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Kyrsten Sinema says she will ‘move forward’ on economic bill, putting Biden’s agenda on the cusp of Senate approval

Kyrsten Sinema says she will 'move forward' on economic bill, putting Biden's agenda on the cusp of Senate approval

Sinema’s support means Democrats likely will have 50 votes in their caucus to push the bill through their chamber by week’s end, before it moves to the House next week for final approval.

And while the plan is scaled back from Biden’s initial Build Back Better package, the latest bill — named the Inflation Reduction Act — would represent the largest investment in energy and climate programs in US history, extend expiring health care subsidies for three years and give Medicare the power for the first time to negotiate prescription drug prices. The legislation would impose new taxes to pay for it.

A remaining hurdle for Democrats: A review by Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who must decide whether the provisions in the bill meet strict rules to allow Democrats to use the filibuster-proof budget process to pass the legislation along straight party lines.

But after days of talks with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sinema indicated she was ready to vote to proceed.

“Subject to the Parliamentarian’s review, I’ll move forward,” she said in a statement after maintaining silence over the bill for more than a week.

In the statement, Sinema indicated that she won several changes to the tax provisions in the package, including removing the tax on carried interest, which would have impacted hedge fund managers and private equity. That proposal would have raised $14 billion. She also suggested that she won changes to Democrats’ plans to stop back how companies can deduct depreciated assets from their taxes — a key demand by manufacturers that had lobbied Sinema over their concerns this week.

“We have agreed to remove the carried interest tax provision, protect advanced manufacturing, and boost our clean energy economy in the Senate’s budget reconciliation legislation,” Sinema said.

To make up for the lost revenue, Democrats agreed to add a 1% excise tax on companies’ stock buybacks as part of the agreement, raising another $73 billion, according to a Democratic aid.

“The agreement will include a new excise tax on stock buybacks that brings in far more revenue than the carried interest provision did, meaning the deficit reduction figure will remain at $300 billion,” a Democrat familiar with the agreement told CNN.

The $300 billion target in deficit reduction had been a key priority of Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who signed onto the deal after negotiations with Schumer last week.

“The agreement preserves the major components of the Inflation Reduction Act, including reducing prescription drug costs, fighting climate change, closing tax loopholes exploited by big corporations and the wealthy, and reducing the deficit by $300 billion,” Schumer said in a statement. “The final version of the Reconciliation bill, to be introduced on Saturday, will reflect this work and put us one step closer to enacting this historic legislation into law.”

High-stakes negotiations

What's in the Manchin-Schumer deal on climate, health care and taxes

Earlier Thursday, top Senate Democrats engaged in high-stakes negotiations with Sinema, actively discussing potential changes to major tax components in order to secure the Arizona moderate’s support.

In private discussions, Sinema had expressed concern over key parts of the Democrats’ plan to pay for their climate and health care package — imposing a 15% tax minimum tax on big corporations and taxing so-called carried interest, which would mean imposing a new levy on hedge fund managers and private equity.

As a result, Democrats had been scrambling to find new revenue sources to meet the goal of saving $300 billion over a decade.

“Failure is not an option,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, expressing the view of much of his caucus earlier Thursday that Sinema would eventually get on board.

Schumer announced earlier on Thursday that the Senate will reconvene on Saturday and plans to take the first procedural vote to proceed to the bill. If the vote gets the backing of all 50 members of the Democratic caucus, there would then be up to 20 hours of debate. Following debate time, there would be a process colloquially referred to on Capitol Hill as “vote-a-rama,” which is the marathon series of amendment votes with no time limit before the final vote. If the bill ultimately passes, the House would need to act.

Democrats are trying to wrap up negotiations and pass their economic passage before leaving town for a month-long August recess. The measure would invest $369 billion into energy and climate change programs with the goal of reducing carbon emissions by 40% by 2030. For the first time, Medicare would be empowered to negotiate the prices of certain medications, and it would cap out-of- pocket costs at $2,000 for those enrolled in Medicare drug plans. It would also extend expiring enhanced subsidies for Affordable Care Act coverage for three years.

It’s not clear if all these provisions will survive the parliamentarian’s review.

Heavy pressure on Sinema

Will the Senate climate and health care deal reduce inflation? Depends whom you ask

Sinema was not part of the deal, learning of it when the news broke last week. She had refused to comment publicly on the deal, with her aides de ella only saying she would wait until the Senate parliamentarian’s review is done before ella taking a position. Yet she had been making her demands clear with Democratic leaders, including seeking to add $5 billion to help the Southwest cope with its multi-year drought, according to multiple sources.

As Democrats courted her, Republicans and business groups made their concerns known. In a private call this week, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, urged Sinema to press to change the corporate minimum tax. The president of the Arizona business group, Danny Seiden, told CNN that he expressed the business community’s opposition to the 15% tax provision, noting it would particularly hit manufacturers that take advantage of an accelerated depreciation tax deduction that lowers their tax burden.

“Is this written in a way that’s bad?” Sinema asked, according to Seiden, president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, who relayed the call to CNN.

“It gave me hope that she’s willing to open this up and maybe make it better,” Seiden said.

Two sources told CNN that Sinema had privately relayed those concerns to top Democrats, arguing it would hurt manufacturers including in her state.

In an effort to break the log jam, Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper, a freshman Democrat, proposed the excise tax on stock buybacks to Schumer as a way to make up for the revenue lost by Sinema’s requests, according to a Democratic aid.

At issue are changes proposed by Democrats on bonus depreciation that the GOP enacted in the 2017 tax law, which allows companies to deduct 100% of the cost of an asset the year it is placed in service. The new legislation proposed to phase that down starting next year.

It’s unclear exactly how the new language is structured on this issue.

Defending the new tax, the Democratic-led Senate Finance Committee released date on Thursday from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation showing that up to 125 billion-dollar companies averaged only a 1.1 percent effective tax rate in 2019. The committee argues in its release that this shows the “rock-bottom tax rates” that some companies are able to pay.

“While we know that billion-dollar companies are avoiding paying their fair share, these tax rates are lower than we could have imagined,” said Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat. “We’re going to put a stop to it with our 15 percent minimum tax.”

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments Thursday.

CNN’s Jessica Dean, Ella Nilsen, Clare Foran and Alex Rogers contributed to this report.

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Does the Inflation Reduction Act violate Biden’s $400,000 tax pledge?

Does the Inflation Reduction Act violate Biden's $400,000 tax pledge?

JimWatson | Afp | Getty Images

Senate Democrats’ package of climate change, health-care, drug pricing and tax measures unveiled last week has proponents and opponents debating whether the legislation violates a pledge President Joe Biden has made since his presidential campaign, to do not raise taxes on households with incomes below $400,000 a year.

The answer isn’t quite as simple as it seems.

“The fun part about this is, you can get a different answer depending on who you ask,” said John Buhl, an analyst at the Tax Policy Center.

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The White House has used $400,000 as a rough dividing line for the wealthy relative to middle and lower earners. That income threshold equates to about the top 1% to 2% of American taxpayers.

The new bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, doesn’t directly raise taxes on households below that line, according to tax experts. In other words, the legislation wouldn’t trigger an increase on taxpayers’ annual tax returns if their income is below $400,000, experts said.

But some aspects of the legislation may have adverse downstream effects — a sort of indirect taxation, experts said. This “indirect” element is where opponents seem to have directed their ire.

What’s in the Inflation Reduction Act

The legislation — brokered by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., and Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., who’d been a key centrist holdout — would invest about $485 billion toward climate and health-care measures through 2031, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis issued Wednesday.

Broadly, that spending would be in the form of tax breaks and rebates for households that buy electric vehicles and make their homes more energy-efficient, and a three-year extension of the current Affordable Care Act subsidies for health insurance.

The bill would also raise an estimated $790 billion via tax measures, reforms for prescription drug prices and a fee on methane emissions, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Taxes account for the bulk — $450 billion — of the revenue.

Critics say corporate changes could affect workers

Specifically, the legislation would provide more resources for IRS enforcement of tax cheats and would tweak the “carried interest” rules for taxpayers who earn more than $400,000. Carried-interest rules allow certain private equity and other investors to pay a preferential tax rate on profits.

Those elements aren’t controversial relative to the tax pledge — they don’t raise the annual tax bills middle and low earners owe, experts said.

The Inflation Reduction Act would also implement a 15% corporate minimum tax, paid on the income large companies report to shareholders. This is where “indirect” taxes might come into play, experts said. For example, a corporation with a higher tax bill might pass on those additional costs to employees, perhaps in the form of a lower raise, or reduced corporate profits may hurt 401(k) and other investors who own a piece of the company in a mutual fund.

The Democrats’ approach to tax reform means increasing taxes on low- and middle-income Americans.

Sen. mike krapo

Republican of Idaho

The current corporate tax rate is 21% but some companies are able to reduce their effective tax rate and therefore pay back their bill.

As a result of the policy, those with incomes below $200,000 would pay almost $17 billion in combined additional tax in 2023, according to a Joint Committee on Taxation analysis published July 29. That combined tax burden falls to about $2 billion by 2031, according to the JCT, an independent scorekeeper for Congress.

“The Democrats’ approach to tax reform means increasing taxes on low- and middle-income Americans,” Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, ranking member of the Finance Committee, said of the analysis.

Others say financial benefits outweigh indirect costs

However, the JCT analysis does not provide a complete picture, according to experts. That’s because it doesn’t account for the benefits of consumer tax rebates, health premium subsidies and lower prescription drug costs, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Observers who consider indirect costs should weigh these financial benefits, too, experts argue.

“The selective presentation by some of the distributional effects of this bill neglects benefits to middle-class families from reducing deficits, from bringing down prescription drug prices and from more affordable energy,” a group of five former Treasury secretaries from both Democratic and Republican administrations wrote Wednesday.

The $64 billion of total Affordable Care Act subsidies alone would “be more than enough to counter net tax increases below $400,000 in the JCT study,” according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which also estimates Americans would save $300 billion on costs and premiums for prescription drugs.

The combined policies would offer a net tax cut for Americans by 2027, the group said.

Further, setting a minimum corporate tax rate shouldn’t be viewed as an “extra” tax, but a “reclaiming of revenue lost to tax avoidance and provisions benefitting the most affluent,” argued the former Treasury secretaries. They are Timothy Geithner, Jacob Lew, Henry Paulson Jr., Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.

There are additional wrinkles to consider, though, according to Buhl of the Tax Policy Center.

For example, to what extent do companies pass on their tax bills to workers versus shareholders? Economists differ on this point, Buhl said. And what about companies with a lot of excess cash on hand? Might that cash buffer lead a company not to levy an indirect tax on its workers?

“You could end up going down these rabbit holes forever,” Buhl said. “It’s just one of the fun parts of tax pledges,” he added.

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Trump ally Kari Lake wins GOP primary for Arizona governor

Trump ally Kari Lake wins GOP primary for Arizona governor

PHOENIX (AP) — Kari Lake, a former news anchor who walked away from her journalism career and was embraced by Donald Trump and his staunch supporters, won the Republican primary for Arizona governor on Thursday.

Lake’s victory was a blow to the GOP establishment that lined up behind lawyer and businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson in an attempt to push their party past the chaotic Trump era. Lake said she would not have certified President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and put false claims of election fraud at the center of his campaign.

“Arizonans who have been forgotten by the establishment just delivered a political earthquake,” Lake said in a statement after the race was called.

Republicans now enter the general election sprint with a slate of nominees closely allied with Trump who deny that Biden was legitimately elected president. Lake will face Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the November election.

“This race for governor isn’t about Democrats or Republicans. It’s a choice between sanity and chaos,” Hobbs said Thursday night in a statement on Lake’s victory.

Early election results showing only mail ballots received before Election Day gave Robson a solid lead, but that was whittled down as votes from polling places were added to the tally. Lake’s victory became clear Thursday when Maricopa County released results from thousands of mail ballots dropped off at the polls on Tuesday.

“The voters of Arizona have spoken,” Robson said in a statement conceding to Lake late Thursday. “I accept the results, I trust the process and the people who administer it.”

In a midterm primary season with mixed results for Trump’s favored candidates, the former president came out on top in Arizona, a state that has been central to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and cast doubt on Biden’s victory. In addition to Lake, Trump’s picks for US Senate, secretary of stateattorney general, US House and the state Legislature all won their GOP primaries.

If they win in November, Trump allies will hold sway over the administration of elections in a crucial battleground state as he considers another bid for the White House in 2024. The results also show that Trump remains a powerful figure in the GOP as longtime party stalwarts get increasingly bold in their efforts to reassert control ahead of the next presidential campaign.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie all campaigned for Robson in the days before the election.

Robson, who is married to one of Arizona’s richest men, largely self-funded her campaign. She called the 2020 election “unfair” but stopped short of calling it fraudulent and pushed for the GOP to look toward the future.

Lake now faces the daunting task of uniting the Republican Party after a bruising primary. On Wednesday, as Lake declared victory prematurely, she attempted to reach out to Robson and others she fiercely criticized as RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only, who don’t align with Trump on key issues.

“Frankly, this party needs her to come together, and I welcome her,” Lake said of Robson. “And I hope that she will come over for this.”

Robson said she’s spent her life supporting Republicans, “and it is my hope that our Republican nominees are successful in November.”

Like Trump, Lake courts controversy and confrontation. She berates journalists and dodges questions. She burned masks during the COVID-19 surge in the summer of 2021 and attacked Republicans like Ducey who allowed restrictions on businesses, though as a news anchor she encouraged people to follow public health guidance.

Lake spent the days leading up to her own election claiming there were signs of fraud, but she refused to provide any evidence. Once her victory for her was assured, she said voters should trust her win for her is legitimate.

“We outvoted the fraud,” Lake said. She pointed to problems in Pinal County, which ran out of ballots in some precincts and had to print more, but she and her attorney, Tim La Sota, refused to provide evidence backing up her claims of fraud.

She said she has no plans to stop talking about election fraud even as she needs to broaden her appeal beyond the loyalists her powered her primary victory.

Federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the 2020 election was tainted. Trump’s allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by courts, including by judges he appointed. A hand recount led by Trump supporters in Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest, found no proof of a stolen election and concluded Biden’s margin of victory was larger than the official count.

Hobbs, Lake’s opponent in November, went after the candidate over her opposition to abortion rights and gun control and a proposal she floated to put cameras in every classroom to keep an eye on teachers.

Republicans, moving toward November as a divided party in Arizona, need to make an appeal to the independent voters who decide to close races, said Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Republican strategist who left the party during the Trump era.

“I see it as a challenge the Republicans are going to have: How do they narrate to unaffiliated voters?” Coughlin said.

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Kari Lake will win GOP nomination for Arizona governor, CNN projects

Kari Lake will win GOP nomination for Arizona governor, CNN projects

Her victory makes her the fourth Republican who has pushed Trump’s election lies to win a major nomination in Arizona, after CNN’s projections earlier this week for US Senate, secretary of state and attorney general.

Lake, who was endorsed by Trump, will defeat Karrin Taylor Robson, a former member of the state Board of Regents and the establishment GOP favorite, who was supported by outgoing Gov. Doug Ducey and former Vice President Mike Pence.

The race in its closing days turned into a proxy battle in the tug-of-war between Trump and Pence over the direction of the Republican Party, with Trump visiting Arizona to campaign for Lake and a slate of election deniers he had endorsed for statewide office and Pence campaigning alongside Robson.

Lake has made lies about election fraud the centerpiece of her campaign — an approach likely to continue in a November general election matchup against Democratic nominee Katie Hobbs, the secretary of state who has defended Arizona’s 2020 presidential results and its largely mail-in voting system .

Hours before polls closed, Lake had already declared to reporters that either she would win or the outcome would be fraudulent.

“If we don’t win, there’s some cheating going on. And we already know that,” she said Tuesday.

In Arizona’s other top races, Blake Masters, the onetime venture capitalist, will secure the Republican nomination for US Senate, while Arizona Republicans have chosen state Rep. Mark Finchem, an election denier, as their nominee to take the helm of the state’s election machinery , CNN projects. And in the attorney general’s race, Trump’s preferred candidate, election denier Abraham Hamadeh, won the Republican nomination, CNN also projects.

Masters will face Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who was unopposed in his primary Tuesday, in what’s expected to be one of the nation’s most competitive, and expensive, midterm match-ups, with control of the 50-50 Senate on the line.

Masters was chief operating officer of GOP meganor Peter Thiel’s investment firm, and his campaign was backed by more than $15 million in spending by Thiel.

Masters, who has spread lies about the results of the 2020 election and accused Democrats of trying to “change the demographics” of the country, defeated businessman Jim Lamon and Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, among others, in the GOP primary Tuesday.

Finchem is aiming to be the chief elections officer in a state that conducts its voting largely by mail and has been the target of a series of conspiracy theories advanced by Trump and his allies, who falsely allege that the 2020 election was stolen from the former President . The Arizona secretary of state is the state’s second-highest executive elected official and first in line to succeed the governor, as the state does not have a lieutenant governor.

Finchem was a member of the far-right “Oath Keepers” in 2014 and was an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” movement spurred by Trump’s lies about election fraud.

Finchem has said the state legislature should be able to overturn the will of voters in presidential elections — a position that, if embraced by Republicans after November’s election, could lead to a crisis in the 2024 election in one of the nation’s most competitive battleground states. .

He’ll face Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, in the fall.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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Democrats say they’ve reached agreement on economic package

Democrats say they've reached agreement on economic package

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats have agreed to eleventh-hour changes to their marquee economic legislation, they announced late Thursday, clearing the major impediment to pushing one of President Joe Biden’s paramount election-year priorities through the chamber in coming days.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., a centrist seen as the pivotal vote in the 50-50 chamber, said in a statement that she had agreed to revamp some of the measure’s tax and energy provisions and was ready to “move forward” on the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., said he believed his party’s energy, environment, health and tax compromise “will receive the support of the entire” Democratic membership of the chamber. His party needs unanimity and Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote to move the measure through the Senate over certain solid opposition from Republicans, who say the plan’s tax increases and spending would worsen inflation and damage the economy.

The announcement came as a surprise, with some expecting talks between Schumer and the mercurial Sinema to drag on for days longer without guarantee of success. Schumer has said he wants the Senate to begin voting on the legislation Saturday, after which it would begin its summer recess. Passage by the House, which Democrats control narrowly, could come when that chamber returns briefly to Washington next week.

Democrats revealed few details of their compromise, and other hurdles remained. Still, final congressional approval would complete an astounding resurrection of Biden’s wide-ranging domestic goalsthough in a more modest way.

Democratic infighting had embarrassed Biden and forced him to stop down a far larger and more ambitious $3.5 trillion, 10-year version, and then a $2 trillion alternative, leaving the effort all but dead. Instead, Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin, the conservative maverick Democrat from West Virginia who derailed Biden’s earlier efforts, unexpectedly negotiated the slimmer package two weeks ago.

Its approval would let Democrats appeal to voters by boasting they are moving to reduce inflation — though analysts say that impact would be minor — address climate change and increase US energy security.

“Tonight, we’ve taken another critical step toward reducing inflation and the cost of living for America’s families,” Biden said in a statement.

Sinema said Democrats had agreed to remove a provision raising taxes on “carried interest,” or profits that go to executives of private equity firms. That’s been a proposal she has long opposed, though it is a favorite of Manchin and many progressives.

The carried interest provision was estimated to produce $13 billion for the government over the coming decade, a small portion of the measure’s $739 billion in total revenue.

It will be replaced by a new excise tax on stock buybacks which will bring in more revenue than that, said one Democrat familiar with the agreement. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the deal publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, provided no other detail.

Sinema said she had also agreed to unspecified provisions to “protect advanced manufacturing and boost our clean energy economy.”

She noted that Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough is still reviewing the measure to make sure no provisions must be removed for violating the chamber’s procedures. “Subject to the parliamentarian’s review, I’ll move forward,” Sinema said.

The measure must adhere to those rules for Democrats to use procedures that will prevent Republicans from mounting filibusters, delays that require 60 votes to halt.

Schumer said the measure retained the bill’s language on prescription drug pricing, climate change, “closing tax loopholes exploited by big corporations and the wealthy” and reducing federal deficits.

He said the bill “addressed a number of important issues” that Democratic senators raised during talks. He said the final measure “will reflect this work and put us one step closer to enacting this historic legislation into law.”

Left unclear was whether changes had been made to the bill’s 15% minimum corporate tax, a provision Sinema has been interested in revising. It would raise an estimated $313 billion, making it the legislation’s largest revenue raiser.

That levy, which would apply to around 150 corporations with income exceeding $1 billion, has been strongly opposed by business, including by groups from Sinema’s Arizona.

The final measure was expected to include assistance that Sinema and other Western senators have been trying to add to help their states cope with epic drought and wildfires that have become commonplace. Those lawmakers have been seeking around $5 billion but it was unclear what the final language would do, said a Democrat following the bargaining who would describe the effort only on condition of anonymity.

The measure will also have to withstand a “vote-a-rama,” a torrent of nonstop amendments expected to last well into the weekend, if not beyond. Republicans want to kill as much of the bill as possible, either with the parliamentarian’s rulings or amendments.

Even if their amendments lose — as is certain for most — Republicans will consider it mission accomplished if they force Democrats to take risky campaign-season votes on touchy issues like taxes, inflation and immigration.

Democratic amendments are expected as well. Progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has said he wants to make his health care provisions stronger.

The overall bill would raise $739 billion in revenue. That would come from tax boosts on high earners and some huge corporations, beefed-up IRS tax collections and curbs on drug prices, which would save money for the government and patients.

It would spend much of that on initiatives helping clean energy, fossil fuels and health care, including helping some people buy private health insurance. That would still leave over $300 billion in the measure for deficit reduction.

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Orban addresses conservative confab in Texas, setting the stage for Trump speech this weekend

Orban addresses conservative confab in Texas, setting the stage for Trump speech this weekend

The right-wing European leader hit guaranteed applause lines — including telling the Texas crowd that “Hungary is the Lone Star State of Europe” — and criticizing liberals, the news media and the Democratic Party.

Trump, who is weighing when to announce his expected third run for the Republican presidential nomination, will give the final speech of the multiday CPAC Texas, an offshoot of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. The confab began Thursday and is organized by the American Conservative Union.
Among the others slated to appear in Dallas are Republican elected officials and GOP candidates in the upcoming midterm elections.
CPAC and its organizers remain friendly to Trump, and the conservative activist attendees have been overwhelmingly supportive of his political future. He has easily won the informal straw polls held at events like this since leaving office, including at the 2022 CPAC in February and the 2021 CPAC Texas last summer.
Yet Trump’s speech comes as his position within the broader GOP is strong but slightly diminished. Months of uneven results for his preferred candidates in Republican primaries have shown small cracks in his otherwise overwhelming loyalty among GOP voters. And the summer’s televised hearings by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol have highlighted the public case against Trump’s actions ahead and during the riot.
Since then, Trump has seen others emerge as potential rivals for the Republican nomination in 2024 — including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence.
Neither DeSantis nor Pence will be speaking this week, but other potential GOP candidates for president are scheduled to appear, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who is running for a third term in November, and Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida.
Also appearing will be several Republican candidates on the ballot in the November midterms, including Senate nominee JD Vance of Ohio, gubernatorial candidates Kari Lake of Arizona and Tudor Dixon of Michigan, and House candidate Sarah Palin of Alaska — all of whom were endorsed by Trump.

Orban’s appeal to conservatives

Among the more controversial figures invited to speak at CPAC Texas is Orban, who has been embraced by elements of the American conservative movement in recent years.

The nationalist European leader has pushed forth restrictive immigration policies and clamped down on democratic institutions in Hungary while consolidating his own power.

In his Thursday afternoon address in Dallas, Orban argued that his nationalist agenda in Hungary aligns with the goals of the American conservative movement — sounding a lot like Trump.

“Progressive liberals didn’t want me to be here because they knew what I would tell you, because I am here to tell you that we should unite our forces,” Orban said.

Orban has also faced condemnation for remarks seen as racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic. Last month in Romania, Orban delivered a speech that a longtime aide denounced her as a “pure Nazi text” in her subsequent resignation letter.

While he largely stayed away from that sort of inflammatory rhetoric in Dallas, he did mock the criticism of him being racist and anti-Semitic. “A Christian politician cannot be racist,” Orban said.

Orban defended his 16-year tenure as prime minister, touting his hardline immigration policies and his calling his fight against democratic institutes part of a “culture war,” going after same-sex marriage and transgender rights.

Prompting the loudest standing ovation of his speech, Orban said: “To sum up: the mother is a woman, the father is a man, and leave our kids alone. Full stop, end of discussion.”

Orban’s nationalist rhetoric has won him some admirers among conservatives in the United States, including Trump, who met with Orban recently at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club. Trump endorsed Orban’s bid for another term earlier this year and has repeatedly praised the Hungarian leader — including during a 2019 visit to the White House.
Another fan of Orban’s is Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who traveled to the Central European country last year and anchored his show from Budapest. And earlier this year, Orban praised Carlson during a speech at CPAC Hungary, an event in Budapest co-sponsored by the ACU.

This headline and story have been updated with additional details.

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What Pro-Lifers Should Learn From Kansas

What Pro-Lifers Should Learn From Kansas

Peggy Noonan is an opinion columnist at the Wall Street Journal where her column, “Declarations,” has run since 2000.

She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2017. A political analyst for NBC News, she is the author of nine books on American politics, history and culture, from her most recent, “The Time of Our Lives,” to her first, “What I Saw at the Revolution.” She is one of ten historians and writers who contributed essays on the American presidency for the book, “Character Above All.” Noonan was a special assistant and speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. In 2010 she was given the Award for Media Excellence by the living recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor; the following year she was chosen as Columnist of the Year by The Week. She has been a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, and has taught in the history department at Yale University.

Before entering the Reagan White House, Noonan was a producer and writer at CBS News in New York, and an adjunct professor of Journalism at New York University. She was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up there, in Massapequa Park, Long Island, and in Rutherford, New Jersey. She is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University in Rutherford. She lives in New York City. In November, 2016 she was named one of the city’s Literary Lions by the New York Public Library.

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Autocratic Hungarian leader Orban hailed by US conservatives

Autocratic Hungarian leader Orban hailed by US conservatives

DALLAS (AP) — Hungary’s autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged cheering American conservatives on Thursday to “take back the institutions,” stick to hardline stances on gay rights and immigration and fight for the next US presidential election as a pivotal moment for their beliefs.

The exuberant cheers and standing ovations at the Conservative Political Action Conference for the far-right prime minister, who has been criticized for undermining his own country’s democratic institutions, demonstrated the growing embrace between Orban and Republicans in the US

I have mocked the media in this country and in Europe. And in a speech he titled “How We Fight,” Orban told the crowd gathered in a Dallas convention ballroom to focus now on the 2024 election, saying they had “two years to get ready,” though he endorsed no candidate or party.

“Victory will never be found by taking the path of least resistance,” he said during one of the keynote slots of the three-day CPAC event. “We must take back the institutions in Washington and Brussels. We must find friends and allies in one another.”

Referring to liberals, he said: “They hate me and slander me and my country, as they hate you and slander you for the America you stand for.”

His entrance drew a bigger welcome than the governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, received moments earlier on the same stage. From there, the cheers continued as Orban weaved through attacks on LGBTQ rights, boasted about reducing abortions in Hungary and celebrated hardline immigration measures back home.

Other speakers will include former President Donald Trump — who met with Orban earlier this week and will address the gathering on Saturday — Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Republican candidates fresh off GOP primary election victories Tuesday.

Orban’s visit to the US came amid backlash back home and in Europe over anti-migrant remarks in which he railed against Europe becoming a “mixed race” society. One of his closest associates compared his comments to Nazi rhetoric and resigned in protest. Orban told the crowd in Texas the media would portray him as a racist strongman and dismissed those who would call his government racist as “idiots.”

His invitation to CPAC reflects conservatives’ growing embrace of the Hungarian leader whose country has a single-party government. Orban is also considered the closest ally in the European Union to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday that President Joe Biden had no plans to speak with Orban while he’s in the US Asked if the administration had any concerns about CPAC inviting such a leader to speak at the high-profile conference, Kirby demurred .

“He’s coming at a private invitation,” Kirby said. “Mr. Orban and the CPAC, they can talk about his visit from him.”

Trump praised Orban, who has been prime minister for 12 years, after their meeting this week in Florida.

“Few people know as much about what is going on in the world today,” the former president said in a statement after the meeting.

To some attending the three-day conference, Orban is a model leader who makes an impression beyond Hungary because of his policies and personality.

They praised him for his border security measures and for providing financial subsidies to Hungarian women, which Orban has called an effort to counter Hungary’s population decline. Lilla Vessey, who moved to Dallas from Hungary with her husband, Ede, in the 1980s, said what she hears back in Hungary is that Orban is not anti-democratic.

“I don’t know how it happened that the conservatives kind of discovered him,” said Ede Vessey, 73. “He supports the traditional values. He supports the family.”

Scott Huber, who met Orban along with other CPAC attendees at a private event hours before the speech, said the prime minister expressed hope the US would “moderate a little bit from the far-left influences” in November’s midterm elections. The 67-year-old Pennsylvanian said he would not disagree with descriptions of Orban as autocratic and that he has upset democratic norms, but said he thought it would change in time.

As to why Orban is winning over so many conservatives, Huber noted Orban’s attacks on George Sorosthe American-Hungarian billionaire and philanthropist who is a staunch critic of Hungary’s government and a supporter of liberal causes.

“That’s why I was so interested in seeing him,” Huber said.

Through his communications office, Orban declined an interview request by The Associated Press prior to his speech in Dallas.

The AP and other international news organizations also were prohibited from covering a CPAC conference held in Budapest in May, the group’s first conference in Europe. During that gathering, Orban called Hungary “the bastion of conservative Christian values ​​in Europe” and urged conservatives in the US to defeat “the dominance of progressive liberals in public life.”

He has styled himself as a champion of what he calls “illiberal democracy.”

Orban served as prime minister of Hungary between 1998 and 2002, but it’s his record since taking office again in 2010 that has drawn controversy and raised concerns about Hungary sliding into authoritarian rule. He has depicted himself as a defender of European Christendom against Muslim migrants, progressives and the “LGBTQ lobby.”

Last year, his right-wing Fidesz party banned the depiction of homosexuality or sex reassignment in media targeting people under 18. Information on homosexuality also was forbidden in school sex education programs, or in films and advertisements accessible to minors.

Some of the biggest applauses during Orban’s speech came when he described Hungary’s family framework.

“To sum up, the mother is a woman, the father is a man, and leave our children alone, full stop,” he said.

Orban has consolidated power over the country’s judiciary and media, and his party has drawn legislative districts in a way that makes it very difficult for opposition parties to win seats — somewhat similar to partisan gerrymandering efforts for state legislative and congressional seats in the US That process currently favors Republicans because they control more of the state legislatures that create those boundaries.

Orban’s moves have led international political observers to label him as the face of a new wave of authoritarianism. The European Union has launched numerous legal proceedings against Hungary for breaking EU rules and is withholding billions in recovery funds and credit over violations of rule-of-law standards and insufficient anti-corruption safeguards.

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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

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Categories
Australia

Prime Minister, CMO confident COVID wave has peaked

Prime Minister, CMO confident COVID wave has peaked

Australia may have seen the worst of the third Omicron wave but the nation’s top doctor has warned we’re not out of the woods just yet.

A downturn in Australia’s seven-day rolling average and hospitalizations suggests the country could be nearing peak Covid-19 infections sooner than expected.

Speaking to reporters in Canberra, chief medical officer Paul Kelly said he was “increasingly confident” cases had peaked.

PM PRESSER
Camera IconChief medical officer Paul Kelly is cautiously optimistic about the current wave. NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage Credit: News Corp Australia

“The actual data that we’re seeing, particularly from hospital admissions, are decreasing in all states over the last… week support that,” he said.

But he said the current wave would not be the last, stressing the need for governments to plan accordingly.

It follows a virtual meeting of state and territory leaders to discuss the national response to the virus.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters he was “hopeful” the wave had reached its peak but warned against the threat of complacency.

“We know that last summer there was another spike and we shouldn’t be complacent about this issue,” he said.

In June, the Albanese government agreed to extend a 50-50 public hospital funding agreement for an additional three months amid concerns of the third Omicron wave.

But with cases peaking earlier than expected, Mr Albanese remained coy on if the states were pushing for another extension beyond September.

“The update that national cabinet received today, I’m pleased to say, is consistent with what was envisaged when we met… after I came back from PIF,” he said.

“Our funding arrangements and big decisions that were made by the national cabinet then in terms of those dates are consistent with the advice that we received.”

On Wednesday, the government fused to be tied down on a time frame on the release of modeling used to guide decision making.

“We don’t want to see an uncoordinated release of modeling that potentially contradicts modeling released by other jurisdictions,” Health Minister Mr Butler said.

The Health Department estimates there are more than 325,000 active cases nationally.

More than 4800 people are in hospital receiving treatment, with 162 in intensive care and 39 on ventilators.

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Categories
US

Dick Cheney calls Donald Trump a ‘coward’ in new ad supporting daughter’s reelection bid

Dick Cheney calls Donald Trump a 'coward' in new ad supporting daughter's reelection bid

“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” the former vice president says in the 60-second spot released Thursday. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him.”

“He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election and he lost big. I know it, he knows it and, deep down, I think most Republicans know it,” Cheney says.

He goes on to say he “proudly voted” for his daughter, who is the vice chair of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection. “There is nothing more important she will ever do than lead the effort to make sure Donald Trump is never again near the Oval Office.”

Though Cheney has occasionally criticized Trump and his administration’s policies, the new ad underscores his deep opposition to the former President, who has made defeating Liz Cheney a top political priority after she voted to impeach him last year and has remained a vocal critic.
Trump has endorsed Harriet Hageman in the August 16 primary, who’s one of four challengers taking on the three-term congresswoman for the nomination for the at-large House seat. Her rivals of her have attacked Cheney over her role as one of two Republicans on the January 6 panel, and have dismissed that probe’s importance of her.

Like Trump, Hageman has made false claims about the 2020 election, citing the “2000 Mules” film that peddles conspiracy theories about ballot drop boxes and “Zuckerberg money” — a reference to donations from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan , through a nonprofit to help local election officials navigate the coronavirus pandemic.

CNN’s Eric Bradner and David Wright contributed to this report.

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