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‘A devastating blow’: NAACP says supreme court ruling is ‘a major setback for our nation’
Meanwhile, Derrick Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s oldest civil rights group, said the high court’s decision in Louisiana v Callais delivers “a devastating blow to what remains of the Voting Rights Act”.
The ruling is “a license for corrupt politicians who want to rig the system by silencing entire communities”, Johnson said in a statement today.
He went on:
The Supreme Court betrayed Black voters, they betrayed America, and they betrayed our democracy.
This ruling is a major setback for our nation and threatens to erode the hard-won victories we’ve fought, bled, and died for. But the people still can fight back. Our democracy is crying for help.
Key events
More now from outgoing Fed chair Jerome Powell, who said that while he US economy is expanding, “inflation has moved up with growing global energy prices”.
“Developments in the Middle East are contributing to high levels of uncertainty,” he said.
Consumer sentiment was “resilient” though, he added, and “economic activity has been expanding at a solid pace”.
Obama says supreme court ruling frees states to ‘systematically weaken voting power of racial minorities’
Former president Barack Obama has issued this statement in reaction to the supreme court’s landmark decision today to “effectively gut a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act”.
He said the ruling frees “state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities – so long as they do it under the guise of ‘partisanship’ rather than explicit ‘racial bias’”.
And it serves as just one more example of how a majority of the current Court seems intent on abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach.
The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome. But that will only happen if citizens across the country who cherish our democratic ideals continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers – not just in the upcoming midterms or in high profile races, but in every election and every level.
Sam Levine
I asked Sophia Lin Lakin, the ACLU’s top voting rights lawyer, and Janai Nelson, the NAACP LDF lawyer who argued in defense of Louisiana’s map at the supreme court, whether or not there was any pathway for continuing to bring Section 2 claims in federal court after today’s decision.
“Theoretically, yes, there are still some possibilities there … academically speaking there are some pathways there,” Nelson said. “But I think that those require conditions that I don’t see present based on current demographics, voting patterns and what has become an increasingly hyper polarized partisan landscape.”
Lakin added that non-partisan elections are one area where plaintiffs might have some additional remaining leeway to bring Section 2 claims.
Powell to stay on as Fed governor after term as chair ends
Outgoing Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said he will stay on as a central bank governor when his leadership term ends in just over two weeks.
“After my term as chair ends on May 15, I will continue to serve as a governor for a period of time to be determined,” Powell said, adding that he planned to “keep a low profile” as a governor.
Powell noted US attorney Jeanine Pirro’s announcement on Friday, ending the criminal investigation against him but also cautioning that she could reopen it.
The move cleared a hurdle for Trump’s pick Kevin Warsh to be confirmed, as GOP senator Thom Tillis had said he wouldn’t vote to confirm him until the probe into Powell was dropped. The Fed’s inspector general has instead been asked to look into potential “building cost overruns” in the central bank’s renovation of its Washington DC headquarters, Pirro said.
“I’ve said that I will not leave the board until this investigation is well and truly over with transparency and finality, and I stand by that,” Powell said today.
He added: “I’m encouraged by recent developments, and I’m watching the remaining steps in this process carefully. My decisions on these matters will continue to be guided entirely by what I believe is in the best interest of the institution and the people we serve.”
Trump was then asked a follow-up question about the ruling. The president asked again when the ruling came out (this morning!), before asking the reporter if it was a win for Republicans. Told that it was, he said:
I love it! I want to read it. Wow!
He was asked if he believed more Republican governors should pursue redrawing their congressional maps following the ruling, given that early voting in some places begins on Saturday.
Trump said it would depend on the state and whether they have time to do it, but generally they should do it.
Trump says ‘that’s the kind of ruling I like’ when asked about supreme court decision
Donald Trump was also asked for his reaction to today’s supreme court ruling on the Voting Rights Act – to which the president said he didn’t know about it.
“You have to tell me, when did the ruling come out?” he asked the reporter, adding he’s been meeting with the astronauts and with contractors trying to get his ballroom built.
When he was told that the ruling might help Republicans gain more congressional seats in the south, the president responded:
That’s good, that’s the kind of ruling I like.
He then asked when this happened, and was told this morning.
Just before we get to that, Donald Trump has been taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office following his meeting with the Artemis II astronauts.
The president said he had a “very good conversation” with Vladimir Putin today about Ukraine and Iran.
“I think he’d like to see a solution, and that’s good,” he said, though it wasn’t clear if he was talking about Ukraine or Iran, or both (unlikely).
Trump then said that he “suggested a little bit of a ceasefire” to Putin “and I think he might do that”. He then asked the reporter if Putin had announced it yet (spoiler: he hasn’t).
And with that, Jerome Powell is due to shortly give what will likely be his last press conference as chair of the Federal Reserve.
I’ll be watching and will bring you any key lines that come out of that.
Fed leaves interest rates unchanged in defiance of Trump’s calls for cuts
Lauren Aratani
The US Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged after its latest board meeting, defying once again Donald Trump’s call for a cut as the central bank prepares for a leadership shake-up next month.
Today, Fed officials continued to cite elevated inflation, slow job growth and uncertainty in the Middle East as reasons why rates were left untouched.
“Jobs gains have remained low, on average, and the unemployment rate has been little changed in recent months. Inflation is elevated, in part reflecting the recent increase in global energy prices,” the board said in a statement.
While only one of the board’s 12 voting members voted against leaving the rate unchanged, the Fed board also signaled growing dissent within its ranks: three members supported maintaining the current rate, but did not agree with the Fed suggesting it will lower rates later this year.
The Fed’s meeting ended hours after the US Senate banking committee confirmed former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, clearing a procedural path for the whole Senate to confirm him as new chair of the central bank.
Warsh is expected to be more amenable to Trump’s calls for a rate cut than current chair Jerome Powell, who has been the target of hostile attacks toward himself and the central bank over its rates agenda. But with just one vote of 12 on the Fed’s rate-setting board, Warsh can’t deliver cuts without the support of his fellow board members.
Questions still remain over whether Powell will stay on the Fed board after his term ends 15 May. Powell can stay on the board until his term as a Fed governor is up in 2028. Though it would be unprecedented in modern history for a Fed chair to stay on, Powell has suggested it’s still a possibility.
Supreme court appears inclined to back Trump’s push to end TPS for Haitian and Syrian immigrants
The supreme court appeared inclined to back Donald Trump’s push to strip temporary protected status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians in the United States, as part of his harsh crackdown on immigration rights.
The case will likely have broader implications for the Trump administration’s wider push to end legal protections for migrants fleeing war and natural disaster, which could potentially effect up to 1.3 million people from over 17 countries, exposing them to possible deportation.
The justices earlier heard arguments in the administration’s appeal of rulings by federal judges in New York and Washington DC, halting its actions to terminate TPS previously provided by the government to allow more than 350,000 people from Haiti (following a major earthquake there in 2010) and 6,100 from Syria (after the country descended into civil war in 2012) to remain and work in the US.
The court last year allowed the administration to end TPS for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.
Today, several of the conservative justices appeared sympathetic toward the administration’s arguments that the law limits what courts can do on the government’s decision to end or extend protections.
Meanwhile, liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested that the decision to end the program was racially motivated, citing Trump’s inflammatory, racist language about Haitian people during his last election campaign.
The decision will likely come down to the votes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett. A decision is expected in late June or early July.
Bondi to appear before House oversight panel over Epstein files
Anna Betts
The House oversight and government reform committee said earlier that former attorney general Pam Bondi will now appear before the panel on 29 May to answer questions about the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and its release of the Epstein files.
The announcement of the date came shortly after the Democrats on the committee announced that they had filed a civil contempt resolution against Bondi after she did not appear for her deposition earlier this month.
This morning, Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, announced the contempt resolution, saying in a statement that Bondi had “illegally defied our committee, skipped her deposition, and has refused to cooperate”, adding that Democrats had introduced the contempt measure “to hold her accountable”.
Read Anna’s full report here:
Has King Charles salvaged the US-UK so-called “special relationship” with his charm offensive on Donald Trump?
In the latest edition of our Today in Focus podcast, Helen Pidd speaks to Guardian columnist and host of Politics Weekly America Jonathan Freedland to unpack the British royals’ state visit so far.
Joseph Gedeon
Back at Pete Hegseth’s appearance before the House armed services committee, representative Sara Jacobs of California had a tense back and forth with the defense secretary, going through Donald Trump’s unhinged social media posts over recent months.
It started when Jacobs asked how he would be able to explain Trump’s mental state, after he demanded in Truth Social posts that Iran “open the fucking strait” and “A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight”. In return, Hegseth asked whether she asked Joe Biden those same types of questions.
“How do you explain to your constituents what happened on October 7, or what happened, or what happened when the troops were left? How did you explain that to the Marines that didn’t get medal? We restored their medals because Joe Biden was asleep at the wheel,” Hegseth said.
Jacobs then pulled out the post the president shared that included an AI-generated image depicting himself as a Christ-like figure – which Christian supporters of the president decried as “disgusting”, and which Trump ended up deleting after the backlash.
Hegseth brushed off the questions as someone digging for better ratings.
“Mr Secretary, if you think that this is what ratings looks like, then maybe we should be questioning your mental stability,” Jacobs said.
‘Very, very deeply disappointed’: plaintiff in voting rights case speaks after supreme court loss
Sam Levine
Press Robinson, the lead plaintiff in an earlier lawsuit that struck down Louisiana’s congressional map leading to the creation of a second majority-Black district told reporters “I can’t say that I am surprised by the supreme court’s decision, but I’m very, very deeply disappointed.”
“As a citizen of Louisiana and living in a state where 1/3 of the population of people of color. I see that our state legislature, the governor, all of the main offices in the state, or super majority follow the Republican Party, and they are determined to see to it that we not have a voice at all,” Robinson said.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press is reporting from Alexandria that the former FBI Director James Comey has made a brief appearance in court. The AP reports:
His appearance kick starts a criminal case against him that legal experts say presents significant hurdles for the prosecution and will likely be a challenge for the Justice Department to win.
Comey was indicted in North Carolina on Tuesday on charges of making threats against President Donald Trump related to a photograph he posted on social media last year of seashells arranged in the numbers “86 47.”
The Justice Department contends those numbers amounted to a threat against Trump, the 47th president. Comey says he did not interpret the numbers as a call to violence against the Republican president. Comey did not enter a plea Wednesday in Virginia.
NAACP official calls supreme court ruling on voting ‘a day of loss for critical protections’
Sam Levine
The Guardian’s Sam Levine is on a press call with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU, who represented those defending Louisiana’s existing maps.
“There’s no mincing words here. This is a day of tremendous loss. It’s a day of loss for our democracy,” Janai Nelson, who leads NAACP LDF and argued the case at the supreme court, told reporters.
“It’s a day of loss for critical protections for the right to vote that have served our multiracial democracy for over six decades. It’s a day of loss for Black voters in Louisiana who have counted on fair maps to allow them representation that they have been denied for their entire existence in that state.”
“The implications are as bad as we thought they could be,” Nelson said.
Sophia Lin Lakin, the director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, says today’s decision in Callais renders Section 2 moot as “it will be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce in the vast majority of cases.”
“Today’s decision is a profound betrayal of the civil rights movement,” she said.
James Comey surrenders amid justice department charges over social media post
Former FBI director James Comey on Wednesday surrendered to law enforcement at federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia, according to CNN, citing a source familiar.
His hearing was set to begin at 1pm EST. Trump’s justice department filed has charged Comey with making threats against the president, stemming from a picture he posted on Instagram while on vacation last year in which sea shells were arranged to say “86 47”.
Comey said in a video message on Substack on Tuesday that he is “still innocent”.
Warsh clears key Senate hurdle to replace Fed chair Powell
Michael Sainato
Earlier today, Kevin Warsh, Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, cleared a key procedural hurdle on Wednesday, opening the way for him to succeed Jerome Powell next month amid the White House’s unprecedented efforts to exert control over the world’s most powerful central bank.
Warsh’s nomination was approved in a 13 to 11 vote, strictly along party lines with Republicans supporting the nomination, setting up a confirmation vote in the US Senate in the coming days.
All 13 Republicans on the panel voted in support of Warsh after Thom Tillis, a North Carolina senator, dropped his opposition following the Department of Justice’s decision on Friday to end a criminal investigation into Powell that Tillis viewed as a threat to the Fed’s political independence.
The panel’s 11 Democrats, who say they doubt Warsh’s promise to set policy without regard to the president’s wishes, voted against him.
In a statement before the vote, Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator and ranking member of the Senate’s banking committee, repeated her concern that Warsh will be a “sock puppet” for Trump.
