US lawmakers head home after Kyiv, Warsaw discussionsNancy Pelosi and a delegation of Democratic lawmakers are heading back to Washington DC today to finalize Joe Biden’s $33bn request to Congress for Ukraine aid, after a whistlestop European tour.
The House speaker met on Monday in Warsaw with Poland’s president Andrzej Duda, thanking the country on behalf of the American people for “opening their hearts and homes” to almost 3m Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia’s war in their homeland.
A day earlier, Pelosi and Congress members made a high-profile visit to Kyiv to discuss the conflict with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other government leaders, and Biden’s proposed financial package that would almost double previous US spending on Ukraine.
“Our members discussed our countries’ continued commitment to Ukraine, particularly as the Congress prepares to transform President Biden’s new request for additional security, economic and humanitarian assistance into legislation,” Pelosi wrote in a statement after the Duda meeting.
The speaker was joined on the trip by Democratic representatives Jim McGovern and Bill Keating of Massachusetts; Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee of California, Gregory Meeks of New York, and Jason Crow of Colorado, according to The Hill.
Despite her comments, a vote to approve the White House request – $20bn in military aid, $8.5bn in economic assistance and $3bn in humanitarian relief – will likely have to wait. The House is not sitting this week while members attend to in-district business.
Michael McCaul. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP“If I were speaker for a day, I’d call Congress back into session, back into work,” the Texas Republican Michael McCaul, ranking member of the House foreign affairs committee, told ABC’s This Week on Sunday.
“Time is of the essence. The next two to three weeks are going to be very pivotal and very decisive in this war. And I don’t think we have a lot of time to waste.”
But McCaul was confident that Biden’s ask would be approved swiftly.
You can expect the White House press secretary Jen Psaki to face questions about it at her afternoon briefing.
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Martin Pengelly
The Arkansas governor, Asa Hutchinson, is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and would not be deterred if Donald Trump made an expected bid to return to the White House.
“No, it won’t [deter me],” Hutchinson told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
“I’ve made it clear. I think we ought to have a different direction in the future and so I’m not aligned with [Trump] on some of his endorsements, but also the direction he wants to take our country.
“I think he did a lot of good things for our country, but we need to go a different direction and so that’s not a factor in my decision-making process.”
Asa Hutchinson. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/APTrump is free to run – and has amassed huge campaign funding – after being acquitted in his second Senate impeachment trial, in which he was charged with inciting the deadly January 6 Capitol attack, in his attempt to overturn defeat by Joe Biden.
More than 20 years ago, Hutchinson was a House impeachment manager in the trial of Bill Clinton, over the 42nd president’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. As Arkansas governor, Hutchinson now operates in the more moderate lane of Republican politics.
On CNN, he was asked about an appearance last week at a “Politics & Eggs” event in New Hampshire, a “traditional stop for any presidential hopeful” in an early voting state.
“You’ve got to get through course this year,” he said, “but that’s an option that’s on the table. And that’s one of the reasons I was in New Hampshire.”
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Supreme Court says Boston’s Christian flag ban was unlawfulSupreme Court justices have ruled unanimously that the city of Boston violated a religious group’s first amendment rights when it banned it flying a Christian flag from a municipal flagpole.
The group Camp Christian intended flying its flag, with a cross on it, at City Hall as part of a program that allows private groups use the flagpole while holding events in the plaza below, Reuters reports.
In legal filings, the group, led by conservative activist Harold Shurtleff, argued that the city had approved more than 280 flags over a dozen years but rejected only theirs.
Justice Stephen Breyer. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/APIn one of his final rulings, the retiring liberal justice Stephen Breyer, backed by all eight fellow justices, said Boston violated Shurtleff’s freedom of speech:
Boston did not make the raising and flying of private groups’ flags a form of government speech. That means, in turn, that Boston’s refusal to let Shurtleff and Camp Constitution raise their flag based on its religious viewpoint ‘abridg[ed]’ their ‘freedom of speech’.
The city’s lack of meaningful involvement in the selection of flags or the crafting of their messages leads us to classify the flag raisings as private, not government, speech, though nothing prevents Boston from changing its policies going forward.
The city argued flying the flag would have constituted “impermissible government speech”.
Camp Constitution was backed by Joe Biden’s administration in its case, Reuters said.
Tennessee’s governor, Bill Lee, said Monday the state was pausing executions to enable an independent review of its lethal injection procedures, the Associated Press reports.
The execution of convicted triple-murderer Oscar Smith was called off last month an hour before it was due to take place, officials blaming a “testing oversight”.
In a statement, Lee, a Republican, said former US attorney Ed Stanton will review circumstances surrounding the testing of lethal injection chemicals, the clarity of the lethal injection process manual and Tennessee corrections department staffing considerations:
I review each death penalty case and believe it is an appropriate punishment for heinous crimes,.
However, the death penalty is an extremely serious matter, and I expect the Tennessee Department of Correction to leave no question that procedures are correctly followed.
The moratorium will remain in effect through the end of the year to allow time for the review and corrective action, Lee said.
The execution of Smith, 72, was halted on 21 April. Lee’s statement that evening gave few details, saying it was postponed “due to an oversight in preparation for lethal injection.”
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The first lady, Jill Biden, will spend Mother’s Day meeting with Ukrainian mothers and children who fled Ukraine following the Russian invasion, the White House has announced.
Jill Biden. Photograph: Susan Walsh/APBiden will visit Slovakia and Romania during her five-day trip that begins on Thursday, the Associated Press reports.
Almost 5.5m Ukrainian refugees have left their country, mostly women and children, according to UN officials. Many have resettled in neighboring countries or relocated elsewhere in Europe.
Romania and Slovakia, both members of Nato, share borders with Ukraine.
According to the White House, Biden will also meet with American service members, US embassy personnel, humanitarian aid workers and educators. The trip will begin in Romania, and Biden will be in Kosice and Vysne Nemecke, Slovakia, for Mother’s Day on 8 May.
The trip will be the first lady’s second overseas by herself, following her journey to Tokyo last year for the opening of the delayed 2020 Olympic Games, the AP said.
Martin Pengelly
Speaking at a rally two days ahead of voting in a heated Republican Senate primary in Ohio, Donald Trump appeared to forget the name of JD Vance, the candidate he has endorsed.
“You know,” the former president told a crowd in Greenwood, Nebraska, on Sunday, “we’ve endorsed Dr Oz.”
So he has, in Pennsylvania.
Of Ohio, Trump said: “We’ve endorsed – JP, right? JD Mandel, and he’s doing great. They’re all doing good. They’re all doing good. And let’s see what happens.””
Josh Mandel. Photograph: Gaelen Morse/ReutersTrump appeared to be confusing JD Vance, a former US marine, author of the bestseller Hillbilly Elegy and venture capitalist, with Josh Mandel, a rival who courted Trump for the endorsement.
Trump also said: “I think Vance is doing well, I think Oz is doing well. Does everybody like Oz? I love Oz.”
Announcing his endorsement last month, Trump said: “In the great state of Ohio, the candidate most qualified and ready to win in November is JD Vance. We cannot play games. It is all about winning!”
Vance said then he was “incredibly honored to have President Trump’s support”. He did not immediately comment about Trump’s slip on Sunday.
Trump’s endorsement – despite past remarks in which Vance called Trump “America’s Hitler” and “a moral disaster” – boosted Vance to the top of the polls in Ohio. On Sunday, Mandel continued to hammer his opponent for such remarks, including saying in 2016 he might vote for Hillary Clinton if it seemed Trump might win.
Another candidate, Mike Gibbons, told donors in an email reported by Politico: “To be fair, you really can’t blame Trump. No one knows who the real JD Vance is, as his views change faster than the weather in Ohio.”
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US lawmakers head home after Kyiv, Warsaw discussionsNancy Pelosi and a delegation of Democratic lawmakers are heading back to Washington DC today to finalize Joe Biden’s $33bn request to Congress for Ukraine aid, after a whistlestop European tour.
The House speaker met on Monday in Warsaw with Poland’s president Andrzej Duda, thanking the country on behalf of the American people for “opening their hearts and homes” to almost 3m Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia’s war in their homeland.
A day earlier, Pelosi and Congress members made a high-profile visit to Kyiv to discuss the conflict with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other government leaders, and Biden’s proposed financial package that would almost double previous US spending on Ukraine.
“Our members discussed our countries’ continued commitment to Ukraine, particularly as the Congress prepares to transform President Biden’s new request for additional security, economic and humanitarian assistance into legislation,” Pelosi wrote in a statement after the Duda meeting.
The speaker was joined on the trip by Democratic representatives Jim McGovern and Bill Keating of Massachusetts; Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee of California, Gregory Meeks of New York, and Jason Crow of Colorado, according to The Hill.
Despite her comments, a vote to approve the White House request – $20bn in military aid, $8.5bn in economic assistance and $3bn in humanitarian relief – will likely have to wait. The House is not sitting this week while members attend to in-district business.
Michael McCaul. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP“If I were speaker for a day, I’d call Congress back into session, back into work,” the Texas Republican Michael McCaul, ranking member of the House foreign affairs committee, told ABC’s This Week on Sunday.
“Time is of the essence. The next two to three weeks are going to be very pivotal and very decisive in this war. And I don’t think we have a lot of time to waste.”
But McCaul was confident that Biden’s ask would be approved swiftly.
You can expect the White House press secretary Jen Psaki to face questions about it at her afternoon briefing.
Read more:
Good morning blog readers, happy Monday and welcome to a new week in US politics.
Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, is in Warsaw today, discussing the Ukraine conflict with Poland’s president Andrzej Duda.
The final stop of a busy European tour, which also saw her in Kyiv over the weekend meeting Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, comes as lawmakers in Washington DC weigh up Joe Biden’s request for an additional $33bn in military, economic and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
The House is not in session this week, but the Republican ranking member of the foreign affairs committee, Michael McCaul, said he expects the chamber to move quickly on the president’s request.
Developments in the Ukraine-Russia war can be found on our main news blog here.
Here’s what we’re watching in the US:
Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican party will be tested in congressional and governors’ primary elections beginning this week. Over the weekend Trump forgot the name of one candidate he endorsed, and promoted another in entirely the wrong state.
Joe Biden also has trouble in spades, with inflation, immigration and crime weighing on Democrats’ chances of retaining control of Congress in November’s midterms. The president has two public engagements today, the civil service Presidential Rank awards and a White House reception to mark the end of Ramadan.
The White House press secretary Jen Psaki will brief reporters at 2.30pm.
