US condemns attack in Moscow calling ISIS ‘a common terrorist enemy’: Latest updates
White House statement offers deepest condolences to those who lost loved ones
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox
Get our free Inside Washington email
The US has condemned Friday’s terror attack on a concert in Moscow. A statement from the White House called perpetrators ISIS “a common terrorist enemy that must be defeated everywhere”.
Meanwhile, a US government shutdown has been averted after the Senate passed a $1.2trn spending package in a 2am vote 74-24. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law on Saturday. It will keep the federal government open until the end of fiscal year 2024 on 30 September.
The House of Representatives passed the spending package 286 to 134, surpassing the two-thirds majority needed. Calling it a “betrayal of Republican voters”, a furious Marjorie Taylor Greene initiated the process to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson.
In 2024 election news, the Biden campaign is mocking Donald Trump as “Broke Don” after the latest Federal Election Commission filings revealed the president’s fundraising is far outstripping his Republican rival and he faces hundreds of millions of dollars in civil judgments in New York.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris toured the blood-stained classroom building where the 2018 Parkland high school massacre occurred. Accompanied by some victims’ family members, she spoke about gun violence prevention efforts.
Watch live: Trump expected in court for trial date hearing in New York hush money case
Watch live from New York ahead of Monday’s latest hearing in the hush money case facing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The former president is expected to attend court in Manhattan for what is set to be the final hearing before the criminal case goes to trial.
Mr Trump will ask to delay or dismiss the proceedings on charges stemming from hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal, citing thousands of pages of potential evidence about witness Michael Cohen that prosecutors only turned over a matter of weeks ago.
The case, which was initially scheduled to begin jury selection on Monday, has already been adjourned for 30 days by Judge Juan Merchan to allow for time to respond to those filings.
Mr Cohen, Mr Trump’s one-time lawyer and fixer, made payments to Ms Daniels and Ms McDougal to buy their silence ahead of the 2016 presidential election about sexual encounters they said they had with the candidate a decade earlier – affairs Mr Trump denies.
Judge Merchan’s decision will set the course for what could be the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president.
Mr Trump, the Republican candidate expected to challenge Joe Biden in the November election, has pleaded not guilty and has called the case a politically-motivated “witch hunt” against him.
Supreme Court again confronts the issue of abortion, this time over access to widely used medication
The Supreme Court will again wade into the fractious issue of abortion this week when it hears arguments over a medication used in the most common way to end a pregnancy, a case with profound implications for millions of women no matter where they live in America and, perhaps, for the race for the White House.
Two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and cleared the way for bans or severe restrictions on abortion in many Republican-led states, abortion opponents on Tuesday will ask the high court to ratify a ruling from a conservative federal appeals court that would limit access to the medication mifepristone, which was used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States last year.
That decision to reverse Roe had immediate political consequences, with Democrats making the case that the court had taken away a right that women held for half a century and winning elections as a result. Even conservative-leaning states like Kansas and Ohio voted against abortion restrictions. If the court were to uphold restrictions on medication abortions it could roil the election landscape in races for Congress and the presidency.
Chuck Todd admonishes his bosses on-air over NBC hiring Ronna McDaniel
NBC News political director isn’t ready to defend his network’s hiring of former GOP chief Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst.
On Sunday, he made sure his bosses — and everybody else — knew it.
Ms McDaniel’s hiring as a paid contributor at NBC News this past week was reported to have made a number of journalists at the network uncomfortable. As Meet the Press turned to its panel segment on Sunday morning, Todd vocalised those objections in a fiery admonition of NBC brass, whom he said owed moderator Kristen Welker an apology for booking Ms McDaniel as one of her interviews for Sunday’s programme.
Welker’s interview with Ms McDaniel touched on several topics including her leadership of the Republican National Committee (RNC). Her tenure as RNC chair came to an end this year after Donald Trump endorsed her removal following the South Carolina primary.
VIDEO: Donald Trump appears in New York court for hearing in hush money case
Donald Trump lashes out as clock runs down on his $464m bond payment
The clock is ticking.
On Monday, Donald Trump will face a reckoning with the legal system as he never has before.
Alongside his four criminal cases - totalling 88 charges - the civil fraud case against the former president, his adult sons Don Jr and Eric, the Trump Organization and two of its executives, seems somewhat underplayed.
It does, however, go someway to undoing two of the greatest myths about Mr Trump which helped propel him into the public eye as a real estate mogul, reality TV star, and finally US president: that he is immensely wealthy and a great businessman, skilled in the art of the deal.
What happens if Trump can’t secure $464m bond in civil fraud case? Here’s what to know
The Republican Party’s nominee to face President Joe Biden could be facing a financial crisis on top of a mountain of legal obligations, including 88 criminal charges, with at least one criminal trial and verdict expected before Election Day.
In a revealing court filing on 18 March, lawyers for Donald Trump said that he has tried to get help from at least 30 companies who can post a bond in excess of $464m after he lost a civil fraud trial in New York earlier this year.
But none of them could, and now he faces the “practical impossibility” of coming up with the money before the state’s imminent deadline to enforce the judgment against him on Monday, 25 March, according to his attorneys.
D-Day for Donald: Trump faces deadline today to pay $464m fraud bond. Here’s what you need to know
Donald Trump is facing a potentially huge day of legal drama today as the deadline to post bond for his $464m fraud judgment looms and an important hearing is held regarding his imminent hush money trial.
Judge Arthur Engoron ruled last month that the Republican presidential candidate must pay $354m in fines and a further $110m plus in interest ($464m, all in) over a decade-long scheme where he inflated the value of Trump Organization assets in order to obtain favourable loans from banks and insurers.
With interest ticking ever-upwards at 9 per cent or $120,000 a day, the exact total he owes as of deadline day is now closer to $468.1m – but his lawyers have argued that he has been unable to find a bond company willing to stump up the cash.
Fail to make the bond today and New York Attorney General Letitia James could begin seizing the former president’s assets, including some of his prized property empire.
Lauren Boebert defends taking credit for money in spending bill despite voting against it
Republican Representative Lauren Boebert defended bragging about bringing home $20m for water and infrastructure projects to her Colorado district in the recent spending bill that passed – despite having voted against the bill’s final passage.
The right-wing Republican put out a press release last week touting the funding for projects in her state’s 3rd district.
“These include important federal resources for new water storage, improving water quality, funding water treatment plants, building new water supply lines, reducing congestion on I-70, and building roads and bridges,” Ms Boebert said in a press release.
“I’m grateful to all the local stakeholders who brought these important projects to my attention and that worked with my team and I throughout this process to ensure that 10 out of 10 of our requests were successfully funded in public law. Can’t wait for the ribbon cuttings and to see these priorities come to fruition.”
But Ms Boebert voted against the spending bill on 8 March. The legislation was the first of six spending bills that passed this month to fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year, which expires on 30 September. Last week, the House and Senate passed the second round of spending bills to keep the government open.
Ms Boebert bragged about bringing the money back to Colorado last week to The Independent.
“Sure did, I fought to get it in there, did I not,” she said. “If I wasn’t working on it, then it wouldn’t have been in there.”
But when asked about why she voted against its final passage, she said she disliked the process.
“I didn’t agree to the swampy way it came to the floor but I fought to get the stuff in the bills and it’s there,” she said. “And Colorado is going to benefit from it.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene insists she doesn’t want ‘chaos’ after second threat to oust House Speaker
Marjorie Taylor Greene has defended her bid to oust Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson - after threatening to do so in January - and insisted that she was not seeking to throw the government into “chaos”.
The Georgia representative and other far right members of the House opposed the $1.2trn federal spending package that passed Congress this past week, and claimed that it was full of wasteful spending.
She denounced Mr Johnson as “willing to do the bidding of [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer”.
“Republican voters want fighters in the House of Representatives to fight like President Trump, and that is exactly what I’m doing,” Ms Greene said.
VIDEO: Ronna McDaniel defends silence over January 6 and supports convictions for violence
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies