List of All Articles with Tag 'america'

Democratic presidential candidate and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F Kennedy Jr said during a Twitter Spaces event on Monday that he would not take away people’s guns as a solution to reducing mass shootings and instead pointed the finger at pharmaceutical drugs. “My position on the gun control is I’m not going to take away anybody’s guns,” Mr Kennedy, 69, said in response to a listener-submitted question about gun control while speaking about his political platform with Elon Musk and venture capitalist David Sacks. “I’m a constitutional absolutist. We can argue about whether the Second Amendment was intended to protect guns. That argument has now been settled by the Supreme Court.” Instead, Mr Kennedy made unfounded claims that psychiatric drugs are linked to mass shootings, “There’s something happening in our country right now that is not happening anywhere, that has never happened in human history,” he said. “Guns, the proliferation, clearly, abets violence, but anybody who tells you that they can remove enough guns, AR-15s, by tinkering at the margins and get to the situation they have in western Europe is puling your leg,” he added. “It’s not going to happen.” According to researchers, there’s no evidence for a link between pharmaceutical drugs and mass shootings. Over 10 per cent of the US population takes anti-depressants, and experts say if such medicines were linked to violence, one would expect to see more shootings, and more shootings committed by groups who are prescribed the treatments at a higher rate. "If there was a connection or link, one would expect it to be pronounced, or at least much greater than we are seeing," Dr James Knoll, director of forensic psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University, told Politifact. "Why do we not see increased violence in women? People over 60?" In fact, according to a USA Today review of mass shootings, a minority of school shooters were prescribed medications. "I am unaware of any consistent, credible accounts that provide strong evidence regarding the prevalence of SSRI usage in cases involving school shootings or a causal relationship between SSRIs and school shootings," Daniel Mears, a professor of criminology at Florida State University, told the paper. Read More RFK Jr compares Elon Musk to American revolutionaries during conspiracy-driven Twitter event

Federal investigators have reportedly trained their attention on an employee at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, who, in the process of draining a swimming pool on the property last year, flooded a room where computer servers containing video surveillance logs were stored. According to reporting by CNN, investigators have asked at least one witness in the investigation into Mr Trump’s handling of classified documents about the flooding of the server room. It is as of yet unclear whether the room was flooded intentionally or on accident. Prosecutors have reportedly been told that the IT equipment in the room was not damaged during the flooding incident. The investigation into the conduct and intentions of Mar-a-Lago employees comes as investigators attempt to dechiper whether multiple people were involved a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice in the Justice Department’s probe into Mr Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving the presidency in early 2021. Mr Trump suggested earlier today on the social media platform Truth Social that he will likely be charged in the case. “HOW CAN DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT’S WERE CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WON’T BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING, INCLUDING THE FACT THAT HE HAS 1,850 BOXES, MUCH OF IT CLASSIFIED, AND SOME DATING BACK TO HIS SENATE DAY WHEN EVEN DEMOCRAT SENATORS ARE SHOCKED,” the former president wrote. The post, in which Mr Trump also claimed he was being treated unfairly because former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was not indicted for having emails with information later deemed to be classified stored on a private email service, came shortly after Mr Trump’s attorneys met with Department of Justice officials in Washington. Mr Trump is already facing a bevy of legal problems: he’s been indicted in New York for his role in an alleged hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the buildup to the 2016 election and is also being investigated for interfering in the 2020 election in Georgia. That investigation may also be expanding. Mr Trump is alsoa candidate for president again and has taken a sizeable lead in early polling of the Republican primary contest. His opponents, including recent entrant Gov Ron DeSantis, have yet to repeatedly attack Mr Trump over his legal problems — seemingly hesitant to align themselves with the prosecutors investigating the former president. The potential destruction of the server room may be of particular importance in the classified document investigation given that the FBI first subpoenaed the Trump Organization for Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage last summer prior to the much-publicised search of the property last August. Two Trump Organisation employees, Mr Trump’s body man Walt Nauta and a maintenance worker who helped Mr Nauta move classified documents prior to the FBI’s visit, have already attracted the attention of investigators for their conduct. According to CNN, the maintenance worker who helped move the documents is also the person who is believed to have drained the pool and flooded the server room. The Justice Department has said in court that it believes “government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room” prior to the agents’ search. Read More Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement Trump suggests he is about to be charged in Mar-a-Lago classified documents case Trump news - live: Ex-president’s furious Truth Social rant suggests charges are imminent in classified documents case

The White House said on Monday it wasn’t behind a Defense Department decision to cancel drag events at US military bases. Late last week, DoD announced that drag events, which have been performed at US military installations for decades, wouldn’t continue because they aren’t a “suitable use” of military resources. The Pentagon said in a statement that “certain criteria must be met for persons or organizations acting in nonfederal capacity.” Biden administration press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Monday at a press conference that the White House supports LGBTQ+ members of the military. “The Biden-Harris administration will celebrate LGBTQI plus service members’ contributions with pride across federal agencies, including at the Department of Defense,” she said. The Pentagon decision has already led to the cancellation of at least one planned drag show, a family-friendly event at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada featuring performer Coco Montrese, a former contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race. The base has hosted drag events in 2021 and 2022, planned by the facility’s Pride committee. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Monday on CNN canceling the events was the “absolute right thing to do” and said drag events “were never part of DOD policy to begin with and they’re certainly not funded by federal funds.” Capitol Hill Republicans questioned Mr Milley and other military leaders in March at a House Armed Services Committee hearing in March, and have since raised inquiries about potential funds going to such events. US military members have performed in drag at bases since at least World War I, including during the famed USO shows of WWII, according to the New York Times “Ensuring our ranks reflect the diversity of the American people is essential to morale and cohesion,” the Modern Military Association of America, a nonprofit representing LGBTQ+ servicemembers, told the paper. “It affects recruiting and retention of service members who do not feel welcome due to their sexual and gender identities.” Across the country, Republican-led legislatures have passed laws targeting drag shows, and drag events have been the subject of armed threats, part of a wider wave of GOP attacks on LGBTQ+ people. Read More David Furnish hits out at Ron DeSantis for ‘diabolically anti-Christian’ policies against LGBTQ+ people The Independent Pride List 2023: The LGBT+ people making change happen Tennessee drag ban is struck down by federal judge: ‘Unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad’

Donald Trump has accused his GOP presidential primary rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, of "blatantly" stealing a line from one of his speeches, despite the fact that the line dates back to former President Ronald Reagan. During Mr DeSantis's glitchy presidential bid announcement on Twitter, he invoked the phrase "Great American Comeback," which Mr Trump furiously claimed in a campaign statement that the governor stole from him. "I'm Ron DeSantis, and I'm running to lead the Great American Comeback," the Florida governor said. The phrase also served as the title of his official campaign video. Mr Trump's team took the opportunity to lash out at the former president's top rival in the Republican primary. “Amid a catastrophic failure to launch, Ron DeSantis announced his candidacy with ‘Great American Comeback,’ a phrase stolen from President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address,” the campaign statement said. “Perhaps, the DeSantis communications staff was pre-occupied attempting to extinguish the flames of their candidate’s announcement to come up with their own message.” The campaign statement included a side-by-side comparison between Mr Trump's 2020 State of the Union address and Mr DeSantis's launch video, according to Talking Points Memo. “Three years ago we launched the great American comeback. Tonight I stand before you to share the incredible results,” Mr Trump says in the clip. While the phrases are certainly identical, Mr Trump wasn't actually the first one to utter the words. The first widely known use of the phrase was by another former president — Ronald Reagan — during his 1986 State of the Union speech. Mr Reagan's speech — which had been delayed by the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster — included him boasting about the nation's economic growth and falling interest rates, which he chalked up to his policies. ”Family and community remain the moral core of our society, guardians of our values and hopes for the future,” Mr Reagan said. ”Family and community are the co-stars of this great American comeback.” Talking Points Memo found that the phrase became relatively common following the address, and was used when describing everything from tennis matches to rebounding reptile populations. Even within the realm of politics the phrase is not unique; House Speak Kevin McCarthy has used it numerous times, as has conservative pundit Monica Crowley. Mr DeSantis was also recently needled for clumsily invoking the spirit of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill while complaining about "woke" ideology. "I recognize that the woke mind virus represents a war on the truth, so we will wage a war on the woke. We will fight the woke in education, we will fight the woke in the corporations, we will fight the woke in the halls of Congress," Mr DeSantis said in a speech on Saturday. The syntax of the speech is similar to the famous speech Churchill made in 1940 to the UK's House of Commons to lift British spirits following the evacuation of Dunkirk during World War II. "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender," Churchill said. Critics, including former Barack Obama under secretary Richard Stengel, pointed out that Churchill was discussing battling against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, while Mr DeSantis is railing against pronouns and trans bathroom usage. "Churchill was fighting Nazism, an enemy bent on world domination, while DeSantis is fighting, well, empathy and compassion," Mr Stengel said. "Not the same." The Independent has reached out to both Mr Trump and Mr DeSantis for comment. Read More David Furnish hits out at Ron DeSantis for ‘diabolically anti-Christian’ policies against LGBTQ+ people Showtime pulls Vice episode probing Ron Desantis’s Guantanamo record despite campaign trail questions DeSantis defines ‘woke’ after Trump claimed ‘half the people can’t’ Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement

An Oklahoma school board has approved the creation of a publicly funded online Catholic school, teeing up a constitutional legal battle over whether taxpayers should foot the bill for religious schools. The nation’s first-ever religious charter school was approved by the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board on 5 June, authorising the St Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School to be run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa – and supported by taxpayer dollars. Republican Governor Kevin Stitt, who has presided over a sweeping agenda against abortion access and transgender healthcare in the state, called the vote “a win for religious liberty and education freedom in our great state.” “Oklahomans support religious liberty for all and support an increasingly innovative educational system that expands choice,” he said in a statement. “Today, with the nation watching, our state showed that we will not stand for religious discrimination.” Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which led opposition in a recent US Supreme Court case involving whether a high school football coach can effectively force his student athletes to pray with him on the field, is preparing to take legal action in Oklahoma. “It’s hard to think of a clearer violation of the religious freedom of Oklahoma taxpayers and public-school families than the state establishing the nation’s first religious public charter school,” president and CEO Rachel Laser said in a statement. “This is a sea change for American democracy,” she added. The group and other civil rights organisations are expected “to take all possible legal action to fight this decision and defend the separation of church and state that’s promised in both the Oklahoma and US Constitutions,” Ms Laser said. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond also warned the board a vote to support a publicly funded religious school would clearly violate the state’s Constitution and expose the state to costly litigation. “The approval of any publicly funded religious school is contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interest of taxpayers,” he said in a statement. “It’s extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars. In doing so, these members have exposed themselves and the state to potential legal action that could be costly.” The move from the Republican-appointed board on 5 June comes as GOP officials and right-wing institutions across the country push for taxpayer dollars to support religious schools, with a Supreme Court signalling a willingness to direct public funds towards such schools despite explicit First Amendment protections. “State and federal law are clear: Charter schools are public schools that must be secular and open to all students,” Ms Laser added. “ In a country built on the principle of separation of church and state, public schools must never be allowed to become Sunday schools.” This is a developing story Read More Tennessee drag ban is struck down by federal judge: ‘Unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad’ Bible banned from Utah school district for ‘vulgarity and violence’ in revenge for conservative attacks on literature Oklahoma’s Supreme Court struck down two abortion bans. But a 113-year-old law is severely restricting access

Presidential candidate and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr heaped praise on Twitter owner Elon Musk for defending free speech during a Twitter spaces event with the executive on Monday afternoon. Mr Kennedy, who has long promoted the discredited theory that vaccines play a role in causing autism, participated in a Twitter spaces event Monday and praised Mr Muk for his stewardship of the social media giant for supposedly stopping censorship of voices that dissent from orthodoxy. “I just want to tell you how much I admire you for that and how grateful I am on behalf of my country,” he said. “You would come here from another country and be a key instrument for rescuing American Democracy and freedom of speech.” The forum is the second such event that Mr Musk has hosted. Last month, Mr Musk hosted a Twitter spaces forum with Florida Gov Ron DeSantis as he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in 2024. Mr Kennedy announced his candidacy to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination for president in 2024 in April. During the event he said that his fellow Democrats had misunderstood Mr Musk and had unfairly maligned him. “I was so surprised and delighted when you did that on your own and clearly you’ve been portrayed as somebody as this sinister agenda but you’re doing step after step that is not in your self-interest and that is clearly designed to protect freedom of speech,” he said. Throughout much of the forum, Mr Musk did not challenge Mr Kennedy, including on some of his more outlandish claims that former Fox News executive Roger Ailes prevented him from discussing people injured by vaccines on the cable news network. Read More Peta founder makes request in will to send a piece of her neck to the King RFK Jr gushes over Elon Musk as ‘hero’ of democracy in Twitter Spaces ‘love fest’ Elon Musk hosting event with anti-vax 2024 candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr on Twitter

Former president Donald Trump on Monday suggested he will soon face criminal charges in the long-running federal probe into his alleged unlawful retention of national defence information at his Palm Beach, Florida property. Writing on his Truth Social website, Mr Trump asked how the Department of Justice could “possibly charge” him for having hoarded classified documents at his home and office when similarly classified documents have been found at locations linked to other prominent figures, including President Joe Biden. He also suggested he should not face charges because his 2016 election opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was not indicted for having received emails containing information later deemed to have been classified on a private email service she used during her time in government service. “HOW CAN DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT’S WERE CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WON’T BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING, INCLUDING THE FACT THAT HE HAS 1,850 BOXES, MUCH OF IT CLASSIFIED, AND SOME DATING BACK TO HIS SENATE DAY WHEN EVEN DEMOCRAT SENATORS ARE SHOCKED,” he said, writing in all capital letters for emphasis. “ALSO, PRESIDENT CLINTON HAD DOCUMENTS, AND WON IN COURT. CROOKED HILLARY DELETED 33,000 EMAILS, MANY CLASSIFIED, AND WASN’T EVEN CLOSE TO BEING CHARGED!” He added that “only Trump” is facing charges for unlawful retention of classified documents and called the probe “the greatest witch hunt of all time”. The ex-president’s irate social media post came as his attorneys wrapped a meeting with Department of Justice officials in Washington. Last month, Mr Trump’s legal team sent Attorney General Merck Garland a letter demanding an opportunity to meet with him regarding what they described as “unfair treatment” of the former president at the hands of Jack Smith, the special prosecutor Mr Garland named to oversee the documents probe late last year. According to the New York Times, the two-hour session did not include Mr Garland or his deputy, Lisa Monaco. It was also unclear what Mr Trump’s attorneys — James Trusty, John Rowley and Lindsey Halligan — discussed with prosecutors. But experts say such meetings between defence attorneys and prosecutors represent a common final step before prosecutors seek indictments against targets of federal investigations. A Washington, DC grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the documents case is reportedly set to meet this week. Read More Cornel West jumps into 2024 race as third-party candidate Scholar, activist Cornel West says he will run for president in 2024 as 3rd-party candidate Elon Musk under fire for hosting RFK Jr for 2024 discussion on Twitter Spaces- live

Activist Dr Cornel West announced his bid for the presidency on Monday under the banner of the progressive People’s Party. Dr West entered the 2024 race via a campaign video released on Twitter; a campaign website for the Harvard- and Princeton-trained philosopher laid out a left-leaning platform that includes popular progressive planks like support for Medicare for all. “I am running for truth and justice and as a candidate for president of the United States in the People’s Party. I want to reintroduce America to the best of itself – the dignity, courage, and creativity of precious everyday people. Join our movement for priceless poor and working people of all colors here and abroad,” declares a statement on Dr West’s website. In the video, he adds: “I come from a tradition where I care about you. I care about your quality of life.” “I care whether you have access to a job with a living wage, decent housing. Women having control over their own bodies.” His campaign will likely win some supporters on the Bernie Sanders-aligned left, but at the same time will run up against the same structural obstacles that have hamstrung other third-party presidential bids and dissuaded many serious candidates from running at all. More follows... Read More Scholar, activist Cornel West says he will run for president in 2024 as 3rd-party candidate Trump suggests he is about to be charged in Mar-a-Lago classified documents case Elon Musk under fire for hosting RFK Jr for 2024 discussion on Twitter Spaces- live

Colorado far-right Representative Lauren Boebert has been caught on video sprinting to a vote that she later claimed to have missed on purpose. She argued at the time that she missed the Thursday House vote on the raising of the debt ceiling as a “no-show protest”. But footage shared on Sunday by Morgan Rimmer of CNN shows Ms Boebert running up the stairs of the Capitol on the night of the vote. As she runs up the steps in the footage, Ms Rimmer tells Ms Boebert, “they just closed it”. “They closed it?” Ms Boebert asks before continuing up the steps. She seemingly missed the vote and then tried to claim that the mishap was intentional. “Deals cut in the dark are why we’re headed to 36 trillion in debt, and I refuse to be a part of it,” Ms Boebert said. Ms Rimmer tweeted: “Here is a clip from that night outside the Capitol, showing Rep. Boebert running up the stairs as though she was trying to make the vote, and me telling her that it had closed already.” Ms Rimmer tweeted the footage in response to the video shared by Ms Boebert on the platform. “Call it a protest — there’s absolutely no way to ever justify adding another $4-6 trillion in debt. This is more DC self-created garbage that I will always fight against,” Ms Boebert tweeted. According to Ms Rimmer, Ms Boebert entered a statement into the congressional record following the closing of the vote that she was “unavoidably detained” at the time and that she “would have voted no”. President Joe Biden signed the debt ceiling legislation on Saturday following its passing in both chambers of Congress to avoid a default on the US’s sovereign debt which is likely to have prompted a global economic crisis. On Friday night, Mr Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office, telling Americans not to abandon the idea of bipartisanship. He said the aim of the debt deal was to “keeping the full, faith, and credit of the United States” and putting in place “a budget that continues to grow our economy and reflects our values as a nation”. “Passing this budget agreement was critical. The stakes could not have been higher,” he added. “Our economy would have been thrown in recession. Retirement accounts for millions of Americans would have been decimated, eight million Americans would have lost their jobs,” Mr Biden said. “Default would have destroyed our nation’s credit rating, which would have made everything from mortgages to car loans to funding for the government much more expensive and it would have taken years to climb out of that hole — and America standing as the most trusted, reliable financial partner in the world would have been shattered.” “No one got everything they wanted but the American people got what they needed. We averted an economic crisis and an economic collapse,” he added. “We’re cutting spending and bringing deficits down. And, we protected important priorities from Social Security to Medicare to Medicaid to veterans to our transformational investments in infrastructure and clean energy.” The bill passed the Senate by a margin of 63-36 and the House by 314-117. Read More Lauren Boebert confirms former WWE star is not her father after two DNA tests Lauren Boebert didn’t turn up to vote on debt ceiling deal she furiously campaigned against Lauren Boebert claims she missed vote on debt ceiling deal because it was a ‘c**p sandwich’ Lauren Boebert confirms former WWE star is not her father Boebert claims she didn’t vote on debt ceiling deal because it was a ‘c**p sandwich’ Boebert didn’t turn up to vote on debt ceiling deal she furiously campaigned against

Democrat presidential candidate and notable anti-vaccine advocate Robert F Kennedy Jr is set to join Elon Musk and David Sacks on Twitter Spaces on Monday (5 June) at 2pm for a conversation. “Set a reminder for my upcoming Spaces with Elon Musk and moderator David Sacks!” Mr Kennedy tweeted a day ahead of the event. Mr Kennedy will also be joined by Tulsi Gabbard, Balaji Srinivasan, Omeed Malik, Michael Shellenberger and Kelly Slater who will likely ask questions and keep the conversation flowing. The Twitter Spaces comes just weeks after Mr Musk and Mr Sacks hosted and moderated a similar audio listening event with presidential candidate Ron DeSantis where he launched his campaign. Notably, the Spaces was filled with technological glitches which Mr Sacks attributed to a high volume of listeners. Following the event, Mr Musk welcomed all candidates onto Twitter and said he would be open to hosting other candidates on Twitter Spaces. But some were unhappy with Mr Musk’s decision to host Mr Kennedy as he has been previously banned from social platforms for spreading misinformation.

Mike Pence, the ex-Indiana governor who spent four years as then-president Donald Trump’s loyal vice President until he became persona non grata in MAGA circles for certifying their defeat in the 2020 election, has officially declared himself a candidate for the GOP nomination in next year’s Republican presidential primary. Mr Pence on Monday filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to register his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, capping months of speculation over whether Mr Trump’s former right-hand man would challenge his old running mate, who is seeking to reclaim his former place at the head of the executive branch amid multiple criminal probes into his conduct. The former vice president has for months hinted that he would put himself forward in a bid to lead his party as he and his fellow Republicans look to recover from a string of losses and disappointing results in the three general elections that have taken place since he and Mr Trump won a shocking victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. Yet despite his former stature in the GOP, Mr Pence will face an uphill climb as he looks to convince voters that he — not Mr Trump — is the best choice to take on President Joe Biden next November. The ex-vice president’s standing among the Republican faithful took a significant hit on 6 January 2021, the day he was forced to take refuge in an underground parking area beneath the Capitol as a riotous mob of Trump-Pence supporters rampaged through the House and Senate wings of the building in hopes of stopping him from presiding over certification of his and Mr Trump’s loss to Mr Biden and then-senator Kamala Harris. Mr Trump, who is under criminal investigation for his part in inciting the riot, has maintained that his former vice president had the power to unilaterally reject electoral votes from swing states won by Mr Biden and Ms Harris. Mr Pence, who along with nearly all reputable legal scholars has rejected that view, pushed for certification to resume that day after police and National Guard troops secured the building and cleared it of the insurrectionist mob. While he has steadfastly declined to criticise the twice-impeached ex-president over the matter other than to describe it as a disagreement and say his former boss was “wrong” that day, he has said GOP voters will have “better choices” than Mr Trump this time. Read More Trump news – live: Attorneys for ex-president spotted at DoJ as backlash over Kim Jong-un quip continues Showtime pulls Vice episode probing Ron Desantis’s Guantanamo record despite campaign trail questions Former Vice President Pence filing paperwork launching 2024 presidential bid in challenge to Trump

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin on Sunday refused to say whether he would rule out the possibility of accepting a position on a third-party presidential ticket which most analysts say would serve only to help Donald Trump win a second term in the White House. Mr Manchin, a centrist Democrat whose state overwhelmingly voted for Mr Trump in the 2020 election, is considered one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators and would face a strong GOP challenge if he runs for another term in the upper chamber next year. He has also refused to say whether he harbours presidential ambitions at the same time that No Labels, a centrist group backed by GOP donor Harlan Crow, among others, is making efforts to gain ballot access for a third-party ballot line in next year’s general election. The group has suggested they would only run a ticket in next year’s election if the two major parties run “extreme” candidates who leave the broader US electorate wanting a third, more moderate choice. Mr Manchin has been floated as a candidate by some people close to that effort. The Mountain State Democrat has often made a point of taking disagreements with President Joe Biden and the current administration public as a way of highlighting his independence from the Democratic Party at a time when his home state has become increasingly hostile to Democrats. While he has previously said he’d win “any” race he enters next year, he has not yet formally announced a re-election bid, either. He declined to do so once more during a 4 June appearance on Face the Nation, the weekly public affairs show on CBS, moments after he declined to endorse Mr Biden for reelection. Mr Manchin told Brennan he was “not involved in the political process right now”. “Everyone thinks about politics first. I don’t. It’s not about the politics. It’s not about my re-election or anyone else. We have an awful lot of work to do,” he said. “We still have permitting to get done, we have geopolitical unrest around the world. We have to support Ukraine. We have to make sure that we get our financial house in order and get inflation down ... but if you throw politics in, I will guarantee you, you won’t get any decisions on any of that”. Asked whether he was still considering a presidential run, he replied: “Everything’s open. Everything’s on the table and nothing off the table”. He also declined to take himself out of the running for the hypothetical No Labels ticket during an appearance that same day on Fox News Sunday. Asked about the possibility of a third-party or independent bid by host Shannon Bream, Mr Manchin said he was “not ruling anything in, not ruling anything out”. “You better have Plan B. because if Plan A shows that we’re going to the far reaches of both sides, the far left and the far right, and that people don’t want to go to the far left and the far right, they want to be governed from the middle. I think there is, that you better have that Plan B available and ready to go,” he said. Read More Maybe, just maybe, ‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden is good at this bipartisan negotiation stuff Senate passes debt limit bill after marathon 11 amendment votes to avoid default Bernie Sanders was right about the debt limit all along. We know who got us into this mess Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement