Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy jabs Biden over US debt ceiling – live

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The latest challenger to Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination looks like it’s going to be South Carolina senator Tim Scott, who has earmarked 22 May for a “major announcement”.

That Scott, formerly a Trump loyalist, looks ready to throw his hat in the ring is no surprise. He’s already been testing the waters in primary race states such as Iowa and New Hampshire on a “Faith in America” tour.

His expected run was forecast as early as February, and he launched an exploratory committee to plot a campaign last month.

Scott will be the first sitting senator to announce his candidacy. Other prominent likely candidates, including Florida’s rightwing governor Ron DeSantis and Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence, are also expected to announce this month.

Already in the race are Trump, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, conservative media personality Larry Elder, investor Vivek Ramaswamy and businessman and former candidate for Michigan governor Perry Johnson.

“I believe this so thoroughly, that it is time to take the Faith in America Tour not just on the road, and not just an exploratory committee. But May 22nd in North Charleston, South Carolina, it is time to make the final step,” Scott, a 10-year senator, said in a press release.

The supreme court won’t hear a challenge to the legality of an Indiana requirement that abortion providers bury or cremate embryonic or fetal remains, Reuters reports.

The justices turned away an appeal by an Indianapolis abortion clinic and two women who underwent abortions at the facility.

A law signed in 2016 by Republican then-governor Mike Pence imposed a requirement that clinics cremate or bury the tissue from abortions or miscarriages rather than using the standard method of incineration for human medical waste.

The law, which the state’s Republican attorney general Todd Rokita said in court papers aimed to ensure the “respectful disposition of human remains,” also lets patients dispose of the remains on their own.

The plaintiffs argued that the law unconstitutionally compelled them to express the state’s message that an embryo or fetus is a person and ran afoul of their moral or religious beliefs by treating embryonic tissue in the same manner as the remains of a deceased person.

The case reached the supreme court after a district court judge found the provision violated the challengers’ religious freedom and free speech rights, a ruling overturned by the seventh circuit appeals court last year.

Trump's lawyer seeks rape case mistrial

Donald Trump’s attorney requested a mistrial Monday in the former president’s rape and defamation civil case brought by advice columnist E Jean Carroll.

Judge Lewis Kaplan has ruled in a biased manner against Trump, lawyer Joe Tacopina alleged in a filing to… Kaplan.

E Jean Carroll. Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP

He cited “pervasive unfair and prejudicial rulings” by Kaplan as the basis for the mistrial request, made in a letter.

Carroll, 79, testified at a trial that began last week that Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in midtown Manhattan, most likely in spring 1996. She said a chance encounter brought the pair together in an episode that was fun and flirtatious until Trump became violent in the dressing room.

Trump, 76, has long denied that a rape happened, that he was at the store with Carroll or that he even knew her beyond fleeting moments when pictures were taken of them in group settings in other years.

Carroll said she was motivated to speak up after the New York Times exposed Harvey Weinstein’s crimes and fired the #MeToo movement.

Read more:

Kevin McCarthy is about to address the Knesset after earlier meeting Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.

It’ll be the first time a House speaker has addressed the country’s parliament in a quarter-century, when another Republican, Newt Gingrich, spoke there in 1998.

Netanyahu hailed McCarthy, who is leading a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers to celebrate the country’s 75th anniversary, as: “a champion of the Israeli-American alliance”.

The Knesset reconvenes today after a month off amid tensions over a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary that has split Israelis and drawn concern from the US, the Associated Press reports.

Joe Biden has voiced concern about the legal overhaul and, largely because of it, has so far denied Netanyahu a customary invitation to the White House after his election win late last year.

McCarthy took jabs at Biden Monday in an interview with the news outlet Israel Hayom.

He lamented what he saw as Biden’s tardiness in inviting Netanyahu to the White House, and reluctance to meet with McCarthy to negotiate a solution to concerns over the national debt.

“President Biden hasn’t talked to me about the debt ceiling for the last 80 some days so. I think he, the prime minister, might be in good company if he treats me the same way,” McCarthy said.

“If that [visit to the White House] doesn’t happen, I’ll invite the prime minister to come meet with the House.”

Carlson firing from Fox 'not part of $787m Dominion settlement'

Executives of Dominion Voting Systems have been talking to Axios about the $787.5m settlement it won from Fox News over lies about the 2020 election pushed by on-air celebrities.

Tucker Carlson, one of the most vocal exponents of Donald Trump’s big lie of a stolen election, became a high-profile casualty of the fallout when he was fired last week, but Dominion says his dismissal wasn’t a condition of the settlement.

Tucker Carlson. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

And Hootan Yaghoobzadeh, co-founder of Staple Street Capital that has a controlling investment in Dominion, says neither did the company seek an on-air apology from Fox, because it would have been “worthless”.

He said the financial settlement, and damage to Fox’s reputation, were more significant:

These results are much more profound than some disingenuous apology or forced statement that would not have any credibility, or would have been disingenuous from actors that have had a track record for making statements that are disingenuous.

Attorney Stephen Shackelford, partner at Dominion’s lawyers Susman Godfrey, said he did not expect the case to be settled before trial. He criticized Fox owner Rupert Murdoch for not acting earlier, when it became clear that claims about Dominion’s voting machines changing votes for Trump to Joe Biden were lies:

He knew the truth and yet his enormous asset, Fox News, kept broadcasting the lies. The Tucker Carlson texts where it took him no time at all to figure out that the software stuff was absurd.

It was obvious to everybody that this was crazy and we expected to see internal acknowledgment that this was crazy and false. And that’s what we ended up seeing in the end.

You can read the full Axios interview here.

Kevin McCarthy jabs Biden over US debt ceiling

Good morning and happy Monday to all US politics blog readers. We woke to news that Kevin McCarthy has been taking jabs at Joe Biden during his visit to Israel, teasing the president for not talking with him about a deal to raise the debt ceiling.

The speaker lamented what he saw as Biden’s tardiness in inviting Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, and reluctance to meet with McCarthy to negotiate a solution to concerns over the national debt.

“President Biden hasn’t talked to me about the debt ceiling for the last 80 some days so. I think he, the prime minister, might be in good company if he treats me the same way,” McCarthy told the news outlet Israel Hayom.

“If that [visit to the White House] doesn’t happen, I’ll invite the prime minister to come meet with the House.”

The partisan attack on Biden raised eyebrows because McCarthy is in Israel leading a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers to celebrate the country’s 75th anniversary. He will address Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, in short order.

Here’s what else is on our radar:

• Joe Biden will meet Ferdinand Marcos Jr, president of the Philippines, this afternoon at the White House, as the two nations seek to strengthen ties to counter growing Chinese influence in southeast Asia.

• Advice columnist E Jean Carroll returns to the witness stand on Monday to face another day of cross-examination in her lawsuit against Donald Trump for alleged rape and defamation.

• Republican senator Tim Scott of South Carolina appears ready to throw his hat into the ring for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination. He’s touting a “major announcement” on 22 May in North Charleston that could see him become the latest direct challenger to Donald Trump.

• The chief executive of Dominion Voting Systems is speaking out after his company won a $787.5m defamation settlement from Fox News over lies about the 2020 election pushed by on-air celebrities. Among the revelations in the exclusive Axios interview are that Tucker Carlson’s firing wasn’t a condition of the settlement.

• And in politics/business news, JP Morgan is to acquire most of the failed California bank First Republic, in a deal brokered by regulators in an effort to contain a series of US banking failures.

We’ll have more on all that coming up. Stick with us for what promises to be a lively day.