White House denies UN chief’s claim of ‘dysfunctional’ US-China relationship – live

Will he or won’t he?

After an unsuccessful run for Senate and then president of the United States, former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke may be making a run for governor, according to a new report in Axios.

Though a run is widely expected, O’Rourke has not confirmed his intentions publicly. Nevertheless, the Democratic Governors Association is raising speculation further by fundraising off the anonymously-sourced report that he will challenge the Republican governor Greg Abbott next year.

“No decision has been made,” David Wysong, O’Rourke’s former House chief of staff and a longtime adviser told Axios. “He has been making and receiving calls with people from all over the state.”

Since his presidential run, O’Rourke has become a prominent voting rights advocate and one of the leading opponents to a sweeping new Texas law that dramatically restricts ballot access. The state also recently passed one of the nation’s most extreme anti-abortion laws, which could help galvanize Democrats and independents in the state.

But the growing humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border has motivated conservatives in a state where Republicans still dominate even as changing demographics pave the way for a political shift.

Most Americans do not want the supreme court to overturn Roe v Wade, a Monmouth University poll found.

The survey also found that a majority of Americans disagree with the court’s decision to allow a Texas law severely restricting abortion access to go into effect, though there are clear ideological divisions.

Top line figures from the poll include:

• 62% of Americans say the supreme court should leave the 1973 Roe v Wade decision in place, while 31% want to see it revisited.
• 54% of Americans disagree with the supreme court decision allowing the Texas law to go into effect while 39% agree.
• 70% of Americans disapprove of a provision of the Texas law allowing private citizens to use lawsuits to enforce the abortion mandate.
• 81% of Americans disapprove of a provision that would award $10,000 to private citizens who successfully file lawsuits against those who perform or assist a woman with getting an abortion.

“The American public is largely pro-choice, although many would accept some limitations on abortion access,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. “This Texas law goes way too far for most people. The ‘bounty’ aspect in particular seems objectionable.”

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So much focus and attention is directed at Joe Manchin, the mercurial Senate Democrat who seems to hold the fate of Biden’s entire domestic agenda in his hands. But there’s another key player in this legislative drama: the Arizona senator, Kyrsten Sinema.

According to Politico, Sinema drove a hard bargain during her meeting with Biden last week, telling the president that she would not support his massive social policy bill if the House delays – or tanks – a vote on the infrastructure bill, scheduled for 27 September. Sinema, a first-term Senator who considers the late John McCain a political influence, played a central role in writing and building partisan support for the infrastructure bill.

Her position is shared by at least one moderate Democrat in the House, Oregon congressman Kurt Schrader, who told Politico: “If they delay the vote – or it goes down – then I think you can kiss reconciliation goodbye. Reconciliation would be dead.”

This is all part of the very complex legislative dance happening publicly and privately on Capitol Hill this week as Democrats try to steer Biden’s sprawling, two-part economic agenda through both chambers of Congress.

Bracketing the terms of debate is an agreement House Speaker Nancy Pelosi struck with moderates. In exchange for their support advancing a budget blueprint for the reconciliation bill, she promised a vote on the Senate-passed, bipartisan infrastructure bill on 27 September. But progressives say they have the votes to block that bill unless its paired with the larger spending bill. That bill, which is being negotiated with Senate Democrats as part of the special reconciliation process, almost certainly won’t be ready by next week.

So what happens? Does Pelosi delay the 27 September vote, as Majority Whip Jim Clyburn suggested is possible, and hope moderates blink? Does she bring the bill to the floor and hope that enough progressives take the “something is better than nothing” approach and vote for it?

All of this is happening as Congress faces a host of other legislative and fiscal deadlines that, if not met, could lead to a government shutdown and/or a debt default.

20 Sept 202110.42 EDT

Julian Borger

A state department official denied that the change in policy was an attempt to mollify Europe following the falling out between the US and France over the Australian submarine deal, which Washington negotiated without Paris’s knowledge, according to a fresh report from our world affairs editor, Julian Borger.

“This is really driven by the science of COVID and as more people are being vaccinated around the world, we of course want people to be able to travel more freely,” said Erica Barks-Ruggles, a senior official in the bureau of international organization affairs. “We’re really always being driven by the science, and we continue to do that.”

Barks-Ruggles made the remark during a briefing call with reporters on the coming week’s diplomacy at UN general assembly.

The news that the US was lifting travel restrictions for foreign travelers reportedly took British Prime Minister Boris Johnson by surprise.

Biden is due to meet with Johnson at the White House tomorrow, after the president’s appearance at the UN General Assembly. As part of their meeting, he was expected to push Biden to lift the travel ban, first implemented 18 months ago by the Trump administration to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

But on the plane yesterday, Johnson tempered expectations, telling reporters: “I’ve got to warn you, I don’t think this is going to be necessarily fixed this week.”

Responding on Twitter, Johnson said he was “delighted” by the announcement.

The US will lift Covid-19 travel restrictions to allow fully vaccinated passengers from the UK, EU, China, Brazil and several other countries to enter the country from November, the Biden administration announced on Monday.

The decision from the White House will mark the end of a travel ban imposed by Donald Trump more than 18 months ago in the early stages of the pandemic.

Under the current policy, only US citizens, members of their immediate families, green card holders and those with national interest exemptions (NIE) can travel into the US if they have been in the UK or EU in the previous two weeks.

The change of direction comes at the start of the UN General Assembly in New York and marks the culmination of weeks of intense diplomacy between Washington, London and Brussels. It also comes days after France recalled its ambassador to the US and Australia in protest over the administration’s decision to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.

The travel restrictions were increasingly a source of tension between the US and European leaders in particular, after the EU opened its doors to Americans months ago.

The Lincoln Project has questioned if the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, used political influence to pull a TV ad criticising his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to a statement issued on Sunday, the group, formed by anti-Trump Republicans, was told the ad, Abbott’s Wall, was being pulled just 10 minutes before it was due to air on ESPN during a nationally televised football game between the University of Texas and Rice University on Saturday night.

The 60-second slot, which the Lincoln Project said cost $25,000 and was approved by ESPN lawyers, blames the Republican governor for more than 60,000 Covid deaths in the state, against a backdrop of images of the US southern border wall.

“If Governor Abbott wants to build a new wall, tell him to stop building this one,” the message says, showing a wall constructed from coffins.

Wood from caskets of all the Covid-19 victims in Texas would stretch 85 miles, the ad claims. It remains watchable on YouTube.

“We were told it was a ‘university-made decision’” to pull the ad, the Lincoln Project said in a press release. “Did Greg Abbott or his allies assert political influence to ensure the advertisement was not broadcast?”

Abbott and the University of Texas did not immediately comment.

20 Sept 202110.02 EDT

Martin Pengelly

NBC News reports that nearly 900 state legislators from 45 states have filed a brief with the supreme court, asking it to reject a 15-week abortion ban enacted by Mississippi and thereby uphold Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling guaranteeing the right to an abortion.

The issue is front and centre at the moment, after the court allowed to stand a Texas law which outlaws abortion after six weeks and allows private citizens to sue providers and those who help them.

The court is now dominated 6-3 by conservatives, and whatever justices from either side of the aisle (Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer) ritualistically claim to the contrary, that imbalance is shaping its view of abortion rights. For progressives, not to the good.

Of the 897 state legislators who signed the brief, NBC reported, 895 were Democrats and two independents. The only states not to provide at least one signatory were Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Wyoming.

Here’s more, on a remarkable and moving intervention in the abortion debate this weekend – from a doctor in Texas:

In news sure to be welcomed by parents across the US, Pfizer and BioNTech said this morning children aged five to 11 are on track to receive the two companies’ Covid-19 vaccination by Halloween.

Albert Bourla, chairman and chief executive officer of Pfizer, hailed “the first results from a pivotal trial of a Covid-19 vaccine in this age group”.

If the regulatory process proceeds as it has for older age groups, authorisation for use would be expected by the end of October. Earlier this month, FDA chief, Dr Peter Marks, told the Associated Press that once Pfizer turned over results, his agency would evaluate the data “hopefully in a matter of weeks”.

Pfizer and BioNTech said European and British authorities would also be asked for emergency authorisation.

…and welcome to our coverage of the day in US politics.

It might not be a very good day for Democrats in Washington, from Joe Biden in the White House down to leaders, at least, in the House and the Senate. It will at least be a very busy one.

On Sunday night, the Senate parliamentarian delivered a blow to progressives in the party when she said they could not include a path to citizenship for undocumented migrants in the gargantuan spending bill they are hoping to pass via reconciliation, meaning by majority alone in the Senate. Majority leader Chuck Schumer indicated he would have another think.

Furthermore, efforts to keep the party together on that $3.5tn spending package, difficult at the best of times, seem to be fraying quite badly. Senior party figures have indicated a promised House vote on a bipartisan infrastructure deal meant to be paired with the spending bill might be delayed. That would anger progressives, while moderates continue to feel queasy about the bigger spending package.

In the Senate, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, two key moderates in a chamber split 50-50, have doubts about the spending bill and have reportedly voiced them, Manchin to constituents and Sinema to Biden, in the Oval Office.

On top of all that, there are 10 days left to sort out government funding and avoid a shutdown, while in the Senate the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, is refusing to play ball on raising the debt limit, which the US must soon do. That’s rather unprecedented but McConnell is gonna McConnell – the author of a memoir called The Long Game has his eye on the midterms in 2022, as well as beating back/appeasing the Trumpist wave in his own party and keeping hold of the reins.

In the midst of all this, Joe Biden is due to fly to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, with questions about the rise of China, the withdrawal from Afghanistan and of course much more buzzing around the big modern building on the banks of the rolling East River.

Expect a busy day. Here to set you up is Lauren Gambino’s excellent primer on what all the machinations in Congress might mean for Biden’s legacy and the Democrats’ hold on power: