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Hardline Republicans dig in against McCarthy’s House speaker bid
WASHINGTON, Jan 5 (Reuters) – Hardline Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives rejected Kevin McCarthy’s speakership bid for an 11th time on Thursday, while his supporters worked behind closed doors in hopes of cementing a deal that could bring success.
The voting propelled the House to a level of dysfunction not seen since the turbulent era just before the Civil War, even after McCarthy offered to curb his own clout, raising questions about the party’s ability to wield power.
After the 11th ballot, the House adjourned for the third time this week without electing a speaker. Lawmakers will reconvene at noon (1700 GMT) on Friday.
McCarthy’s opponents say they do not trust him to fight for the deep spending cuts and other restrictions they want to impose on President Joe Biden and the Democratic-controlled Senate.
But some Republicans held out hope of an agreement between the California Republican and at least some of the 20 hardline conservatives who have opposed his candidacy in ballot after ballot.
“Things are coming together in a very healthy way,” said Representative Patrick McHenry, a McCarthy supporter who is poised to lead a top congressional committee.
“We don’t know the timeframe. But the engagement is there and that’s why I’m optimistic,” he said.
Among other things, a possible agreement would allow for a vote on term limits for members of Congress, according to Republican Representative Brian Fitzpatrick.
But McCarthy’s supporters stopped short of predicting a resolution to the stalemate anytime soon.
Because of its inability to choose a leader, the 435-seat House has been rendered impotent – unable even to formally swear in newly elected members let alone hold hearings, consider legislation or scrutinize Biden and his administration.
Republicans won a slim 222-212 House majority in the November midterm elections, meaning McCarthy cannot afford to lose the support of more than four Republicans as Democrats united around their own candidate.
McCarthy, who was backed by former President Donald Trump for the post, offered the holdouts a range of concessions that would weaken the speaker’s role, which political allies warned would make the job even harder if he got it.
At least 200 Republicans have backed McCarthy in each of the votes this week. Fewer than 10% of Republican lawmakers have voted against him but they are enough to deny him the 218 votes needed to succeed Democrat Nancy Pelosi as speaker.
“What you’re seeing on this floor does not mean we are dysfunctional,” said Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna as she nominated a McCarthy rival, Byron Donalds, for the 10th vote.
‘CONSTRUCT A STRAITJACKET’
“I can tell you there’s some good things happening,” said Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a McCarthy supporter who is among the most outspoken conservatives in the House. “I think we’re going to see some movement.”
But some of McCarthy’s opponents showed no sign of yielding.
“This ends in one of two ways: either Kevin McCarthy withdraws from the race or we construct a straitjacket that he is unwilling to evade,” said Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, who voted for Trump for speaker.
As speaker, McCarthy would hold a post that normally shapes the chamber’s agenda and is second in the line of succession to the presidency behind Vice President Kamala Harris. He would be empowered to frustrate Biden’s legislative agenda and launch investigations into the president’s family and administration in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
In a late-night bargaining session, McCarthy offered the holdouts greater influence over what legislation comes up for a vote, according to a source familiar with the talks.
He also offered the ability for any single member to call a vote that could potentially remove him from the post – a step that helped drive at least one prior Republican speaker, John Boehner, into retirement.
Those concessions could potentially help McCarthy win over some of the holdouts but would leave him more vulnerable to the hardliners through the rest of the next two years if he ultimately wins the speakership.
That has even alarmed some Democrats, who have largely served as bystanders in the drama of the past three days.
“With every concession, he has to wake up every day wondering if he’s still going to have his job,” Democratic Representative Richard Neal told reporters.
The inability to agree on a leader also raises questions about whether Republicans will force a government shutdown or risk default later this year in a bid to extract steep spending cuts. Some of the holdouts say they expect McCarthy or any other Republican leader to take that approach.
If McCarthy ultimately fails to unite Republicans, they would have to search for an alternative. Possibilities include No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise and Representative Jim Jordan, who have both backed McCarthy. Jordan received 20 votes when nominated by the holdouts on Tuesday.
Reporting by Moira Warburton, Doina Chiacu, David Morgan, Kanishka Singh and Gram Slattery; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Will Dunham, Howard Goller and Christian Schmollinger
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Kevin McCarthy vows to remain in race for U.S. House speaker amid hardline opposition
WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) – Republican Kevin McCarthy vowed on Tuesday to remain in the race to be the powerful U.S. House of Representatives speaker, hours after hardline members of his party repeatedly blocked his bid to lead their brand-new majority.
In the first day of what could prove to be a brutal showdown between about 20 hardliners and the other 202 members of the Republican caucus, McCarthy failed in three ballots to achieve the 218 votes needed to become speaker, a role second in line to the Oval Office after the vice president.
It was a disconcerting start for the new Republican majority and highlights the challenges the party could face over the next two years, heading into the 2024 presidential election. Their slim 222-212 majority gives greater clout to a small group of hardliners, who want rule changes that would give them greater control over the speaker and more influence over the party’s approach to spending and the debt.
Late on Tuesday, McCarthy told reporters that former President Donald Trump had called him and reiterated his support. Trump has backed McCarthy in the race and remains a powerful figure in the Republican Party.
McCarthy, 57, from California, knew he faced an uphill climb heading into Tuesday’s vote and had vowed to continue to force votes. But the chamber voted on Tuesday evening to adjourn until noon ET (1700 GMT) on Wednesday, a move that would give Republicans time to discuss other candidates.
Conservative Representative Jim Jordan, 58, from Ohio, won 20 votes in the last ballot of the day, far from the threshold of 218 to become speaker but enough to stop McCarthy.
“I think that Kevin knows that this is his last shot,” said Representative Kenneth Buck, who had voted to support McCarthy. He noted that McCarthy previously tried in 2015 to become speaker and failed in the face of conservative opposition, adding, “He’s not gonna have this chance again.”
A protracted speaker election could undermine House Republicans’ hopes of moving forward quickly on investigations of Democratic President Joe Biden and his administration, and legislative priorities that include the economy, U.S. energy independence and border security.
The chamber’s top Democrat, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, bested McCarthy in all three votes. In the day’s final tally, Jeffries led McCarthy 212 to 202 votes. A majority of those voting, not a plurality, is needed to determine a speaker.
A standoff would leave the House largely paralyzed and could force lawmakers to consider another Republican candidate. In addition to Jordan, incoming Majority Leader Steve Scalise, 57, from Louisiana, was seen as a possibility.
The last time the House failed to elect a speaker on the first ballot was 1923.
‘RALLY AROUND HIM’
[1/10] U.S. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is surrounded by reporters after a House Republican caucus meeting on the first day of the 118th Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., January 3, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Jordan himself had spoken in support of McCarthy before he was nominated, and all three times voted for him.
“We need to rally around him,” Jordan had said in an impassioned speech on the House floor. “I think Kevin McCarthy’s the right guy to lead us.”
Jordan is a staunch ally of Trump and a co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
A former college wrestler, Jordan is preparing to oversee the House Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the Justice Department and FBI under Biden.
McCarthy’s hardline opponents are concerned that he is not deeply invested enough in the culture wars and partisan rivalries that have dominated the House – and even more so since Trump’s White House years.
Before the vote, McCarthy tried to persuade the holdouts during a closed-door party meeting, vowing to stay in the race until he gets the necessary votes, but many participants emerged from the gathering undaunted.
McCarthy suggested to reporters later on Tuesday that the path to him becoming speaker lay in members voting “present” – neither for nor against him – which would lower the threshold needed to secure the job.
McCarthy has spent his adult life in politics – as a congressional staffer then state legislator before being elected to the House in 2006. As speaker, McCarthy would be well placed to frustrate Biden’s legislative ambitions.
But any Republican speaker will have the tough task of managing a House Republican caucus moving ever rightward, with uncompromising tendencies and – at least among some lawmakers – close allegiances to Trump.
Struggles with the party’s right flank cut short the careers of the last two Republican speakers, with John Boehner resigning the post in 2015 and Paul Ryan opting not to run for re-election in 2018.
The record number of voting rounds to elect a House speaker is 133 over a two-month period in the 1850s.
The Democrats picked Jeffries to serve as minority leader after Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as speaker, announced that she would step down from her leadership role. She will remain in office as a representative.
Reporting by David Morgan, Moira Warburton and Gram Slattery; additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell, Will Dunham and Howard Goller
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Israel’s Netanyahu back in power with hard-line government
JERUSALEM (AP) — Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday returned to power for an unprecedented sixth term as Israel’s prime minister, taking the helm of the most right-wing and religiously conservative government in the country’s 74-year history.
The swearing-in ceremony capped a remarkable comeback for Netanyahu, who was ousted last year after 12 consecutive years in power. But he faces numerous challenges, leading an alliance of religious and far-right parties that could cause domestic and regional turmoil and alienate Israel’s closest allies.
His new government has pledged to prioritize settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, extend massive subsidies to his ultra-Orthodox allies and push for sweeping reform of the judicial system that critics say could endanger the country’s democratic institutions. The plans have sparked an uproar in Israeli society, prompting criticism from the military, LGBTQ rights groups, the business community and others, and raised concerns abroad.
In a stormy parliamentary session before his swearing in, the combative Netanyahu took aim at his critics, accusing the opposition of trying to scare the public.
“I hear the constant cries of the opposition about the end of the country and democracy,” Netanyahu said from the podium. “Opposition members: to lose in elections is not the end of democracy, this is the essence of democracy.”
His speech was interrupted repeatedly by boos and jeers from his opponents, who chanted “weak, weak” — an apparent reference to the numerous concessions he made to his new governing partners.
Later, Netanyahu held a brief meeting with his new Cabinet, saying his priorities would include halting Iran’s nuclear program, strengthening law and order and combatting the country’s high cost of living, and expanding Israel’s burgeoning relations with the Arab world.
“I am emotional because of the great trust the people of Israel gave us,” he told the ministers, adding that he was excited to work with the “excellent team” he has assembled. “Let’s get to work.”
Netanyahu is the country’s longest serving prime minister, having held office for a total of 15 years, including a stint in the 1990s. After four consecutive inconclusive elections, he was ousted last year by a coalition of eight ideologically diverse parties united by little more than their opposition to his rule.
That coalition collapsed in June, and Netanyahu and his ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox allies secured a clear parliamentary majority in November’s election.
The country remains deeply divided over Netanyahu, who remains on trial for charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three corruption cases. He denies all charges, saying he is the victim of a witch hunt orchestrated by a hostile media, police and prosecutors.
Netanyahu now heads a government comprised of a hard-line religious ultranationalist party dominated by West Bank settlers, two ultra-Orthodox parties and his nationalist Likud party. They have endorsed a set of guidelines and coalition agreements that go far beyond the goals he outlined on Thursday and, some say, risk imperiling Israel’s democratic institutions and deepening the conflict with the Palestinians.
Long a hard-liner toward the Palestinians, Netanyahu already is a strong proponent of Israel’s West Bank settlements. That is only expected to be kicked into overdrive under the new government. Netanyahu has created a special ministerial post giving a firebrand settler leader widespread authority over settlement policies. The coalition’s platform says that “the Jewish people have exclusive and indisputable rights” over the entirety of Israel and the Palestinian territories and promises to make settlement expansion a top priority.
That includes legalizing dozens of wildcat outposts and a commitment to annex the entire territory, a step that would snuff out any remaining hopes for Palestinian statehood and draw heavy international opposition.
Israel captured the West Bank in 1967 along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem — territories the Palestinians seek for a future state. Israel has constructed dozens of Jewish settlements that are home to around 500,000 Israelis who live alongside around 2.5 million Palestinians.
Most of the international community considers Israel’s West Bank settlements illegal and an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. The United States already has warned the incoming government against taking steps that could further undermine hopes for an independent Palestinian state.
President Joe Biden on Thursday called Netanyahu his “friend for decades” and said he looked forward to working with him “to jointly address the many challenges and opportunities facing Israel and the Middle East region, including threats from Iran.”
But, Biden warned, the U.S. will “continue to support the two state solution and to oppose policies that endanger its viability or contradict our mutual interests and values.”
At home, the new government has alarmed good-governance groups with its plans to overhaul the legal system — including a proposal that would curb the power of the independent judiciary by allowing parliament to overturn Supreme Court rulings. Critics say this will destroy the country’s system of checks and balances and clear the way for Netanyahu’s criminal trial to be dismissed.
There are also concerns about the rollback of minority and LGBTQ rights. Members of the Religious Zionism party said they would an advance an amendment to the country’s anti-discrimination law that would allow businesses and doctors to discriminate against the LGBTQ community on the basis of religious faith.
Outside parliament, several thousand demonstrators waved Israeli and rainbow gay pride flags. “We don’t want fascists in the Knesset!” they chanted. Crowds of LGBTQ supporters shouting “Shame!” blocked the entrance to a major intersection and highway in Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu has promised he will protect minorities and LGBTQ rights. Amir Ohana, a Netanyahu loyalist, was voted in as the first openly gay speaker of parliament on Thursday as his partner and their two children watched from the audience.
Onstage, Ohana turned to them and promised the new government would respect everyone. “This Knesset, under the leadership of this speaker, won’t hurt them or any child or any other family, period,” he said.
LGBTQ groups welcomed Ohana’s appointment, but fear the new government is using his appointment as a smokescreen to reverse gains the community has made in recent years.
Yair Lapid, the outgoing prime minister who is now in the post of opposition leader, told parliament that he was handing the new government “a country in excellent condition, with a strong economy, with improved defensive abilities and strong deterrence, with one of the best international standings ever.”
“Try not to destroy it. We’ll be back soon,” Lapid said.
___
Associated Press writers Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem and Darlene Superville in Kingshill, U.S. Virgin Islands, contributed to this report.
‘I’ve done it’: Netanyahu announces his 6th government, Israel’s most hardline ever
Benjamin Netanyahu informed President Isaac Herzog late on Wednesday that he has come to agreements with his coalition partners to form Israel’s 37th government, delivering a promise of right-wing and religious-led political stability seven weeks after the country’s fifth election since 2019 and minutes before the expiration of his mandate to form the next government.
In line with Israeli law, Netanyahu was also set to inform Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin, who will announce the development during Monday’s legislative session. After that, Netanyahu will have seven days to swear in his government, although party sources say it is likely to happen before the January 2 deadline.
The negotiations between Netanyahu and his far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners came down to the wire, with the Otzma Yehudit party saying an hour before the deadline it was still locked in negotiations with Netanyahu’s Likud and it “wasn’t clear” if the two sides would reach an agreement.
Netanyahu finally called Herzog to announce his coalition around 20 minutes before the deadline, over a month after receiving the mandate to form a government.
Immediately afterward, shortly before midnight, Netanyahu publicly declared his government, tweeting simply: “I’ve done it.”
In a video of his conversation with Herzog, Netanyahu tells the president, “I wanted to inform you that, thanks to the immense public support we won in the elections, I have managed to set up a government which will take care of all the citizens of Israel. And I of course intend to establish it as quickly as possible.”
Herzog responded by thanking Netanyahu and wishing him success. “The obligation is to work for the entire Israeli people and public, and I hope you will all join up for this mission at this time,” he said. “Good luck.”
Israel’s largest party and a right-wing powerhouse, Likud will be on the left flank of the prime minister-designate’s incoming coalition. Far-right Otzma Yehudit, Religious Zionism and Noam, as well as Netanyahu’s long-time ultra-Orthodox partners Shas and United Torah Judaism, round out the 64-seat majority coalition in Israel’s 120-member Knesset.
Although the parties are largely reliant on each other to return to power after a year and a half in the opposition, Netanyahu’s partners have driven a hard bargain in negotiations, securing far-reaching policy and appointment concessions that will drive judicial reform, may change security service command structures, retroactively legalize and expand settlements, introduce far-right influence in secular education, and expand religious influence over state and social institutions.
In addition, the parties have promised to improve internal security amid a lingering terror wave and rampant violent crime in some areas, vowed to combat Israel’s soaring cost of living, and reaffirmed Netanyahu’s perennial promise to counter Iranian nuclear ambitions.
The change in government marks a major shift in tone from Israel’s outgoing, big-tent coalition led by prime ministers Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett, whose cross-spectrum coalition united in 2021 to drive out Netanyahu after a 12-year run in power. While all of Israel’s Zionist Knesset parties agree with the country’s self-conception as a Jewish and democratic state, the definitions of “Jewish” and “democratic” are a major dividing line between the incoming coalition and its predecessor.
Likud leader MK Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister Yair Lapid, and party leaders at a swearing-in ceremony of the 25th Knesset, at the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, November 15, 2022. (Photo by Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Three fast-tracked legislative changes demanded by Netanyahu’s allies as conditions for swearing in the announced government underscore the democratic issue.
The first, a bid to expand political control over the police force by incoming national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, has been criticized by the attorney general’s office for insufficiently balancing police independence and ministerial authority.
Meanwhile, Religious Zionism’s Bezalel Smotrich is pushing to change the quasi-constitutional Basic Law undergirding Israel’s government to enable his appointment as an independent minister in the Defense Ministry in charge of West Bank settlement and Palestinian construction. Smotrich advocates for Israel annexing the West Bank, home to about 500,000 Jewish settlers and nearly 3 million Palestinians.
Critics have said that his appointment to the sensitive post and coalition promises to legalize wildcat settlements may lead to de facto annexation, as well as disrupt operational command structures.
Annexation would force Israel into either a democratic or identity crisis, whereby it would either need to deny full citizenship to Palestinians incorporated into the state, or tip scales away from a Jewish majority in the electorate.
Finally, Shas’s Aryeh Deri is also demanding a change to the same Basic Law, but to clear his way to helming two ministries, despite his recent suspended sentence for tax fraud.
The push by Deri, Smotrich and Otzma Yehudit’s Ben Gvir’s to receive their authorities and appointments before lending Netanyahu their parties’ combined 25 votes to swear in the government is forcing a compressed timeline for the consequential changes, but the three leaders have at times expressed their lack of trust in Netanyahu’s word.
Shas leader Aryeh Deri (L) embraces Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir during a Knesset session at which a new speaker was elected, December 13, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
The biggest democratic debate, however, revolves around the incoming government’s declared intention to increase political control over the judiciary. Three key proposals being discussed are a move to legislate an override clause, by which the Knesset can reinstate any law invalidated by the Supreme Court; to put judicial appointments under political control, as opposed to the current hybrid political-professional-judicial appointments panel; and to split the role of the attorney general as both the head of the state prosecution and the government’s legal adviser.
Likud has also said it plans to turn legal advisers in government ministries into positions of trust, which means they would be hired and fired at political will. Currently, government legal advisers are subordinate to the attorney general, in order to maintain the independence of their advice.
Although the bloc’s leading factions are united behind the plans for far-reaching judicial reform, they support it for different reasons. Netanyahu is on trial in three corruption cases. He has steadfastly maintained his innocence and claims the charges are the product of a politically motivated police and prosecutor, slanted media and a weak attorney general. While he has been carefully quiet on judicial reform in recent years, his close confidant and new Knesset speaker Levin is a staunch judicial reform supporter and will likely helm the Justice Ministry.
Exacerbated by Netanyahu’s divisive trial, many Likud supporters and MKs have expressed distrust in the judicial system and the attorney general, and several Likud lawmakers have said they will weigh firing her once they are formally in power.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has cautioned that judicial reform, as well as the ongoing legislative blitz, could render Israel “a democracy in name only.”
Religious Zionism has also pressed for extensive judicial reform, led by longtime Supreme Court critic MK Simcha Rothman and Smotrich. The settler community has long chaffed at Supreme Court rulings regarding the West Bank.
Illustrative: MK Bezalel Smotrich, center, waves an Israeli flag during the annual ‘Flags March’ next to Damascus gate, outside Jerusalem’s Old City, June 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
The ultra-Orthodox community has long been in tension with the Supreme Court, claiming its secular rulings overreach into the religious lifestyle. Shas and UTJ are also especially interested in an override clause that would enable them to pass legislation that will solidify ultra-Orthodox exemptions from military conscription.
Set to expire on February 1, the current law sets quotas for ultra-Orthodox enlistment and nominally imposes sanctions on ultra-Orthodox institutions whose graduates do not enlist, but enforcement is extremely limited. Previous attempts to lower these weakly enforced bars have been blocked as unequal by the top court.
On the Jewish front, the incoming coalition’s far-right and ultra-Orthodox members have pressed to strengthen the Orthodox conception of Judaism in matters of state, in proposals not widely supported within Likud.
UTJ MK Yitzchak Goldknopf seen during a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem on December 5, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Religious Zionism, the one-man Noam party, and the two ultra-Orthodox factions support ending citizenship eligibility for the grandchildren of Jews, who are not themselves Jewish according to religious law. Likud MKs have pushed back against narrowing the Law of Return, which is a crucial connection between Israel and the global Jewish diaspora.
The parties also want to end recognition of non-Orthodox conversions performed in Israel for citizenship purposes. Foreign non-Orthodox conversions are accepted under the Law of Return, but no non-Orthodox conversions are accepted under the State Rabbinate, which holds to halachic (Orthodox Jewish law) standards.
While details of their full coalition agreements are not yet available, every party has signed an annex or letter with Likud detailing government appointments. The coalition agreements do not need to be finalized and submitted to the Knesset until 24 hours before the swearing-in ceremony. During the negotiation process, government bodies supervising Jewish identity have been parceled out to Religious Zionism and Noam, and tighter state oversight over Jewish institutions has been demanded by UTJ.
Additionally, control over municipal community centers will be transferred to Shas. This move is both in line with the party’s focus on serving underprivileged and rural populations, as well as providing a vehicle to implement traditional Jewish and religious programming in community centers, according to Shas party sources.
Otzma Yehudit party chief Itamar Ben Gvir attends a Knesset special committee to discuss his proposed Police Ordinance changes, December 18, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Shas will also retake control of the Religious Services Ministry, which will play a role in appointing the state’s next chief rabbis, as well as give it a chance to quickly roll back a rabbinic court appointment reform program implemented by former minister and liberal Orthodox Jew Matan Kahana.
UTJ, led by Knesset newcomer Yitzhak Goldknopf, has made a host of demands to firm up Orthodox control over religious matters and exert religious oversight on secular matters. Various proposals include stopping energy generation on Shabbat and expanding gender-segregated beaches, both of which Netanyahu has publicly nixed; increasing stipends for religious study; including a Chief Rabbinate representative on any panel weighing permits for work on Shabbat; forming and funding bodies to provide answers to the public on questions of Jewish law; allowing hospitals to ban hametz, or leavened wheat products, on Passover; requiring more religious studies in the state’s secular school system; and weighing the closure of the new Reform department in the Diaspora Affairs Ministry.
Noam party leader Avi Maoz speaks at a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, December 12, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
And, most strikingly given that Noam is a one-man party not necessary to give a majority to the 64-member coalition, its leader Avi Maoz will head a Prime Minister’s Office unit in charge of Israel’s “Jewish national identity.”
As part of the office, Maoz is slated to take control over an Education Ministry unit in charge of approving external educational vendors, who play a critical role in public school programming. Especially prevalent in secular schools, these vendors cover a range of subjects from sexual health to bar mitzvah preparation.
Maoz’s Noam ran on an anti-LGBT, anti-pluralist agenda, and Maoz has decried female enlistment in the IDF.
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GOP’s hard-line tactics on migrants refocus midterm debate
They’ve delivered migrants on planes and buses to Washington, D.C., New York City — even Martha’s Vineyard. And the Republican governors of Florida and Texas may be just getting started.
Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas insist such dramatic steps are need to highlight a genuine crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, where thousands of migrants stream into the country illegally each day. But weeks away from their own competitive reelections, friends and foes alike acknowledged that such hard-line tactics have effectively refocused November’s midterm elections — at least, temporarily — away from abortion rights and toward an issue more favorable to Republicans.
A defiant DeSantis on Tuesday blasted the Biden administration’s inaction on the Southern border and celebrated his own policies for making illegal immigration “a front-burner issue” ahead of the midterms.
“It will be a big issue in the elections, I can tell you that,” DeSantis said. “It’s already made more of an impact than anyone thought it could possibly make. But we’re going to continue to make more of an impact.”
Indeed, DeSantis and Abbott are pressing forward with — and even expanding on — controversial campaigns to ship thousands of immigrants from Texas to Democratic-led states and cities. Beyond shifting the national debate, their divisive moves could also serve to strengthen their national brands — and help legitimize their controversial policies — as they consider 2024 presidential bids.
“I personally thought it was a good idea,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday.
The governors’ rhetoric is reminiscent of former President Donald Trump’s dire warnings ahead of the 2018 midterms that a migrant caravan threatened the Southern border. Trump’s GOP lost 40 seats in the House and gained two Senate seats that year.
Democrats from Connecticut to California have generated momentum in recent weeks by campaigning on the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — and the GOP’s subsequent push to outlaw abortion in dozens of states. Republicans, meanwhile, want to make the midterms a referendum on President Joe Biden and concerns about the economy, crime and immigration.
This week, at least, immigration is leading the national debate.
“What they’re doing is raising the salience and relevance of the immigration issue, which is important to Republican voters and can help drive turnout,” said veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “For the voters we’re appealing to, for the most part, the benefits outweigh the risks by a considerable margin.”
There are real risks, however, particularly for DeSantis, who has taken credit for two weekend charter planes that carried about 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, a small, wealthy island off Massachusetts’ coast. The immigrants were told they were going to Boston.
A Texas sheriff on Monday opened an investigation into DeSantis’ flights, though the law enforcement official, an elected Democrat, did not say what laws may have been broken in putting 48 Venezuelans on private planes from San Antonio, the first stop for many migrants who cross the border.
A lawsuit was filed Tuesday against DeSantis and his transportation secretary on behalf of several of the migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard, alleging the two politicians engaged in a “fraudulent and discriminatory scheme” to relocate them. DeSantis’ office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat who represents San Antonio, has called on the Justice Department to investigate the flights as well.
“These guys are immature, sadistic Trump imitators. That’s what they are,” Castro said of Abbott and DeSantis. “This is sadistic behavior. Whatever political point they were trying to make has been made a long time ago.”
DeSantis, who has stepped up travel on behalf of GOP candidates in the midterm elections, vowed to spend “every penny” of $12 million set aside by the state legislature for such “relocation programs.” On Tuesday, local officials in a Delaware community close to Biden’s vacation home were preparing to receive another one of DeSantis’ planes full of migrants from Texas, although the Florida governor refused to confirm the development.
Despite fierce criticism and potential legal liabilities, there has been little evidence of widespread political backlash in either state.
Democratic sympathizers in Florida staged news conferences in recent days condemning the governors while others compared DeSantis to late Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Spanish radio. But the number of Venezuelan voters in the state remains relatively small. Much of the community that exists has formed a coalition with Cubans, a crucial bloc in Florida that has increasingly voted Republican.
“Governors Abbott and DeSantis have had enough of it and decided to do something for people to pay attention,” said Ernesto Ackerman, a Republican who heads the Independent Venezuelan American Citizens. “This is a country of laws, not of scoundrels and tramps.”
In Texas, Abbott has spent the past two years pushing a series of provocative immigration measures that have elevated his national profile and kept critics on his right at bay. The two-term governor converted a former prison near Texas’ southern border into a jail for migrants, gave the National Guard extraordinary arrest powers and gridlocked some of America’s busiest ports for a week by mandating additional inspections for 18-wheelers crossing into the U.S.
The Abbott administration has been busing migrants to Washington, Chicago and New York City for months. The busing campaign includes two busloads of people who were dropped off outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence last weekend.
Longtime Abbott adviser Dave Carney said Texas would expand its operation this week to include new drop-off locations in other states.
“We’ve been focused on this for two years. It’s got nothing to do with politics. The communities are screaming bloody murder,” Carney said, referring to border towns flooded with immigrants apprehended at the border and subsequently released.
Republicans cast the border crisis as a failure of the Biden administration.
The federal government this week reported that authorities stopped migrants 2.15 million times from October through August, the first time that measure has ever topped 2 million and a 39% increase from the same period a year earlier.
Border crossings have been fueled partly by repeat crossers because there are no legal consequences for getting caught under a pandemic-era rule that denies a right to seek asylum. Even so, the numbers are extraordinarily high.
While Abbott and DeSantis have also highlighted their accomplishments on issues related to the economy, neither has taken steps to moderate their immigration policies as the November election nears.
Abbott is running against former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who has outraised Abbott in a contest that represents the toughest challenge of the governor’s political career.
Immigration remains a crucial issue for Democrats who have long believed Texas’ booming cities and shifting demographics would eventually turn America’s biggest red state blue. But in overwhelmingly Hispanic counties on the border, Republicans are making an aggressive play for three congressional seats this fall after Trump made major gains in the region in 2020.
It was much the same in South Florida, where Trump’s GOP performed better than expected in the last election.
DeSantis is running against former Rep. Charlie Crist, whose campaign has charged in recent days that the governor “shot himself in the foot” by shipping immigrants from Texas to Massachusetts. The move sparked a fundraising surge for Crist that exceeded $1 million over a 48-hour period, according to spokesperson Samantha Ramirez.
Republican candidates on the November ballot don’t seem worried.
“I think it is a valid maneuver to use in order to try to wake up or at least expose the hypocrisy of progressive Democrats that say the border is secure and there’s no problem down here whatsoever,” said Joseph Swiger, one of dozens of Republicans running for local office in Texas border counties where the GOP seldom bothered to recruit candidates in the past.
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Republished with permission from The Associated Press.
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GOP backs away from some hard-line abortion measures it once championed
At the same time, efforts to advance a strict nationwide ban in Congress have quietly fizzled. After pushing for a national “heartbeat ban” on abortion in the spring — which would have outlawed the procedure as soon as cardiac activity is detected, around six weeks of pregnancy — Republican lawmakers and some antiabortion advocates have retreated from the idea. Some legislators are now pushing for a 15-week ban; others have abandoned any kind of national abortion legislation.
“We are not elected as kings or dictators. We’re elected to serve the will of people,” said West Virginia state Sen. Tom Takubo (R), who refused to support a near-total ban without rape and incest exceptions. “Even in the most rural and conservative parts of West Virginia, I still believe the majority thinks there should be exemptions for rape and incest.”
Sixty-nine percent of Americans, including 56 percent of Republicans, said abortion should be legal when the pregnancy resulted from rape, according to a March Pew Research Poll.
The Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion immediately triggered strict abortion bans in states across the South and Midwest, cutting off abortion access for 1 in 3 women across the country. Even so, many antiabortion advocates saw an opportunity to go further. In state legislatures, activists teamed up with conservative lawmakers to lobby for extreme restrictions, including bans without exceptions for rape and incest, and legislation that would stop people from seeking abortion care across state lines.
But lawmakers have been forced to reckon with a growing public backlash. Last month, voters overwhelmingly rejected an antiabortion amendment in Kansas that would have removed abortion protections from the state constitution. And Democrats who support abortion rights have won recent special elections in moderate districts, outperforming expectations.
“They saw what happened in Kansas,” said Mary Ziegler, a University of California at Davis law professor who specializes in abortion. “You have people from certain parts of South Carolina who are gun shy about this — and they have reason to be.”
In South Carolina this week, a ban from fertilization without exceptions for victims of rape or incest had support from 24 out of 30 GOP senators, including party leadership, but a small group of Republicans spent hours on Wednesday and Thursday trying to persuade their colleagues to soften the bill’s language. Eventually, the Republicans championing a near-total ban abandoned the most restrictive proposals because they could not gather enough votes to pass them.
“People are very divided,” state Sen. Penry Gustafson (R) said.
In the days leading up to Thursday’s vote, the senator said she was inundated with calls and emails from South Carolinians weighing in on the bill from all sides. Gustafson, who did not support a ban without exceptions for rape or incest, said she had to balance the views of her deeply conservative constituency with the opinions of residents in other parts of the state that would be affected by the bill, especially women.
“You’ve got to know your people and who you’re representing,” said Gustafson, who ultimately supported a bill that largely mirrors the state’s six-week ban. “My vote directly reflects the will of my people.”
South Carolina state Sen. Tom Davis (R), who opposed the near-total ban without exceptions, said that he expects abortion to be a major issue for voters in November.
“We’re not just hearing from folks who feel passionately on the extremes … we’re hearing from a lot of people who are somewhere in the middle,” Davis said. “Where it comes down remains to be seen at the polls.”
While the near-total ban failed, South Carolina lawmakers were successful in pushing through an amended bill that would severely restrict access. That measure — a version of one already on the books but blocked by the courts — bans abortion after six weeks and limits rape and incest exceptions to the first trimester, requires a second doctor’s opinion in cases where a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly, and mandates that doctors who perform abortions in instances of rape or incest send a fetal DNA sample to police. The legislation moves to the state House, which could consider it as early as next week.
A similar dynamic played out in late July in West Virginia, where Republican lawmakers introduced a near-total abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest as soon as they convened for a special session.
A version of that bill had been widely expected to pass until two physicians who serve in the state Senate — Takubo and Sen. Michael Maroney (R) — pushed for an amendment that would have removed criminal penalties for doctors. Others introduced an amendment to broaden the bill’s exceptions.
The West Virginia legislature disbanded for the month of August, after failing to agree on a version of the bill to move forward. Lawmakers have since been called back to the Capitol, where debate on antiabortion legislation will resume next week.
On Capitol Hill, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) had been planning behind the scenes to introduce a “heartbeat” ban in the Senate after the Supreme Court decision, lending the gravitas of one of the GOP’s most prominent female stars to legislation that would have banned the procedure nationwide before many people know they’re pregnant.
Although that bill has been drafted, there is no timeline for Ernst or any other senator to introduce it, according to several antiabortion advocates close to the situation. Ernst did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), founder and chair of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, said he hasn’t had conversations with lawmakers about introducing a heartbeat-style bill in the chamber since the Supreme Court decision.
Instead, some antiabortion advocates are hopeful that Republican lawmakers will rally around a 15-week ban that Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) is expected to introduce this fall, a proposal that has long been denounced by many in the antiabortion movement because it would allow the vast majority of abortions to continue. Spokespeople for Graham didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
Some Republican lawmakers have expressed disinterest even in that less-restrictive piece of legislation.
Even before an antiabortion amendment was resoundingly defeated in his home state, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) told The Washington Post that he was not confident there is a future for any kind of national abortion ban.
“I just don’t see the momentum at the federal level,” Marshall said in a July 25 interview, declining a request for a follow-up interview late last month. “I think the legislative priority should be at the states.”
A nationwide ban would be extremely difficult to pass, requiring 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. Either proposal under discussion — a ban at either six weeks or 15 — would encounter resistance from nearly all Democrats in addition to a handful of Republicans who support abortion rights. Neither party is likely to gain in the midterm elections the number of seats necessary for a filibuster-proof majority.
Some Republicans have grown increasingly hesitant to discuss the subject of a national abortion ban on the campaign trail. In Arizona, Republican senate candidate Blake Masters removed any mention of his support for a “federal personhood law” from his website, legislation that likely would have banned abortion nationwide after conception. Masters’s website now says he would support a ban on abortions in the third trimester, around 27 weeks of pregnancy, which would affect a vanishingly small percentage of the abortions performed across the country each year.
On the state level, abortion rights advocates say that the delays have provided an unexpected window for abortion access in some of the most conservative states — at least temporarily.
When the West Virginia legislature adjourned in late July without passing a ban, the staff of the state’s only abortion clinic sat in the gallery and cried.
“It meant we could see patients next week,” said clinic director Katie Quinonez, who had been bracing herself to call every patient on the schedule to tell them they had to get their abortions somewhere else.
The Women’s Health Center saw 78 patients for abortion care last month, according to Quinonez, with many coming in from states such as Kentucky and Ohio, where strict bans are in effect.
“We never anticipated being a state receiving abortion patients from states were abortion is illegal,” said Quinonez. “We anticipated being one of those states.”
Before the law changes, she added, “we are focused on seeing as many patients as physically possible.”
John Lee, Hong Kong’s next leader, is a hardline former police officer who took on the city’s protesters
Last week, the man who led the crackdown stepped onto a stage to lay out his vision for Hong Kong — this time not as the city’s security chief, but its next leader.
In what the government has billed as an “open, just and honest” election, a largely government-appointed, pro-Beijing committee of 1,461 people will appoint the next leader for the city’s 7.5 million residents on Sunday. Lee is the only person in the running, in contrast to previous years that saw run-offs between multiple candidates.
For many, Lee’s ascension speaks volumes about the direction Hong Kong — once world-renowned for its robust press, flourishing civil society and democratic aspirations — is headed. Lee has already indicated that he will look to introduce further national security legislation and possibly a law against fake news.
To Nathan Law, a human rights activist and former local lawmaker now in self-exile in Britain, it seems “very obvious” why Lee is tipped for the role.
“It really signals (authorities) are intensifying that heavy-handed approach to Hong Kong, and putting the so-called national security as their policy for governing the city,” Law said.
A rise years in the making
The forces behind Lee’s rise to the city’s top job can be traced back nearly half a century.
Lee joined the Hong Kong police force as a 19-year-old recruit in 1977 as the city — then a British colony — underwent an economic transformation into a modern financial center.
He rose through the ranks and was promoted to chief superintendent in 1997 — the same year Britain handed the city to China in a pomp-filled ceremony watched around the world.
Since that watershed year, activists like Law say they have watched Hong Kong’s freedoms be squeezed ever tighter. All the while, Lee continued gaining prominence, becoming deputy commissioner, the second-highest position in the police force, by 2010.
Just two years after that, he joined the city’s Security Bureau as under-secretary. To some, the appointment of a high-ranking police officer to a key government office was a statement of intent.
“We were already really nervous about that, because that really signaled a change in Hong Kong’s policy, changing it in a seemingly more suppressive way,” Law said.
By 2016, when Law was elected into the legislature, Lee “was already notoriously difficult to deal with” and seemed hostile to any journalists or opposition lawmakers who raised questions or challenges, Law said.
Lee’s supporters have disputed this characterization, maintaining his time in the police force helped prepare him for a public office.
One pro-Beijing lawmaker, Ma Fung-kwok, said Lee had demonstrated “leadership skills” in his handling of the protests and the pandemic, according to public broadcaster RTHK. Another, Jeffrey Lam, said Lee had “solved many cases” in the police force and can cooperate with “other sectors in the society.”
At a brief political rally on Friday, Lee, whose slogan is “We and us — a new chapter together,” stressed the importance of community and promised to “make Hong Kong a place of hope” once appointed.
CNN has reached out to Lee’s campaign team for comment.
The 2019 protests
Lee’s rise continued when he was appointed security chief in 2017 — the “beginning of a changing trend,” said Joseph Cheng, a retired Hong Kong academic and pro-democracy activist now based in New Zealand.
“Beijing seems to be emphasizing loyalty more, or the capability of implementing a hard line — therefore, senior officials from the disciplinary forces appear to occupy a more advantageous position,” Cheng said.
It was under Lee’s tenure that the Security Bureau introduced the controversial extradition bill that led to the protests in 2019.
Critics worried Beijing could use the bill to prosecute Hong Kong residents for political reasons under China’s opaque legal system.
With the Hong Kong government standing firm on the bill despite public objections, the protests quickly expanded into a broader pro-democracy, anti-government movement. Fears were underpinned by widespread anxiety about Beijing’s growing influence and the perceived erosion of Hong Kong’s cherished semi-autonomous status, which allowed it the freedoms of press, speech and assembly that had long been central to its international appeal.
Withdrawing the bill was just one of five popular demands by protesters; others included universal suffrage and accountability from police, who faced accusations of brutality they have denied.
At the height of the crisis, protesters and police clashed nearly every week, with demonstrators lobbing bricks and Molotov cocktails and officers responding with tear gas, rubber bullets, and at times live ammunition. The violence polarized the city, cementing the breakdown in trust between the public and the authorities.
Through it all, Lee praised his officers as “courageous” and condemned protesters as “radicals” who were sowing “terror.” When hundreds of protesters — many high school students — occupied a university for more than a week, police laid siege to the campus with Lee declaring: “We will arrest them all.”
Lee has repeatedly defended the force’s actions, insisting critics need to “think about the (preceding events), otherwise it will not be fair.”
“I am proud of the Hong Kong police force. They remain Asia’s finest … Compared to what they do with law enforcement agencies overseas, I think they have exercised restraint. They have minimized the harm and injuries to everybody,” he said in September 2019.
Long arm of the national security law
Lee gained local prominence for his role in combating the protests — but his implementation of the national security law cemented his reputation as a hardline enforcer and Beijing loyalist.
The security law was promulgated by Beijing in June 2020, during a lull in the protests brought by the Covid-19 pandemic. Described by the Hong Kong government at the time as “a crucial step to ending chaos,” the law criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces — and allows for maximum sentences of life imprisonment.
In an instant, Hong Kong’s social and political landscape was transformed, and within months, many of the city’s leading pro-democracy figures were either in jail or exile.
Under the security law, Lee oversaw the mass arrest of opposition figures in 2021, accusing them of trying to “paralyze the Hong Kong government” by organizing a pro-democracy primary election.
He ordered a police raid on Hong Kong’s biggest pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, which was subsequently forced to shut after its assets were frozen and several employees arrested under the security law.
A week after the raid, Lee was promoted to chief secretary — the second-highest position in government — and the first time a security official has taken the role.
Experts say Lee’s suppression of the protests and support for national security is precisely why he now finds himself the city’s next leader.
“(This is) the reward for loyalty,” said Cheng, the activist and former academic.
Supporters of the security law insist it has helped establish stability in the wake of the violence and political unrest of 2019. “People’s lives and property are protected, and they can once again enjoy their legitimate rights and freedoms,” a government spokesperson said in April in response to a question on the law.
But Lee’s association with the law has been met with increasing scrutiny abroad. He was among nearly a dozen people sanctioned by the US in 2020 for undermining the city’s autonomy and democratic processes — which Lee has scoffed at, recently calling the sanctions “unreasonable” and “acts of bullying.”
He has also continued to defend the law, as well as recent electoral changes that placed him at the head of a vetting committee to screen all candidates, ensuring only “patriots” would be allowed to run for office.
The national security law “has restored peace,” Lee told the United Nations Human Rights Council in March, decrying the 2019 protests as “evil” and lauding “the improved electoral system.”
“No country has a monopoly on the model of democracy,” he added.
What this means for Hong Kong
Lee has already made clear the kind of government he will shape: one with increasingly close ties to mainland China.
At the unveiling of his policy manifesto on April 29, Lee emphasized the need to integrate Hong Kong with other economically important Chinese cities. There was no English translation provided, despite English being one of Hong Kong’s two official languages — in striking contrast to most government events to date.
He also vowed to bolster security legislation and introduce “national identity” education. Both proposals have long been controversial, with previous attempts to introduce legislation foiled by protests and pushback — much to Beijing’s frustration.
Lee has also previously voiced support for a “fake news” law — prompting fears the reins will only tighten on what remains of the city’s media and civil groups. Last week, the city’s press freedom ranking plunged to a record low of 148 among 180 locations, compared to its ranking of 73rd in 2019.
Despite this, the outgoing Chief Executive Lam continues to claim that Hong Kong’s media sphere is “as vibrant as ever,” though she warned last week that “media organizations are not above the law … including the national security law.”
Lee will also have to navigate the Covid-19 pandemic, with patience fraying among many in Hong Kong after more than two years of stringent restrictions in accordance with China’s unbending zero-Covid policy.
At his policy manifesto event, Lee asserted that “at some point (the virus) will be under control,” and that he would design measures to allow businesses to operate.
Cheng, the pro-democracy activist who moved to New Zealand, sees the future as being “the continuation of the hard line of the past two years.”
“There is no toleration of political opposition … there will be very little tolerance of an independent media, and very little tolerance for the operation of civil society organizations,” Cheng said.
When asked by CNN about accusations of diminished political freedoms, a government spokesperson responded that the rights of Hong Kong residents are “protected in accordance with the law” — but that “many freedoms and rights are not absolute, and can be restricted for reasons including protection of national security and public safety.”
Disillusionment and emigration
Among former activists and pro-democracy supporters, there’s a sense of despair as Lee prepares to take office.
The circumstances of his selection, with Lee as the sole contender showered with praise by pro-Beijing lawmakers, cut particularly deep for many of those who once marched to demand greater democratic freedoms.
“It’s definitely not, by any means or any parameters, a democratic (process),” said Law, the former lawmaker. “It’s really just an appointment. I don’t really call it an election.”
Lee has dodged questions about whether he was handpicked by the central Chinese government, saying in April he welcomed anybody else who wished to run.
He has since received endorsements from leading establishment figures, including two former police commissioners and two former security chiefs, RTHK reported.
After the turmoil of the past three years, even a new administration is unlikely to bridge the broken relationship between the government and its people, said John Burns, emeritus professor at the University of Hong Kong.
“There is a huge percentage of the population that is alienated and angry,” he said, pointing to mass emigration as “evidence of alienation … of a sick society.”
Locals, expatriates and foreign companies are leaving the city in droves. More than 100,000 Hong Kongers applied for a new visa offering a path to citizenship in Britain last year; and in February and March alone this year, more than 180,000 people left the city while only about 39,000 entered, according to immigration data.
While Hong Kong’s harsh Covid restrictions are helping drive this exodus, Lee’s critics say that so too is the crackdown on civil liberties he enforced.
Asked about this on April 29, Lee brushed it off. He claimed Hong Kong had always seen high levels of mobility, and that its proximity to the mainland market would continue to attract businesses.
“We are an inclusive city,” he told reporters. “Together, we start a new chapter for Hong Kong.”
China’s top diplomat takes hardline stance in first call with new US Secretary of State
Yang Jiechi, the top foreign policy aide to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, told Blinken during their Friday call that the US should “correct recent mistakes, and work with China to promote the healthy and stable development of China-US relations by upholding the spirit of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation,” according to a statement released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Yang emphasized that both sides should respect the other’s core interests, as well as political systems and developmental paths of their own choosing, the statement said.
“Each side should focus on taking care of its own domestic affairs. China will firmly continue down the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and no one can stop the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Yang said.
Relations between Washington and Beijing under former US President Donald Trump were oftentimes fractious, with clashes on issues relating to trade, technology, regional security and human rights. Recent statements from the new administration of President Joe Biden suggest there will be little in the way of pullback. In a speech Thursday, Biden described China as the US’ “most serious competitor” and outlined plans to confront Beijing’s “attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance.”
During the phone call Friday, Yang highlighted several major sources of continued tension between the two countries, including Taiwan.
Beijing claims full sovereignty over Taiwan, a democratic island of almost 24 million people, despite the fact that the two sides have been governed separately for more than seven decades.
Beijing has stepped up military activity around Taiwan since Biden took office, sending combat aircraft, including H-6K bombers, into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone on several occasions in what was seen as a direct message to the new US administration that China will not relent on its claims of sovereignty over the island.
On Thursday, the US Navy sent a guided-missile destroyer through the Taiwan Strait, the first time a US warship has gone through the waterway that separates China and Taiwan during the Biden administration.
Yang also warned Blinken that issues relating to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet are China’s internal affairs, and that the country would not tolerate any external interference.
The Trump administration determined that China is committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims and ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang, a designation Blinken has said he agrees with.
The US State Department has previously estimated that up to two million Uyghurs, as well as members of other Muslim minority groups, have been detained in a sprawling network of internment camps in the region.
According to a US state department readout of the call, Friday, Blinken stressed the US would continue to stand up for human rights and democratic values, including in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, and pressed China to join the international community in condemning the military coup in Myanmar.
Blinken also reaffirmed that the US would work together with its allies and partners to hold China accountable for its “efforts to threaten stability in the Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait,” the US statement said.
CNN’s Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.