Mike Johnson denies collaborating with Democrats to defeat attempt to remove him – as it happened

Democrats may have just saved Republican speaker Mike Johnson from an attempt by rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to remove him from his post as the chamber’s leader. House Democratic leaders say they will oppose Greene’s motion, should she put it up for a vote, prompting Greene to accuse Johnson of making a “slimy back room deal” with the opposition (though it was unclear if her effort ever had much support). Johnson, for his part, denied any collaboration with Democrats, whose position was an about-face from the one they took last year, when they were more than happy to lend their votes to the GOP insurgents who ousted Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s chair. Johnson was meanwhile busy decrying anti-Israel protesters on college campuses, while announcing a wave of investigations, including a hearing next month with officials from three major universities, and scrutiny of federal research funding.

Here’s what else happened today:

• The Biden administration is reportedly set to approve classifying marijuana as a less-dangerous drug, but advocates say it will not resolve the many conflicts between state and federal laws over the substance.

• Donald Trump was fined $9,000 for violating a gag order imposed by the judge in his trial in New York on charges related to falsifying business documents.

• Trump also gave an interview to Time, where he outlined the extreme rightwing agenda he would pursue, if he returned to the White House.

• Defense secretary Lloyd Austin was not immune to the protest wave, as a sign-wielding demonstrator interrupted his testimony to Congress.

• Why are anti-Israel protesters on college campuses wearing masks? The answer is here.

The Senate’s Democratic majority leader Chuck Schumer applauded reports that the Biden administration would approve moving marijuana to a less-dangerous category of drug, but said he would continue to advocate for removing it from the restrictive Controlled Substances Act.

“While this rescheduling announcement is a historic step forward, I remain strongly committed to continuing to work on legislation like the SAFER Banking Act as well as the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, which federally deschedules cannabis by removing it from the Controlled Substances Act,” said Schumer. The SAFER Banking Act is a stalled bill that would allow cannabis businesses access to banking services.

“Congress must do everything we can to end the federal prohibition on cannabis and address longstanding harms caused by the War on Drugs.”

The Biden administration is expected to reclassify marijuana as a less-dangerous drug, the Associated Press reports, but cannabis policy advocates warn the decision will not resolve the many conflicts between the federal government and states that have decriminalized its use.

Citing sources, the AP reports that the Drug Enforcement Administration has approved moving marijuana to schedule III from schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act in response to a request made by Joe Biden in 2022 to review how the drug is regulated. The decision does not mean that marijuana is legal for recreational use nationwide, but will signal that the federal government regards it as less dangerous that other schedule I drugs, such as heroin and ecstasy.

However, dozens of states have approved marijuana’s use for medical purposes, and a smaller group of states allow it to be sold and used recreationally. Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (Norml), said the Biden administration’s impending decision, which still must be approved by the White House, will not resolve conflicts between these states’ laws and those of the federal government – which currently prohibits marijuana’s transportation across state lines, and greatly complicates the cannabis industry’s ability to access banking services.

“The goal of any federal cannabis policy reform ought to be to address the existing, untenable divide between federal marijuana policy and the cannabis laws of the majority of US states,” Armentano said in a statement.

“Rescheduling the cannabis plant to Schedule III fails to adequately address this conflict, as existing state legalization laws – both adult use and medical – will continue to be in conflict with federal regulations, thereby perpetuating the existing divide between state and federal marijuana policies.”

The Biden administration’s decision was a long time coming. Here’s more on what it may mean:

One defining feature of the campus protests against Israel and its invasion of Gaza has been the prevalence of masks and other face coverings among protesters. The Guardian’s Nick Robins-Early reports that there is a reason for that:

As demonstrations over the war in Gaza have surged on campuses, around cities and in offices across the US in recent weeks, a visible tension has emerged between the desire for public protest and a fear of professional reprisals.

On the Columbia University campus, where the latest spike in protests began on 17 April, demonstrators have worn masks and used blankets to block counter-protesters from filming students. Protesters at a tent encampment at the University of Michigan handed out masks upon entry, and students there refused to give reporters their full names in case the school took punitive action against them. At Harvard, the Palestine Solidarity Committee told the Guardian they had suspended doing press interviews out of regard for student safety.

Concerns over retaliation and harassment have permeated the protests, as an intense and organized effort to bring down personal and professional repercussions on demonstrators has played out online. Counter-protesters and pro-Israel activist groups have attempted to post demonstrators’ faces and personal information to intimidate them, an act known as doxing, and demanded that pro-Palestinian protesters remove their masks at rallies. The professional threat is not theoretical: employers have terminated workers over their comments about the Israel-Gaza war, and CEOs have demanded universities name protesters so as to blacklist them.

Mike Johnson and his Republican colleagues repeatedly criticized Columbia University’s administrators for not cracking down on student protesters. But plenty of other campuses are calling in the police, including one on California’s far northern coast. The Guardian’s Dani Anguiano reports what happened:

Police cracked down on a pro-Palestine demonstration at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, early on Tuesday morning, clearing two buildings that protesters had occupied since last week, arresting dozens of people and detaining at least one journalist.

The public university on California’s far north coast said in a statement early Tuesday that an operation by law enforcement, which included police from across the state, had “restored order” to the campus.

“This is a difficult day, it breaks my heart to see it, and truly nobody wanted to see things come to this,” Tom Jackson Jr, the Cal Poly Humboldt president, said in a statement.

Like other universities across the country, Cal Poly Humboldt was the site of major protests over the war in Gaza and the mounting civilian death toll. Students said they planned to hold a sit-in, but barricaded themselves in a university building using furniture, tents, chains and zip-ties as police arrived on campus.

Returning to the podium, speaker Mike Johnson said that after visiting Columbia University last week, he challenged Joe Biden to do the same.

“After we left the campus, I made a call to senior policy advisers in the White House. The president was on the road, as I was, and we did not connect immediately, but I’ve encouraged him to go and see it for himself,” said Johnson, who is by no means an ally of Biden’s, though they occasionally find common ground.

Here’s more on Johnson’s appearance at Columbia, where he attracted criticism for alleging that Hamas “backed” the protesters:

As chair of the House energy and commerce committee, Cathy McMorris Rodgers oversees federal research grants that universities receive, and said she would scrutinize universities hit by anti-Israel protests.

“We will be increasing our oversight of institutions that have received public funding and cracking down on those who are in violation of the Civil Rights Act,” McMorris Rodgers said.

The Washington congresswoman continued:

Imagine being a Jewish American, knowing that part of your hard-earned paycheck is going to fund antisemitic professors’ research while they threaten students and actively indoctrinate and radicalize the next generation.

Virginia Foxx, chair of the House education committee, said she will invite officials from the University of California, Los Angeles, University of Michigan and Yale University to appear for testimony on 23 May.

“As Republican leaders, we have a clear message for mealy mouthed spineless college leaders. Congress will not tolerate your dereliction of duty to your Jewish students. American universities are officially put on notice that we have come to take our universities back,” said Foxx, who represents North Carolina.

Officials from the three colleges will testify “on their handling of the these most recent outrages”, Foxx said, referring to the student protests.

Mike Johnson kept up his hardline rhetoric against anti-Israel protesters on college campuses, singling out demonstrators at Columbia University as “terrorist sympathizers” and vowing the House will investigate the protests nationwide.

Referring to the New York City-based university’s administrators, Johnson said, “What do they need to see before they stand up to these terrorist sympathizers? And that is exactly what they are.”

He blamed the Columbia demonstrators for inspiring similar protests nationwide:

What’s worse, though, is that Columbia’s choice to ignore the safety of their Jewish students and appease antisemites has inspired even more hateful protests to pop up across the country.

Without getting into specifics, he announced that House committees would open investigations into the protests:

We will not allow antisemitism to thrive on campus, and we will hold these universities accountable for their failure to protect Jewish students on campus. And that’s why today, we’re here to announce a House-wide effort to crack down on antisemitism on college campuses. Nearly every committee here has a role to play in these efforts to stop the madness that has ensued.

Speaker Mike Johnson and other top House Republicans are expected to in a few minutes announce their plans for a “crackdown on antisemitism” at universities nationwide, amid pro-Israel protests that have prompted school administrators to call in the police and suspend students.

Johnson has been aggressive in condemning these disruptions. He visited Columbia University last week – the site of one of the most intense protests – and alleged that Hamas “backed” the demonstrations, a remark that was criticized as baseless.

We’ll let you know what he has to say about the House’s next steps.

Democrats may have just saved Republican speaker Mike Johnson from an attempt by rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to remove him from his post as the chamber’s leader. House Democratic leaders say they will oppose Greene’s motion, should she put it up for a vote, prompting Greene to accuse Johnson of making a “slimy back room deal” with the opposition (though it was unclear if her effort ever had much support). Johnson, for his part, denied any collaboration with Democrats, whose position was an about-face from the one they took last year, when they were more than happy to lend their votes to the GOP insurgents who ousted Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s chair. Johnson is meanwhile busy preparing for a press conference we expect to begin in a few minutes, where he will announce a “crackdown on antisemitism” at college campuses, amid a wave of protests that have drawn condemnation from the White house.

Here’s what else is happening today:

• Donald Trump was fined $9,000 for violating a gag order imposed by the judge in his trial in New York on charges related to falsifying business documents.

• Trump also gave an interview to Time, where he outlined the extreme rightwing agenda he would pursue if returned to the White House.

• Defense secretary Lloyd Austin was not immune to the protest wave, as a sign-wielding demonstrator interrupted his testimony to Congress.

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Donald Trump told Time much about what he would have planned for a second term in the White House, which adds up to a far more extreme agenda than what he promised when elected in 2016.

Here’s a summary of it all, from the interview:

What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.

Time also managed to break a bit of news about Trump’s intentions beyond 2028. If elected in November, the constitution only allows him to serve one term, and he told the magazine that he has no plans “to overturn or ignore the constitution’s prohibition on a third term”.

Trump also signaled his support for the possibility that states hostile to abortion rights would attempt to monitor pregnant women.

In the interview with Time, Trump was asked if he believes “states should monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they’ve gotten an abortion after the ban?”.

Trump replied, in part: “I think they might do that. Again, you’ll have to speak to the individual states.”

Trump was then asked if he was personally comfortable with people being prosecuted for receiving abortions after a state-implemented ban.

He said:

The states are going to say. It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.

And by the way, Texas is going to be different than Ohio. And Ohio is going to be different than Michigan. I see what’s happening.

Read the full interview here.

Donald Trump has said that he is considering pardons for every person accused of attacking the US Capitol on 6 January if elected president in 2024, according to a new interview.

Trump told Time that he refers to those involved in the 2021 insurrection as “J-6 patriots”. When asked if he “would consider pardoning every one of them”, Trump said: “Yes, absolutely.”

Trump characterized those persecuted for their involvement in 6 January as being victims to a two-tier justice system.

Trump said:

It’s a two-tier system. Because when I look at Portland, when I look at Minneapolis, where they took over police precincts and everything else, and went after federal buildings, when I look at other situations that were violent, and where people were killed, nothing happened to them. Nothing happened to them. I think it’s a two-tier system of justice. I think it’s a very, very sad thing. And whether you like it or not, nobody died other than Ashli [Babbitt].

A pro-Palestine protester disrupted a US armed forces committee hearing where defence secretary Lloyd Austin was providing testimony.

As seen in video of the incident, Austin was speaking when a protester carrying a “let Gaza live” sign, stood up and said: “How can you talk about US leadership when you’re supporting genocide in Gaza?”

The protester added: “It is illegal. It is immoral. It is disgusting. The whole world is watching what we are doing in Gaza right now … Secretary general, you are supporting a genocide.”

The protester was removed by security.

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