House passes resolution officially condemning Trump's racist attack on congresswomen – as it happened

Reporting on the House resolution that just passed, Sabrina Siddiqui writes:

The measure, which formally rebuked the president’s comments as “racist”, was approved on a mostly partisan-line vote of 240 to 187.

The vote came days after Trump’s tweets about four newly elected Democratic lawmakers – Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan – sparked a widespread uproar. Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley and Tlaib were all born in the US, while Omar is a naturalized American citizen who arrived in the country at a young age as a Somali refugee.

“Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the president’s racist tweets,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said on the House floor.

“To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people.”

Here’s a video of the debate, as it happened:

Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris of California says she has also been told, “Go back to where you came from.”

And several other lawmakers have had the same racist trope lobbed at them. HuffPo asked dozens of lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, whether they’ve ever been told to “go back.”

Nearly every minority lawmaker said yes. Every white lawmaker said no.

“I’ve been told many times to ‘go back to China,’ even though I’m of Japanese descent, because people are prone to stereotypes,” Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) said. “Asian Americans, among other minority groups, often experience the feeling that they don’t belong in this country.”

“Way, way back when, somebody yelled that. Not lately,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). “However, the president seems to be resurrecting that.”

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) remembers hearing the taunt throughout his life, starting when he was a young boy.

“At the age of six, my family and I were in a mall, and these two old ladies next to my family and my three sisters said, ‘Go back to Mexico.’ I think I heard it all the time in high school from every kid who hated me,” he said. “I heard it when I was in the Marine Corps. I heard it when I left the Marine Corps. I heard it in Arizona. I can’t even count the times I’ve heard it.”

The Associated Press reports that the Nuclear Regulatory Agency is looking to decrease inspections at nuclear power plants.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is recommending that the agency cut back on inspections at the country’s nuclear reactors, a cost-cutting move promoted by the nuclear power industry but denounced by opponents as a threat to public safety.

The recommendations, made public Tuesday, include reducing the time and scope of annual inspections at the nation’s 90-plus nuclear power plants. Some other inspections would be cut from every two years to every three years...

The nuclear power industry has prodded regulators to cut inspections, saying the nuclear facilities are operating well and that the inspections are a financial burden for power providers.

Two lawsuits challenging Trump’s new asylum restrictions have been filed today. The latest was filed in DC federal court, by two immigration advocacy groups. The first, from earlier today, was filed by the ACLU.

Both lawsuits are challenging new rules from the Trump administration that would end asylum protections for almost all migrants who arrive at the US-Mexico border.

As The Guardian reported yesterday:

According to the new rules, any asylum seekers who pass through another country before arriving at the southern border – including children traveling on their own – will not be eligible for asylum if they failed to apply first in their country of transit. They would only be eligible for US asylum if their application was turned down elsewhere.

The change would affect the vast majority of migrants arriving through Mexico. Most of those currently come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, but an increasing number are from Haiti, Cuba and countries further afield in Africa and Asia.

As the House continues to debate a resolution condemning Trump’s racist comments, The Washington Post has published an op-ed from representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, about times people have told him, and still tell him to “Go back to China.”

I served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force and currently serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. Yet I still experience people telling me to “go back” to China or North Korea or Japan. Like many immigrants, I have learned to brush off this racist insult. I never thought the president of the United States would tell members of Congress to “go back” to another country

President Trump has often crossed the line of what constitutes decent behavior. But this time feels different, because he is now attacking legal immigration and U.S. citizenship. His statements on Sunday and since then imply that immigrants are somehow less loyal to our country, less American, and that we should “go back” or “leave” if we disagree with him.

Twenty years ago, I wrote an op-ed in The Post about what it was like to wear my Air Force uniform while people questioned my loyalty to the United States, all because of the color of my skin. I was in my Air Force blues when a woman asked if I was in the Chinese air force.

The suspicion that immigrants are not to be trusted or are unpatriotic is not just wrong, it is un-American. And dangerous.

The House antitrust committee has just completed its questioning of representatives from Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon in a hearing focused on competition — and anti-competitive behavior — in online marketplaces. The four companies spent much of their time claiming that they face fierce competition, to considerable skepticism from committee members.

Pramila Jayapal, a Democratic congresswoman who represents Amazon’s hometown of Seattle, drew quick blood with sharp questioning of Facebook and Amazon. She pressed Facebook’s director of public policy Matt Perault on whether the company had devoted resources to identifying promising startups and targeting them for acquisition – a charge Perault denied despite a very public record of Facebook engaging in this behavior. Facebook’s use of a VPN app called Onavo to collect data on rival apps and inform acquisitions such has WhatsApp has been widely reported. The company has also aggressively copied features by startups that have rejected acquisition, including Snapchat and Houseparty.

Jayapal also pressed Nate Sutton, Amazon’s associate general counsel for competition, on whether Amazon uses the data it controls on its platform to compete with third-party sellers when it makes its own private brand version of a product – another widely reported practice that Sutton nevertheless denied engaging in. Cicilline further pressed Sutton on the question, reminding the witness that he was under oath. “We use data to serve our customers,” Sutton said. “We don’t use individual seller data to directly compete with them.”

Amazon also faced sharp questioning over the various fees that it levies against sellers, and reports that third-party sellers are pressured to pay Amazon for advertising and fulfillment services in order to compete.

• This article was amended on 17 July 2019 to correct the last name of Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal.

And they voted to allow Pelosi to speak, and allow discussion of the Democrats’ resolution to condemn Trump’s comments to continue.

Democratic senator and presidential contender Elizabeth Warren who is not involved in the hubbub signaled support for Pelosi.

And the “Nays” have it. The House votes 190 to 232 against the motion to strike Pelosi’s words from the record. They are also voting on whether to allow Pelosi to speak for the rest of the day.

Matt Fuller of HuffPost explains:

Meanwhile, Rep. Al Green, a Democrat of Texas says he’s planning to file articles of impeachment against President Trump tonight.

As The Washington Post reports:

Green’s move will force House Democrats to deal with the issue in the near term. Under House rules, Democratic leadership can decide to try to table the impeachment articles, effectively killing them for now and risk criticism from the party’s liberal base; refer them to the House Judiciary Committee for possible consideration; or allow the vote to proceed.

If leaders do nothing, Green can force a vote on the impeachment articles in two legislative days.

The move comes as more than 80 members of the House have called for launching an impeachment inquiry. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has resisted, however, encouraging her chairmen to keep investigating the president.

The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to receive testimony from former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III next Wednesday.

Maanvi Singh, here, taking up the torch on the West Coast.

Members of the House are currently voting on whether to strike from the record House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s remarks calling out Trump’s racist comments. With this vote, members of Congress could essentially change parliamentary precedent stating that lawmakers may not refer to the president making “a bigoted or racist statement.”

Drama on the floor: Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat and senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, abandoned the chair as fighting continued over Pelosi’s comments on Trump’s racist tweets. “We don’t ever, ever want to pass up, it seems, an opportunity to escalate, and that’s what this is…we want to just fight,” Cleaver said. Dropping his gavel, he added, “I abandon the chair.”

But the House speaker is showing no signs of backing down. Asked by an NBC News reporter whether she would revise her remarks, Pelosi replied, “No, not at all.”

Senator Ted Cruz is firing questions at the Google “censorship” hearing before the judiciary committee.

Cruz is questioning whether Google engages in inappropriate censorship, “choosing whether to amplify people’s voices... choosing what they see and what they listen to.”

Karan Bhatia, veep for government affairs & public policy at Google, is defending what he describes as the company’s standards for hiding or elevating content.

You can watch here:

House members are still going back and forth about whether Nancy Pelosi should be forced to withdraw her remarks on Trump’s racist tweets because they were “unparliamentary.” The drawn-out debate means that the actual vote on the resolution to condemn the president’s comments will likely be pushed until later this evening.

Capitol Hill reporters versed in the minutiae of congressional decorum say the debate is centered on a rule barring “references to racial or other discrimination on the part of the President.” According to HuffPost’s Matt Fuller, if Pelosi does not withdraw her statement, the House may have to vote on the matter.

After Trump backed down last week from a demand that a citizenship question be included on the 2020 Census, administration lawyers have been working with plaintiffs who sued the government to block the attempted move.

The lawyers from both sides have informed a judge that they have reached an agreement that would lay the citizenship/2020 question to rest once and for all. The sides propose that the judge impose an order “permanently enjoining” attempts to add such a question to the 2020 census:

A Republican congressman from Texas releases a statement saying he “strongly disagree[s]” with Trump’s racist tweets – without using the word “racist”.

But Representative Ron Wright does say “when one becomes a citizen of this country, it no longer matters where they came from”:

And here once again to lend some moral clarity to the situation, Anthony Scaramucci

Here’s a bit of comic relief. A veteran congressman from New Jersey has taken an Onion spoof that he is angling for inclusion in the Ocasio-Cortez-Omar-Pressley-Tlaib “squad” and run with it:

Update: congratulations, congressman.

The House Judiciary Committee’s hearing with executives from Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple has been delayed an hour due to a vote. But the line to get a seat for what is guaranteed to be a grilling from lawmakers on whether the tech giants’ market dominance stifles competition already stretches all the way down a Capitol Hill hallway, per a reporter there.

Here’s some video of McConnell:

Mitt Romney summons a masterfully mild framework for Trump’s racist attack on members of congress: it’s a failure of the duty to unite, you see.

Lawyers for Roger Stone, the political... pirate?... and former Trump adviser, are in court this morning pleading against a government allegation that he has not complied with a gag order in discussing his case. Reuters has this:

[Judge Amy Berman] Jackson in February ordered Stone to stop speaking publicly about the case after he posted what appeared to be a threatening photo of her next to the image of gun crosshairs on his Instagram account.

In that hearing Stone tried to apologize, saying the posting was not intended as a threat.

But a visibly angry Jackson said his apology “rings quite hollow” and warned him he would not have a second chance if he failed to abide by her order.

As part of today’s hearing, Jackson is reading Stone’s instagram posts, reports Zoe Tillman of Buzzfeed:

The hearing is currently in recess.

Lawyers for accusers of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier facing two federal sex trafficking counts in New York, have urged a judge in the case not to grant Epstein’s request for release following a bail hearing on Thursday:

A lawyer for one of Epstein’s accusers has alleged that Epstein committed abuse while in custody following the Florida plea deal, meanwhile.

Read further:

The senate armed services committee is currently holding a confirmation hearing for Mark Esper, Donald Trump’s latest nominee to fill the secretary of defense post.

Trump’s previous nominee to replace General Jim Mattis, General Patrick Shanahan, withdrew his nomination in June amid a delayed FBI background check and revelations about past family troubles.

Esper is asked about his views on international allegiances. Does he agree more with Trump, who seems to hold traditional allies in low esteem, or Mattis, a defender of Nato and other post-World War II global political compacts?

“I am fully committed to building alliances,” Esper says:

Esper served briefly as acting defense secretary, then upon his formal nomination reverted to his previous role as army secretary.

How did that outing by the House Republican leadership go?

What did you make of the Republicans’ pained appeal just then for a return to civility?

Was McCarthy convincing in defending the president against charges of racism?

Here’s video of the moment when minority leader McCarthy is asked whether Trump’s tweets were racist:

McCarthy announces last question. He’s asked whether he agrees with Trump’s reported assessment of former House speaker Paul Ryan as “stupid.”

McCarthy says Ryan was a “great Speaker” and calls him a great friend. Then McCarthy suggests that the quote is made up.

They are done. They walk out to somebody saying “a question? On socialism?”

Those were the great themes of the conference: Socialism, impeachment, and a supposed clash of ideologies – as opposed to a clash of bigotries – that defines the current political showdown.

The strategy was to attack the four members of Congress who warned the public in a news conference yesterday “do not take the bait” – in a fight Republicans seem eager to escalate.

In any case, the Republican House leadership stands foursquare behind the president. Were the president’s tweets racist? A one-word answer: No.

“Let’s not be false about what is happening here today,” McCarthy says. “This is all about politics and beliefs about ideologies that people have.”

Then he gets a question about lifting an imminent debt ceiling (early September or sooner). “We should not leave before getting that,” he says.

First question from the media. Why can’t Congress pass comprehensive immigration reform?

McCarthy... blames the Democrats. With Donald Trump in office, the rock in the stream blocking immigration reform is the Democratic House majority.

“We should act,” McCarthy says. “The responsibility lies with us... we should make sure that we fix this problem.” Sounds promising.

Representative Steve Scalise now attacks Reps Omar and Pressley – though he does use the honorific, just their last names.

Scalise attacks the pair for having “personally attack[ed] president Trump instead of focusing on issues that help the economy.”

He accuses them of saying “false and misleading things from this microphone. Omar continues to use terms like ‘people drinking out of toilets’ – it’s not happening in any of the detention facilities.”

Those reports did not come from Omar exclusively of course, they are documented in multiple watchdog reports from Clint, Texas and elsewhere.

“Pressley would not even refer to the president by the title,” Scalise complains.

Republicans are lamenting an erosion of decorum, echoing Trump’s recent tweets complaining about the “racist” charge.

Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, is now speaking.

The House Republicans have emerged. Representative Liz Cheney (daughter of Dick) of Wyoming speaks first.

She makes a speech that basically asserts that “Go back to your country” is a policy critique.

She does not use the word racist but repeats and repeats the word “socialist” and attacks Democrats for supporting abortion rights and for wanting, she says, to “force the American people to pay for free healthcare for illegal immigrants.”

“Our opposition to our socialist colleagues has absolutely nothing to do with their gender, their religion or their race,” Cheney says.

“Our opposition... has absolutely nothing to do with race, or gender or religion,” she repeats. “The issue here is the content of their policies”.

“Go back to your country”: a policy critique.

In a few minutes we’re due to hear from the House Republican leadership: Reps. Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, Liz Cheney and Virginia Foxx.

Cardi B, the chart-topping, Grammy-decorated entertainer, is feeling the Bern:

Sanders as we speak is in a live chat with Washington Post reporter Robert Costa. He’s not letting his hosts off easy, zinging Jeff Bezos and the sponsors.