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Hakeem Jeffries meeting with Jared Kushner sparks fierce backlash

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries’ meeting with Jared Kushner, the president’s influential son-in-law, has sparked backlash from his own party and other Donald Trump critics.

The reported meeting comes months ahead of the November midterm elections in which Democrats are favored to retake the US House, a development that would make Jeffries speaker.

If they are in the majority, Democrats are expected to use their oversight power to aggressively investigate the Trump administration, including self-enrichment by the president and his family.

There are longstanding conflict-of-interest concerns about the way Kushner has continued to make money from foreign nations as he works on foreign affairs, including conflicts in Ukraine, Iran and Gaza.

Asked about the reported meeting, Jeffries said in a statement:

Throughout this Congress, Republicans have adopted a my-way-or-the-highway approach to governing that has failed the American people. To stop the madness, we have repeatedly made clear that an extremist approach will not work and will be met with forceful opposition.

The American people want bold change and that’s what House Democrats will deliver. In every conversation that we have with the Trump administration, we will continue to make it explicitly clear that the affordability crisis is not a hoax and nothing short of transformational policy change is acceptable. We are fighting for an affordable America. The question is whether Republicans will join us.

Nonetheless, among some who lamented the reported gathering was Tommy Vietor, previously an aide to former president Barack Obama and now a co-host of the left-leaning podcast Pod Save America.

“Jared Kushner has no actual government job he just uses his family connections to get money from gulf autocrats and fund corrupt deals. The only way [Jeffries] should work with him is with demands for documents and subpoenas,” Vietor posted.

Asked whether he supported the meeting during an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Senator Chris van Hollen – a Maryland Democrat – said: “I’m in favor of people meeting with whoever they want to discuss ideas. But it’s one thing to have a meeting. It’s another thing to see something real come out of that.”

Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman from Illinois who is an outspoken Trump critic and served on a House committee that investigated the Capitol attack, posted in reference to the meeting, “Make this make sense,” while tagging Jeffries.

Read the full story here:

In other developments:

Tim Scott defended fellow US South Carolina Republican senator Darline Graham’s knowledge of national security issues ahead of their state’s runoff election on Tuesday. Graham, who was appointed to fill the Senate seat held by her brother Lindsey Graham after his sudden death in July, is in a Republican primary runoff against South Carolina congressman Ralph Norman.
Dan Sullivan supports Dan Sullivan against Dan Sullivan in Alaska’s US Senate election, says a former Alaska mayor who recently backed the race’s Republican incumbent over a challenger sharing their name. That development provided another of multiple absurd elements to Dan S Sullivan’s campaign for a third term in the US Senate, which – beside Mary Peltola, a former Alaska Democratic congresswoman – has drawn opposition from Dan J Sullivan.
The Donald Trump aide Natalie Harp flooded a since-disabled social media account with pro-Trump posts on the day that the president’s supporters attacked the US Capitol in early 2021, years before she went to work for him and developed an extraordinary close relationship with him, a new report has revealed.
A series of moves by Donald Trump’s administration to sow doubt in the integrity of US elections has intensified concern among voting experts – and sparked hope among election deniers – that it could declare a national emergency. The White House and US federal agencies have released a string of documents this summer – including disputed analyses of alleged voting by noncitzens and historical intelligence memos – stoking expectations that the US president could move to exert greater control over November’s US midterm elections.
Iran’s foreign minister has dismissed the threat of a fresh round of US economic sanctions as a “desperate” ploy, even as its president acknowledged that the Iranian people are facing “many problems” amid Washington’s efforts to isolate and debilitate the country’s economy.

Key events

Donald Trump is in Washington today. He’ll spend most of the day in meetings that are closed to the press, but we’ll hear from the president at 2.30pm ET when he hosts a Rose Garden event at the White House.

We’ll bring you the latest lines here as that gets under way.

Rachel Leingang

Election deniers are back on the ballot. In most swing states, at least one major Republican candidate has questioned or outright denied the results of the 2020 US presidential election, which Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.

While voters in swing states have previously largely rejected candidates who denied election results, Republicans running for statewide offices across much of the country are trying again.

In Arizona, gubernatorial candidate and US representative Andy Biggs voted against certifying his own state’s election results. In Wisconsin, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Tom Tiffany similarly voted against certifying the 2020 results as a US representative for his state.

Candidates for governor in Pennsylvania and Michigan have cast doubt on the validity of the 2020 results. And some swing state Republican candidates for secretary of state have questioned or denied election results.

Governors sign off on state election results, issuing certificates to the presidential electors of whichever candidate wins. They can call for investigations or special sessions, and use their bully pulpit to cast doubt on election results. Secretaries of state are meanwhile the chief election officials in most US states, overseeing voting systems and advising the local jurisdictions that run elections. They usually play a role in certifying election results, too.

In 2020, Trump pressured governors and secretaries of state, alongside a host of state and local officials in several swing states, to withhold their signatures in a broad campaign to overturn his loss. Swing state governors and secretaries of state refused to stall or impede their states’ results.

But if election deniers or skeptics are elected to these key statewide roles, they would be in office in 2028, raising apprehension that they may refuse to sign off on results, or succumb to pressure from Trump and his allies, should Republicans lose.

Lauren Aratani

Over a dozen US companies that signed a 2021 letter urging Congress to strengthen the Voting Rights Act continue to contribute to state political groups that are actively working to undermine the legislation, according to a campaign finance watchdog.

Researchers at the Center for Political Accountability (CPA), a nonpartisan organization that tracks financial disclosures, found that companies – including Airbnb, DoorDash, Target and Zillow – that signed the letter are contributing to groups known as 527 organizations that prop up key state races, according to data provided exclusively to the Guardian.

Four longtime donors to these groups, Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, had either stopped contributing entirely or lowered their contributions to Republican and Democratic groups for the 2022 midterms, but have resumed contributions for the current election cycle.

The January 6 insurrection created a brief reckoning among corporate leaders, many of whom criticized Donald Trump’s role in inciting the violence. The Republican Attorneys General Association (Raga), a 527 organization, was under scrutiny after reports revealed the group sent out robocalls to people encouraging them to attend a “Stop the Steal” rally in front of Congress on January 6 2021 – which preceded the insurrection. Raga leaders later said they had no knowledge of the robocalls.

But the companies have resumed their donations to Raga and, in some cases, have become new contributors to the group. Google’s contribution went from $100,400 in the 2018 election down to $50,000 in 2022. So far this election, the company has donated $325,000 to Raga.

Ramon Antonio Vargas

Dan Sullivan supports Dan Sullivan against Dan Sullivan in Alaska’s US Senate election, says a former Alaskan mayor who recently backed the race’s Republican incumbent over a challenger sharing their name.

That development provided another of multiple absurd elements to Dan S Sullivan’s campaign for a third term in the US Senate, which – beside Mary Peltola, a former Alaska Democratic congresswoman – has drawn opposition from Dan J Sullivan.

Dan J Sullivan emerged from an 18 August primary to join a four-candidate field rounded out by Dan S Sullivan, Peltola and one other contender. His presence in the field for the general election during the 3 November midterms has prompted accusations that he is a Democratic plant aiming to draw enough votes away from Dan J Sullivan – whose name was positioned consecutively to him on the primary ballot – so that Peltola can win.

Donald Trump’s Republican party is projected to lose congressional seats during the midterms, and the president wrote on social media on the day of the primary: “ALASKA: Be careful. VOTE FOR THE REAL DAN SULLIVAN TODAY.

“The Dumocrats know how good he is and have put up an imposter of the same name.”

Trump was not the only Republican politico to come out swinging for Dan S Sullivan’s re-election bid on the day of the primary, in which Peltola finished first. Another who came out in favor of the incumbent was Dan A Sullivan, the mayor of Anchorage, Alaska, for six years beginning in 2009.