Politics

By Karen Freifeld and Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Manhattan prosecutors on Thursday said Donald Trump misled people to expect he would be arrested this week and prompted fellow Republicans in Congress to interfere with a probe under way into his hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

On Saturday, the former president said he would be arrested on Tuesday in the probe by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

On Monday, three Republican committee chairmen in the U.S. House of Representatives went on the offensive against District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, accusing him of abusing prosecutorial authority and seeking communications, documents and testimony from him.

As of Wednesday, a grand jury hearing evidence in the Stormy Daniels case had yet to issue an indictment, and on Thursday Bragg’s office sent the committee chairmen a letter seen by Reuters.

The letter said the chairmen’s accusations “only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene.”

It confirmed that Bragg’s office was “investigating allegations that Donald Trump engaged in violations of New York State penal law.”

If indicted, Trump would be the first U.S. president to face criminal charges. He served as president from 2017-2021 and has mounted a third campaign for the White House while facing legal woes on several fronts.

Trump also faces federal investigations stemming from his handling of government documents after leaving the White House and alleged attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat as well as a state-level probe in Georgia into whether he unlawfully sought to reverse the 2020 election results there.

Trump has said he will continue campaigning for president if charged with a crime.

‘UNLAWFUL INCURSION’

The response on Thursday from Bragg’s office said the three Republican House committee chairmen had sought non-public information about a pending criminal investigation, which is confidential under state law.

“The letter’s requests are an unlawful incursion into New York’s sovereignty,” said the letter signed by the district attorney’s general counsel, Leslie Dubeck. “Congress cannot have any legitimate legislative task relating to the oversight of local prosecutors enforcing state law.”

The grand jury, made up of U.S. citizens residing in Manhattan, convened in January. Its proceedings are not public and prosecutors are barred from discussing them. It was not expected to meet again until next week at the earliest after media reports said it would not take up the case on Thursday.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal fixer and lawyer, has said he made the payment to Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election at Trump’s direction.

Daniels, a well-known adult film actress and director whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said she received the money in exchange for keeping silent about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006.

Trump has denied he ever had an affair with Daniels, and has called the payment a “simple private transaction.” He has said he did not commit a crime and has called the investigation politically motivated.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance law violations and other crimes related to the payment and received a prison sentence. Last week he testified before the grand jury, which is believed generally to meet on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. 

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Writing by Doina Chiacu and Luc Cohen; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Noeleen Walder and Howard Goller)

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By David Morgan and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. House Republicans are working on a “term sheet” of conditions they would want Democrats to agree to before voting to raise the government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, which would be necessary to avert a historic default that could shake the economy.

House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington said on Thursday that Republicans are closing in on a “package of reforms” including spending cuts that could pass the House of Representatives with bipartisan support and win the signature of President Joe Biden.

“If we’re going to negotiate, we’re going to have to have something on paper that gets the support of at least 218 of our members,” said Arrington, whose party controls the House by a narrow 222-213 margin.

Biden maintains that Democrats will not negotiate on the debt ceiling, which needs to be raised to cover spending and tax cuts previously authorized by Congress. But no hike can happen without the support of Republicans who say they will not approve an increase without an agreement on spending cuts.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last month forecast that the federal government could default sometime between July and September without a deal. The recent collapse of a pair of U.S. banks have also raised the stakes of further economic uncertainty.

Arrington told reporters that completing the debt ceiling document is now a higher priority for Republicans than presenting a budget, adding that the effort led by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is “on track to have something on paper, in writing” that the conference can move forward on.

McCarthy’s office was not immediately available for comment.

More than seven weeks after Biden and McCarthy held their first and only meeting at the White House, Republican lawmakers have shown increasing frustration over the president’s insistence that Congress raise the federal borrowing limit before spending discussions begin.

An outside budget expert called the move toward a Republican debt ceiling term sheet a positive development.

“It’s encouraging,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

“What we need is a reasonable resolution to this fiscal standoff,” she added. “There are many reasonable places to land, but discussions need to get underway in earnest as quickly as possible.”

The Democratic staff of Congress’ Joint Economic Committee issued a report on Thursday analyzing the impact on everyday Americans, if the government even comes close to defaulting.

    Workers would lose an average of $20,000 from retirement savings and new home buyers would pay an extra $55,000 over the course of a mortgage, they warned.

    “Before you even get to default, if we see interest rates rise the way that we saw them rise in 2011, these are the real world impacts on average Americans,” said Senator Martin Heinrich, the committee’s senior Democrat.

    In 2011, Republicans also demanded steep budget cuts in return for a debt limit increase. A stalemate ensued and in August 2011, the Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency stripped the world’s largest economy of its top-notch AAA status.

But Arrington insisted that the U.S. government would not default, suggesting that the Republican debt ceiling terms would include debt prioritization that would allow the Treasury to continue to make payments on the debt, Social Security and Medicare and benefits for veterans and activity duty military personal.  

“You already have the prioritization of payments. So that’s one. We now know that creditors are going to be paid. Our seniors are going to be paid. Our sailors and soldiers will be paid. And we’re not going to default,” Arrington said.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen earlier this month warned that the prioritization strategy would not avert default.

“Prioritization is simply not paying all of the government’s bills when they come due,” she told the House Ways and Means Committee on March 10. “That really is just default by another name.”

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone and Marguerita Choy)

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By Karen Freifeld

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Another day passed on Wednesday without an indictment against former President Donald Trump, who had forecast he would be arrested on Tuesday in a Manhattan probe of alleged illegal hush-money payments he made to porn star Stormy Daniels.

A  Manhattan grand jury did not meet as had been expected on Wednesday, a law enforcement source said, although it was unclear why that was or how much longer the grand jury would take to conclude its work.

If indicted, Trump would be the first U.S. president to face criminal charges in a court.

The grand jury, a panel of U.S. citizens residing in Manhattan, has been considering evidence in one of many legal probes swirling around Trump as he mounts a comeback bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

The panel, which is believed to meet three times a week, could reconvene on Thursday at the earliest. The Insider news outlet first reported the news that the grand jury would not convene on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office declined to comment on the grand jury.

The office has been investigating $130,000 paid in the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 election campaign to Daniels, a porn star who said she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 when he was married to his current wife Melania.

Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen has said he made the payment at Trump’s direction to buy her silence. Trump has denied an affair took place.

Cohen went to prison after pleading guilty to federal charges stemming from the payoff, but prosecutors in that case did not charge Trump. Manhattan has started and stopped its own investigation into the matter several times.

About half of Americans believe the New York investigation is politically motivated, but a large majority find it believable that Trump paid hush money to a porn star, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll concluded on Tuesday.

If charges are filed in the Manhattan case, Trump will have to travel to New York from his Florida home for a mug shot and fingerprinting. Security officials are bracing for possible unrest, but so far few of Trump’s supporters have heeded his call for protests.

It is typical in a non-violent case like this one for the district attorney to work out timing for a defendant to surrender, a spokesperson for the New York state court system said.

“It could be three days later, it could be a week later, it could be in May,” said the spokesperson, Lucian Chalfen. “There is no prescribed time frame. There is no predetermined or statutory time frame.”

Trump’s fellow Republicans have criticized the probe by Bragg, a Democrat, as politically motivated.

On Wednesday, Trump appeared to suffer a setback in another investigation.

Several media outlets reported that his lawyer, Evan Corcoran, would testify on Friday before a federal grand jury in Washington investigating whether Trump mishandled sensitive federal documents. 

   Special Prosecutor Jack Smith had argued that Trump had not been truthful with his lawyer, and thus normal attorney-client protections should not apply.

Along with the federal documents probe, Trump and his political allies also face two criminal investigations, one in Georgia and one by the federal government, stemming from their attempts to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat.

On top of that, he faces two investigations in New York into his business practices and a defamation case by a woman who claims he raped her in the 1990s, a claim Trump denies.

Trump has escaped legal peril numerous times. In the White House, he weathered two attempts by Congress to remove him from office, including for the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, as well as a years-long probe into his campaign’s contacts with Russia in 2016.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Jacqueline Thomsen, Luc Cohen, Jason Lange, Alexandra Ulmer and David Morgan; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)

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By Jason Lange and Gram Slattery

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ policy agenda includes new restrictions on abortion and further loosening gun laws, stances that may help him in his expected run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination but could hurt his chances of actually being elected, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.

The results of the March 14-20 survey, which gauged national opinion around policies DeSantis backs, underscore the challenges – as well as some opportunities – that await him should he challenge former President Donald Trump for the nomination.

Only a third of Americans want a presidential candidate who supports severe restrictions on abortion rights and most voters oppose allowing people to carry concealed firearms without a permit, according to the poll of 4,410 adults.

Should DeSantis run, his positions on abortion and guns will likely help win support of Republican primary voters in the early months of 2024, but may hurt him with the independent and more moderate voters he would need to win, the data suggested.

“If a candidate ran on these issues, Democrats are going to have an advantage,” said William Frey, an expert on polling and elections at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Some 65% of respondents – including 46% of Republicans and 68% of independents – said they were less likely to vote for a presidential candidate in 2024 who supports laws banning or severely restricting abortion access.

Sixty-three percent – including 53% of Republicans – said they opposed laws that would allow people to carry concealed guns without a licensing requirement.

DeSantis last year signed a Florida law banning abortions after 15 weeks, saying the measure would protect “the rights of unborn children.”

His allies in Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature have proposed a six-week ban. Asked in February if he would sign into law such a proposal, DeSantis urged lawmakers to pass legislation he could sign.

He supports another bill in Florida to allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit or training, saying in March that this would be in line with the U.S. Constitution. 

DeSantis’ political team did not respond to a request for comment.

The governor, who won reelection in November by about 19 percentage points, has defended his approach to government as being focused on fulfilling campaign promises. “I am not doing polls to tell me what to do,” he said during a March 10 visit to Iowa, a state with a leading role in selecting presidential candidates.

Republicans had a weaker showing than expected in November’s congressional elections after Democratic turnout was boosted by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down the national right to an abortion.

The online Reuters/Ipsos poll had a credibility interval of between around two and four percentage points.

Graphic: U.S. views on abortion and guns – Reuters/Ipsos poll – https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-ELECTION/DESANTIS-POLL/zdpxdqqlgpx/chart.png

TRANSGENDER FOCUS

Some of DeSantis’s other positions could help him connect to voters in the United States, which stands out among advanced economies for its conservatism.

At his urging, a Florida medical board last year effectively barred medications or surgery for new pediatric patients seeking gender transition.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll found 61% of respondents nationwide, including 66% of independents, prefer a candidate who opposes allowing medical treatment for minors related to gender identity.

That could give DeSantis an advantage in the Republican nomination contest, said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who worked on Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.

“Clearly social issues are where the energy is in the Republican base,” said Conant.

DeSantis has become his party’s most prominent player in the country’s “culture wars” since becoming governor in 2019. During the coronavirus pandemic, he was the national face of resistance to mask and vaccine mandates.

He has also increased his conservative reputation by clashing with Walt Disney after the company’s CEO criticized a DeSantis-backed measure in Florida that restricts classroom instruction of gender and sexual orientation. It could be expanded to include all students in Florida public schools.

The poll showed Americans are sharply divided on whether schools should teach children about sexual orientation and gender identity, with 72% of Democrats in favor and 76% of Republicans opposed.

Respondents who identify as politically independent were more divided, with 56% saying they preferred a candidate who would keep teachers out of the discussion.

Graphic: U.S. views regarding transgender issues and race – https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-ELECTION/DESANTIS-POLL/xmpjkbbzbvr/chart.png

The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that nationwide, women were more likely than men to oppose severe abortion restrictions and permitless concealed guns.

Seventy-four percent of women age 18-39 were turned off by presidential candidates in favor of severe abortion restrictions, while 64% of women age 40 and older opposed removing licensing requirements for concealed weapons.

Mike Morey, a Democratic strategist, said a focus on cultural issues will work against the nominee in the general election.

    “This will become a huge burden for whoever wins the Republican nomination,” he said.

(Reporting by Jason Lange and Gram Slattery; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool)

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By Jeff Mason and Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris may not have won over America in her first two years in office, but she’s staying put at President Joe Biden’s side.

The first woman vice president is gearing up for another national campaign despite low poll ratings, a failure to win over the Washington establishment and concern among fellow Democrats about an underwhelming start in the job.

Harris heads into a high pressure situation as Biden, now 80, moves toward an unprecedented run for a second term as the first octogenarian in the Oval Office.

If he wins and becomes ill or cannot fulfill his duties, Harris, 58, would succeed him. That reality will hang over their 2024 re-election bid.

While the pair have a good working relationship, Democratic sources say Biden has frustrations about some of her work. He is also convinced that neither Harris nor any other Democratic hopefuls would be able to beat former President Donald Trump if he is the Republican nominee, a factor that has influenced Biden’s inclination to run again, one former White House official said.

“If he did not think she was capable, he would not have picked her. But it is a question of consistently rising to the occasion,” said the former official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I think his running for re-election is less about her and more about him, but I do think that she and the Democratic bench (are) a factor.”

Harris leaves on a trip to Africa later this week, a visit that may underscore her foreign policy credentials and generate the kind of positive headlines back home that have often eluded her.

When Biden picked Harris, only the second Black woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate, she was more popular than he was with women, young voters and even some Republicans, an August 2020 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.

As vice president, though, she has a 39% favorability rating, according to an average by polling aggregator RealClearPolitics, below Biden’s 42.3%.

Some Democrats, including people who have worked in Biden’s West Wing, expressed disappointment that Harris has not stepped up more on critical issues, taking advantage of her platform and inoculating herself — and her running mate — against the criticism that could overshadow their next campaign.

“I think this is actually one of the fundamental strategic challenges for (Biden) … how to navigate this,” said one Democrat with close ties to the White House, noting the implausibility of replacing Harris on the presidential ticket. “It’s almost impossible for them to make a change.”

Biden could lose crucial votes if he were to drop Harris, who is both the first Black and Asian-American U.S. vice president.

“You cannot replace your first Black woman vice president and think that Black people and women are going to just vote for you,” the former White House official said. “He needs her.”

Biden has said he intends to be the Democratic candidate in 2024 but has not made a formal announcement. Both Biden and Harris have said they will run together.

2024 A MOMENT TO SHINE?

While the vice president has disappointed some inside her party, Democrats see opportunity in the 2024 race.

Harris is expected to campaign vigorously, including with women and minority groups, constituencies with whom she has connected as vice president.

“The re-election could be her moment to shine,” said Democratic strategist Lis Smith. “She is at her best when she gets back to her prosecutorial roots and when she can really make a case, and Democrats are going to need to make one hell of a case to win in 2024.”

Aides and supporters of Harris, California’s former attorney general, say she has been a big booster of Biden’s agenda. She has highlighted efforts to protect women’s reproductive rights, bolster small businesses and fight climate change — all issues that will feature in the 2024 campaign.

“The vice president’s job really is to make sure that you carry the mission of the administration forward and she has done that very successfully around the country. Unfortunately … I don’t think she gets the credit in the public eye she deserves,” outgoing Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said.

Connecting with party leaders is key in Washington, but Harris does not go out much in town, and Democratic strategist Bud Jackson said she has not “lit a fire” under the Democratic establishment.

“In a Machiavellian sense, Democrats think that Biden is hopefully fine for another term and we don’t have to worry about the second-in-command, because I think, in our mind, Biden lasts another term and then Harris is not the preordained Democratic nominee (for 2028),” Jackson said.

“Some of this lack of enthusiasm is unrealistic expectations that she was going to be some kind of rock star as vice president, and that’s not fair to expect.”

ISSUES ON BIDEN’S PLATE

People close to them say Biden and Harris like each other and get along well.

“They have a great relationship. He leans on her a lot,” said Cedric Richmond, a former congressman and former senior adviser in Biden’s White House. “People consistently underestimate both of them, and they consistently prove people wrong.”

Asked if there were any discussion of removing her from the ticket, Richmond said: “I would adamantly say that the answer is: Hell no!”

Harris used to meet weekly with Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain, and now meets regularly with his successor, Jeff Zients, and has a good relationship with senior adviser Anita Dunn — all important allies in Biden’s orbit.

But some who work in or have worked in his West Wing said her engagement on policy was lacking.

“A point of tension in their relationship is that I don’t think that the president sees her as somebody who takes anything off of his plate,” a second former White House official said, adding a “fear of messing up” had led Harris to be late to the game on important issues.

ABORTION RIGHTS, IMMIGRATION

Harris’s allies refute that characterization and point to her advocacy against abortion restrictions as an issue that Harris has taken off the Catholic president’s shoulders.

“Joe Biden is clear where he stands on the issue. I think it’s also been a difficult issue for him to be, you know, talking about it in the way that the vice president could,” a third former White House official said.

Biden lauded Harris’s work on the issue after Democrats performed better than expected in last year’s midterm elections.

“She knew from the beginning this was an issue that mattered to people,” one aide said. The November election proved she was right: the results from ballot measures and competitive races showed that voters of all political stripes were eager to protect abortion access at the state level, something that overwhelmingly helped Democrats.

Other policy tasks have not had the same level of success.

Republicans hammered Harris over immigration and migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border after Biden tasked her with leading his administration’s response to the exodus of people fleeing Central American countries for the United States.

She has traveled to the region twice and the U.S.-Mexico border once.

“She, I think, is smart. She does not see this as a political win for her. Because it’s not. It’s a really hard issue,” one current administration official said.

Harris allies say her remit was to focus on Central America, not to take on border security as a whole.

“That was not her assignment,” said the third former White House official, referring to reducing migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border broadly. “There was a team whose assignment it was.”

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Nandita Bose; additional reporting by Ted Hesson; Editing by Heather Timmons and Alistair Bell)

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By Michael Martina

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A new U.S. congressional committee on China will hold its second hearing on Thursday, seeking to highlight what Washington says is an ongoing genocide against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang region.

Rights groups accuse Beijing of abuses, including forced labor, mass surveillance and the placement of 1 million or more Uyghurs – a mainly Muslim ethnic group – in a network of internment camps in Xinjiang.

“It should serve as a warning for what the world would look like under CCP leadership,” congressman Mike Gallagher, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, told reporters on Wednesday.

The hearing, set for 7 p.m. EDT on Thursday, is the latest in a series of events planned for the next two years while Republicans control the House to convince Americans that they should care about competing with China, and to “selectively decouple” the countries’ economies.

The House panel will hear from Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uyghur woman who survived what she has described as years in “re-education” camps and under house arrest, as well as Qelbinur Sidik, an ethnic Uzbek assigned by Chinese authorities as a teacher in one such camp.

Both women managed to get to Europe where they now reside.

Nury Turkel, a prominent Uyghur American lawyer who advocated for the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act that last year largely banned imports from Xinjiang, and Adrian Zenz, a German researcher who has sought to document the extent of internment camps there, will also be among those who testify.

China vigorously denies abuses in Xinjiang, and says it established “vocational training centers” to curb terrorism, separatism and religious radicalism.

The U.S. government and parliaments in countries including Britain and Canada have described China’s birth prevention and mass detention policies in Xinjiang as genocide. A United Nations report last year said China may have committed crimes against humanity in the region.

The bipartisan committee will not write legislation, but will make policy recommendations at a time when a desire for a hard line toward China is one of the few bipartisan sentiments in the deeply divided U.S. Congress.

Its top Democrat, U.S. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, told reporters that what happens to the Uyghur community in China affects Americans.

“It’s in the goods produced with slave labor, it’s the degradation of human rights that makes the world less safe, and it’s the ceaseless persecution of Uyghurs abroad that includes those living in America,” Krishnamoorthi said.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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By Sharon Bernstein

(Reuters) – Florida is looking to expand its ban on teaching young children about sexual orientation and gender identity issues to include all students in its public schools under a new rule set for a vote by the state Board of Education next month.

The proposed rule is the latest move by the administration of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who is expected to seek his party’s 2024 nomination for president, to limit or prohibit instruction on topics conservatives consider inappropriate for the state’s classrooms.

Last year, DeSantis signed a Republican-backed measure that banned classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for students in kindergarten through third grade. Critics denounced what they dubbed the “don’t say gay” bill.

The Florida Department of Education’s new proposal, which would not require legislative approval, would extend the ban through the 12th grade.

The proposal drew swift criticism on Wednesday from Democrats and LGBTQ rights activists, with White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre calling the proposal “completely, utterly, wrong.”

Equality Florida said the rule was advancing DeSantis’ political agenda at the expense of diverse families and educators.

Under the rule, teachers could face disciplinary action if they discuss sexual orientation or gender identity outside of mandated curriculum or health courses that parents have been briefed on and given the option to keep their children out of class for those lessons.

“There is no reason for instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity to be part of K-12 public education. Full stop,” DeSantis spokesperson Bryan Griffin tweeted on Wednesday.

The state Board of Education is scheduled to vote on the rule at its April 19 meeting.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Lincoln Feast.)

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The chair of the Senate Commerce Committee said on Wednesday she would push for quick passage of rail safety legislation after a Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that sparked a fire and released over a million gallons of hazardous materials and pollutants into the environment.

Senate Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell said she wants the committee to debate and approve rail safety legislation in April. Senators questioned Norfolk Southern Chief Executive Alan Shaw for the second time this month and he backed calls for rail safety reform but did not endorse a bipartisan bill.

“We can’t have railroads adopt operating models focused on just cutting costs to achieve higher profits and then have higher accident rates,” Cantwell said. “We need to invest in the modernization of equipment that will provide the safety we need.”

This month, a bipartisan group of senators led by Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and J.D. Vance, a Republican, introduced legislation to prevent future train disasters.

The bill would require enhanced safety procedures for trains carrying hazardous materials, as well as require wayside defect detectors, a minimum of two-person crews and increased fines for wrongdoing.

Vance ridiculed suggestions by industry groups that the bill was a “big government solution” and said it was “insulting to the people of East Palestine.”

Shaw did not endorse major provisions of the legislation such as requiring two-person crews or hiking maximum civil penalties for railroads from $225,000 to 1% of annual operating income. He said the railroad supports regulator reviews of rules for rail car inspections and standards for freight car safety and accelerating the phase-out of older tank cars.

Brown said Norfolk Southern had 579 violations in a recent 12-monht period in closed cases and an average fine of less than $3,300. Brown said the fines are “meaningless. It’s not even a cost of doing business – it’s a rounding error.”

Senator Ted Cruz, top Republican on the Commerce Committee, said he thinks Congress can pass legislation to boost rail safety without damaging supply chains or imposing unreasonable costs.

Senator Peter Welch pressed Shaw to suspend Norfolk Southern’s stock buyback program but the CEO did not endorse the suggestion. “We spend a $1 billion a year on capital on safety,” Shaw said. “Stock buybacks never come at the expense of safety.”

Norfolk Southern repurchased $3.1 billion in stock in 2022 after buying back $3.4 billion in 2021. The company in March 2022 announced a buyback authorization of up to $10 billion.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by David Gregorio)

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(Corrects surname of potential Biden campaign manager to Ridder from Ritter in paragraph 6)

By Jeff Mason, Nandita Bose and Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden’s team is leaning toward basing his 2024 re-election campaign in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, and is considering at least three people to serve as his campaign manager, Democratic sources familiar with the matters said.

Biden, who has said he intends to run for re-election but has yet to make a formal announcement, travels regularly on weekends to Wilmington, making it a natural place for political work outside of the White House in Washington.

Philadelphia, home to Biden’s 2020 campaign operations, has also been under consideration, the sources said. Biden spent part of his childhood in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and travels regularly to the political battleground state for events.

“We’re aware that there is no deficit of people who speculate, but very few individuals are actually knowledgeable about any of this,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in an e-mail.

The president is considering at least three people for the role of campaign manager, according to Democratic sources familiar with the deliberations.

The candidates include Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and a deputy campaign manager of Biden’s 2020 campaign, Jenn Ridder, who served as national states director for Biden’s 2020 campaign, and Sam Cornale, executive director of the Democratic National Committee.

Senior White House advisers Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn are expected to be closely involved in political strategy going into the re-election as well.

Jen O’Malley Dillon, who served as Biden’s campaign manager in 2020, has ruled out returning to the role in 2024, two sources said.

Now deputy chief of staff at the White House, she will be influential in selecting who takes the reins for the 2024 race, one source said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Nandita Bose and Jarrett RenshawEditing by Alistair Bell)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told lawmakers on Wednesday that the State Department has been putting together a review of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and will share findings with Congress by mid-April.

“We’ve now been spending time putting all of this together to make sure that we look at some of the common lessons learned,” Blinken said in testimony to a Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittee hearing.

“I am committed and determined to make that information available to Congress, and we will do that. We will do that by mid-April. So I can tell you today, you’ll have the after-action review. We will share the findings and find the appropriate mechanism to do that within the next three weeks.”

Members of Congress have been demanding information about the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years in what was the U.S.’s longest war. The Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee threatened this week to issue a subpoena if the State Department does not produce documents it has requested.

John Kirby, the top spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, told reporters the main takeaways from the review would be released to the public and shared with the House committee.

Republicans, who took control of the House in January, say there has never been a full accounting of the chaotic operation, in which 13 U.S. service members were killed at Kabul’s airport.

Hundreds of U.S. citizens and many thousands of Afghans who had worked with American forces were left behind as they were seeking to flee from the Taliban, the Islamist militant group that resumed control of Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Simon Lewis, Humeyra Pamuk, Doina Chiacu and Nandita Bose; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)

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