Biden honors Roe v Wade’s 50th anniversary as anti-abortionists rally in Washington – live

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The sentiment among March for Life attendees is a mixture of politics, prayer and poetry, the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports from the rally:

Top Republicans are welcoming the annual March for Life to Washington DC, including Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell:

As well as speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy:

His majority leader Steve Scalise is among the speakers expected at the rally, which is streaming live below:

Biden honors Roe anniversary as abortion foes convene

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision, which protected abortion rights nationwide until it was overturned by the conservative-dominated supreme court last year. The White House has issued a proclamation honoring the formerly precedent-setting case, and promising to continue fighting for abortion access.

“The Court got Roe right 50 years ago. It was a balanced decision with broad national consensus that the majority of Americans have continued to support for the last 50 years. And it was a constitutional principle upheld by justices appointed by Democratic and Republican Presidents alike,” Joe Biden wrote in the proclamation, which honors “generations of advocates who have fought for reproductive freedom, to recognize the countless women whose lives and futures have been saved and shaped by the Roe v. Wade decision, and to march forward with purpose as we work together to restore the right to choose.”

“I continue to call on the Congress to pass legislation to make those protections the law of the land once and for all. Until then, I will continue to use my Executive authority to protect women and families from harm in the wake of the Dobbs decision,” which overturned Roe, the president said.

But just blocks from the White House, anti-abortion advocates are gathering for the annual March for Life rally, the first since the supreme court ruling in Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization allowed states to ban the procedure. They’ve changed up their route this year and will finish near the Capitol, a recognition that the latest front in the abortion debate is in Congress and state legislatures nationwide.

The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino is on the scene at the rally:

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine has announced he will run for another term in 2024, meaning Democrats won’t have to find a new candidate to fill his seat in what is expected to be a very difficult year for the party:

Virginia has supported Democrats in recent presidential and Senate elections, but Kaine’s retirement would have created another headache for a party that will have several as they try to maintain control of the Senate in 2024. Several Democratic lawmakers from red states will be up for re-election then, including West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, Montana’s Jon Tester and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, and Republicans only need to win two seats to regain control of the Senate.

You’re going to be hearing a lot about the debt limit for the next several months, and thus, the Guardian’s Joan E Greve has written a story telling you everything you need to know about the bubbling debate:

The US economy could be headed for a crisis manufactured by a handful of House Republicans.

The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, informed congressional leaders on Thursday that the US has hit its debt ceiling, which limits the amount of money that the government can borrow to pay all of its bills. Yellen urged Congress to work as quickly as possible to raise the debt ceiling and prevent the US from defaulting on any of its financial obligations, which would have catastrophic consequences.

“It is therefore critical that Congress act in a timely manner to increase or suspend the debt limit,” Yellen warned in a letter sent last week. “Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the US economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability.”

The dire language from the nation’s top economic official underscored the urgency of Congress’s task and appeared to represent an attempt to deter any lawmaker from toying with the idea of a default. Some House Republicans have chosen to do so anyway.

Members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus have already promised to oppose a “clean” debt ceiling increase, meaning a bill that raises the national borrowing limit without any other policy concessions.

“We cannot raise the debt ceiling,” the Arizona congressman Andy Biggs said on Tuesday. “Democrats have carelessly spent our taxpayer money and devalued our currency. They’ve made their bed, so they must lie in it.”

Trump cautions Republicans on debt limit fight

Donald Trump has weighed in on the battle over raising the debt ceiling, imploring fellow Republicans not to try to change the Social Security or Medicare programs in exchange for agreeing to an increase, Politico reports.

“Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security,” Trump said in a video message.

“Cut waste, fraud and abuse everywhere that we can find it,” he continues. “But do not cut the benefits our seniors worked for and paid for their entire lives. Save Social Security, don’t destroy it.”

The video was made by Trump’s presidential campaign, and obtained by Politico before its public release.

Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, are demanding unspecified budget reforms in exchange for agreeing to increase the government’s legal borrowing limit. Washington hit that limit yesterday, but is expected to have enough cash on hand to continue funding government operations until at least June, after which it could default on its debt for the first time in history.

The House GOP has been vague on what exactly they want in exchange for an increase, but some lawmakers have called for changing the Social Security retirement benefit or Medicare program, which pays for health care for elderly and disabled people. Both are extremely popular programs, but have become increasing drains on the federal budget.

Donald Trump is usually the feuder-in-chief, but now his former deputies are fighting amongst themselves! Leave it to The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly to tell you why:

Nikki Haley said the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s claim that she plotted to replace Mike Pence as Donald Trump’s vice-president was “lies and gossip to sell a book”.

The former United Nations ambassador spoke to Fox News on Thursday evening, after the Guardian obtained a copy of Pompeo’s forthcoming memoir, Never Give An Inch, and reported his comments about Haley.

Haley resigned from the Trump administration in October 2018. Before that, Pompeo says, she set up a personal meeting with Trump in the Oval Office without checking with him.

Pompeo writes that John Kelly, then Trump’s chief of staff, thought Haley had in fact been accompanied by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner as they presented “a possible ‘Haley for vice-president’ option”.

Pompeo also writes unfavourably of Haley’s performance as UN ambassador and criticises her resignation.

Speaking to Fox News, Haley said: “I don’t know why he said it, but that’s exactly why I stayed out of DC as much as possible, to get away from the drama.”

Donald Trump is often in court, both as a plaintiff and defendant, but the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports one of his legal sagas has turned out to have quite an expensive conclusion:

A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump and one of his attorneys to jointly pay nearly $1m in penalties for pursuing a frivolous lawsuit that accused Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and other perceived enemies of the former president of engaging in racketeering and concocting a vast conspiracy against him.

The suit was dismissed in September and Trump was ordered to pay tens of thousands in November after one defendant sought sanctions. The latest order came after a group of the remaining defendants, including Clinton, filed a separate request for sanctions.

The end of the lawsuit marks the latest legal setback for Trump as he grapples with an array of civil and criminal investigations, including the probe into his retention of sensitive documents, while some of his lawyers are under scrutiny themselves for conduct in those cases.

A president in possession of classified documents he should not have. Sound familiar? That’s because both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are facing investigations for potentially breaching government secrecy laws. However there are a number of differences between the cases facing the two men, and the Guardian’s Chris Michael, Andrew Witherspoon and Richard Luscombe have put together a breakdown of the contrasts:

The discovery of classified documents in offices used by Joe Biden’s thinktank and in a locked storage unit in a garage near where the president keeps his Corvette may not be a criminal matter, but it does appear to have taken a political toll.

With a new Reuters/Ipsos poll on Thursday finding that Biden’s approval rating, which had risen at the end of 2022, was back down to just 40% – near the lowest level of his presidency – many Democrats are smacking their foreheads, fearing Biden has done exactly what his expected 2024 opponent, Donald Trump, was under investigation for doing.

So much for painting Trump as dangerous, volatile and a threat to national security. Right?

But that’s not to say the two cases are the same. The scale of the scandals is hugely lopsided: thousands of documents in Trump’s possession, including many marked top secret, versus an estimated dozen in Biden’s.

By all indications, Joe Biden will seek a second term in office.

“He spent his entire adult lifetime running for president, and on the third try, he finally got there. Who would give it up under those conditions, who? Almost nobody,” veteran political analyst Larry Sabato told the Guardian earlier this month, in a comment that encapsulates much of the reason the 80-year-old is expected to run again, despite being the oldest president to serve.

But the announcement will likely be made under a cloud of scandal, though it’s to be seen how much voters will care. The classified documents discovery is being taken seriously in Washington, with the justice department appointing a special prosecutor to look into whether Biden did wrong. But beyond that, people in his administration say much of the furor is “‘DC elite’ making ‘DC noise,’” CNN reported yesterday, and the president still plans to announce his bid for a second term sometime after the 7 February State of the Union address.

With 'no regrets' about classified documents, Biden marks two years in office, hints at 2024

Good morning, US politics blog readers. Today marks the halfway point of Joe Biden’s first term as president. Will he seek a second? He has yet to officially decide, but all signs continue to point to yes. Here’s the latest one: the White House is circulating a document, obtained by Politico, recounting all of what they say are his accomplishments over the past 24 months. But in recent days, Biden has found himself personally entangled in a growing scandal over classified documents from his time as vice-president that were found at his home and former residence. Considering the justice department is going after Donald Trump for doing something similar, albeit in much greater quantities and with much less transparency, the affair seems to present a threat to Biden’s presidency. Yesterday, Biden shrugged it off. “I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there. I have no regrets,” he replied, when a reporter asked about the documents. “There’s no there there.”

Here’s a look at what we can expect today:

• The anti-abortion March of Life is holding its annual rally in Washington DC, the first since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade. This year, the marchers will conclude not at the high court, but near the Capitol, in a sign of how campaign’s focus has shifted.

• Biden welcomes a bipartisan groups of mayors to the White House at 2pm eastern time, before heading to Delaware for the weekend.

• Senator Tim Kaine is expected to announce whether he will seek a third term today, according to Punchbowl News. A retirement by the Virginia Democrat would give Republicans another opportunity to flip a seat and take control of the chamber in the 2024 election.