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Republican House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul is demanding that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken provide documents on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. McCaul said the 'catastrophic' exit from Afghanistan emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine. Cindy Saine reports.

House Republicans Demand Documents About US Exit From Afghanistan

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis this week called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” and condemned his invasion of Ukraine, a week after coming under criticism for remarks that seemed to advocate a reduction in U.S. support for Ukrainian forces.



DeSantis, widely expected to announce his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination later this year, had previously described the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” that did not represent a “vital national interest” of the United States.



The remarks earned him immediate condemnation from many, including multiple long-serving Republicans in Congress, even though support for continued U.S. aid to Ukraine is waning among a significant portion of the Republican electorate.



Claims he was mischaracterized


In an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan scheduled to stream Thursday evening on Fox Nation, DeSantis said his comments — particularly those that seemed to dismiss the war as a territorial dispute — were “mischaracterized.”



Morgan, who previewed the interview in a New York Post column on Wednesday, quoted the Florida governor’s explanation for his comment at length.



“When I asked him specifically if he regretted using the phrase ‘territorial dispute,’ DeSantis replied, ‘Well, I think it’s been mischaracterized. Obviously, Russia invaded [last year] — that was wrong. They invaded Crimea and took that in 2014 — that was wrong.



“ ‘What I’m referring to is where the fighting is going on now, which is that eastern border region Donbas, and then Crimea, and you have a situation where Russia has had that. I don’t think legitimately, but they had. There’s a lot of ethnic Russians there.’”



According to Morgan, DeSantis went on to say why he thinks Russia is not the threat that the Biden administration has portrayed: “I think the larger point is, OK, Russia is not showing the ability to take over Ukraine, to topple the government or certainly to threaten NATO. That’s a good thing.”



The Biden administration has characterized support for Ukraine as forestalling deeper U.S. involvement in a broader conflict.



DeSantis told Morgan he sees it differently: “I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] — that’s nonsense.”



‘A gas station’ with nuclear weapons


Also in the interview, DeSantis ridiculed Russia’s high dependence on fossil fuel exports and said the country does not have the capacity to act on Putin’s seeming plan to reconstitute the former Soviet Union’s sphere of influence.



“I think he’s got grand ambitions,” DeSantis said of Putin. “I think he’s hostile to the United States, but I think the thing that we’ve seen is he doesn’t have the conventional capability to realize his ambitions. And so, he’s basically a gas station with a bunch of nuclear weapons, and one of the things we could be doing better is utilizing our own energy resources in the U.S.”



DeSantis’ comments were reminiscent of those of the late John McCain, who was a Republican senator and presidential candidate. Famously hawkish on Russia, he once derided the nation as “a gas station masquerading as a country.”



Zelenskyy responds


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an interview with the editors of The Atlantic magazine, replied to DeSantis last week with an argument that America’s investment in his country’s defense is preventing a broader conflict that could pull in the U.S. and its NATO allies.



“If we will not have enough weapons, that means we will be weak. If we will be weak, they will occupy us,” Zelenskyy said. “If they occupy us, they will be on the borders of Moldova and they will occupy Moldova. When they have occupied Moldova, they will [travel through] Belarus and they will occupy Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.



“That’s three Baltic countries which are members of NATO,” he added. “They will occupy them. Of course [the Balts] are brave people, and they will fight. But they are small. And they don’t have nuclear weapons. So they will be attacked by Russians because that is the policy of Russia, to take back all the countries which have been previously part of the Soviet Union.”



Zelenskyy’s assertions aside, many foreign policy experts are dubious about the likelihood of Russia choosing to invade any countries that are under the protection of NATO’s mutual defense agreement.



Difficult politics


DeSantis’ move to clarify his position on Ukraine highlights a difficulty that any Republican presidential candidate is likely to face on the issue because of a deepening divide within the party.



For Republicans, said William A. Galston, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, “finding a tenable path on Ukraine is very difficult, because the party is divided between a traditionalist wing and a populist wing on this issue.”



“The traditionalist view is that the United States, for reasons having to do with both its interests and values, is required to stand up to aggression, such as what Russia has unleashed on Ukraine, and to support indirectly, and in some cases directly, the military effort to oppose it,” Galston told VOA.


“The populist wing of the party is taking the position that this fight is none of our business, and more generally, that the interests of the United States are best served by staying out of foreign entanglements, particularly military entanglements, to the greatest extent possible,” he said.



At the moment, the divide is most visible when comparing the positions of the party’s two leading presidential candidates with those of its foreign policy veterans in Congress.



Both former President Donald Trump and DeSantis have expressed doubts about whether it is in U.S. interests to continue supporting Ukraine. In a recent Monmouth University poll, the two men received 80% of support — 44% for Trump and 36% for DeSantis — when prospective GOP voters were asked whom they support for the party’s presidential nomination.



In Congress, though, prominent Republican voices have offered unwavering support for Ukraine.



“I think the majority opinion among Senate Republicans is that the United States has a vital national security interest there in stopping Russian aggression,” John Thune, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, told reporters last week.

DeSantis Clarifies Position on Ukraine War, Calls Putin 'War Criminal'

The New York City prosecutor on Thursday rejected a demand by congressional Republican lawmakers that he hand over documents linked to his investigation of former President Donald Trump’s $130,000 hush money payment to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election to buy her silence about an affair she claims to have had with Trump.


The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg assailed the request earlier this week by three committee chairmen in the House of Representatives as "an unlawful incursion into New York's sovereignty." The three lawmakers — Jim Jordan, James Comer and Bryan Steil — had called Bragg’s investigation of Trump an "unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority."


Bragg’s general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, told the lawmakers that their letter “only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested [Tuesday] and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene. Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry."


"If a grand jury brings charges against Donald Trump, the DA's Office will have an obligation, as in every case, to provide a significant amount of discovery from its files to the defendant so that he may prepare a defense," Dubeck wrote.


The Republican committee chairmen had told Bragg, "You are reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former president of the United States. This indictment comes after years of your office searching for a basis — any basis — on which to bring charges.”


Lawmakers refer to case as 'zombie'


On Thursday, Jordan, an Ohio congressman, demanded testimony and documents from Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, two former New York prosecutors who had been leading the Trump case before quitting last year when Bragg appeared to have abandoned the Trump investigation.


"Last year, you resigned from the office over Bragg's initial reluctance to move forward with charges, shaming Bragg in your resignation letter — which was subsequently leaked — into bringing charges," Jordan wrote in the letter to Pomerantz. "It now appears that your efforts to shame Bragg have worked as he is reportedly resurrecting a so-called 'zombie' case against President Trump using a tenuous and untested legal theory."


Trump has not been charged in the case, although the grand jury investigation is continuing.


Bragg has been bringing witnesses before the 23-member grand jury to testify about the payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, hush money to silence her for what she alleges was a one-night affair with Trump in 2006 at a hotel where Trump was attending a golf tournament. Trump has long denied the affair.


Probe focuses on payment 


The investigation centers in part on details of the payment made to Daniels and whether the transaction amounts to a criminal offense. If charged, Trump would be the first-ever U.S. president indicted in a criminal case.


Trump’s one-time lawyer and political fixer Michael Cohen wrote her a check out of his personal funds and then was reimbursed by Trump, who recorded it as a business expense for legal fees to Cohen on the ledgers of the Trump Organization, his real estate business, rather than recorded as a campaign expense related to his successful 2016 run for the presidency.


Cohen served more than a year in prison for his role in the payment and other offenses. He since has turned into a sharp Trump critic and grand jury witness against him.


Trump announced his intention to seek the 2024 Republican presidential nomination months ago and says he would keep campaigning even if he is charged with a criminal offense. Numerous national polls show him as the front-runner for the Republican nomination, although several other Republicans have either announced their own candidacies or said they are seriously considering a race against Trump.


Trump had regularly lambasted the New York investigation as a political witch-hunt and called Bragg, who is Black, a “racist.”


Trump was impeached twice during his presidency, once in 2019 over his conduct demanding Ukraine investigate then candidate Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election, and again in 2021 over the attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. He was acquitted by the Senate both times.


Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.

Prosecutor Rejects Republicans' Demand He Hand Over Documents in Trump Investigation

A federal appeals court in a sealed order Wednesday directed a lawyer for Donald Trump to turn over to prosecutors documents in the investigation into the former president's retention of classified records at his Florida estate.


The ruling is a significant win for the U.S. Justice Department, which has focused for months not only on the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago but also on why Trump and his representatives resisted demands to return them to the government. It suggests the court has sided with prosecutors who have argued behind closed doors that Trump was using his legal representation to further a crime.




The order was reflected in a brief online notice by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The case is sealed, and none of the parties in the dispute is mentioned by name.


But the details appear to correspond with a secret fight before a lower court judge over whether Trump lawyer M. Evan Corcoran could be forced to provide documents or give grand jury testimony in the Justice Department special counsel probe into whether Trump mishandled top-secret information at Mar-a-Lago.


Corcoran is regarded as relevant to the investigation in part because last year he drafted a statement to the Justice Department asserting that a "diligent search" for classified documents had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago in response to a subpoena. Weeks later, FBI agents searched the home with a warrant and found roughly 100 additional documents with classified markings.


Another Trump lawyer, Christina Bobb, told investigators last fall that Corcoran had drafted the letter and had asked her to sign it in her role as a designated custodian of Trump's records.


A Justice Department investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors is examining whether Trump or anyone in his orbit obstructed its efforts to recover all the classified documents — which included top-secret material — from his home. No charges have been filed.


Other legal threats


The inquiry is one of multiple legal threats Trump faces, including probes in Atlanta, Georgia, and Washington over his efforts to undo the election result and a grand jury investigation in New York over hush money payments. The New York case appears to be nearing completion and building toward an indictment.


Last week, Beryl Howell, the outgoing chief judge of the U.S. District Court, directed Corcoran to answer additional questions before the grand jury. He had appeared weeks earlier before the federal grand jury investigating the Mar-a-Lago matter but had invoked attorney-client privilege in declining to answer certain questions.


Though attorney-client privilege shields lawyers from being forced to share details of their conversations with clients before prosecutors, the Justice Department can get around that if it can convince a judge that a lawyer's services were used in furtherance of a crime — a principle known in the law as the crime-fraud exception.


Howell ruled in the Justice Department's favor shortly before stepping aside as chief judge Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to discuss a sealed proceeding and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. That ruling was subsequently appealed, and the court records show the dispute before the federal appeals panel concerned an order that was issued last Friday by Howell.


The three-judge panel that issued the decision included Cornelia Pillard, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, and J. Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, both appointees of President Joe Biden. The order came just hours after the court imposed tight deadlines on both sides to file written briefs making their case.


A lawyer for Corcoran did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Wednesday, and a lawyer for Trump declined to comment on the sealed order.

Court Orders Trump Lawyer to Provide Documents in Mar-a-Lago Case

Republican lawmakers on Monday assailed the New York Democratic prosecutor investigating former President Donald Trump in connection with his alleged $130,000 hush money payment to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election.


Three committee chairmen in the House of Representatives accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of prosecutorial misconduct and demanded that he provide them information and documents related to his investigation of Trump.


The former president said over the weekend that he expects to be arrested in the case on Tuesday, although the prosecutor has made no public announcement indicating whether Trump would be indicted or when. Trump called for protests if he is indicted, and New York officials have been coordinating with federal security agencies to handle any unrest near the courthouse in New York.


Trump would be the first former U.S. president ever charged with a criminal offense.


He also faces wide-ranging investigations by a Justice Department special counsel and a state prosecutor in the southern state of Georgia for his role in trying to upend his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden to stay in power.




Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith is also probing Trump’s role in fomenting the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers met to certify Biden’s victory and how Trump kept classified documents at his Florida estate after leaving office, rather than turning them over to the National Archives as he was required by law to do.


The New York probe stems from the $130,000 paid to adult star Stormy Daniels by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to guarantee her silence just ahead of the 2016 election about the one-night sexual encounter she claims to have had with Trump, an allegation he has long denied. Cohen has said that Trump approved the payment and then reimbursed him, saying it was for legal expenses.


"You are reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former president of the United States," the Republican committee chairmen said in their letter to Bragg.


"This indictment comes after years of your office searching for a basis — any basis — on which to bring charges," they added.




The letter was signed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil.


Democrats rebuffed the criticism of the Trump investigation, with Representative Daniel Goldman saying on Twitter, "Defending Trump is not a legitimate legislative purpose for Congress to investigate a state district attorney."


"Congress has no jurisdiction to investigate the Manhattan DA, which receives no federal funding nor has any other federal nexus," said Goldman, who was lead counsel in a 2019 House impeachment of Trump.


Trump announced his intention to seek the 2024 Republican presidential nomination months ago and says he would keep campaigning even if he is charged with a criminal offense. Numerous national polls show him as the front-runner for the Republican nomination, although several other Republicans have either announced their own candidacies or said they are seriously considering a race against Trump.


Trump was impeached twice during his presidency, once in 2019 over his conduct demanding Ukraine investigate Biden, and again in 2021 over the attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. He was acquitted by the Senate both times.

Republicans Assail New York Prosecutor Investigating Trump

Soon after a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals in Ohio last month, anonymous pro-Russian accounts started spreading misleading claims and anti-American propaganda about it on Twitter, using Elon Musk's new verification system to expand their reach while creating the illusion of credibility.


The accounts, which parroted Kremlin talking points on myriad topics, claimed without evidence that authorities in Ohio were lying about the true impact of the chemical spill. The accounts spread fearmongering posts that preyed on legitimate concerns about pollution and health effects and compared the response to the derailment with America's support for Ukraine following its invasion by Russia.


Some of the claims pushed by the pro-Russian accounts were verifiably false, such as the suggestion that the news media had covered up the disaster or that environmental scientists traveling to the site had been killed in a plane crash. But most were more speculative, seemingly designed to stoke fear or distrust. Examples include unverified maps showing widespread pollution, posts predicting an increase in fatal cancers, and others about unconfirmed mass animal die-offs.


“Biden offers food, water, medicine, shelter, payouts of pension and social services to Ukraine! Ohio first! Offer and deliver to Ohio!” posted one of the pro-Moscow accounts, which boasts 25,000 followers and features an anonymous location and a profile photo of a dog. Twitter awarded the account a blue check mark in January.


Social accounts spread propaganda


Regularly spewing anti-U.S. propaganda, the accounts show how easily authoritarian states and Americans willing to spread their propaganda can exploit social media platforms like Twitter to steer domestic discourse.


The accounts were identified by Reset, a London-based nonprofit that studies social media's impact on democracy and shared with The Associated Press. Felix Kartte, a senior advisor at Reset, said the report's findings indicate Twitter is allowing Russia to use its platform like a bullhorn.


"With no one at home in Twitter’s product safety department, Russia will continue to meddle in U.S. elections and in democracies around the world,” Kartte said.


Twitter did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story.


The 38-car derailment near East Palestine, Ohio, released toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, leading to a national debate over rail safety and environmental regulations while raising fears of poisoned drinking water and air.


The disaster was a major topic on social media, with millions of mentions on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, according to an analysis by San Francisco-based media intelligence firm Zignal Labs, which conducted a study on behalf of the AP.


Online comments try to affect opinions


At first, the derailment received little attention online but mentions grew steadily, peaking two weeks after the incident, Zignal found, a time lag that gave pro-Russia voices time to try to shape the conversation.


The accounts identified by Reset's researchers received an extra boost from Twitter itself, in the form of a blue check mark. Before Musk purchased Twitter last year, its check marks denoted accounts run by verified users, often public figures, celebrities or journalists. It was seen as a mark of authenticity on a platform known for bots and spam accounts.


Musk ended that system and replaced it with Twitter Blue, which is given to users who pay $8 per month and supply a phone number. Twitter Blue users agree not to engage in deception and are required to post a profile picture and name. But there's no rule that they use their own.


Under the program, Twitter Blue users can write and send longer tweets and videos. Their replies are also given higher priority in other posts.


The AP reached out to several of the accounts listed in Reset’s report. In response, one of the accounts sent a two-word message before blocking the AP reporter on Twitter: “Shut up.”


While researchers spotted clues suggesting some of the accounts are linked to coordinated efforts by Russian disinformation agencies, others were Americans, showing the Kremlin doesn't always have to pay to get its message out.


One account, known as Truth Puke, is connected to a website of the same name geared toward conservatives in the United States. Truth Puke regularly reposts Russian state media; RT, formerly known as Russia Today, is one of its favorite groups to repost, Reset found. One video posted by the account features ex-President Donald Trump's remarks about the train derailment, complete with Russian subtitles.


In a response to questions from the AP, Truth Puke said it aims to provide a “wide spectrum of views” and was surprised to be labeled a spreader of Russian propaganda, despite the account's heavy use of such material. Asked about the video with Russian subtitles, Truth Puke said it used the Russian language version of the Trump video for the sake of expediency.


“We can assure you that it was not done with any Russian propagandist intent in mind, we just like to put out things as quickly as we find them,” the company said.


Other accounts brag of their love for Russia. One account on Thursday reposted a bizarre claim that the U.S. was stealing humanitarian earthquake relief supplies donated to Syria by China. The account has 60,000 followers and is known as Donbass Devushka, after the region of Ukraine.


Another pro-Russian account recently tried to pick an online argument with Ukraine's defense department, posting photos of documents that it claimed came from the Wagner Group, a private military company owned by a Yevgeny Prigozhin, a key Putin ally. Prigozhin operates troll farms that have targeted U.S. social media users in the past. Last fall he boasted of his efforts to meddle with American democracy.


A separate Twitter account claiming to represent Wagner actively uses the site to recruit fighters.


“Gentlemen, we have interfered, are interfering and will interfere," Prigozhin said last fall on the eve of the 2022 midterm elections in the U.S. "Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do.”

Pro-Moscow Voices Tried to Steer Ohio Train Disaster Debate

A $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News, the most-watched cable television network in the United States, and its parent company, Fox Corp., will go to trial next month in a case that has enormous implications for the media conglomerate and journalism in general.


In the days and weeks that followed the 2020 presidential election, conservative news organizations, including Fox News, repeatedly aired claims that the election results were fraudulent. Several conservative and far-right networks, including Fox News and One America News Network (OANN), gave significant airtime to numerous supporters of then-President Donald Trump, who spun elaborate conspiracy theories claiming that electronic voting machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems had been programmed to rig the vote count in favor of Democratic candidate Joe Biden.


Those claims were systematically proven false in court proceedings and hand recounts of the election results in multiple U.S. states. But Dominion was condemned by members of the public and politicians who believed what they heard on Fox News. One Dominion executive was forced into hiding after receiving death threats.




In response, Dominion pursued several defamation lawsuits targeting high-profile Trump supporters who had pushed the false claims of election fraud in national media. Among those sued were Rudy Giuliani, a former mayor of New York and a onetime personal attorney to Trump; Mike Lindell, CEO of My Pillow; attorney Sidney Powell; and Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.


Dominion also sued OANN and far-right cable news network Newsmax.


Internal Fox communications


While some news organizations responded to Dominion's lawsuits by retracting their stories, Fox News and Fox Corp. elected to fight.


As part of the lawsuit, Dominion demanded and received access to the internal communications of Fox executives. A wide range of text messages and emails from senior Fox executives and well-known on-air personalities that have been made public strongly suggest they knew the claims about Dominion were likely false, but continued to spread them anyway.


In one representative exchange from November 2020, Tucker Carlson, the network's highest-rated host, wrote to fellow anchor Laura Ingraham, "Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It's insane."


Ingraham responded. "Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy."


Other Fox employees connected to its various programs also expressed their belief in text and emails that the claims raised by Powell, Giuliani and others were false or unsupported by evidence. Hosts of popular Fox prime-time programs criticized on-air Fox journalists who reported that the claims against Dominion were false.


A number of emails from the network's senior executives suggest they were concerned that if they stopped broadcasting claims of election fraud, or actively debunked the ones being made by their on-air guests, they would lose audience share to outlets that pushed the false claims.


Libel law


Experts say the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News is remarkable in several ways, most notably that it is going to trial at all given the strong press protections guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.


"These major defamation cases against major media companies are almost never brought in the United States, because the constitutional standard is so strict, and the hurdle that has to be cleared is so high," RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of law at the University of Utah, told VOA.


In the U.S., public figures who sue for defamation must prove that the news organization who published the false information acted with "actual malice."


"It's a state-of-mind standard that climbs inside the head of the people who were responsible for the creation of the broadcast and requires the demonstration that they had subjective awareness of the probable falsity of what they said," said Andersen Jones, who is also an affiliated fellow with Yale Law School's Information Society Project.


"It's really, really hard to do," she added. "This is the rare case in which they have compiled this body of evidence from inside the organization, internally recognizing the falsity of the assertion, at the very time that these statements were being broadcast. And you just don't get that."


Senior management aware


The internal Fox communications, as well as depositions by senior executives, also bolster Dominion's case that claims about the company were broadly understood to be false within the Fox organization.


Former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who is on the board of directors of Fox Corporation, testified that in the weeks following the election, he repeatedly told corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch and Fox Corporation founder and chairman Rupert Murdoch that Fox News needed to "move on from Donald Trump and stop spouting election lies."


In a deposition, Rupert Murdoch appeared to acknowledge that top on-air personalities Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro had gone beyond simply reporting on allegations about Dominion and had "endorsed" them.


"I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight," Murdoch said.


Asked if he could have issued an order directing that programming at Fox News cease repeating falsehoods about Dominion, Murdoch said, "I could have. But I didn't."




The court documents that were released to the public are heavily redacted in some parts, apparently at the request of Fox. Often, the context surrounding the redactions suggests that the material blacked out is helpful to Dominion and harmful to the network. The New York Times, The Associated Press and National Public Radio have filed suit, demanding fuller access to the contents of the court filings.


Fox defense


In its defense, Fox has claimed that in mentioning the false allegations against Dominion, it was reporting on newsworthy events, particularly the statements of Trump, who frequently voiced the claims in the weeks following the election.


The "press has a right to cover and comment on newsworthy allegations of newsworthy figures," the network argued in a brief seeking to have the case dismissed.


Its attorneys focused on the instances in which Fox News hosts treated the allegations with caution or doubt.


"Far from reporting the allegations as true, hosts informed their audiences at every turn that the allegations were just allegations that would need to be proven in court in short order if they were going to impact the outcome of the election," the brief filed on the network's behalf said. "And to the extent some hosts commented on the allegations, that commentary is independently protected opinion."


Fox News has also attacked the Dominion complaint as incomplete and misleading.


"Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law," the network said in a statement.


Ethical questions raised


Journalism experts said they were particularly troubled by the evidence presented in the case suggesting that senior executives at Fox News and on-air hosts appeared to argue that the network should avoid reporting facts about the election because doing so would lead to a decline in viewership.


"It certainly raises questions about how the value of an audience is driving this particular outlet's — and possibly other outlets' — editorial decision making," Kathleen Bartzen Culver, a professor and director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told VOA.


"Some of these texts really think about the audience in a monetized way, and if that is influencing what we will cover, that is far afield from journalism in the public interest," she added.


Ethics aside, Culver said she was stunned at the openness with which Fox executives and personalities discussed their concerns about the veracity of their news coverage in emails and texts.


"No one at Fox News thinks that their communications would be discoverable?" she said. "I find that either wildly naive or wildly arrogant. I'm not sure which."


Ironic coincidence


There is considerable irony at play in the fact that Fox News, the dominant conservative news outlet in the U.S., is the target of a libel suit that experts say has a plausible path to success.


For years, prominent Republicans, most notably Trump, have railed against the severity of the actual malice standard, arguing that the bar it sets is so high that it effectively leaves people who are victims of inaccurate coverage with no recourse to the courts.


Many conservatives, who generally believe the mainstream media have a liberal bias and direct more negative coverage at them, have called for a relaxation of the standard that would make it easier to successfully sue media organizations. Two conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court — Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — have called on the court to revisit New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 case that established the standard.


Protection for actual malice


Kevin M. Lerner, chair of the Department of Communication at Marist College, told VOA that he has been surprised to see other news organizations lining up in support of Dominion, and believes it might be because many see the case as potentially drawing a red line between what the First Amendment allows and what it does not.


"In the past in defamation suits, most news organizations would support the news organization, even if it was a rival or someone they didn't agree with," he said. "It's a sort of, 'There but for the grace of God go we' kind of argument."


Now, Lerner said, "I think there may really be something different here, seeing that media organizations are saying, 'No, this is actually going to help protect the First Amendment, by saying you can't deliberately spread falsehoods. That's not what the First Amendment is for.'"


He said there appears to be some hope among news organizations that a successful high-profile defamation suit might cause activists to "back off" on efforts to loosen the actual malice standard.

Defamation Case Against Fox News Proceeds Toward Trial

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized after tripping at a local hotel on Wednesday evening, a spokesman for the senator said. 


The Kentucky senator, 81, was attending a private dinner in Washington when he tripped. He was admitted to a hospital for treatment, spokesman Doug Andres said. 


McConnell's office did not provide additional detail on his condition or how long he may be absent from the Senate.  


In 2019, the GOP leader tripped and fell at his home in Kentucky, suffering a shoulder fracture. At the time, he underwent surgery to repair the fracture in his shoulder. The Senate had just started a summer recess and he worked from home for some weeks as he recovered. 


First elected in 1984, McConnell in January became the longest-serving Senate leader when the new Congress convened, breaking the previous record of 16 years. 


The taciturn McConnell is often reluctant to discuss his private life. But at the start of the COVID-19 crisis he opened up about his early childhood experience fighting polio. He described how his mother insisted that he stay off his feet as a toddler and worked with him through a determined physical therapy regime. He has acknowledged some difficulty in adulthood climbing stairs. 


The Senate, where the average age is 65, has been without several members recently due to illness. 


Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., 53, who suffered a stroke during his campaign last year, was expected to remain out for some weeks as he received care for clinical depression.  




And Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., 89, said last week that she had been hospitalized to be treated for shingles. 


The Democratic absences have proven a challenge for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is already navigating a very narrow 51-49 majority.  


The Republicans, as the minority party, have had an easier time with intermittent absences. It is unclear if McConnell will be out on Thursday and if that would have an effect on scheduled votes. South Dakota Sen. John Thune is the Senate’s No. 2 Republican.

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell Hospitalized After Fall

U.S. President Joe Biden is set to unveil his budget proposal for fiscal 2024 during a visit Thursday to the state of Pennsylvania.


“The president will deliver remarks on his plans to invest in America, continue to lower costs for families, protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare, reduce the deficit, and more,” the White House said ahead of the event in Philadelphia.


Part of Biden’s proposal is to raise taxes on the wealthy to help pay for his plans.


The White House has already announced that part of the budget proposal includes an increase in Medicare taxes for incomes above $400,000 a year and allowing Medicare to negotiate better prices for prescription drugs to bolster the federal health insurance program for older Americans and certain people with disabilities.


Republicans in Congress expressed opposition to the president’s Medicare plan, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell predicting it had no chance of approval in the Republican-held House of Representatives.


Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.

Biden to Unveil Budget Proposal

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited the top House lawmaker in the United States to visit Kyiv to see “what’s happening here” in an interview broadcast Wednesday on TV news channel CNN.


"Mr. (Kevin) McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what's happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions," Zelenskyy told the news outlet through an interpreter.


Responding to CNN, House Speaker McCarthy said, “I don’t have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv" to understand it. He said he received information in briefings and other ways.


Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the U.S. has sent nearly $100 billion in military, economic and relief aid to Ukraine. That aid was sent when President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party controlled both chambers in Congress.




The Republican Party took control of the U.S. House after the midterm elections, and some Republicans have expressed opposition to sending additional arms and financial aid to Ukraine.


McCarthy has said he supports Ukraine but that House Republicans will not provide "a blank check" for additional U.S. assistance to Kyiv without closer scrutiny of how it is being spent.




In the CNN interview, Zelenskyy said, "I think that Speaker McCarthy, he never visited Kyiv or Ukraine, and I think it would help him with his position.”


Many U.S. lawmakers and officials and world leaders have visited Zelenskyy in Kyiv as a show of solidarity, including President Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.


Guterres calls invasion violation of law


Earlier Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres assailed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of international law as he arrived in Kyiv for talks with Zelenskyy.


The two were to discuss extending grain shipments from the war-torn country and securing the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.


“The sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine must be upheld, within its internationally recognized borders,” Guterres said ahead of talks with Zelenskyy.


“Our ultimate objective is equally clear: a just peace based on the U.N. Charter, international law and the recent General Assembly resolution marking one year since the start of the war,” he said.




But with fighting raging and no peace talks on the horizon, Guterres said the U.N. is trying “to mitigate the impacts of the conflict, which has caused enormous suffering for the Ukrainian people — with profound global implications.”


He called for the continuation of Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea with Russian acquiescence. Since July 2022, he said, 23 million tons of grain have been exported from Ukrainian ports, much of it shipped to impoverished countries. Absent a new agreement, the program is set to expire March 18.




Guterres said the grain exports have “contributed to lowering the global cost of food” and offered “critical relief to people, who are also paying a high price for this war, particularly in the developing world. Indeed, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index has fallen by almost 20% over the last year.”


“Exports of Ukrainian — as well as Russian — food and fertilizers are essential to global food security and food prices,” he said.


Guterres also called for “full demilitarization” of the region around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe’s largest — where nearby fighting has periodically shut down the facility and raised fears of a catastrophic nuclear meltdown.


Attempts for months to end fighting in the region have failed, but Guterres said that safety and security near the power plant are vital so that the facility can return to normal operations.


EU defense ministers push for ammunition


Meanwhile, European Union defense ministers gathered Wednesday in Stockholm with a push to provide more ammunition to Ukrainian forces high on their agenda.


Under a plan by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, the EU states would get financial incentives worth about $1 billion to send ammunition to Kyiv, while another $1 billion would be spent on procuring new ammunition, Agence France-Presse reported.


Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who attended the Stockholm meeting, said Kyiv needed 90,000-100,000 artillery rounds per month, and that Ukraine's military is using the ammunition faster than allies can manufacture them, AFP reported.




NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Wednesday, “There is enormous demand out there. … The current rate of consumption compared to the current rate of production of ammunition is not sustainable and therefore we need to ramp up production.”


Stoltenberg said the conflict is “now a war of attrition.”


He said he could not rule out the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut falling into Russian control in the coming days.


“Therefore, it is also important to highlight that this does not necessarily reflect any turning point of the war, and it just highlights that we should not underestimate Russia,” Stoltenberg said. “We must continue to provide support to Ukraine.”


Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

US House Speaker Declines Invitation from Ukraine’s Zelenskyy

Two competing, prominent events have put on display a cleaving of American conservatives ahead of next year’s presidential election.


Former President Donald Trump closed out the annual Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington, which for years has been a must-attend event for the right wing of the Republican Party. But many party loyalists, including big campaign contributors, instead attended a rival gathering in Florida.


“In 2016, I declared: I am your voice. Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution,” Trump told the CPAC attendees shortly after he captured the conference’s Saturday evening straw poll (unofficial balloting among event registrants) for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.


In the survey, Trump trounced runner-up Ron DeSantis, the governor of the southern U.S. state of Florida, 62% to 20%. It was the fifth consecutive time Trump has won the CPAC straw poll.


Trump, whose speech lasted an hour and 42 minutes, revisited familiar grievances aired at his campaign rallies and repeated the false claim he won the 2020 presidential election. He made no mention of any other declared or expected Republican presidential candidates, instead heaping criticism on the Democrat who defeated him in the 2020 presidential election.


“Joe Biden is leading us into oblivion,” Trump said, adding, “We’re going to have World War III if something doesn’t happen fast.”


“I am the only candidate who can make this promise,” he said. “I will prevent World War III.”


Trump also vowed, if elected again, that he would settle Russia’s war on Ukraine before he arrived back in the Oval Office.


Haley speaks at both events


The former president’s only significant, declared primary challenger so far, his former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, was on the CPAC stage the previous day. Haley also spoke at the rival event, the four-day gathering of the Club for Growth, a group focused on an anti-tax agenda.


“I know there’s a Republican candidate out there you did not invite to this conference,” she told those at the Palm Beach, Florida, event. “I appreciate being one you did invite.”


Trump was not invited to the Club for Growth retreat, held at a luxury hotel just 5 kilometers north up Ocean Boulevard from his Mar-a-Lago resort.


Florida Governor DeSantis was among the top speakers with dozens of major Republican Party donors attending. Among those in Palm Beach for the conference were several potential presidential candidates: former Vice President Mike Pence; Tim Scott, a U.S. senator from South Carolina; and Chris Sununu, the governor of the Northeastern U.S. state of New Hampshire.


On Tuesday, Trump criticized the conservative, economy-focused group, writing in a Truth Social post the “Club for NO Growth is an insignificant group of Globalists” that would only attract the stragglers in next year’s Republican primary.


Another potential presidential prospect from the Republican Party who spoke at CPAC was Trump’s former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.


Attendees described the reception to remarks at CPAC by Pompeo and Haley as tepid. Haley was confronted by chants for Trump as she departed the ballroom.


Pompeo took a subtle dig at Trump during his speech, indirectly blaming his former boss for Republican losses in the 2022 midterm elections, combined with the 2020 presidential loss, creating what he called a “crisis in conservatism.”


“We need a party, a conservative party, that we can be proud to call home again, rooted in our founding ideas, led by people of real character, of competence and commitment to the mission that brought you all here today,” he said.


'A vehicle for Trump' 


In public remarks so far, prominent Republicans, including those expected to challenge Trump for the party’s presidential nomination, have refrained from directly criticizing the former president, a reflection of the power he wields over the party rank and file.


Conservatives were mostly united around Trump when he unsuccessfully ran for reelection in 2020. Some recent polls show the former president retaining about 50% support among Republicans ahead of next year’s election.


CPAC has turned into the “Donald Trump Family Variety Hour,” said CNN’s conservative commentator Sarah Elizabeth Cupp. “It’s become a vehicle for Trump and Trumpism” and no longer “a stop on way to becoming president.”




Prominent neo-conservative writer Bill Kristol, who served in the administrations of two Republican presidents, was not impressed by either the CPAC or Club for Growth events.


“Competition is a good thing. It leads to better products and choices except when it’s a race to the bottom,” Kristol told VOA. “And it looks like Trump versus DeSantis is more of a race to the bottom than a healthy contest which will improve the choice.”

Trump Dominates Key Conservative Event

Self-help author Marianne Williamson, whose 2020 White House campaign featured calls for spiritual healing, launched another bid for the presidency on Saturday, becoming the first Democrat to formally challenge President Joe Biden for the 2024 nomination.


"We are upset about this country, we're worried about this country," Williamson told a crowd of more than 600 at a kickoff in the nation's capital. "It is our job to create a vision of justice and love that is so powerful that it will override the forces of hatred and injustice and fear."


The 70-year-old onetime spiritual adviser to Oprah Winfrey should provide only token primary opposition — a testament to how strongly national Democrats are united behind Biden. Still, she tweaked the president, a longtime Amtrak rider, by holding her opening rally at the ornately marble-columned presidential suite at Union Station, Washington's railway hub.


Biden gave his own speech from Union Station just before last November's elections, when he led Democrats to a surprisingly strong showing, urging voters to reject political extremism and saying "democracy itself" was at stake.


Williamson, whose red, blue and black campaign signs feature the dual slogans "A New Beginning" and "Disrupt the System," said she'll be campaigning in early-voting states on the 2024 election calendar.




That includes New Hampshire, which has threatened to defy a Biden-backed plan by the Democratic National Committee to have South Carolina lead off the nominating contests. Democrats and Republicans in New Hampshire have warned that if Biden skips the state's unsanctioned primary and a rival wins it, that outcome could prove embarrassing for the sitting president — even if that challenger has no real shot of becoming the nominee.


Striking a defiant tone Saturday, Williamson denounced "those who feel they are the adults in the room" and aren't taking her candidacy seriously, proclaiming, "Let me in there."


"I have run for president before. I am not naive about these forces which have no intention of allowing anyone into this conversation who does not align with their predetermined agenda," she said. "I understand that, in their mind, only people who previously have been entrenched in the car that brought us into this ditch can possibly be considered qualified to bring us out of it."


Luke Stowell, 20, a musician and student at American University in Washington who sat in the front row for Williamson's announcement, said "she has a really nice message that incorporates all of the prejudices and the social structures that inhibit, I think, a lot of people on a daily basis."


Seated next to him, 24-year-old American University law student Ivan Claudio noted that, should he win a second term, Biden would be in his late 80s by the time he leaves office, which Claudio said "is a cause for concern."


Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history, would be 86 at the end of a second term. Most people in the United States — and even most Democrats — say they don't want him to run again, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.


The president is expected to announce in the coming weeks that he's running again.




A Texas native who now lives in Beverly Hills, California, Williamson is the author of more than a dozen books and ran an unsuccessful independent congressional campaign in California in 2014. In 2020, she was best known for wanting to create a Department of Peace and arguing the federal government should pay large financial reparations to Black Americans as atonement for centuries of slavery and discrimination.


Arguably her most memorable moment of that campaign came during a primary debate when she called for a "moral uprising," but she dropped out of the race shortly before the leadoff Iowa caucuses began.

Marianne Williamson Launches Longshot 2024 Challenge to Biden

American Cindy McCain will take over as executive director of the United Nations World Food Program when current director David Beasley steps down next month.


“Ms. McCain, a champion for human rights, has a long history of giving a voice to the voiceless through her humanitarian and philanthropic work,” said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Qu Dongyu in a statement announcing the appointment.


McCain is a prominent Republican Party member who is currently U.S. ambassador to United Nations agencies in Rome, which include the FAO, the WFP, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.


She has been active in U.S. politics for decades as the wife of Arizona Senator John McCain, who died of brain cancer in August 2018. Since then, she has forged her own political profile, including backing Democrat Joe Biden in his presidential bid against then-incumbent Republican president Donald Trump in 2020.


Biden appointed McCain to the Rome post in November 2021. Typically, the White House is involved in nominating the U.S. candidate to head the WFP, which is often a U.S.-held post.


McCain has worked in philanthropy, starting the American Voluntary Medical Team in 1988, which provides emergency medical and surgical care to poor children across the world. She has also traveled in her personal capacity on behalf of the WFP, visiting mother and child feeding programs in Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.


Mammoth challenges 


McCain, 68, takes over the agency at a time of unprecedented global need. The WFP says 349 million people across 79 countries are acutely food insecure. The agency is attempting to raise $23 billion this year to reach almost 150 million people worldwide.


In 2022, the WFP reached 160 million people with humanitarian assistance.


“McCain takes over as head of the World Food Program at a moment when the world confronts the most serious food security crisis in modern history and this leadership role has never been more important,” the president of the WFP’s executive board, Polish Ambassador Artur Andrzej Pollok, said in a statement. “We wish her well and can assure her she will have the full support of the Executive Board.”


U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered his congratulations and said Washington is “deeply invested” in the WFP’s continuing success.




“I am confident that she will bring renewed energy, optimism, and success to the World Food Program,” Blinken said of McCain.


The Republican chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, and the highest-ranking Democrat, Gregory Meeks, welcomed McCain’s appointment saying she is “an exceptionally qualified leader.”


“At a time when food insecurity and fuel costs are at an all-time high and there is soaring global hunger, the task of leading the World Food Program is more significant and consequential than ever,” they said in a joint statement.


Former leader warns against partisanship


The United States is the WFP’s largest contributor, providing about 40% of its budget or $7 billion in 2022, so McCain’s political clout will be an asset in securing funding.


But former U.S. ambassador Ertharin Cousin, who headed the WFP from 2012-2017 and is now CEO of the Chicago-based Food Systems for the Future, cautioned that McCain is serving as an international civil servant, not as member of the Republican Party.


“She must serve on a non-partisan basis in order to effectively support the work of the organization,” Cousin told VOA. “But having said that, of course, I am not naive that she will need to continue to work with both sides of the aisle in order to secure the commitment from the U.S. for the level of contribution that is required to meet the global food insecurity needs.”


Cousin also said it will be important for McCain to keep the organization fit for its purpose.


“You are stewards of taxpayers’ dollars from across the globe, and as a result you have a responsibility to make sure the organization remains the efficient behemoth that the world needs,” Cousin said.


Outgoing chief Beasley offered his congratulations on Twitter Wednesday, a day ahead of the official announcement.




Outgoing WFP leader praised


Beasley said in mid-December that he would be leaving in April. He has served as the food agency’s chief since 2017. In 2020, the World Food Program was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”




Guterres and the FAO Director-General expressed deep appreciation for Beasley’s leadership.


“He has led WFP with a deep compassion for the world’s hungry and most vulnerable during what can only be described as unprecedented crises that severely impacted global food security,” Guterres and Qu said. “He has humanized for the world the women and children most affected by hunger and has used his powerful voice to bring awareness and substantial resources to one crisis after another.”


Beasley’s tenure has coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedented droughts and floods in several developing countries, as well as a steady stream of conflicts, including Russia’s invasion last year of Ukraine.


Despite tremendous levels of fundraising, a number of the agency’s programs are hurting for cash and facing cutbacks as needs continue to rise.

American Cindy McCain to Head UN World Food Program

Top lawmakers in Congress were briefed Tuesday on the investigations into classified documents found in the private possession of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. 


U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines was among the officials who met privately with congressional leaders for roughly an hour. Attending the briefing were the House and Senate leaders of both parties and the leaders of both intelligence committees, who comprise what's known as the "Gang of Eight." Lawmakers leaving the briefing declined to specify what was discussed. 


Both Republicans and Democrats have long demanded more information from the Biden administration about the successive discoveries of classified documents in the homes of two presidents and a vice president. The U.S. strictly controls who has access to classified material and how they can view it. 




Leaders of the intelligence committees have expressed concerns about the possible exposure of highly classified secrets in those documents. 


"We still have considerable work to do, oversight work to do, to satisfy ourselves that absolutely everything is being done to protect sources and methods," Democratic Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview. 


The chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a joint statement that also called for more information about any potential damage. 


"While today's meeting helped shed some light on these issues, it left much to be desired, and we will continue to press for full answers to our questions in accordance with our constitutional oversight obligations," Senators Mark Warner and Marco Rubio said. 




The Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have declined to share details of their investigations. Attorney General Merrick Garland has directed separate special counsels to review the documents linked to Trump and Biden. 


Federal agents searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in August after developing evidence that led them to believe that Trump and his representatives had not returned all classified files. The Justice Department has said in court filings that roughly 300 documents with classified markings, including at the top-secret level, have been recovered from Mar-a-Lago after being taken there after Trump left the White House. 




Biden's lawyers have said they discovered a "small number" of classified documents in November after searching a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. A second batch of documents — again described by Biden's lawyers as a "small number" — were found in a storage space in Biden's garage near Wilmington, Delaware, along with six pages located in Biden's personal library in his home. 


FBI agents in January found six additional items that contained documents with classified markings and also took possession of some of Biden's handwritten notes, according to Biden's lawyers. 




Pence's lawyers have also said they found a "small number of documents" in his Indiana home that appeared to have been inadvertently taken there at the conclusion of his vice presidency. Federal agents found an additional classified document during a voluntary search. 




Underscoring the political and legal sensitivities for Biden, the White House issued a statement saying the Justice Department and the director of national intelligence decided on their own to brief Congress and what information to share. 


"The White House has confidence in DOJ and ODNI to exercise independent judgment about whether or when it may be appropriate for national security reasons to offer briefings on any relevant information in these investigations," said spokesperson Ian Sams.

Top Lawmakers Briefed on Trump, Biden, Pence Documents

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is fighting for reelection Tuesday after a history-making but tumultuous four years in office and a bruising campaign threaten to make her the city's first one-term mayor in decades.


Lightfoot in 2019 became the first Black woman and first openly gay mayor of the third-largest U.S. city, and only the second woman to hold the office. But Lightfoot, a former prosecutor and head of a city police review board, now faces serious challenges from multiple candidates, who have hammered her over crime that spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic and a leadership style they say is unnecessarily combative.


With none of the nine candidates likely to receive over 50% of the vote, the race is expected to move to an April runoff between the top two vote-getters. Lightfoot may not be among them.


Lightfoot has touted her record of investing in neighborhoods and supporting workers, such as by increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. She also notes that the city has navigated unprecedented challenges such as the pandemic and its economic and public safety fallout to protests over policing.


“The world is very different than it was four years ago. I believe that I’m still the right person and I think the voters will validate that, but we’ve been through a lot,” Lightfoot said after a rally on the city's west side during the final days before the election. “We can't go back.”


Lightfoot's top rivals include Paul Vallas, who has run as the law-and-order candidate with support from the city's police union and promises to put hundreds more officers on the streets, and U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who forced then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel to a runoff in 2015. Brandon Johnson is endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, a group that has tangled with Lightfoot, including during an 11-day teachers strike in her first year in office.


If Lightfoot loses on Tuesday, she would be one of the few big-city mayors in recent history to lose their reelection bid. That's particularly true in the first round of voting, when incumbents generally enjoy an advantage.


'This election is different'


But this election is very different, said Constance Mixon, a lifelong Chicago resident and political science professor at Elmhurst University. Of the 10 largest U.S. cities, Chicago is the only place without mayoral term limits, which may make voters in other cities more willing to give an incumbent one more term, Mixon said. 


Lightfoot also is the first mayor of a major U.S. city to face reelection following the pandemic, recession and the crime wave that's occurred in many places, she said.


“I suspect that other mayors — and we’ve got a handful of them that are up this year, but after Lightfoot — are going to face many of the same challenges as Lightfoot,” she said.


Race also is a factor as candidates court votes in the highly segregated city, which is closely divided in population among Black, Hispanic and white residents. Lightfoot, Johnson and five other candidates are Black, though Lightfoot — who is hoping strong support from Black voters will help propel her to victory — has argued that she is the only Black candidate who can win. Garcia, the only Latino in the race, would be Chicago's first Hispanic mayor, while Vallas is the only white candidate in the field.


Lightfoot has accused Vallas of using “the ultimate dog whistle” by saying his campaign is about “taking back our city,” and of cozying up to the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, whom she calls a racist. A recent Chicago Tribune story also found Vallas' Twitter account had liked racist tweets and tweets that mocked Lightfoot's appearance and referred to her as masculine.


Vallas denied his comments were related to race and says his police union endorsement is from rank-and-file officers. He also said he wasn't responsible for the liked tweets, which he called “abhorrent," and suggested someone had improperly accessed his account.


But Lightfoot and some of her supporters see some of the criticism of her leadership as motivated by racism, sexism and anti-gay sentiment.


“No other mayor has been asked to change this city within four years,” said city Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, who is Black, and noted that white mayors like Emanuel and Richard Daley served multiple terms. “When we get in the game, the rules change.”


At a weekend campaign stop, Vallas said he is focused on things like public safety, Chicago's “demoralized” police department and the number of residents “fleeing” the city's school district.


“It’s all a product of bad leadership," Vallas said.


A former city budget director who also led school systems in Chicago, New Orleans and Philadelphia, Vallas lost a 2019 bid for mayor. This time, he has been laser-focused on public safety, saying police officers who left the force under Lightfoot's administration will return if he's elected.


It seems to have resonated with voters, such as Antwoin Jackson, who are concerned about an uptick in crime. Jackson said he supported Lightfoot four years ago but cast his ballot for Vallas in Tuesday's election because he said Lightfoot “did not hold control over the violence in the communities.” Jackson said he feels particularly unsafe when riding public transit.


Johnson, who lives in one of Chicago's most violent neighborhoods, says more needs to be done to provide affordable housing and social services such as mental health care.


Garcia, a former City Council member, state lawmaker and county commissioner, has called Lightfoot too combative and says he has a record of bringing people together.


The other candidates are businessman Willie Wilson, Chicago City Council members Sophia King and Roderick Sawyer, activist Ja’Mal Green and state Rep. Kambium “Kam” Buckner.

Chicago Mayor Lightfoot Taking On 8 Rivals in Reelection Bid

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