Trump’s primary wins could sink Israel and Ukraine aid as Republicans reportedly turn against deal – live | US elections 2024

Shifting to federal court in Washington DC, judge Amit Mehta is on the verge of sentencing former Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro for ignoring a subpoena from the January 6 committee, Politico reports.

He was convicted of contempt of Congress charges last September:

Trump back in New York court as E Jean Carroll’s defamation trial resumes

Speaking of the US recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, government data released this morning shows economic growth at the end of last year was better than expected, defying some economists’s predictions of a slowdown, or even a recession. Here’s more on what the numbers mean, from the Guardian’s Dominic Rushe:

The pace of US economic growth slowed in the last three months of 2023, but far less than had been expected, underlining the continued resilience of the economy.

The commerce department reported on Thursday that US gross domestic product (GDP) – a broad measure of economic health – grew at an annualized rate of 3.3% in the final quarter of the year, down from 4.9% in the previous quarter but in line with pre-pandemic growth, and well ahead of the 2% economists had expected.

Robust consumer spending and government outlays contributed to the growth.

The Federal Reserve has been attempting to cool economic activity in order to bring down inflation. Since March 2022 the Fed has increased rates to a 22-year high and held them there. Inflation has fallen from a high of 9% in June 2022 to 3.4%.

The rate rises have increased the cost of borrowing and many – including the Fed – had expected a subsequent slowdown in economic activity to lead to layoffs. But so far the Fed appears to be on course for what it has termed a “soft landing”.

Hiring has remained robust – unemployment hovers at close to a 50-year low – and while growth has slowed, consumers have continued to spend, the US economy has weathered the rate rises and stock markets have hit record highs.

The sentencing hearing of Peter Navarro has just begun in a Washington DC federal court, and we will soon find out if the former Donald Trump adviser is heading to jail for defying a subpoena. Here’s more on the long-running case, from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:

The former Trump adviser Peter Navarro faces sentencing on Thursday on two counts of contempt of Congress, arising from his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on Congress.

The mandatory minimum sentence is two months in prison, one for each count. Prosecutors in the case, which saw Navarro convicted in federal court in Washington DC in September, asked for 12 months prison time and a $200,000 fine.

Navarro denies wrongdoing, saying Donald Trump invoked executive privilege to stop him complying with the subpoena. His lawyers asked for no more than six months probation and $100 fines on each count, and for sentence to be paused as an appeal proceeds.

In court papers, attorneys wrote: “The appeal … will definitely answer what is required of a former president to invoke executive privilege as to their senior advisers and no future adviser will be in the same position of not knowing that the president they served had not properly invoked the privilege.”

An academic and China hawk with a controversial past including quoting himself under an anagram of his own name – Ron Vara – Navarro was a trade adviser to Trump also closely involved in the response to the Covid pandemic.

He became involved in Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election, based on the lie that the Democrat won through electoral fraud. Navarro publicly discussed a battle plan he called the “Green Bay sweep”.

Mitch McConnell may be calling Donald Trump “nominee” behind closed doors, but the contest for the Republican presidential nomination is not over yet.

The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley remains on the campaign trail, despite coming well short of victory in the New Hampshire primaries. She is planning to make another stand against Trump in her home state, which votes on 24 February, despite polls showing him in the lead there, too.

Haley, who served as Trump’s UN ambassador, is trying to change that, and rallied in North Charleston yesterday:

Here’s one view from the Biden administration on the potential death of the Ukraine/Israel/border security deal.

As the treasury department official Ashley Schapitl points out, Democrats indeed worked with the GOP and Donald Trump in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out to pass the Cares Act – a huge emergency package that made the economic collapse caused by the virus less severe:

Schapitl’s argument is that Republicans would not be returning the favor, if they honor Trump’s reported wish not to act on a potential compromise on immigration policy.

Despite his comments in private to Republican senators yesterday, Bloomberg News reports that Mitch McConnell, who never talks to reporters in the Capitol hallways, told a reporter in a Capitol hallway that talks on the immigration deal were “ongoing”:

Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s Democratic leader, meanwhile said nothing:

One of the biggest surprise players in the apparent downfall of America’s military assistance to Ukraine is Mitch McConnell.

The Republican Senate minority leader and Donald Trump do not get along, for a variety of reasons. Unlike Trump, McConnell has been a steadfast supporter of arming Kyiv, and yet, he yesterday told Republicans behind closed doors that assisting a nation considered crucial to the US’s national security priorities would have to wait.

“When we started this, the border united us and Ukraine divided us,” Punchbowl News reports McConnell said. “The politics on this have changed.”

The change is, of course, Trump’s emergence as the likely GOP nominee after winning the New Hampshire primaries on Tuesday – McConnell even called him “nominee” in the meeting.

Trump wants to make cracking down on migrants a key plank of his election campaign, and McConnell said he was willing to go along with Trump’s wishes and scupper a deal under negotiation to tighten immigration policy.

“We’re in a quandary,” McConnell said, in something of an understatement.

How Congress managed to deadlock over Israel, Ukraine aid and border policy – simultaneously

Seeing Trump as presumptive nominee, Republicans reportedly turning against deal to help Ukraine and Israel