CNN plans unsanctioned GOP debates in Iowa, New Hampshire

CNN announced Thursday it will host Republican presidential candidate debates before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary next month — throwing a wrench into a process that thus far has been managed exclusively by the Republican National Committee.

The respective debates, set for Jan. 10 in Des Moines and Jan. 21 just outside Manchester, aren’t sanctioned by the RNC, which has organized the first four debates, including Wednesday night’s broadcast in Alabama.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signaled almost immediately that he intends to appear at CNN’s Iowa debate. Other candidates have yet to say if they will participate.

Campaigns have continuously complained about current RNC rules, which say a candidate who participates in an unsanctioned debate is barred from future RNC-approved gatherings. But the RNC’s debate committee is expected to meet Friday to discuss officially removing that rule, according to three people with knowledge of the group’s plans.

DeSantis on multiple occasions in the last month spoke out against the RNC’s restrictions, accusing the party of “doing the bidding of” Donald Trump by actively limiting candidates’ opportunities to face each other in a variety of settings. Trump has not appeared at any of the four RNC-sponsored debates this year.

The committee last month initially tried to forbid the candidates from participating in a roundtable held by a prominent Iowa evangelical Christian group, The Family Leader, but relented after pushback from the campaigns and allied organizations.

In October, Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie were barred by the committee from debating each other on Fox News Channel, forcing the cable network to instead schedule two separate forums for the candidates.

Ramaswamy, who previously called for the fifth debate to be aired exclusively on the social media website X, rather than cable or broadcast television, described the RNC’s rules as being part of a “brokered and rigged nomination process.” Christie, too, slammed the committee this fall for its restrictions on outside debates.

But CNN’s announcement of 2024 debates came before any decision was made by the RNC, a sign that the cable network may be angling to get ahead of other news outlets that are also planning early-state debates in the wake of the RNC’s rule change.

A press release published on CNN’s website said the RNC “is expected to announce this week it will release candidates from its requirement that prevents them from participating in non-RNC-sanctioned debates.”

POLITICO reported earlier this week that ABC News was also preparing for a debate before the New Hampshire primary. Historically, the network has worked with its Manchester affiliate, WMUR-TV, on a New Hampshire debate in the days leading up to the primary.

CNN’s criteria for extending invitations to the candidates will also be stricter than the RNC’s rules so far. Candidates need to earn 10 percent in pre-approved polls — both nationally and in the two earliest states on the GOP presidential calendar — to secure an invite.

According to POLITICO’s analysis, DeSantis, Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley would be invited to the Iowa debate. Qualification for that one concludes on Jan. 2.

For the New Hampshire debate, just Trump and Haley have met CNN’s polling criteria so far. But the network will also invite the top three finishers in the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses; DeSantis, who lags in New Hampshire polling compared to his standing nationally and in Iowa, is in second place in Iowa polling averages.

Neither Christie nor Ramaswamy has met CNN’s criteria for either debate, according to POLITICO’s analysis.

Meridith McGraw contributed to this report.

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Legal weed takes effect in Ohio as lawmakers scramble to change voter-passed law

Ohio is officially the 24th state to have legal, adult-use marijuana.

Provisions of a voter-approved legalization law took effect at midnight, including legal possession and home cultivation for anyone at least 21 years old.

But Ohio lawmakers are rushing to pass legislation to make changes to the initiative. On Wednesday, the Senate passed legislation to alter potency caps, taxation, home cultivation, and social equity and expungement provisions.

The Senate proposal would also speed up legal sales by allowing medical marijuana dispensaries to start serving recreational customers immediately.

The details: Adults can now possess up to 2.5 ounces of weed and grow up to six plants.

Under the voter-passed law, cannabis is subject to a 10 percent excise tax and revenues are directed towards an equity and jobs program.

The legalization law also sets up a new cannabis regulatory agency, which will have nine months to go through a rule-making process to launch adult-use sales.

What the Senate wants: The Senate proposal would halve the number of plants allowed for home grow, increase the excise tax to 15 percent and allow medical marijuana dispensaries to start serving the adult-use market immediately.

It would require expungements upon request and scrap the social equity and jobs program. Instead, the tax revenues would go towards law enforcement training, substance abuse treatment and the state's general fund.

“What the Senate passed yesterday still does not respect the will of the voters,” said Tom Haren, a spokesperson for the legalization campaign.

Haren says that potency restrictions and higher tax rates under the Senate bill will make it difficult to compete with the illicit market and will still drive Ohioans to buy marijuana in Michigan.

What’s next: The House Finance committee is taking up its own marijuana bill today. The House bill hews closer to the voter-approved initiative.

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California’s budget deficit balloons to $68B

California’s budget deficit has swelled to $68 billion after months of unexpectedly low tax revenues, a shortfall that could prompt the state’s deepest spending cuts since the Great Recession.

The latest deficit figure — calculated by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office and released Thursday — far exceeds a $14.3 billion estimate from June. The shortfall threatens to upend the upcoming legislative year by forcing Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers to make spending cuts on a scale that few term-limited elected officials in Sacramento have faced.

"California Faces a Serious Deficit," analysts wrote. "While addressing a deficit of this scope will be challenging, the Legislature has a number of options available to do so. In particular, the Legislature has reserves to withdraw, one‑time spending to pull back, and alternative approaches for school funding to consider."

The LAO forecasts a $4 billion drop in the amount of funding the state is required to send to schools and community colleges under Proposition 98, adding education to a list of possible targets for reductions that also includes climate and health care. But, the LAO added that lawmakers "could reduce" K-14 funding by $21 billion to mitigate the deficit.

Analysts suggested legislators could alleviate the problem by cutting one-time spending, cutting school funding or tapping into the state's tens of billions of dollars in reserves. Legislative leadership floated drawing from its savings last year, but Newsom opposed the idea and they remained untouched. Debates over whether to use the money will likely intensify next year, given the size of the shortfall.

Analysts also on Thursday forecasted annual $30 billion deficits in future years. The LAO recommended leaving up to half of the state's reserves intact to help mitigate those future shortfalls.

In January, Newsom will release his first budget proposal of the year, setting up negotiations over how to address the financial situation. A smaller deficit last year forced the governor to make the largest cuts of his tenure after years of massive surpluses. The state avoided deeper reductions by delaying spending and shifting money between the state’s general and special funds.

California could offset some cuts by further delaying spending, making some funding conditional on revenue bouncing back, or shifting money to bonds. But there’s already stiff competition for bond money, with mental health on the March ballot and November ballot proposals for education, climate and housing.

The stock market has started to recover, and California’s deficit could shrink if that continues by generating additional capital gains taxes. It would also reflect financial stability among some of the companies the state relies on for revenue.

“Stock prices are important leading indicators for future #CABudget revenues, and the indicators are up,” Jason Sisney, budget director for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, wrote in a LinkedIn post earlier this week.

Yet whether — and how much — those trends will shrink the state deficit won’t be clear until later next year, when Newsom unveils an updated budget proposal and deficit projections in May.

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Biden calls on Congress to pass Ukraine aid: ‘We can’t let Putin win’

President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he is willing to make “significant compromises” on border policy in exchange for funding for Ukraine and Israel.

“We need to fix the broken border system — it is broken,” Biden said from the White House ahead of a Senate procedural vote on his national security supplemental that Republicans plan to filibuster over a dispute on immigration policy. “Thus far, I’ve got no response.”

The president tried to elevate the stakes of the vote on his $106 billion supplemental spending plan, warning that a failure would send a dire message to Ukraine and European allies about the level of U.S. support for the embattled country.

“We can’t let [Russian President Vladimir] Putin win. It’s in our overwhelming national interest, in the international interest of all our friends,” he said.

Weeks ago, Republicans insisted on border policy changes in exchange for backing Ukraine and Israel funding, which many of them support.

“It’s take everything we have here — their one proposal, which is extreme — or nothing,” Biden said. “They walked away.”

Progressives Democrats, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, have strongly resisted giving away border policy — such as making it harder for migrants to claim asylum or easier for a future president to close the border — in exchange for Biden’s foreign policy agenda.

Biden did not say how the administration or congressional Democrats would proceed once the Senate vote was held, except that he would likely address reporters afterward: “We’ll know where we go from there.”

Republicans have framed their expected opposition Wednesday as a message to express how serious they are about addressing what they call a crisis at the U.S. border. Biden dismissed the effort as “playing chicken with our national security.”

Biden warned that if Congress doesn’t defend Ukraine now, the United States risked having to put boots on the ground if Putin invades a NATO country.

“If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there,” Biden said. “If “Putin attacks a NATO ally — if he keeps going and then he attacks a NATO ally — we’ve committed as a NATO member to defend every inch of NATO territory, and we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today.”

Biden's remarks reflect his latest warning to get his emergency funding request for Ukraine across the finish line. On Monday, White House budget chief Shalanda Young sent congressional leaders a letter warning that inaction before the end of the year on funding threatens to “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield.”

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US files war crime charges against Russians accused of torturing an American in the Ukraine invasion

WASHINGTON — Four Russian men accused of torturing an American during the invasion of Ukraine have been charged with war crimes in a case that's the first of its kind, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday.

It marks the first prosecution against members of the Russian armed forces in connection with atrocities during their war against Ukraine and the first time the Justice Department has brought charges under a nearly 30-year-old statute that makes it a crime to commit torture or inhumane treatment during a war.

The charges are largely symbolic for now given the unlikely prospects of the Justice Department bringing any of the four defendants — currently all fugitives — into custody. But U.S. officials described the case as a history-making moment in their ongoing investigation into Russian war crimes, and they foreshadowed the potential that more charges could be coming.

“This is our first, and you should expect more,” Attorney General General Merrick Garland said in announcing the case at a Justice Department news conference.

He said the department and the American people have a long memory: "We will not forget the atrocities in Ukraine. And we will never stop working to bring those responsible to justice.”

The four Russians are identified as members of the Russian armed forces or its proxy units. Two of them are described as commanding officers.

The Russians are accused of kidnapping an American man from his home in a Ukrainian village in 2022. The American was beaten and interrogated while being held for 10 days at a Russian military compound, before eventually being evacuated with his wife, who's Ukrainian, U.S. authorities said.

The American told federal agents who had traveled to Ukraine last year as part of an investigation that the Russian soldiers had abducted him, stripped him naked, pointed a gun at his head and badly beaten him, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.

He was also subjected to harsh interrogation methods, threatened with sexual assault and forced to participate in his own mock execution, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday in the Eastern District of Virginia.

“The evidence gathered by our agents speaks to the brutality, criminality, and depravity of Russia’s invasion,” Mayorkas said.

Homeland Security and FBI investigators interviewed the American, his family and others who were around the village of Mylove around the time of the kidnapping to identify the four Russians, Mayorkas said.

"Cases like this one are among the most complex the FBI works, but bringing them is essential to deterring crimes like these and showing would-be perpetrators that no one is above the law and the war crimes will not go unpunished,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said.

Garland has been outspoken on war crimes in Ukraine since Russia's invasion began in February 2022, and the Justice Department assigned federal prosecutors to examine the potential of bringing criminal charges.

Independent human rights experts backed by the United Nations have said they’ve found continued evidence of war crimes committed by Russian forces, including torture that ended in death and rape of women aged up to 83 years old.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia doesn’t recognize the ICC and considers its decisions “legally void.” He called the court’s move “outrageous and unacceptable.”

The United States is not a member of the ICC, but the Justice Department has been cooperating with it and supporting Ukrainian prosecutors as they carry out their own war crime investigations.

The four defendants are identified as Suren Seiranovich Mkrtchyan and Dmitry Budnik, both of whom are described by prosecutors as commanding officers in Russia's armed forces, as well as two lower-ranking officers identified only by their first names.

All four were fighting on behalf of Russia in its war against Ukraine and are identified in the indictment as either members of the armed forces or military units from the Donestk People's Republic. After invading Ukraine, Moscow in September 2022 illegally annexed parts of the Donetsk region and three other Ukrainian regions under its control as part of Russia.

The charges come as the Biden administration, in an effort to show continued support for Ukraine during a separate war between Israel and Hamas, is pressing Congress to approve military and economic aid for Kyiv’s war effort.

The U.S. and Russia do not have an extradition treaty, but the Justice Department has brought repeated criminal cases against Russian nationals, most notably for cyber crimes and including for interference in the 2016 presidential election. In some of those cases, the defendants have been taken into custody by American officials, such as when they’ve traveled outside Russia.

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Supreme Court unlikely to launch preemptive strike on wealth tax proposals

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sounded skeptical of a conservative-backed bid to preemptively block Congress from ever passing a tax on wealth.

Conservative and liberal justices asked tough questions of a lawyer representing a Washington state couple seeking to throw out a one-time “repatriation” tax on big companies’ overseas earnings. That tax is an arcane but important provision of Republicans’ 2017 tax bill, which largely cut taxes.

But some wealthy Americans and pro-business groups are hoping to use the case as a vehicle to kill off much more than the repatriation tax. They have urged a broad ruling that would slam the legal door on any prospect of a wealth tax — a proposal that is gaining popularity on the left but also raises constitutional questions.

The court took the case in June amid intense scrutiny of some conservative justices’ relationships with billionaires who use their fortunes to advance political agendas focused on lowering taxes and reining in the role of the federal government.

But on Tuesday, the justices repeatedly questioned the distinctions a lawyer for the taxpayers, Andrew Grossman, attempted to draw between the repatriation tax and other taxes that have long been on the books.

“Why is this any different?” Justice Elena Kagan asked. “There’s a long, century-old history of these kinds of taxes.”

However, some GOP-appointed justices — particularly Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito — seemed wary of an unalloyed victory for the government and appeared to be pushing for an outcome that would preserve latitude for the court to limit federal taxing powers in a future case.

Gorsuch told Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar that the government’s arguments seemed to allow federal authorities to declare almost anything to be income and tax it.

“I’m just asking what the limits of your argument are, and it seems to me there are none,” he said, saying that was a “big door” he was unwilling to leave open.

“That door is already open,” Prelogar responded, citing a series of Supreme Court precedents giving the federal government broad authority to tax various kinds of investments.

By the end of the two-hour-long argument session, the justices seemed to be leaning toward a narrow ruling for the government, with Gorsuch repeatedly asking Prelogar how they might craft a decision in her favor that puts aside some of the thornier issues raised by the case.

Earlier this year, Alito took the unusual step of publicly rejecting calls for him to step aside from the tax case because of his ties to one of the lawyers representing the Washington couple.

The lawyer, David Rivkin, interviewed Alito on a couple of occasions earlier this year for the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. In a four-page statement released in September, Alito turned down calls from Democratic lawmakers for him to recuse based on the interviews and his relationship with Rivkin.

Rivkin did not argue the case Tuesday, leaving that task to Grossman. Both are partners at Ohio-based law firm BakerHostetler. Rivkin was on hand and sat quietly at the far end of the table assigned to counsel for the taxpayers.

At one point, Alito seemed to go out of his way to emphasize that he was seeking to deal fairly with the arguments presented by both sides. He was also the only justice to allude to news reports about the case, which have generally focused on its potential to act as a preemptive strike against a future wealth tax.

“One of the arguments that you press most strongly, and certainly it has resonated a lot in the coverage of this case, is that the adoption of the petitioners’ arguments would have far-reaching consequences,” Alito said to Prelogar. “So, do you think it is fair then to explore what the consequences of your argument would be?”

The court doesn’t take many tax cases, and even fewer like this one that raise questions of what counts as income.

The couple, Charles and Kathleen Moore, complain the repatriation tax triggered a $15,000 tax bill on an investment in an Indian power tool company on which they never received any income. They say the company plowed all of its earnings back into its operations. That makes the repatriation tax a levy on property, not income, they argue, and federal property taxes are effectively banned by the Constitution.

If the court were to throw out the repatriation tax, big companies could receive billions in tax refunds, perhaps with interest. And a broad ruling could also preempt any possibility of Congress adopting wealth tax proposals pushed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other progressives. Backed by a phalanx of conservative groups, the Moores had asked the court to specifically take up the case to foreclose the possibility of a wealth tax.

At the same time, tax watchers are concerned the justices — who are no experts in the arcana of taxation — could inadvertently blow big holes in the code if they don’t tread carefully. These observers point to a number of long-standing provisions in the code that tax people before they actually receive income, typically in the name of trying to prevent people from dodging the IRS. Many have warned that a sweeping ruling against taxes on “unrealized gains” could throw into legal doubt scads of other sections of the code.

The government pressed on those concerns Tuesday, pointing to a long history of taxes going back to the inauguration of the income tax. Prelogar said it's difficult to draw lines between those provisions and the repatriation tax. A ruling for the Moores would create havoc, she argued.

“It would cause a sea change in the operation of the tax code and cost trillions of dollars in lost tax revenue,” she said.

Alito noted that the tax in question covers income dating back 30 years, and he questioned whether at some point a tax purportedly on income might functionally be one on wealth.

“Let’s say somebody graduates from school and starts up a little business in his garage, and 20 years later, 30 years later, that person is a billionaire,” Alito said. “Under your argument, can Congress tax all of that on the ground that is income?”

Prelogar called that a “harder question,” adding, “We don't have the same tradition to support Congress levying income taxes in that manner.”

Among the court’s six Republican appointees, Justice Brett Kavanaugh sounded the most untroubled by the government’s position in the case. He dismissed some of his colleagues’ concerns about a broad-based wealth tax as ungrounded in political reality.

“On the proverbial open door … members of Congress want to get reelected,” Kavanaugh said, triggering laughter in the courtroom. “Some of the hypos — that's why they're far-fetched.”

A ruling in the case is expected by late June.

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University presidents defend efforts to combat antisemitism before House panel

Top university presidents defended their responses to antisemitism on their campuses in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war before Congress on Tuesday as they faced a grilling from lawmakers.

Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, acknowledged an “alarming” rise in antisemitism at the university amid the tensions that have roiled campuses across the country since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and Israel’s military response in Gaza.

Gay has been under pressure from prominent donors, alumni, members of Congress and one of her predecessors over Harvard’s response to antisemitism and protests against Israel. On Tuesday, she defended her efforts to combat hate on campuses but also acknowledged some shortcomings.

“I’ve sought to confront hate while preserving free expression,” Gay said during a House hearing. “This is difficult work, and I know that I have not always gotten it right.”

Gay testified alongside the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and MIT at a House education committee hearing amid bipartisan concerns that many top higher education leaders haven’t done enough to stop hate on their campuses.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the chair of the panel, told the presidents that “institutional antisemitism and hate are among the poisoned fruits of your institutions’ cultures.” Foxx and a slew of other Republicans sought to tie rising campus antisemitism to their longstanding complaints that higher education is too progressive and intolerant to conservative views.

All three university leaders detailed the efforts they’ve taken in recent weeks to bolster the physical safety of students on their campuses while also seeking to foster healthy debate and learning about the conflict.

Harvard and Penn are among the handful of universities and schools where the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights over the past several weeks have opened an investigation into allegations of antisemitism.

Gay and Harvard were the focus for many Republicans on the panel, including Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y), who has called for her resignation.

In a testy exchange, Stefanik, a Harvard alum, pressed Gay over whether Harvard would punish students or applicants who advocate for the murder of Jews.

“That type of hateful, reckless, offensive speech is personally abhorrent to me,” Gay responded. She said the university had “robust policies” that hold individuals accountable when speech crosses into conduct, such as bullying, harassment or intimidation.

“We embrace a commitment to free expression and give a wide berth to free expression even to views that are objectionable, outrageous and offensive,” Gay said.

Lawmakers also scrutinized UPenn President Liz Magill’s response to the school’s participation in a “Palestine Writes Festival” in September. A complaint filed with the Education Department against UPenn cites the festival as a catalyst for antisemitic incidents on campus. She said antisemitic speech at the event was “abhorrent” to her and that the institution put safety precautions into place.

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