immigration raids

California, the self-fashioned “resistance” state, is on high alert following reports that President Trump has directed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers to conduct a mass roundup of migrant families that have received deportation orders - an operation likely to start early Sunday.

Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore told the Los Angeles Times that there are about 140 individuals targeted in Southern California.

Updated

In his statement about E Jean Carroll, President Trump alluded to Julie Swetnick, one of the women who came forward during the confirmation process for Justice Brett Kavanaugh and accused him of inappropriate behavior.

Here’s a reminder of what went down all those months ago in Fall 2018. Dr Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez came forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct during his high school and college years in the early 1980s.

In a sworn statement, Swetnick joined in on their allegations, accusing Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge, of engaging in lewd behavior with young women at high school parties and placing drugs or alcohol in punch in order to inebriate women so they could be “gang raped” by other partygoers.

She was excluded from the FBI investigation, but it was never determined why.

The president claimed that Swetnick “falsely accused” Kavanaugh. That has never been proven. What she has alleged also has never been proven - there had been no opportunity for her to do so. It’s unclear why the president singled her out in all this.

President Trump just issued a statement that he had never met E Jean Carroll, the journalist who accused him of assaulting her in a dressing room. Well.

Trump responds to E Jean Carroll's allegations

Here’s a statement from President Trump, regarding the account of journalist and Elle advice columnist E Jean Carroll that Trump allegedly assaulted her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store:

“Regarding the ‘story’ by E Jean Carroll, claiming she once encountered me at Bergdorf Goodman 23 years ago: I’ve never met this person in my life. She is trying to sell a new book — that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section.

“Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity for themselves, or sell a book, or carry out a political agenda — like Julie Swetnick who falsely accused Justice Brett Kavanaugh. It’s just as bad for people to believe it, particularly when there is zero evidence. Worse still for a dying publication to try to prop itself up by peddling fake news — it’s an epidemic.

“Ms. Carroll and New York Magazine: No pictures? No surveillance? No video? No reports? No sales attendants around?? I would like to thank Bergdorf Goodman for confirming they have no video footage of any such incident because it never happened.

“False accusations diminish the severity of real assault. All should condemn false accusations and any actual assault in the strongest possible terms.”

“If anyone has information that the Democratic Party is working with Ms. Carroll or New York Magazine, please notify us as soon as possible. The world should know what’s really going on. It is a disgrace and people should pay dearly for such false accusations.”

The Supreme Court ruled today that a white Mississippi prosecutor violated the Constitution by excluding black jurors from the sixth trial of Curtis Flowers, a black man who was convicted of killing four in 1996, the New York Times is reporting.

Curtis Flowers was convicted and sentenced to death three times for the murders of four people in Mississippi furniture store. Each time, his conviction was overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court, which found that the prosecutor, Doug Evans, used all 36 of his peremptory challenges to strike black potential jurors in those three trials.

Flowers was tried twice more, but those cases ended in mistrial.

The sixth trial resulted in his conviction in 2010, but the Supreme Court overturned that conviction today.

“The state’s actions in the first four trials necessarily inform our assessment of the state’s intent going into Flowers’s sixth trial,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote. “We cannot ignore that history. We cannot take that history out of the case.”

The case got nationwide attention after it was covered by the In the Dark podcast.

Hey there, Vivian Ho taking over for Lauren Gambino. Happy Friday, everybody.

Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard defends Joe Biden in a series of tweets calling out her rivals for criticizing him.

Summary

It’s been a busy day in Washington. Here’s what’s happened so far:

  • The US military was “cocked and loaded” to launch a retaliatory strike against Iran but Trump reversed course with minutes to spare after a general informed him the action would result in 150 deaths. Trump said the response was not “proportionate” to Iran’s attack on an unmanned US drone.
  • Missouri declined a license to the state’s last remaining abortion clinic, leaving its fate in the hands of the courts.
  • Journalist and advice columnist E Jean Carroll said she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump in a department store dressing room more than two decades ago. He has been accused of harassment and misconduct by at least 16 women.
  • US immigration officers are preparing to launch a wave of raids targeting migrant families in major US cities.

Donald Trump has tweeted this video:

More information is coming out about the immigration raids expected to begin on Sunday in major US cities. Apparently the first target will be Miami, where many of the 2020 candidates will be in town for the first presidential primary debate.

California congresswoman Judy Chu is sharing advice for immigrants if they are swept up in the forthcoming raids.

Updated

Republicans on Capitol Hill seem to have received some talking points:

Harris has notched the high-profile endorsement of South Carolina organizer Bernice Scott ahead a jam-packed campaign weekend in the state.

But in an interview with NBC ahead of Clyburn’s fish fry on Friday night, the influential Democrat wonders why Harris isn’t “surging”.

NBC News’s indefatigable Vaughn Hillyard sat down with Roy Moore, who is making a second run for the Senate in Alabama after he lost to Democrat Doug Jones amid a campaign marred by accusations of sexual misconduct with minors.

Moore blames the Republican “establishment” for influencing Trump’s public request that he not run for Senate.

Read more of their exchange here:

There’s a lot of candidates and only so many flights, but even so, what are the odds that Elizabeth Warren gets the seat directly behind Bernie Sanders?

Calls for impeachment get louder as another swing district Democrat comes out in favor:

ICE raids targeting migrant families to begin on Sunday

The Washington Post is reporting that Trump has directed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to “conduct a mass roundup of migrant families that have received deportation orders, an operation that is likely to begin with predawn raids in major US cities on Sunday.”

The report, based on interviews with three US officials with knowledge of the plans, said the raids are intended to target as many as 2,000 families in Houston, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles and among other cities with a large migrant population.

Trump revealed the operation in a tweet on Monday night that said US immigration agents were planning to make mass arrests starting “next week”.

According to the Post, Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan had pushed for a narrower operation that targeted a smaller number of families who had dropped out of the legal process. McAleenan also warned that the operation could result in more family separations if agents raid a home or workplace while the children are not there.

Officials told the Post that agents would detain parents and children in hotel rooms until they the entire family can be deported together.

House Judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler repeatedly referred to former White House aide Hope Hicks as “Ms. Lewandowski” during a closed door hearing last week.

The chairman told CNN it was an honest blunder and that he apparently hadn’t meant to imply she was in a relationship with Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

Hicks did not correct Nadler on the first two occasions but when he called her for a third time, “Ms. Lewandowski” she interrupted him “My name is Ms. Hicks.”

Alyssa Farah, the spokeswoman for Vice President Mike Pence, called the error “sexist garbage”.

Texas governor Greg Abbott announced that the state will deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border.

He said the troops will “provide assistance at temporary holding facilities” in the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso and also help at ports of entry, according to the Texas Tribune.

Meanwhile, Abbott said Texas will the federal government the bill for the entire cost of deploying 1,000 National Guard troops to the border.

Prominent African American lawmakers are rallying to the defense of Joe Biden amid criticism over comments the former vice president made about working with Southern segregationist senators to underscore a point about civility in politics.

Congressman John Lewis, a veteran of the civil rights movement, told reporters that he did not find Biden’s remarks to be offensive.

Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the House majority whip who is hosting the 2020 candidates this weekend in Columbia, said he too was forced to work with segregationist senators.

“If I had only worked with people who opposed segregation, I never would have worked with people who were not my color,” Clyburn said, who is 78 and was first elected to Congress at the age of 52.

In his remarks, Biden said then-senator James Eastland of Mississippi, who once called black people “flesh eaters,” never called him a “boy.” The comment was denounced by several of the Democrats running for president, including senator Cory Booker, who called on him to apologize.

The former vice president struck back: Apologize for what?” he asked reporters, suggesting that it is Booker who should apologize.

Biden called Booker later that evening to calm tensions. According to Politico, Biden didn’t apologize but they had a polite conversation.

That might have been the end of the story, but Biden’s campaign further inflamed the issue by sending talking points to his campaign surrogates that highlighted his opponents work with controversial lawmakers and officials, including former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (Booker testified against Sessions, then his colleague in the Senate, at his confirmation hearing.)

“I find it remarkable that the surrogate talking points they were sending around, as they were trying to contain this, include no mention of the language the vice president used and instead tried to spin that the vice president is being criticized for working with people he disagreed with,” a Booker aide told Politico. “That’s nonsense and speaks volumes to what they know is true, which is, he should be apologizing for what he said.”

E Jean Carroll: Donald Trump assaulted me in a dressing room 23 years ago

In a cover story for New York magazine, published on Friday, journalist and Elle advice columnist E Jean Carroll recounts an incident more than two decades ago in which Donald Trump, then–real-estate executive, allegedly assaulted her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store.

In late 1995 or early 1996, Carroll said Trump recognized her at the Bergdof Goodman in midtown Manhattan as “that advice lady”. Trump told her that he was there to buy a gift for a “girl”. She says Trump suggested a “lace bodysuit” and urged her to try it on.

When they reached the dressing rooms, she said Trump shoved her against the wall, pulled down her tights and “forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me.”

New York magazine confirmed that Carroll told two friends about the incident after it happened. One advised her to go to the police and the other said to forget the encounter, warning that his legal team would “bury” her.

In the cover photo, Carroll is wearing the Donna Karan coat-dress that she had on that day, which she said “still hangs on the back of my closet door.” It is the first time she has worn the dress since the incident.

A senior White House official told the magazine in a statement, “This is a completely false and unrealistic story surfacing 25 years after allegedly taking place and was created simply to make the President look bad.”

Carroll is at least the 16th woman to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct.

In the the piece, she describes a series of other episodes of assault, including one involving the former CEO of CBS, Les Moonves, who was forced out amid multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. A representative told New York that Moonves “emphatically denies” Carroll’s allegation.

Anticipating that she would be asked why she waited so long to come forward, Carroll writes: “Receiving death threats, being driven from my home, being dismissed, being dragged through the mud, and joining the 15 women who’ve come forward with credible stories about how the man grabbed, badgered, belittled, mauled, molested, and assaulted them, only to see the man turn it around, deny, threaten, and attack them, never sounded like much fun. Also, I am a coward.”

Updated

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was at the White House yesterday for a classified briefing in the Situation Room, said in a new statement on Friday: “We are in an extremely dangerous and sensitive situation with Iran. We must calibrate a response that de-escalates and advances American interests, and we must be clear as to what those interests are.”

During the meeting, Pelosi said Democratic leaders stressed to the president that “hostilities must not be initiated without the approval of Congress.”

“We have no illusions about the dangerous conduct of the Iranian regime,” she continued. “This is a dangerous, high-tension situation that requires a strong, smart and strategic approach.”

This afternoon Trump will have lunch with secretary of state Mike Pompeo, just hours after he cancelled an airstrike against Iran.

Pompeo is a former member of Congress and a staunch hawk on Iran.

Read our latest coverage of the standoff between Washington and Iran.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris has released a Summer Playlist on Spotify to mark the first day of the season, à la Obama who started the tradition while in the White House.

“I’m a firm believer that we all need to find the time to dance, to sing and to bop our heads a little, so I’m sharing the songs I’m listening to in the car out on the campaign trail this summer,” senator Harris told Bustle. “Whether we’re driving from Sacramento to Reno or Dubuque to Chicago, this playlist always lifts me up.”

The list, which her campaign said was “personally curated” by the Senator, includes songs by artists like Mary J. Blige, Cardi B, Lizzo, Kendrick Lamar and Nipsey Hussle.

Listen here and let us know what you think.

Updated

Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, yes, has a new plan.

Her new plan would ban private prisons and detention facilities, prohibit contractors from charging service fees for essential services like phone calls, bank transfers and healthcare.

“Here’s what this all comes down to,” she writes. “The government has a basic responsibility to keep the people in its care safe — not to use their punishment as an opportunity for profit.”

Plan by plan, Warren has built moment – but is it enough to overcome the roadblocks posed by her chief rivals, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden?

Missouri denies license to state's only abortion clinic

For the first time since the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, a US state may not have a single abortion clinic.

Missouri on Friday rejected the license application of a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, which is the only remaining abortion provider in the state, according to the Kansas City Star.

In a statement, Planned Parenthood action fund said the healthcare center has not yet been closed and is still providing abortions.

“The preliminary injunction issued by the Missouri State Circuit Court remains in effect, so the fate of abortion access in Missouri now hangs in the balance until further notice from the court,” the group said.

Missouri is one of several states across the country where access to reproductive healthcare has been dramatically restricted since Trump appointee Brett Kavanaugh joined the Supreme Court, consolidating a conservative majority. Antiabortion activists are pushing a bevy of state laws and federal action designed to trigger a Supreme Court case that could dismantle Roe.

This weekend, 20 of the 24 candidates running for the Democratic presidential nomination will participate in a first-of-its-kind forum on reproductive rights hosted by Planned Parenthood Action Fund in South Carolina.

“This is really the moment for the candidates to make clear where they stand on the full range of reproductive healthcare, including abortion,” said Kelley Robinson, the group’s executive director told the Guardian. “Whoever wants to lead the United States and serve in the office of the president is going to have to be clear and accountable to voters on this issue.”

Updated

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, it’s business as usual ... which is to say more subpoenas related to Trump’s association with Russia.

The House intelligence committee on Friday said it will subpoena Moscow-born business executive Felix Sater after he did not appear for a scheduled interview Friday.

Who is Felix Sater, you might be asking yourself. Let us refresh your memory.

The Supreme Court on Friday overturned the murder conviction of a Mississippi man on death row in a case about the role of race in jury selection.

According to the Washington Post, the court “threw out the most recent conviction of a Mississippi man who has been tried an extraordinary six times for a quadruple murder in 1996, finding that a zealous prosecutor once again had improperly kept African Americans off the jury.”

The inmate, Curtis Flowers, who is black, argued that the jury selection in his case violated the Constitution. The prosecutor, District Attorney Doug Evans, is white.

Democrats are alarmed by the escalation and warned the White House that only Congress has the power to authorize war. (This power has been steadily undermined by the executive branch since the attacks on 9/11. )

And 2020 presidential candidates were quick to weigh in.

Former vice president Joe Biden called Trump’s approach to Iran a “self-inflicted disaster”.

Senator Bernie Sanders stayed on message, reminding voters that it “won’t be the kids of billionaires who get killed in a war with Iran.” (Sanders led the charge in Congress to claw back war-making powers from the executive branch. Trump vetoed the resolution.)

Senator Kamala Harris said Trump’s “saber-rattling” was making the US “weaker and less safe”.

Senator Elizabeth Warren reminded Trump of his promise to stop “endless wars”.

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, whose running for president to “bend the arc of history away from war and toward peace”, said she doubts Trump can resist war with Iran ... and also please contribute to my fledgling campaign.

Trump preferred to launch talks, not strikes

More details are emerging about the dramatic moments leading up to Trump’s decision not to launch strikes against three sites in Iran.

Reuters reported that Trump sent Tehran a warning that a “US attack on Iran was imminent” but stressing that he did not want to escalate the standoff and preferred to launch talks on a range of issues.

“In his message, Trump said he was against any war with Iran and wanted to talk to Tehran about various issues,” an Iranian official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“He gave a short period of time to get our response but Iran’s immediate response was that it is up to Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei to decide about this issue.”

A second Iranian official told the agency: “We made it clear that the leader is against any talks, but the message will be conveyed to him to make a decision.
“However, we told the Omani official,” who delivered the message from the US, “that any attack against Iran will have regional and international consequences.”

Updated

Trump says any strike 'not proportionate' to drone attack

Trump has confirmed that the US military was “cocked and loaded” to launch retaliatory strikes against Iran on Thursday night but pulled with just 10 minutes to spare after a general was informed him that “150 people” would die.

He said such an action was “not proportionate” to Iran’s attack on an unarmed US done.

Updated

Trump changes course on attacks against Iran

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of what is already a busy day in Washington DC, where nerves are jittery and tensions are high after news broke over night that the Donald Trump had “approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for downing an American surveillance drone, but pulled back from launching them on Thursday night,” according to the New York Times.

The paper reported, citing an unnamed official that: “Planes were in the air and ships were in position, but no missiles had been fired when word came to stand down.”

“It was not clear whether Mr. Trump simply changed his mind on the strikes or whether the administration altered course because of logistics or strategy,” write Michael Shear, Eric Schmitt, Michael Crowley, and Maggie Haberman. “It was also not clear whether the attacks might still go forward.”

Trump, however, is at the moment occupied by a longtime grievance against the paper.

Elsewhere, nearly all of the 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls will head to South Carolina tonight for the state’s annual Blue Palmetto Dinner and congressman Jim Clyburn’s “World Famous Fish Fry”. Both events will give Democrats running for the party’s presidential nomination an opportunity to woo influential party members and local officials whose endorsements could boost their odds in the “first in the South” primary.

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