Top Republicans visit New York to sound off on debt ceiling and crime – live | Republicans

You’ve probably heard of progressive demands for a $15 minimum wage, but in a column for the Guardian’s opinion pages, senator Bernie Sanders argues that a fair minimum wage is actually $17 an hour. Don’t expect a minimum wage increase to pass Congress anytime soon, but Sanders’s proposal may prove influential at the state and local level, where activists have had success in raising wages. Have a read of the senator’s argument:

Congress can no longer ignore the needs of the working class of this country. At a time of massive and growing income and wealth inequality and record-breaking corporate profits, we must stand up for working families – many of whom are struggling every day to provide a minimal standard of living for their families.

One important way to do that is to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage. In the year 2023, nobody in the US should be forced to work for starvation wages. It should be a basic truism that in the US, the richest country on earth, if you work 40 hours a week you do not live in poverty. Raising the minimum wage is not only the right thing to do morally. It is also good economics. Putting money into the hands of people who will spend it on basic needs is a strong economic stimulant.

Hanging over American politics this week is the fate of mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortion that narrowly survived being taken off the shelves by the order of a conservative judge last week. But as the Guardian’s Maya Yang reports, the supreme court could again upend abortion access this week by allowing the ruling to go forward, and Democrats are furious:

Top Democratic senators across the US are pushing back after a federal judge in Texas decided to block the FDA-approved abortion drug mifepristone.

On Sunday, the New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand criticized as an “outrage” Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s decision, which is currently halted until at least Wednesday 19 April by the supreme court.

Speaking to CNN, Gillibrand said: “To take away the right to have medicine is an extension of taking away this right to privacy, to say we can’t have medicine sent by doctors by mail to people across the country is further invading into this right to privacy, where the court and government has a right to what’s in your mail, and who you’re talking to and what communications you’re having. It’s an outrage.”

Jeffries accuses GOP of creating debt ceiling ‘hostage situation’

Gun violence prevention group GIFFORDS doesn’t think much of the House GOP’s hearing on crime in New York City, asking why Republican don’t focus their efforts on preventing gun violence.

“We know that fewer than eight percent of the guns that are used in crimes in New York City come from New York. Instead, they primarily come from states with weak gun laws. New York has strong gun laws that protect New York residents. What we need is other states to do their part, and more importantly than that, we need the federal government to do its part,” deputy chief counsel of the GIFFORDS Law Center David Pucino said in a statement. The group is named after Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman turned gun control advocate who was grievously injured in a 2013 mass shooting.

Pucino continued:

Since taking control of the House this year, congressional Republicans have refused to advance gun safety legislation and are even working to roll back a recently-finalized ATF rule regulating concealable, dangerous weapons. Until we pass commonsense gun safety legislation, we will not address the problems of gun violence and violent crime, because you can’t be serious about crime unless you are serious about guns.

These should not be partisan issues. We know what the nonpartisan, commonsense solutions are, and they must be implemented — but instead, Republican lawmakers are holding sham hearings in states that have strong gun laws.”

The big national security news last week was the arrest of a young air national guardsman for allegedly leaking secret materials from the Pentagon, but even that couldn’t avoid getting sucked into the world of rightwing conspiracy theories. Over the weekend, the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt reported that prominent Republican senator Lindsey Graham told one of the loudest proponents of the theory to cut it out. Here’s more:

Senator Lindsey Graham condemned his fellow Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene as “terribly irresponsible” on Sunday, after the far-right congresswoman defended the air national guardsman charged with leaking Pentagon intelligence documents.

Speaking on ABC’s This Week show, Graham said the leaks had “done a lot of damage to our standing” and criticized “those who are trying to sugarcoat this on the right”.

Taylor Greene, a known conspiracy theorist and election denier who was controversially named to the homeland security committee in January, had suggested on Thursday that Jack Teixeira, an airman in the air national guard who has been charged under the Espionage Act after allegedly leaking hundreds of secret defence documents, had been treated unfairly.

Justice department to announce arrests in ‘significant national security matter’

In his speech, Kevin McCarthy raised the specter of Joe Biden causing a debt default by refusing to negotiate.

Such an event would be unprecedented in US history, and could have catastrophic consequences for the global economy. Here’s more of McCarthy’s remarks:

He also mentioned that the House would vote “in the coming weeks” on their proposal for raising the debt limit while also cutting spending:

Debt limit increase without spending cuts ‘will not pass’: McCarthy

House Republicans have made clear their hearing on crime in New York is about attacking Manhattan district attorney and Donald Trump indicter Alvin Bragg, but their witnesses aren’t necessarily playing along.

In testimony before the committee, a lawyer for former store clerk Jose Alba complained about his treatment at the hands’ of New York’s police and prosecutors, without mentioning Bragg. You can watch the testimony below:

A big potential story today is the unexpected delay in the trial of Dominion Voting System’s defamation case against Fox News, which was expected to begin this morning. It’s exactly the sort of thing that could happen if the two sides were nearing a settlement, but there’s no saying yet if one has been reached. Here’s the latest on the delay from the Guardian’s Sam Levine in Wilmington, Delaware:

The trial in the closely watched $1.6bn defamation lawsuit between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox will begin a day later than scheduled, the judge overseeing the case announced on Sunday evening, hours before opening arguments were set to begin on Monday and amid reports of settlement talks.

The trial was rescheduled to begin on Tuesday. Eric Davis, the Delaware superior court judge overseeing the case, did not say why the trial was being delayed. “The court has decided to continue the start of the trial, including jury selection, until Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 9am. I will make such an announcement tomorrow [Monday] at 9am in Courtroom 7E,” he said in a statement released through a court spokesperson.

Democrats hit back at GOP’s New York blitz

Debt ceiling, crime on the agenda as Republicans head to New York