By Daniel Dale

Last week, some Republican lawmakers wrongly described Washington DC’s new proof-of-vaccination policy — incorrectly tweeting that the Democratic-run city is requiring people to show photo identification to buy milk or even to leave their homes.

Their inaccurate tweets, however, came after Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser herself used overly broad language in a tweet describing the policy. Bowser’s tweet could have led the senators and others astray, though the senators could certainly have verified the details before posting.

Bowser tweeted on Tuesday that starting Saturday, people age 18 and older would need three things “before heading out”: a mask, proof of vaccination and photo ID. (She wrote that people ages 12 through 17 would need the mask and proof of vaccination but not the photo ID.) The tweet concluded by saying people could get more information by clicking her link to a government website.

Two Republican senators amplified Bowser’s tweet in their own tweets. If they had clicked the link to get more information, however, they did not show it.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said in a Wednesday tweet: “Liberal logic: you need a photo ID to buy milk but not to vote.”

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said in a Tuesday tweet: “Dems think it’s racist to require voter ID but are happy to segregate the unvaxxed and require anyone leaving their home to have a photo ID, mask, and proof of vaccine.”

Facts First: Washington is not requiring photo ID or proof of Covid-19 vaccination from everyone leaving their home or from people buying groceries like milk. The new policy exempts grocery stores and other retail establishments, and it does not apply to people who are merely venturing outside their homes.

Rather, the policy requires people age 18 or older to show photo ID and proof of vaccination when entering certain indoor establishments: restaurants, bars, food halls and food courts, nightclubs, breweries, entertainment venues, exercise facilities and meeting facilities. (The policy says that people who are entering even these establishments for certain brief stops — to use a restroom, to pay, to pick up or place an order, or to get to an outdoor area — are not required to show proof of vaccination, but they must still wear masks while inside.)

It’s not hard to find the list of places covered by the policy: it is visible to anyone who visits the page to which Bowser tweeted a link. And clicking a link that is prominently featured on that page, in turn, brings up a document with even more details — such as the fact that grocery stores are exempt. (Someone who wanted to get milk at a non-exempt establishment like a restaurant or food court would have to show ID first, but Blackburn tweeted a much broader suggestion that people would generally need ID to buy milk in the city.)

The proof-of-vaccination policy commenced at 6 a.m., local time, on Saturday by requiring proof that someone has received one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. Beginning on February 15, that will change to requiring proof that someone has received two doses of an mRNA vaccine like Pfizer’s and Moderna’s or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. From Saturday onward, people with medical or religious exemptions from vaccination must instead show proof of a negative test within the last 24 hours and documentation confirming the exemption.

Some other big Democratic-run cities, such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston, also require evidence of vaccination from people entering restaurants, bars and some other venues. But none of these big cities requires proof of vaccination merely to leave one’s home or to shop at a grocery store.

Spokespeople for Johnson and Bowser did not respond to requests for comment. Blackburn’s office declined to comment.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Just over a year ago, millions of energized young people, women, voters of color and independents joined forces to send Joe Biden to the White House. But 12 months into his presidency, many describe a coalition in crisis.

Leading voices across Biden’s diverse political base openly decry the slow pace of progress on key campaign promises. The frustration was especially pronounced this past week after Biden’s push for voting rights legislation effectively stalled, intensifying concerns in his party that fundamental democratic principles are at risk and reinforcing a broader sense that the president is faltering at a moment of historic consequence.

“People are feeling like they’re getting less than they bargained for when they put Biden in office. There’s a lot of emotions, and none of them are good,” said Quentin Wathum-Ocama, president of the Young Democrats of America. “I don’t know if the right word is ‘apoplectic’ or ‘demoralized.’ We’re down. We’re not seeing the results.”

The strength of Biden’s support will determine whether Democrats maintain threadbare majorities in Congress beyond this year or whether they will cede lawmaking authority to a Republican Party largely controlled by former President Donald Trump. Already, Republicans in several state legislatures have taken advantage of Democratic divisions in Washington to enact far-reaching changes to state election laws, abortion rights and public health measures in line with Trump’s wishes.

If Biden cannot unify his party and reinvigorate his political coalition, the GOP at the state and federal levels will almost certainly grow more emboldened, and the red wave that shaped a handful of state elections last year could fundamentally shift the balance of power across America in November’s midterm elections.

For now, virtually none of the groups that fueled Biden’s 2020 victory are happy.

Young people are frustrated that he hasn’t followed through on vows to combat climate change and student debt. Women are worried that his plans to expand family leave, child care and universal pre-K are stalled as abortion rights erode and schools struggle to stay open. Moderates in both parties who once cheered Biden’s centrist approach worry that he’s moved too far left. And voters of color, like those across Biden’s political base, are furious that he hasn’t done more to protect their voting rights.

“We mobilized to elect President Biden because he made promises to us,” Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., told The Associated Press, citing Biden’s pledge to address police violence, student loan debt, climate change and voter suppression, among other issues.

“We need transformative change — our very lives depend on it,” Bush said. “And because we haven’t seen those results yet, we’re frustrated — frustrated that despite everything we did to deliver a Democratic White House, Senate and House of Representatives, our needs and our lives are still not being treated as a top priority. That needs to change.”

Facing widespread frustration, the White House insists Biden is making significant progress, especially given the circumstances when he took office.

“President Biden entered office with enormous challenges — a once-in-a-generation pandemic, economic crisis and a hollowed-out federal government. In the first year alone, he has delivered progress on his promises,” said Cedric Richmond, a senior adviser to the president. He pointed to more than 6 million new jobs, 200 million vaccinated Americans, the most diverse Cabinet in U.S. history and the most federal judges confirmed in a president’s first year since Richard Nixon.

Richmond also highlighted historic legislative accomplishments Biden signed into law — specifically, a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill that sent $1,400 checks to most Americans and a subsequent $1 trillion infrastructure package that will fund public works projects across every state in the nation for several years.

In an interview, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a leading voice in the Democratic Party’s left wing, described Biden’s pandemic relief package as among the most significant pieces of legislation ever enacted to help working people.

“But a lot more work needs to be done,” he said.

Like other Biden allies, Sanders directed blame for the president’s woes at two Senate Democrats: Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. They are blocking the president’s plan to protect voting rights by refusing to bypass the filibuster, having already derailed Biden’s “Build Back Better” package, which calls for investments exceeding $2 trillion for child care, paid family leave, education and climate change, among other progressive priorities.

“It has been a mistake to have backroom conversations with Manchin and Sinema for the last four months, or five months,” Sanders said. “Those conversations have gotten nowhere. But what they have done is demoralize tens of millions of Americans.”

But blaming fellow Democrats will do little to improve Biden’s political standing.

According to Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research polling released last month, the president’s approval ratings have been falling among virtually every demographic as the pandemic continues to rage, inflation soars and the majority of his campaign promises go unfulfilled. A series of legal setbacks in recent days stand to make things worse. The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked Biden’s vaccine and testing requirements for big businesses.

About 7 in 10 Black Americans said they approved of Biden in December, compared with roughly 9 in 10 in April. Among Hispanics, support dipped to roughly half from about 7 in 10.

Just half of women approved of Biden last month compared to roughly two-thirds in the spring.

There was a similar drop among younger voters: Roughly half of Americans under 45 approved of the president, down from roughly two-thirds earlier in the year. The decline was similar among those age 45 and older. And among independents, a group that swung decidedly for Biden in 2020, just 40% of those who don’t lean toward a party approved of Biden in December, down from 63% in April.

“Biden is failing us,” said John Paul Mejia, the 19-year-old spokesman for the Sunrise Movement, a national youth organization focused on climate change. “If Biden doesn’t use the time he has left with a Democratic majority in Congress to fight tooth and nail for the promises that he was elected on, he will go down in history as a could-have-been president and ultimately a coward who didn’t stand up for democracy and a habitable planet.”

Christian Nunes, president of the National Organization for Women, said she wants to see more urgency from Biden in protecting women’s priorities.

“In these times, we need somebody who’s going to be a fighter,” she said.

Nunes called on Biden to work harder to protect voting rights and access to abortion, which have been dramatically curtailed in several Republican-led states. A looming Supreme Court decision expected this summer could weaken, or wipe away, the landmark Roe v. Wade precedent that made abortion legal.

“We are in a really dire time right now. We’re seeing so many laws passed that are really challenging peoples’ constitutional rights,” Nunes said. “We need someone who’s going to say we’re not going to tolerate this.”

Charlie Sykes, an anti-Trump Republican who backed Biden in 2020, said the president is also in danger of losing moderate voters in both parties unless he can shift his party’s rhetoric more to the middle when talking about public safety, crime and voting.

“He ran as very much a centrist, center-left candidate, but I think that a lot of moderate swing voters are feeling a little bit left out and wondering where the Joe Biden of 2020 went,” Sykes said.

Having only been in office for a year, Biden may have time to turn things around before the November midterms — especially as Trump reemerges as a more visible player in national politics. In recent years, nothing has unified Democrats more than Trump himself.

Mary Kay Henry, president of the two-million-member Service Employees International Union, said her members want more from Washington, but they would be out in full force this year to remind voters of the work Biden has already done to address concerns about the pandemic and economic security.

“President Biden is not the obstacle,” Henry said, pointing to the “intransigent Republican caucus in the Senate” who have unified against Biden’s Build Back Better package and his plan to protect voting rights. “We’re going to have this president’s back.”

Not everyone is as willing to commit to the Democratic president.

“We need to see Joe Biden the fighter. That’s kind of where I’m at,” said Wathum-Ocama, the Young Democrats of America president. “The unifier is appropriate at times. But we need somebody who’s going to fight for our issues if we’re going to come out and turn out for him in ’22.”

___

Associated Press polling specialist Hannah Fingerhut contributed to this report.

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While we are learning to live in the “new normal” post-pandemic world, political drama of historical consequence is being played out in our country. As if it were the audience in a Greek tragedy, our nation is mesmerized (and paralyzed) by the unfolding fate of its protagonists, by the horrors of betrayals and intrigues. Key actors in this play, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, disguised as Democrats, delivered a final blow to the Democrats’ project of building on FDR’s legacy of making the country both prosperous and human (”Sinema opposes filibuster changes,” Jan. 14). President Biden, true to his role as the tragic king, refused to call the deception and so became an accomplice as well as victim to the Trump-controlled GOP grab for unrestricted power and demise of democracy. Any applause?

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Accordingly, she added, the R.N.C. would start the process of amending its rules at the winter meeting “to prohibit future Republican nominees from participating in C.P.D.-sponsored debates.”

It remains to be seen what, if any, new entity the Republican Party will choose as a host for debates and whether Democrats will agree.

Republicans have long complained about how the commission handles debates, going back to the 2012 campaign, when Senator Mitt Romney of Utah was the Republican nominee against the incumbent Democrat, President Barack Obama. The moderator of the town hall-style debate, Candy Crowley, then with CNN, fact checked Mr. Romney in real time about a claim he made about Mr. Obama, prompting an outcry from conservatives.

But the intensity of frustration with the commission has increased since Mr. Trump first became the Republican nominee in 2016.

Mr. Trump’s adviser, Rudolph W. Giuliani, argued with the commission at the second debate with Mrs. Clinton, when he tried to seat women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct near the stage. Mr. Trump has also complained about moderators repeatedly, insisting that both the former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace and the NBC News reporter Kristen Welker were biased against him (Mr. Trump said after the debate that Ms. Welker had been fair).

Mr. Trump announced three days after the first presidential debate in 2020 that he had been infected with the coronavirus. He had appeared sick to some onlookers at the first debate, and his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, wrote in a book about the presidency that Mr. Trump had in fact had one positive coronavirus test in the days before the debate, followed by a negative one.

The commission changed the second presidential debate to a virtual format, prompting Mr. Trump to withdraw from it after a contentious debate with the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, for which Mr. Trump was heavily criticized.

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By Kevin Liptak, Jeremy Diamond, Betsy Klein and Donald Judd, CNN

President Joe Biden on Wednesday said the latest report on inflation in the US shows there is more work to do on lowering consumer prices, which are threatening his domestic agenda and political prospects as he enters his second year in office.

Stubbornly high inflation has proved one of the biggest hurdles for Biden as he works to maintain what is otherwise a robust economic recovery amid a still-raging Covid-19 pandemic. It has stalled legislative work toward his sweeping social and climate spending bill and dragged down his approval ratings as Americans sour on his handling of the economy.

It has also raised questions about Biden and his team’s predictions early last year that inflation would prove only “transitory,” a word many administration officials have come to view with rueful chagrin.

Even as Biden adopts a new, harsher tone against Republicans for blocking voting rights bills and opposing his economic plans, it has become evident that Americans’ frustrations — at the higher prices but also the lingering pandemic — are issues the President and his team will spend the coming months working to allay.

In a statement issued after Wednesday’s report showing consumer prices popping last month, Biden argued progress was being made, even as he acknowledged inflation was causing pain in American households.

The report “demonstrates that we are making progress in slowing the rate of price increases,” Biden said, going on to concede the report “underscores that we still have more work to do, with price increases still too high and squeezing family budgets.”

“Inflation is a global challenge, appearing in virtually every developed nation as it emerges from the pandemic economic slump,” Biden said. “America is fortunate that we have one of the fastest growing economies—thanks in part to the American Rescue Plan—which enables us to address price increases and maintain strong, sustainable economic growth. That is my goal and I am focused on reaching it every day.”

Absent in Biden’s statement was any mention of his Build Back Better plan, the major spending package which in the past he has used as an example of how he is working to lower prices for American families. The nearly $2 trillion bill is currently stalled after Sen. Joe Manchin, the centrist Democrat from West Virginia, said he couldn’t support of package of that size, citing in part his concerns about inflation.

On Wednesday, Manchin said he found the new report — which showed a key measure of inflation climbed to a level not seen since June 1982 — “very, very troubling.” The report found consumer price inflation rose by 6.8% without seasonal adjustments over the 12 months that ended in November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

Stripping out food and energy, the prices of which tend to be more volatile, inflation rose 4.9% over the same period — the highest level since June 1991.

Looking at November compared to the previous month, prices increased 0.8% on a seasonally adjusted basis, less than the 0.9% increase in October. Without food and energy costs, prices rose 0.5% in November, also a slight decrease from the 0.6% rise in the prior month.

Some of Biden’s advisers sought to downplay the report after its release, pointing to what the administration called a “welcome deceleration” in the rate of inflation.

“It’s really important to get under the hood of these monthly inflation reports,” Biden economic adviser Jared Bernstein told CNN’s Jim Sciutto. “And if you look at the change from November to December inflation is up half a percent. That’s considerably down from October and November, when inflation was up, .8% and .9%, respectively. One reason why inflation came down in December, why the rate of inflation was slower in December, is because energy prices actually fell.”

Bernstein reiterated that the administration is working to do everything it can to “unsnarl supply chains,” including efforts toward easing pressures at ports and in the trucking industry, increasing competition, last year’s strategic petroleum reserve release, and efforts toward congressional passage of a domestic semiconductor production bill. He also renewed calls toward passing Biden’s stalled Build Back Better domestic agenda.

Yet work toward that package is on hold for now as Democrats in Congress advance a pair of voting rights bills, which Biden forcefully advocated for during a speech Tuesday in Atlanta. Voting rights remains a central issue for party activists, and Biden has declared the matter of utmost importance for preserving American democracy.

A path forward on voting rights remains elusive. Despite Biden’s full-throated endorsement of eliminating the legislative filibuster to advance the voting rights bills, two Democrats remain holdouts on changing the rules: Manchin and his fellow centrist, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Biden planned to speak to Senate Democrats at their weekly lunch on Thursday to make the case for the voting rights bills and the filibuster changes that will be required to pass them.

Still, as Democrats enter a midterm election year with control of both chambers of Congress on the line, it is the economy and inflation that remain on voters’ minds. Polls consistently show the economy is voters’ top priority.

A CNN Poll conducted by SSRS released last month showed three-quarters of Americans say they are worried about the state of the economy in their own community (75%) and 63% say the nation’s economy is in poor shape. Nearly 6 in 10 (57%) say that the economic news they’ve heard lately has been mostly bad, with just 19% saying they are hearing mostly good news about the economy right now.

Asked to rate the severity of seven issues affecting the economy recently, about 8 in 10 say the rising cost of food and other everyday items (80%), the disruption in the nation’s supply chain (79%), and the rising cost of housing (77%) are major problems for the nation’s economy.

Biden and his team have been frustrated that more good news about the economy — including record job gains and growth — isn’t penetrating. And they are highly attuned to sounding tone deaf if they tout soaring stock markets and GDP while Americans are struggling with higher costs.

Recently, Biden has sought to shift some of the blame for higher prices on corporations and Republicans. He has accused gasoline and meat companies of corporate greed and declared Republicans’ claims about his economic agenda “malarkey” at an event last week.

At the same time, his advisers have worked to accentuate falling prices in some areas, attributing the decrease to administration actions.

National Economic Council Chair Brian Deese pointed to reductions in the rate of increase in food costs and gas prices, telling MSNBC that the slower rate of inflation “reflects some progress,” and the Biden administration is “focused on the things that we can do … to sustain a strong economy, a sustainable recovery, while going at prices.”

Ultimately, the policy steps at Biden’s disposal to lower inflation are limited. Some he has already taken, like releasing barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Others, like lifting tariffs on Chinese-made goods, could have only limited effect.

The Federal Reserve has traditionally played more of a role in combating inflation, and the White House has made clear Biden views the agency and its decisions as independent. He did nominate Chairman Jerome Powell to a second term last year, signaling his desire to bring continuity to the body.

During his confirmation hearing Tuesday, Powell acknowledged high inflation constituted a “severe threat,” and pledged to raise interest rates if needed.

“If we have to raise interest rates more over time, we will,” Powell said. “We will use our tools to get inflation back.”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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An Indiana state senator has backtracked on his remarks that teachers must be impartial when discussing nazism in classrooms after he sparked widespread backlash.

During a state senate committee hearing last week about Senate Bill 167, a proposed bill that would ban “concepts that divide”, the Republican senator Scott Baldwin, who co-wrote the bill, said teachers should remain unprejudiced when teaching lessons about fascism and nazism.

“Marxism, nazism, fascism … I have no problem with the education system providing instruction on the existence of those ‘isms’,” Baldwin said, adding, “I believe we’ve gone too far when we take a position … We need to be impartial.” He went on to say that teachers should “just provide the facts” and that he is “not sure it’s right for us to determine how that child should think and that’s where I’m trying to provide the guardrails”.

Baldwin has since walked back on his remarks. In an email to the Indianapolis Star last Thursday, he said that his intention with the bill was to make sure teachers are being impartial when discussing and teaching “legitimate political groups”.

“When I was drafting this bill, my intent with regard to ‘political affiliation’ was to cover political parties within the legal American political system,” Baldwin said. “In my comments during committee, I was thinking more about the big picture and trying to say that we should not tell kids what to think about politics.”

He went on to denounce the aforementioned ideologies, saying, “nazism, Marxism and fascism are a stain on our world history and should be regarded as such, and I failed to adequately articulate that in my comments during the meeting. I believe that kids should learn about these horrible events in history so that we don’t experience them again in humanity.”

SB 167 was filed in recent weeks in response to the fierce debates that have emerged across Indiana and the rest of the country in the past year regarding the ways schools should teach children about racism, history and other subject matters.

The bill prohibits kindergarten through 12th grade schools from teaching students that “any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation” is inherently superior, inferior, racist, sexist, oppressive. Teachers would also be prohibited from making individuals feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, responsibility or any other form of psychological distress” when it comes to meritocracy and the notion that it was created by one group to oppress another.

The bill also prohibits teachers and curriculums from teaching that Indiana and the United States was founded as a racist or sexist state or nation.

The midwest chapter of the Anti-Defamation League has criticized Baldwin’s apology, arguing that it “doesn’t change the deep harms of using ‘impartiality’ or ‘neutrality’ as tools to sanitize history”.

“This is part of the continued efforts by some to try and rewrite history and characterize extremism, racism, and genocide as somehow legitimate. That is dangerous and despicable. It should be categorically, universally, and loudly rejected,” the organization added.

The incident comes less than three months after a north Texas school official said that classrooms with books on Holocaust must offer “opposing” viewpoints.

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CNN

By Katelyn Polantz, CNN Reporter, Crime and Justice

A federal judge in Washington, DC, is considering for the first time whether former President Donald Trump is immune from liability related to his supporters attacking the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The major hearing on Monday is part of a trio of insurrection-related lawsuits seeking to hold Trump and others accountable at a time when the House select committee probing January 6 has aggressively investigated the political leaders who inspired the attack, and as the Justice Department is prosecuting more than 700 rioters for criminal offenses.

Judge Amit Mehta of the DC District Court is looking at key questions including whether Trump and Republican figures like Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama can shield themselves from legal fallout because of the First Amendment or their stature as elected officials.

It is the first major test of whether civil litigation is a viable route to holding Trump accountable for the violence toward Congress, after he was acquitted by the Senate in his second impeachment trial last February.

A lawyer for Trump, Jesse Binnall, argued that everything Trump said while President — including on January 6 as well as in a call to Georgia officials asking them to “find” votes in early 2021 and at campaign rallies — is protected from any lawsuits, because it was all part of his official actions as President.

“You would have me ignore what [Trump] said in its entirety?” Mehta asked minutes into the hearing. The judge pointed to a Supreme Court case related to the Johnson and Nixon administrations that established the parameters of presidential immunity.

“To say that a speech before Congress is the equivalent to a campaign trail stump speech” doesn’t appear to be what the Supreme Court had ruled on the boundaries of presidential immunity, Mehta said.

Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, 10 other House Democrats, and Capitol Police officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby brought the three lawsuits at issue on Monday.

The lawmakers say they were threatened by Trump and others as part of a conspiracy to stop the congressional session that would certify the 2020 presidential election on January 6, according to the complaints. And they argue that Trump should bear responsibility for directing the assaults.

Swalwell, who described his position in the case in an interview on CNN on Sunday, said he expects Monday’s hearing to be long. He noted, however, that he and others will not be permitted into the courtroom because of the recent surge in Covid-19 cases. Instead, the participants will speak to the judge over videoconference.

If the judge rules in favor of Swalwell and others who have sued, the California Democrat said he expects “it’s going to speed up, and hopefully we’ll move to more depositions and evidence discovery very soon.”

The police officers, in their lawsuit, say they were hit by chemical sprays and objects the crowd threw at them, like water bottles and signs, because Trump inspired the crowd.

“Defendant’s followers, already primed by his months of inflammatory rhetoric, were spurred to direct action,” the lawsuit from Blassingame and Hemby said. “Had Trump committed directly the conduct committed by his followers, it would have subjected Trump to direct liability.”

Six additional lawsuits against Trump and others for their roles in the insurrection are also in front of the same court, but haven’t reached the point of being argued yet.

In the three cases before Mehta on Monday, the defendants include Trump, Brooks, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and right-wing groups the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. In court, they are distancing themselves from the actions of the crowd on January 6, and asking Mehta to dismiss the cases. According to Trump’s arguments, allowing the lawsuits to go forward would “drastically” chill political speech and prompt dozens of lawsuits aimed at damaging electoral opponents.

Trump and his top advisers haven’t been charged with any crimes. Several leaders in the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who have been criminally charged with conspiracy have pleaded not guilty.

Department of Justice’s position

The Justice Department will be at the hearing to discuss its views toward the cases, in an important barometer of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s legal approach to the insurrection.

So far, the DOJ said it will not defend Brooks’ actions. According to a court filing this summer, the Justice Department argued that encouraging an attack, if proven in court, could not be considered part of Brooks’ job as a public official, and the Trump rally was clearly a campaign event and not part of Brooks’ official duties as a lawmaker.

But Mehta hasn’t decided yet how much protection Brooks could have as a member of Congress.

The Alabama Republican is representing himself in the case brought by Swalwell — while lawyers represent all the other parties — and is expected to argue on his own behalf on Monday.

Trump, for his part, has argued in court he has absolute immunity for his actions while President, another claim Mehta will consider.

Calls for combat

The Democratic representatives’ cases specifically focus on the language Trump, Brooks and others used at the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse in Washington, DC, directly before the attack.

Trump told the crowd to “show strength” and “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,” for instance, while Brooks, in his speech, said, “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.” Also at the rally, Giuliani told the crowd to have “trial by combat.”

Following the speeches, hundreds of pro-Trump rally-goers marched to the Capitol, severely beating law enforcement officers guarding the building and breaking through barricades and windows to get inside. Many then ransacked congressional offices and some chanted “treason” as they overtook the Senate chamber, from which lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence had been evacuated minutes before.

“The President has been very clear he was there at the Ellipse as President,” Binnall said in court Friday “He was advocating for Congress to take or not take certain actions. … We are dead center on immunity.”

After the Senate voted not to convict Trump last February, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pointed to lawsuits as an avenue for retribution.

The Kentucky Republican said Trump was “still liable for everything he did while he was in office” and noted “we have civil litigation” from which a president would not be immune.

The lawsuits could take months or even years to see resolutions.

This story has been updated with details from the court hearing.

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CNN’s Sarah Fortinsky contributed to this report.

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By Devan Cole, CNN

President Joe Biden has the lowest Senate confirmation rate of first-year nominations among the last three presidents, according to a new report from a group that studies presidential transitions.

“In Biden’s first year, the Senate confirmed only 41% of his nominations. While a small number were withdrawn by the president, 118 were ‘returned’ at the end of the Senate’s session — meaning the president would either have to nominate that person again in the next session or nominate someone else,” according to the report from the Center for Presidential Transition, a nonpartisan group based in Washington, DC.

The group, which said its data represents “nominations for all civilian positions including ambassadors, judges, marshals and US attorneys,” reported that as of last week, 171 of the nominations Biden made in 2021 are still awaiting a vote.

Biden’s 41% continues a downward confirmation rate trend among recent presidents, the group said, noting that 75% of George Bush’s first-year nominees were confirmed, while 69% of Barack Obama’s were approved and 57% of Donald Trump’s were OK’d by the Senate during his first year in office.

The center said that across Cabinet departments, the Department of Veterans Affairs had the highest percentage of Senate-confirmed officials in place, 85%, with the Department of Homeland Security having the second-highest number, 65%.

“In contrast, the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development had the lowest percentage of Senate-confirmed appointees in place. Only 33% of DOT’s 18 key positions were held by a Senate-confirmed official … At HUD, 38% of the department’s 13 key positions were filled with a Senate-confirmed appointee,” the report said.

Biden has had a particularly hard time getting his nominated ambassadors through the Senate.

CNN reported last month that the Senate had confirmed more than three dozen of the President’s nominees to ambassador posts after Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, ended a months-long blockade on quick consideration of the diplomatic nominations.

The new report said that during his first year in office, Biden had “the lowest confirmation rate in the past 20 years” for nominated ambassadors.

“In 2021, the Senate confirmed only 55 ambassadors nominated by Biden,” or 63%, the group said, adding: “90% of Bush’s first-year ambassadorial nominations were confirmed during the same period, and 85% of Obama’s and 75% of Trump’s nominations were confirmed.”

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Media Matters used the following method to compile and analyze election-related posts from political pages on Facebook: 

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled a list of 1,773 Facebook pages that frequently posted about U.S. politics from January 1 to August 25, 2020.

For an explanation of how we compiled pages and identified them as right-leaning, left-leaning, or ideologically nonaligned, see the methodology here. 

The resulting list consisted of 771 right-leaning pages, 497 ideologically nonaligned pages, and 505 left-leaning pages.

Every day, Media Matters also uses Facebook’s CrowdTangle tool and this methodology to identify and share the 10 posts with the most interactions from top political and news-related Facebook pages.

Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled all posts for the pages on this list that were posted between January 6, 2020, and December 31, 2021, related to elections and voting. We reviewed data for these posts, including total interactions (reactions, comments, and shares).

We defined posts as related to elections and voting if they had any of the following terms in the message or in the included link, article headline, or article description: “ballot,” “biden,” “democrats,” “dems,” “election,” “general chatter about voting,” “poll watcher,” “polling place,” “polling station,” “republicans,” “the election,” “trump,” “vote,” “voted,” “your state,” “election results,” “rigged,” “election integrity,” “voter,” “voter fraud,” “electoral college,” “ballots,” “certifying,” “chosen electors,” “corrupt,” “corruption,” “count,” “decertification,” “decertify,” “decertifying,” “democratic process,” “dominion,” “election,” “election fraud,” “election victory,” “electoral college,” “found ballots,” “stolen election,” “stop the steal,” “vote dump,” “vote tabulation,” “voter dump,” “voter fraud,” “voter tabulation,” “voting,” “mail-in ballot,” “mail-in box,” “election box,” “election machines,” “stopthesteal,” “#stopthesteal,” “2020 election,” “election 2020,” “mail in ballots,” “mail-in ballots,” “mail in ballot,” “mail-in ballot,” “integrity hearings,” “integrity hearing,” “fraud hearing,” or “fraud hearing.”

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By Sara Murray, CNN

The Cyber Ninjas firm that oversaw the problem-plagued review of the 2020 results in Arizona’s Maricopa County is shuttering.

Rod Thomson, a representative for the Cyber Ninjas, confirmed to CNN that company is shutting down. Thomson said, “$2 million debt from the Arizona audit and endless legal and character attacks on the company by those who opposed the audit make it untenable moving forward.”

The Cyber Ninjas, which faced months of criticism over the audit’s shoddy practices and partisan roots, has encountered a new round of headaches recently.

Officials in Maricopa County this week released a detailed rebuttal of the claims the Cyber Ninjas made casting doubt on the validity of ballots. After assessing the Cyber Ninjas’ findings, county officials concluded that 76 of their 77 claims were false or misleading.

Meantime, a judge in Arizona’s Maricopa County Thursday held the company in contempt and ordered it to pay $50,000 per day in sanctions for failing to provide records related to the so-called audit to the Arizona Republic, according to a report in the Republic.

Thomson said the decision to shut down was made “well before” the judge’s ruling.

The-CNN-Wire
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