Baltimore (AFP) - President Joe Biden on Thursday said the United States would defend Taiwan if the island were attacked by China, which considers it part of its territory.
"Yes," he responded when asked in a CNN town hall about defending Taiwan. "We have a commitment to that."
Biden's statement was at odds with the long-held US policy known as "strategic ambiguity," where Washington helps build Taiwan's defenses but does not explicitly promise to come to the island's help.
He made a similar pledge in August during an interview with ABC, insisting that the United States would always defend key allies, including Taiwan, despite the withdrawal from Afghanistan in the face of the victorious Taliban.
Biden said the United States made a "sacred commitment" to defend NATO allies in Canada and Europe and it's the "same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with Taiwan."
The White House subsequently told reporters that US policy on Taiwan "has not changed."
Asked by an audience member at the live televised town hall whether the United States would be able to keep up with China's rapid military development, Biden also said, "yes."
"Don't worry about whether... they're going to be more powerful," he said. "China, Russia and the rest of the world knows we have the most powerful military in the history of the world."
However, Biden expressed concern that rival countries may "engage in activities where they may make a serious mistake."
He referred to his longtime relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping and repeated his position that he does not want "to start a new Cold War with China."
But he warned, "I just want to make China understand that we are not going to step back."
China has upped its sabre rattling around Taiwan, sending waves of fighter jets and nuclear-capable bombers crossing into Taiwan's air defense zone.
Biden's comments also come in the wake of a Financial Times report that China has tested a state-of-the-art hypersonic missile with nuclear capacity that flew around the planet before landing, albeit not on target.
The United States and Russia are racing to develop their own hypersonic weapons, which are more difficult to defend against than existing ballistic missile arsenals.
On Thursday night at a CNN town hall, President Joe Biden was asked whether he supports reforming or abolishing the Senate filibuster — which would be necessary to pass a number of Democratic priorities like a new voting rights bill. He gave a careful answer explaining that, at least for now, there is a key reason why he can't come out in support of it.
"Here is the deal, if, in fact, I get myself into at this moment the debate on the filibuster, I lose at least three votes right now to get what I have to get done on the economic side of the equation, foreign policy side of the equation," said Biden. Presumably he was referring to Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), although he didn't specify who the third senator is.
He added that "in the meantime" he would support going back to a talking filibuster, where "you had to stand on the floor and exhaust everything you had and when you gave up the floor and someone else sought the floor, they had to talk until they finished. You're only allowed to do it a second time. After that, it's over. You vote."
Asked whether this means Biden would be open to more aggressively pushing filibuster reform after the infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better Act pass, Biden avoided making a hard commitment either way.
"That remains to be seen exactly what that means in terms of fundamentally altering it, whether or not we just end the filibuster straight up," said Biden, adding that one area where Democrats might be forced to reform the filibuster is on passing an extension of the debt ceiling in December: "There are certain things that are just sacred rights. One is the sacred obligation that we never are going to renege on a debt. Only nation in the world we have never, ever, reneged on a single debt."
Watch below:
Biden discusses his position on abolishing the filibuster at CNN town hall www.youtube.com
Federalist Society member Jeremy Rosen this week published an opinion piece in The Atlantic in which he slammed pro-Trump lawyer and fellow Federalist Society member John Eastman as "a clear and present danger to the health of our republic."
Rosen's piece comes days after Eastman publicly complained about being disinvited to several Federalist Society events, which the pro-Trump lawyer argued was part of left-wing "cancel culture."
However, Rosen said that Eastman was not being punished for merely having controversial views but for advocating what would have been an overthrow of the American constitutional order.
"What Eastman complains about is not cancel culture," he writes. "Eastman actively sought to help Trump steal an election he did not win. Had they succeeded, the peaceful and orderly transfer of power that is the hallmark of any democracy would have been threatened for the first time in our nation's history."
Rosen goes on to say that, while he hopes President Joe Biden is defeated by a non-Trump Republican in 2024, he believes fellow conservatives need to do more to shun those who supported pushing Pence to unilaterally reject election results.
"Those who are enabling Trump's ongoing effort to challenge the legitimacy of the election—John Eastman chief among them—should be rejected by all conservatives who love their country," he writes. "He and others like him pose a clear and present danger to the health of our republic."
A sudden announcement Thursday from Gov. Ron DeSantis to call a special session to impose restrictions on COVID vaccine mandates pushed by President Joe Biden has blindsided much of Florida's political world.
It comes at a time when lawmakers are in legislative committee meetings leading up to the regular session just months away. That session starts Jan. 11. And Florida has already had a special session to handle details of a new gaming compact with the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
Lawmakers also face a major task — mapping out new legislative and Congressional districts.
Meanwhile, the political campaigns are already in motion, with DeSantis in reelection mode.
And the COVID pandemic continues.
Christina Pushaw, a communications staffer for DeSantis, tweeted that: “Florida is fighting back against unjust and unscientific mandates."
Following the governor's announcement, Democratic lawmakers and other figures weighed in on DeSantis' call for the special session.
“This was a surprise to all of us," Rep. Fentrice Driskell, who represents part of Hillsborough County, said during a Zoom call with state House Democratic caucus. She was joined by Central Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani and Rep. Ramon Alexander who represents Gadsden County and part of Leon. which encompasses the state capital.
Driskell called the potential special session a “distraction" and said that she saw it as DeSantis taking a “direct swipe at the Biden administration."
President Biden has ordered his administration to prepare regulations requiring employees to become vaccinated or else face weekly testing, intending to curb transmission of the coronavirus.
“This move for special session is the governor directly putting the government in the way of our small businesses and their ability to earn a living, to put food on the table. And frankly it's just the wrong move and the wrong message for Florida," Driskell said during the Zoom call.
Here are some other reactions around Florida:
/U.S. Congressman Charlie Crist, a former Florida Republican governor who is running for the 2022 Democratic gubernatorial nomination, tweeted:
“DeSantis is wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on legal fights to tout his right-wing credentials for his presidential bid. And now he's going to waste more money on a 'Soft on Covid' anti-business special session. Everyone sees right through you Ron."
/Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, an elected Cabinet who is campaigning for the 2022 Democratic gubernatorial race, released a written statement:
“This is a purely self-serving political ploy by the governor, once again pulling out all the stops to appease – and encourage – extremist positions that fly in the face of science and public health instead of protecting our children, our communities, and our economy. It provides a dangerous platform for extremists who have been threatening those trying to do right to keep their communities safe, and creates a slippery slope by undermining public health policies supported by sound science and the medical community by instead promoting conspiracy theorists and risky unproven treatments.
/State Sen. Annette Taddeo, of South Florida, who recently got into the Democratic primary for governor, said in a written statement: “This is wildly out of step with the majority of Floridians and completely reckless. It speaks to the overreaches this governor will do to take control over private enterprise and health care decisions."
/Mark Ferrulo, executive director of the nonprofit Progress Florida, also weighed in through a written statement:
“While Florida's small businesses and local governments are doing all they can to keep people safe and allow our economy to rebound, our state's governor seems hellbent on continuing this pandemic for as long as possible no matter how many people he gets sick in the process. Today's announcement is another example by Governor Ron DeSantis of spreading medical disinformation and undermining public health in order to play to the far-right and anti-vax fringe."
/State Sen. Tina Polsky, a Democrat who represents part of Broward and Palm Beach counties, tweeted:
“This is beyond outrageous. When Covid first hit we asked for a special session to address among other things the horrible unemployment assistance system. When Floridians needed help, they said no. Now, for political expediency, we have a special session. Shows you their values."
/State Rep. Angie Nixon, a Democrat who represents part of Duval County, commented in a written statement:
“From businesses and schools, to our health care and front line workers, everyone except Florida's failed governor is shouldering the responsibility of keeping us free from sickness and economic disaster…He wants to light Florida's tax dollars on fire with this special session in order to put public health and livelihoods at risk in exchange for his own political ambitions."
/State Rep. Michael Grieco, a Democrat representing part of Miami-Dade County, tweets:
“Florida is an at-will work state. Your bosses currently can fire/hire you based upon how they feel about the color of your shoes if they want to…but apparently vaccination status doesn't fit the cozy corporate freedom model."
The Republican Party of Florida retweeted a sign seen at DeSantis's Thursday press conference, a parody of the Gadsden Flag with the silhouette of an alligator, reading “DONT TREAD ON FLORIDA."
Rep. Jason Fischer, a Republican who represents part of Duval County, retweeted the same picture adding that: “@GovRonDeSantis is a fighter and a champion of the people!"
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
The stories are popping up everywhere. A school board member in Colorado repeatedly gets called a Nazi. A Kansas school board candidate slanders a mother as "a child abuser" for supporting for her trans child. In a neighboring Kansas county, an awarding-winning memoir by a prominent LGBTQ activist is targeted as pornography by three other candidates.
Mostly the stories appear in local media, but this is no organic uprising. A well-funded roster of scattered -- and often shadowy -- national entities have sprung up to advance a strategy laid out by no less an insurrectionist than Steve Bannon.
In a May 19 podcast, Bannon sounded the battle cry: "The path to save the nation is very simple, it's going to go through the school boards."
The national impetus behind what superficially appear as local right-wing activism is becoming more apparent as shadowy groups intensify the culture wars at the school-board level. A common denominator is a presumed focus upon "Critical Race Theory" (CRT), a college-level philosophy rarely employed in K-12 public education in America.
But candidates endorsed by the CRT-focused groups are increasingly making headlines with culture-war attacks that anti-vax, anti-mask, transphobic and otherwise designed to fit the grievance agenda of Trumpism.
One such example is the "1776 Project PAC," reportedly headed by conservative author and activist Ryan Girdusky of New York. The organization's website is solely focused upon CRT, but the candidates it has endorsed in faraway Kansas are not.
Click on the 1776 Project PAC website -- or any tab -- and you will be interrupted with the prominent opportunity to "Report a School Promoting Critical Race Theory." The group's mission of "Promoting Patriotism and Pride in American History" appears to have a laserlike focus:
"We are a political action committee dedicated to electing school board members nationwide who want to reform our public education system by promoting patriotism and pride in American history. We are committed to abolishing critical race theory and 'The 1619 Project' from the public school curriculum."
The 1776 Project PAC has endorsed 55 candidates in seven states -- Pennsylvania, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Virginia, Ohio and New Jersey -- but while the content of the website is limited to CRT, some of those candidates are making their headlines with sexier prongs of the culture war.
There's Jim McMullen, a 1776 Project PAC endorsee who last week retweeted an ABC News article about a mother of a transgender child asking President Joe Biden what he will do to protect LGBTQ rights. McMullen wrote, "ABC promoting a child abuser." McMullen last year posted on social media, "there are no 8-year -old transgender kids."
Reporting at Kansas City' NPR affiliate suggests there's pushback, even in conservative Kansas.
"On its website, the 1776 Project PAC says it is "committed to abolishing critical race theory" and sets itself up in opposition to the New York Times' 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles that aimed to "reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative."
The 1776 Project PAC's involvement in local school board races got heated pushback from Stand Up Blue Valley, a public education advocacy group, which wrote on its Facebook page last month, "Despite what this New York-based PAC wants you to believe, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is NOT being taught in Blue Valley Schools."
"NO East-Coast PAC should have ANY say in our kids' education and we know our members will agree," Stand Up Blue Valley's message continued. "So it's our job to Get Out The Vote and send a clear message to outside special interests eyeing our School Board races: 'You are not welcome here and the Blue Valley School Board is NOT for sale.'"Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) believes Republicans need to move on from Donald Trump's fixation on the 2020 election, which was won by Joe Biden.
"You have to quit fighting the last election to get some things done before you get into the next election, for heaven's sake," Lott said in a new interview with Spectrum News.
"It's time to move on from the past," said Lott, who resigned his leadership position after praising Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat bid for president.
But it may be difficult to get Trump to agree with his position.
"The insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day. January 6 was the Protest!" Trump argued in a statement released on Thursday.
The Republican Party has slowly surrendered to Donald Trump, who has cooked up a new blackmail scheme against the party he controls, according to an NBC News columnist.
The GOP didn't even bother to submit a national platform ahead of the 2020 election, instead saying the party's only priority was Trump's re-election, and the twice-impeached one-term president has issued a new threat to ensure Republicans remained focused on undoing that humiliating loss, according to a column by political scientist Seth Masket posted on NBC News.
"After President Joe Biden's victory, however, Trump has been very clear and consistent about what he believes in and what he expects his party to do: overturn the 2020 presidential election," wrote Masket, a professor of political science and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver.
The former president demanded a new election immediately or the decertification of the last election, with him declared winner, or he would undermine the GOP's chances of winning in 2022 and 2024, as he did in Georgia's runoffs in January.
"Trump could do this again," Masket wrote. "As [Sen. Lindsey] Graham noted, Trump may not have many concrete policy ideas, but he could seriously damage the party by asking his base to stay home. To quote Frank Herbert's 'Dune,' 'The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it.'"
There's a relatively normal contest going on for the GOP presidential nomination for 2024, with Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence and others visiting early states and meeting with prospective donors, but Masket said it's not normal to have a former president steering the party's agenda through blackmail threats aimed at subverting democracy itself.
"It was no small thing for the Republican Party to end up in this position, and it will be no small thing for it to get itself out of it," Masket wrote. "Assuming Republicans want to be free of this situation and want a relatively normal presidential nomination contest without serious threats of ending democratic elections (and yes, quite a few Republicans still desire this), they will need to collectively push back against Trump and refuse to support his candidacy."
The entire party must refuse Trump's blackmail, he argued, but there's no recent evidence to suggest that will happen.
"Nevertheless, for one of the country's two major parties to commit itself to the destruction of democratic elections is a terrifying thing for the country," Masket wrote.
The Daily Beast reported, citing the New York Times, Thursday that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) is losing friends along with support among voters in her state.
Five military veterans have resigned from a board advising Sinema on policy issues.
"In a letter to Sinema, they confronted her with a litany of offenses—accusing her of using them as 'window dressing' for her political brand, ignoring their recommendations, and going back on her campaign promises to protect voting access and reduce the price of prescription drugs," said the report.
"Are you choosing to answer to big donors and lobbyists rather than Arizonans?" they asked in the letter. "These are not the actions of a maverick."
It's an accusation that Sinema has faced over the past several months after a slew of fundraisers were the only way that Arizona constituents could interact with the senator because she's didn't host any public meetings or town halls during the August recess.
Sinema revealed that she opposed President Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan because it includes raising taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals. Zip Recruiter reported that the average annual salary in Arizona is a little over $57,000
"Sinema's objections could well reduce the size of that legislation by at least $1 trillion and scuttle elements that are broadly popular in the party—like raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for investments in health care and energy," said the report. "Unlike fellow objector Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Sinema has largely been silent on her positions through negotiations, exasperating Democrats who need her support in order to pass the bill."
Sinema's allies have reportedly been shocked by her leadership in the Senate over her first term. She's growing increasingly isolated and alienating much of her former political network. Already one of her biggest allies is considering running against her and others who helped elect her are now running a PAC against her.
The veterans said that they worked very hard to help her win in 2018, using their own pro-military credentials to help promote her dedication to veterans and soldiers in a state with 500,000 former servicemembers.
"Nobody knows what she is thinking because she doesn't tell anybody anything," Sylvia González Andersh, one of the veterans who served on Sinema's board, told the Times. "It's very sad to think that someone who you worked for that hard to get elected is not even willing to listen."
In the past month, Sinema has lost a lot of support in her state and if the election were held today she would lose. A text poll to registered Arizona Democrats shows that Sinema has an approval rating of 25 percent and a disapproval of 70 percent, with a margin of error of five. By contrast, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) enjoys an 85 percent approval, as does Joe Biden. The decline was so dramatic that one reporter said that it should "terrify" the junior senator.
A Morning Consult poll shows that Sinema's polling among both parties means that she's dropped to 42 percent approval, thanks to the dramatic decrease in Democratic support.
Read the full report at the Daily Beast and the Times.
Kristina Karamo, a 2022 Republican Michigan secretary of state candidate endorsed by former President Donald Trump, is set to speak at an upcoming QAnon conference billed as the “Great Awakening Weekend" in Las Vegas.
Scheduled from Friday until Monday, the “For God & Country: Patriot Double Down" event is being organized by John Sabal, known as “QAnon John" who recently called for a “military mutiny" against President Joe Biden.
Its roster of speakers features a whirlwind of QAnon devotees who have dedicated good chunks of their recent lives to promoting the right-wing conspiracy theory that's rooted in anti-Semitic tropes and revolves around Trump hunting down and eventually killing Democratic politicians and wealthy liberals who lead double lives as Satan-worshipping cannibals running a child sex-trafficking ring.
Karamo, of Oak Park, confirmed on her campaign Facebook page that she will speak at the event, and she's also listed as a speaker on the event's official website that displays a promotional video filled with such QAnon phrases as “the truth will set you free" and “where we go one we go all." The video ends with the image of a playing card emblazoned with the words, “God wins."
“Come To The Patriot Double Down Where I will be speaking!!!" Karamo wrote earlier this month.
Karamo did not immediately return a request for comment for this story.
The Republican secretary of state candidate has not explicitly endorsed QAnon but she has consistently promoted the false and repeatedly debunked notion that the 2020 election was stolen and Trump is the true victor, an idea that's central to QAnon conspiracy theorists. Karamo gained national attention as a poll watcher in 2020, pushed unproven claims about Wayne County election practices before a state Senate panel, and traveled to Arizona for a so-called election “audit" that found no evidence the 2020 election was stolen.
Just last week, Karamo was on One America News Network, a far-right, pro-Trump cable channel, where she again repeated the false idea that “there was massive cheating and fraud in the election."
Karamo could potentially face state Rep. Beau LaFave (R-Iron Mountain) and Plainfield Township Clerk Cathleen Postmus for the GOP nomination. Voters will not pick the nominee; delegates at the Michigan Republican Party convention will in April. The nominee will likely face Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
One of the speakers at the “Great Awakening Weekend" is Jim Watkins, the owner of the 8kun website that is home to messages from “Q," the anonymous internet poster who launched the QAnon phenomenon by claiming to be a high-ranking U.S. government official with access to classified information. Jim Watkins' son, Ron Watkins, will also speak at the event. Ron Watkins has been accused of being “Q" himself and is now running for Congress in Arizona.
QAnon has found a prominent home among Michigan GOP activists in recent years. At a pro-Trump rally last week calling for a so-called “audit," state Rep. Daire Rendon (R-Lake City) wore a QAnon pin, which she has also donned in the Legislature.
The conspiracy theory was born in 2017 when an anonymous account posted on 4chan, one of the internet's oldest and most infamous message boards, and began writing about Trump's so-called secret war against a deep state cabal of pedophiles and sex traffickers.
The anonymous account, named “Q Clearance Patriot," went on to become known simply as “Q." The account has since made thousands of posts, known as “drops" in the QAnon world, first on 4chan, then on 8chan, another message board, and now at 8kun.
Each “drop" is cryptic, leading to followers attempting to decode the dizzying array of false information, from top-level Democrats being involved in child trafficking to the coming “great awakening," which Q followers have said essentially amounts to Trump leading the United States to greatness by unveiling the members and actions of the “deep state," or the group of dangerous top-tier government officials and other elite figures who are secretly running the world.
Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and Twitter.
Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., who was indicted Tuesday on charges of lying to the FBI, has deep connections to The Family, the secretive Christian group that has been tied to multiple political scandals in recent years.
Fortenberry was arraigned Wednesday on charges that he lied to federal investigators about illegal campaign payments funneled to him by a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire. In a video, Fortenberry maintained his innocence. He is blaming the prosecution on politics even though the investigation began under the Trump administration.
The indictment is not the first time a Family politician has made headlines. Rep. Mark Siljander went to jail for funneling funds tied to a terrorist organization through The Family (he was pardoned last year by President Trump). The Family also played cameo roles in the sex scandals surrounding former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, former Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and others.
Fortenberry's involvement with The Family has not been previously reported. However, his chief of staff, Andy Braner, is a fellow insider who has spoken publicly about his attendance at the National Prayer Breakfast dating back to 2014, and has ties to The Family dating back as early as 2006, according to his LinkedIn profile.
(Braner and Fortenberry's spokesperson did not immediately respond to emailed questions.)
Fortenberry has publicly defended the National Prayer Breakfast, after multiple reports identified the lobbying that transpires there. In 2018, Fortenberry wrote that relationships forged at the event have helped avert crises.
"Common political parlance would call these engagements 'back channels,'" Fortenberry wrote. "We call them friendships."
What we know about who Fortenberry brings to the breakfast, however, suggests that he, like many others in The Family, is less interested in using the event to engage with adversaries than in strengthening existing networks of like-minded people on the right.
Unlike most members of Congress, Fortenberry actually invites people to the National Prayer Breakfast, according to internal documents obtained by TYT. One 2016 guest, a pastor in Lincoln, Nebraska, is not overtly political, according to local reporting on his work. The same can't be said of Fortenberry's other known guests.
One was controversial Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who leads the military archdiocese of the Catholic Church and recently bucked Pope Francis to oppose vaccine mandates in the military. He, too, was invited by Fortenberry in 2016.
Broglio has come out alongside evangelical causes before. He supported Trump's ban on transgender troops and tried to rile up U.S. troops against Obamacare.
In 2017, Nebraska Family Alliance (NFA) executive director Karen Bowling posted online that she had been invited to the NPB by Fortenberry. Bowling's organization opposes LGBTQ and reproductive rights.
As TYT has previously reported, at least two organizations have warned that far-right groups use prayer breakfasts to build their networks and political momentum against LGBTQ and reproductive rights. The National Prayer Breakfast's only financial donor is evangelical leader and pastor Franklin Graham.
Aside from the U.S. prayer breakfast, Fortenberry has been invited to multiple events overseas connected to The Family, two of which he was apparently invited to attend on The Family's dime. Congressional disclosure forms filed by Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., list Fortenberry as having been invited on at least two of Aderholt's trips sponsored by The Family.
In 2016, Fortenberry was invited along with other Family insiders — including some Democrats — to attend the Christian S.E. European Gathering in Serbia. The following year, The Family paid for Aderholt to attend the Gathering again, as well as Austria's first National Prayer Breakfast. Fortenberry was again one of a handful of Family insiders invited.
Fortenberry and Aderholt also share a connection with a longtime Family insider named Stan Holmes, a source close to The Family told TYT. In the past, Holmes has been on Capitol Hill weekly, ministering to politicians and their aides.
It was Holmes who invited Braner to the 2016 prayer breakfast. Later that year, Braner got a fellowship with Fortenberry to work on international affairs, specifically the Middle East. Despite a lack of government experience, Braner moved up the ranks to become Fortenberry's chief of staff last year.
While Holmes never had the public profile of late Family leader Doug Coe, he has held leadership roles and has spoken to the media on The Family's behalf. In 2010, he told Roll Call that The Family's sponsored trips were not political.
Although The Family maintains that its trips and the National Prayer Breakfast are nonpolitical, that's not the case. As TYT has reported, the breakfast invitations are dominated by Republican inviters. Family leaders backed Trump's lies about election fraud, as did the Congressional Prayer Caucus, to which Fortenberry belongs.
Fortenberry himself supported efforts to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 election victory until virtually the last minute.
Meghan Markle called Wednesday for the United States to provide paid family leave, confessing in an open letter to congressional leaders to feeling "overwhelmed" by the arrival of her daughter.
"I'm not an elected official, and I'm not a politician. I am, like many, an engaged citizen and a parent," Markle wrote in an open letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer.
The former "Suits" actress, who became the Duchess of Sussex on marrying Prince Harry, has two children with the British royal -- Archie, age two, and Lilibet, who is 20 weeks old.
"Like any parents, we were overjoyed. Like many parents, we were overwhelmed," the 40-year-old wrote of her daughter's birth in June.
"Like fewer parents, we weren't confronted with the harsh reality of either spending those first few critical months with our baby or going back to work."
Markle told the Democratic congressional leaders she was writing "as a mom" to advocate for paid leave as the party's lawmakers debate whether the provision will make it into President Joe Biden's sweeping Build Back Better social spending bill.
In what is being interpreted as her most robust public political statement yet, Markle spoke of the "sacred" importance of being able to take Lilibet home after her birth and devote "any and everything to our kids and to our family."
"We knew that by doing so we wouldn't have to make impossible choices about childcare, work, and medical care that so many have to make every single day," she wrote.
Members of the British royal family are expected to stay above the political fray, avoiding partisan positions on the issues of the day.
But Meghan said paid family leave should be "a national right, rather than a patchwork option limited to those whose employers have policies in place, or those who live in one of the few states where a leave program exists."
The United States is one of the only countries in the world that does not guarantee paid leave, a benefit that the White House says is good for business.
The Democrats, who narrowly control both chambers of Congress, are working on finalizing the social spending plan, which looks likely to include up to four weeks of paid family leave, substantially less than the 12 weeks Biden proposed.
"I know how politically charged things can -- and have -- become," Meghan wrote. "But this isn't about Right or Left, it's about right or wrong."
Harry and Meghan stunned the royal family last year when they announced they were stepping back from frontline royal duties.
They moved to Los Angeles, cutting financial ties with the royal family and signing a string of lucrative deals, including with the streaming giant Netflix, and Apple TV+.
Markle is estranged from her father Thomas Markle, who did not attend her wedding and is yet to meet his grandchildren.
The 2020 US election drew the highest turnout in more than a century, despite a raging pandemic and efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to undermine trust in the voting system.
It was declared the most secure election in US history. Yet states across America have spent months leveraging Trump's false claims of a stolen election to introduce restrictive laws that opponents say are an assault on voting rights.
The curbs have alarmed civil rights activists and prompted President Joe Biden to issue an 11th-hour plea Wednesday for the soul of the nation -- just as senators were voting against debating the issue.
"United States Senate needs to act to protect the sacred constitutional right to vote which is under unrelenting assault by proponents of the Big Lie and Republican governors, secretaries of state, attorneys-general, and state legislatures across the nation," he said in a statement.
"It is urgent. Democracy -- the very soul of America -- is at stake."
In Georgia, people handing out drinks or snacks to voters waiting in line can now be criminally charged. In Iowa and Kansas, people returning faulty ballots on behalf of voters with disabilities face prosecution.
Texas has banned drive-thru and 24-hour voting, as well as the promotion of mail-in voting by election officials. Similar laws in more than a dozen other states make life more difficult for voters, say activists.
"These state laws are often aimed at disadvantaging historically underrepresented communities, including communities of color, as well as lower-income voters and people with disabilities," the Center for American Progress said.
More than 425 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions, according to the liberal-leaning Brennon Center for Justice.
By the beginning of October, at least 19 states had signed off on 33 laws that restrict voting, the organization says.
Senate Democrats sought Wednesday to start debate on the Freedom to Vote Act, a sweeping package of voting, redistricting, and campaign finance reforms.
The legislation calls for automatic and same-day voter registration, two weeks of early voting and a new Election Day public holiday.
Crucially, it seeks to reduce the influence of money in politics, end partisan gerrymandering and fortify elections against foreign interference.
But it didn't garner the 60 votes needed to bring a debate to the floor, after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell directed every Republican to reject the "latest iteration of Democratic efforts to take over how every American votes all over the country."
"Let there be no mistake," Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote.
"Senate Republicans blocking debate today is an implicit endorsement of the horrid new voter suppression and election subversion laws, pushed in conservative states across the country."
Republican leaders in Congress argue that while the last election may not have been stolen, new laws such as photo identification requirements -- a normal measure in many countries -- are just common sense.
"The Democrats argue that (fraud) does not happen. Well, it doesn't happen very often because states do have things like photo ID, purging dead people from the rolls," McConnell said.
"These are normal administrative provisions that our Democratic friends would like to get rid of."
Elections are administered locally in the United States, and Republicans tend to see Washington telling states how to run their own votes as federal overreach.
Yet Trump has been doing just that, for more than a year.
Starting before he was defeated by Joe Biden, and without a shred of evidence, the Republican firebrand has been engaged in a crusade to convince millions of Americans that the 2020 election was fraudulent.
Pressuring election officials in multiple states to invalidate results, Trump spread conspiracy theories in a bid to foment a seething fury over his election loss that culminated in the January 6 insurrection.
Biden was duly installed as the 46th president -- but Trump's so-called "Big Lie" ultimately worked.
Even after thousands of his supporters stormed the US Capitol, assaulting police and chanting death threats, 147 Republicans voted along the lines of the insurrectionists' objective to overturn the election in some states.
Meanwhile, a YouGov poll in August found that two-thirds of Republicans believe the last election was stolen from the twice-impeached Trump.
Top Democrats including national committee chief Jaime Harrison, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin and House Leader Steny Hoyer reacted with anger to the blocked Senate debate on the Freedom to Vote Act.
"Republicans have made it abundantly clear that they are willing to prioritize political games and power over our fundamental rights," said Harrison.
"They've chosen to serve the Big Lie over the American people."
President Joe Biden made an impassioned plea in his birthplace of Scranton on Wednesday for massive spending on US infrastructure and social safety nets, as his Democratic party continued to feud over the price tag.
"America is still the largest economy … but we risk losing our edge as a nation," Biden said, describing the gap between US modernization of its infrastructure compared to competitors. "We haven't passed an infrastructure bill for decades."
The two bills under debate -- one for repairing infrastructure and another to fund childcare and other social spending -- will "breathe new life into the economy," Biden said in his speech at a museum for trolley trains in the blue collar Pennsylvania town where he spent part of his childhood.
The bills remain stuck in Congress, where Democrats control both houses with razor-thin majorities but are divided between themselves on the cost and scope of Biden's proposals.
There were positive signals on Wednesday, but no solid deal, with two key senators still holding back.
Biden showed his frustration, almost shouting in mid-speech: "This is the United States of America, damn it. What are we doing?"
But in an address filled with emotional references to his family's humble roots and connections to the working class, he predicted a happy ending for the two bills.
"This has been declared dead on arrival from the moment I introduced it, but I think we're going to surprise them," he said.
At stake are a $1.2 trillion bill for improving creaking US bridges, roads and railways and an even bigger splurge on childcare and other areas that Biden says will provide historic help to struggling ordinary Americans.
The main bone of contention is the size of the second package, with an initial figure endorsed by Biden of $3.5 trillion clearly dead.
The White House is now indicating it would settle for something between $1.9 and $2.2 trillion, while a leading moderate Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin, wants as little as $1.5 trillion. The ultimate top line may fall somewhere between.
That means making significant cuts to Biden's priorities in areas like expanding free education and clean energy.
Senator Chuck Schumer, who heads the Democrats' tiny majority in the Senate, fueled expectations that a deal may be imminent.
"We are getting closer to an agreement. We want to finalize a deal by the end of this week," he said Wednesday.
"Everyone is going to have to compromise if we are to find that legislative sweet spot that we can all get behind," Schumer said.
But with Manchin and another reluctant Democratic senator, Kyrsten Sinema, still not on board, the White House remained cautious.
"We've made a lot of progress but we still have work to do," Biden's senior adviser Cedric Richmond told CNN.
Biden's Scranton speech was meant to remind his party that he beat Donald Trump last year in part by wooing blue collar workers.
"Both these bills were all that I talked about. But guess what? Eighty one million people voted for me. More people voted than any time in American history and their voices deserve to be heard," he said.
Midterm legislative elections in just over a year could see the Democrats lose their majorities in one or both chambers to the Republicans, meaning Biden's spending plans are unlikely to get a second chance.
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