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14:42
Michael Wolff to release third Trump book
Michael Wolff’s third book about Donald Trump, focusing on the final days of his presidency, will be published in July under a provocative title: Landslide.
Trump lost to Joe Biden by more than 7m ballots in the popular vote and by 306-232 in the electoral college – a result he called a landslide when it was in his favour against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
On Thursday, publisher Henry Holt said Wolff’s book would focus on Trump’s “tumultuous last months at the helm of the country”.
Out on 27 July, the book is based on what the publisher called “extraordinary access to White House aides and to the former president himself, yielding a wealth of new information and insights about what really happened inside the highest office in the land, and the world”.
Trump has claimed to be writing “the book of all books” himself. In a statement last week, he claimed he had “turned down two book deals, from the most unlikely of publishers”.
Multiple top publishers subsequently told Politico they would not touch a Trump memoir with, to reach for a technical term, a bargepole.
News of Wolff’s return to the lucrative world of the Trump book prompted widespread comment.
Jane Mayer
(@JaneMayerNYer)Thanks @MichaelWolff for recycling the title of my first best-seller (with fabulous Doyle McManus) Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988. The original revealed secrets inside Reagan’s White House: https://t.co/ftffVQUruB via @amazon
Wolff’s first White House tell-all, Fire & Fury, set off a bomb under Trump’s White House – when the Guardian broke news of its contents.
His second, Siege, set off a bomb under Wolff – when the Guardian broke news of its contents, including what Wolff said was a three-count indictment of the president drawn up by Robert Mueller’s team, but which the special counsel strenuously denied.
Full story:
13:52
Affordable Care Act ‘is here to stay’, says Obama
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Barack Obama has tweeted in celebration of yet another upholding by the US supreme court of his signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act, which even the former president also came to call Obamacare.
The 44th Potus said of the decision this morning, with the 7-2 vote on the bench: “This ruling reaffirms what we have long known to be true: The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.”
Barack Obama
(@BarackObama)Today, the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act. Again. This ruling reaffirms what we have long known to be true: the Affordable Care Act is here to stay.
Obama added on another post: “Now we need to build on the Affordable Care Act and continue to strengthen and expand it. That’s what @POTUS Biden has done through the American Rescue Plan, giving more families the peace of mind they deserve.
Barack Obama
(@BarackObama)Now we need to build on the Affordable Care Act and continue to strengthen and expand it. That’s what @POTUS Biden has done through the American Rescue Plan, giving more families the peace of mind they deserve.
He also promoted the current, extended sign-up period in another tweet.
Updated
13:32
McConnell snubs Manchin compromise on voting rights legislation
The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has said he opposes a compromise version of voting rights legislation offered by Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who has infuriated the left of his party with his obdurate opposition to full reform.
House Democrats passed the For the People Act, a wide-ranging package of federal voting rights reforms, in answer to laws passed in the states by Republicans seeking to restrict voting among communities more likely to vote Democratic and to make it easier to overturn election results.
But Manchin opposes it and also reform to the filibuster, by which the Senate minority can block the will of the majority, which would undoubtedly be necessary to pass it in an upper chamber split 50-50 and therefore controlled through the vote of Vice-President Kamala Harris.
“Senate Democrats seem to have reached a so-called ‘compromise’ election takeover among themselves,” McConnell said on Thursday. “In reality, the plan endorsed by Stacey Abrams is no compromise.”
Manchin’s compromise, revealed on Wednesday and indeed endorsed by Abrams, the voting rights campaigner who ran for governor in Georgia in 2018, includes outlawing partisan gerrymandering, making election day a public holiday, offering 15 days of early voting in federal elections, establishing automatic voter registration and requiring some forms of voter ID. He also proposes to scale back campaign finance reforms.
McConnell’s opposition was of course no surprise. The Kentucky senator said the compromise “still subverts the first amendment to supercharge cancel culture and the left’s name-and-shame campaign model. It takes redistricting away from state legislatures and hands it over to computers.
“And it still retains [the For the People Act’s] rotten core: an assault on the fundamental idea that states, not the federal government, should decide how to run their own elections.”
Here’s more on Manchin:
Updated
13:11
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The US is one of the only developed nations without universal health coverage. The supreme court’s decision on Obamacare prevented Republicans from upending health insurance and consumer protections for hundreds of millions of Americans, but still leaves roughly 29 million people uninsured and subject to the whims of the world’s most expensive healthcare system.
Conservatives largely avoided commenting on the ACA victory except to note Justice Amy Coney Barrett, considered part of the court’s conservative wing, voted to uphold the law. In her confirmation hearing, Democrats had argued she would overturn the ACA given the chance.
The ACA was former President Barack Obama’s signature legislature achievement and the most sweeping health reform law in generations. Its 2010 passage heralded nearly a decade of anti-Obamacare rhetoric from the right.
However, when Republicans finally held the White House and majorities in Congress during the Trump era, they failed to repeal the law. Controversy over ending protections for the sick, healthcare for the poor and consumer protections for all Americans proved too controversial to overcome, and their efforts failed in a dramatic vote.
12:53
The supreme court upheld the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, in a 7-2 decision that ended with the justices agreeing Republican states did not have the right, or “standing”, to sue.
Supporters of Obamacare, from health plans to advocacy groups to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, quickly heralded the court’s decision, calling the law a “lifeline” in a “devastating” pandemic.
“Today, the court ensured that the ACA will continue to be a critical lifeline for the people most in need by rejecting yet another frivolous challenge,” said Lambda Legal senior attorney and healthcare strategist Omar Gonzalez-Pagan. Lambda is a civil rights group which focuses on the LBGTQ community.
Lambda Legal
(@LambdaLegal)VICTORY! Today the Supreme Court reaffirmed what we’ve been saying for more than a decade: The ACA is here to stay. ???????????? https://t.co/UXX5IWQK4n
Pelosi said the ruling is, “a landmark victory for Democrats’ work to defend protections for people with pre-existing conditions against Republicans’ relentless efforts to dismantle them.” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats now plan to make the ACA, “bigger and better”.
However, even as relief was palpable, the law was notably criticized from the left. The change shows how American politics have shifted since the ACA’s passage in 2010. The ACA alone, said Senator Bernie Sanders, “not enough”.
“Health care is a human right, not a privilege,” said Sanders. “We must join other major countries in guaranteeing health care for all and pass Medicare for All.” Medicare for All would extend the benefits of the single-payer public health insurance program Medicare, which is provided to all Americans older than 65, to the rest of the public.
11:19
The US supreme court has upheld the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, after Republicans attempted to gut an important provision of the law during the Trump era.
In a 7-2 decision, the court ruled Republican states ultimately did not have “standing” or the right to sue. The ruling avoided the issue of whether the tax provision of the law called the “individual mandate”, and therefore the entire law, was unconstitutional.
The ACA was the most important health reform law in generations and was Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement during his time in the White House. However, the provision over which Republican states sued, the individual mandate, has long been a sore spot for many Americans.
Supporters of Obamacare, from health insurance plans to advocacy groups to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, quickly heralded the court’s decision as preserving a “lifeline” in a “devastating” pandemic.
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