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Trump: 'I'd never drop out'
Donald Trump gave a lengthy interview to conservative Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson last night in which he made his usual bombastic claims, as well as a bit of news.
Carlson asked the former president, who is vying to return to the White House in next year’s election, whether he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if he was convicted of a crime. “I’d never drop out. It’s not my thing, I wouldn’t do it.”
You can see the moment where he says that in the clip below:
The Biden administration is set to take a major step towards weaning the American car industry off fossil fuels with new regulations announced today. Here’s the Guardian’s Dani Anguiano to tell you what they are:
The Biden administration on Wednesday proposed strict new automobile pollution limits that would require that all-electric vehicles account for as many as two of every three new vehicles sold in the US by 2032 in a plan that would transform the US auto industry.
Under the proposed regulation, released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), greenhouse gas emissions for the 2027 through 2032 model years for passenger vehicles would be limited to even stricter levels than the auto industry agreed to in 2021.
The EPA administrator, Michael Regan, insisted the targets were “readily achievable”, with EV sales tripling since Biden came to office, and despite the skepticism of some automakers about the pace of the transition needed for the plans.
'Those who seek to silence us will not have the final say' declares ousted TN Democrat
Justin Pearson and Justin Jones were both Black Democratic lawmakers in the Tennessee House, until the chamber’s Republican supermajority last Thursday voted to remove them.
The stated reason was that they took part in a demonstration held on the chamber’s floor in which they used bullhorns to join protesters calling for more gun protection following a mass shooting at a Nashville school that killed six people late last month. A white Democratic lawmaker who joined in was not expelled.
But Pearson and Jones are both set to boomerang right back to their seats. Jones was reappointed by the Nashville metropolitan council on Monday, while Pearson’s appointment will be up for consideration by the Shelby county board of commissioners in Memphis today. However, both lawmakers will need to win forthcoming special elections to keep their seats for good.
In his New York Times essay, Pearson outlined the reasons why he wants his seat back, and why he fought so vigorously for gun control. Here’s what he has to say:
It’s not just our individual voices that were sanctioned and silenced last Thursday. It was the voices of the nearly 135,000 Tennesseans we represented — many who are desperate for protection from the absence of many common-sense gun safety laws in our state. Since the Covenant School shooting, the Republican supermajority in the State House has done little but advance a bill that would allow teachers to carry guns in school and propose a $140 million budget increase to pay for the presence of armed guards in public schools, further militarizing them without adequate evidence that this makes schools safer.
Besides expanding already expansive gun rights, Republican-led statehouses across the country are proposing and passing staggering numbers of bills that serve a fringe, white evangelical agenda that abrogates the rights and freedoms of the rest of us. They’re passing legislation to control the intellectual freedom of writers and educators, proposing laws that would restrict the bodily autonomy of transgender children and people who can become pregnant, and curtailing even our right to vote. Combined with a shrinking social safety net as people lose access to resources to meet basic health, housing and food needs, we have a nation in pain and peril.
In a small victory for our people clamoring for change, Gov. Bill Lee announced Tuesday that he would sign an executive order strengthening background checks for buying firearms and called for Republican lawmakers to support a red flag law.
I was elected early this year by the people of Memphis and Millington to stand up for all of us against encroachments on our freedoms.
I will continue to fight with and for our people, whether in or out of office. We and the young protesters are the future of a new Tennessee. Those who seek to silence us will not have the final say.
Second ousted Tennessee Democrat could be returned to statehouse today
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Justin Pearson was one of two Democratic lawmakers the Tennessee house of representatives expelled last week for holding a noisy protest in favor of gun control, but his exile could end today. Local commissioners in his district will vote on whether to reappoint him to his seat, which is what happened on Monday to Justin Jones, the other legislator booted by the chamber’s GOP majority. “I wasn’t elected to be pushed to the back of the room and silenced,” Pearson declared in a New York Times op-ed published this morning. We’ll see if his local counterparts agree.
Here’s what else is happening today:
Joe Biden is in Northern Ireland, where has met with British prime minister Rishi Sunak, and will head to Dublin later today. Follow our live blog for the latest on the president’s travels to the land of his ancestors.
Kamala Harris will convene the White House’s reproductive health care taskforce at 2.45pm as access to medication abortion appears imperiled.
Tim Scott has formed an exploratory committee to run for the GOP’s presidential nomination next year. To succeed, he’ll have to beat the 800-pound Republican gorilla: Donald Trump.
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