NEWS WRAP

Pelosi target of kidnapping attempt

• Pelosi attacker aimed to kidnap, not murder | The man who attacked the husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's husband pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges, saying his aim was to kidnap Speaker Pelosi. Paul Pelosi is “making steady progress” in recovering after his skull was fractured. The latest in a surge of political violence, USSC’s recent polling shows 49 per cent of Americans are ‘very concerned’ about the risk of political violence. READ MORE HERE
   
• Obama vies for swing states | Former President Obama hit the campaign trail in a final push to support Democratic candidates in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. The Pennsylvania Senate race remains tight between Trump-backed TV personality Mehmet Oz and current Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman despite concerns over Fetterman’s ability to do the job following his stroke and highlighted in the recent debate. READ MORE HERE
   
• Musk takes the helm at Twitter and fires CEO | Shortly after taking the reins at Twitter, new owner Elon Musk fired the CEO and dissolved the Board of directors including policy chief Vijaya Gadde, who had made the decision to ban former President Trump from Twitter. Speculation swirls about a potential reinstatement of former President Trump, but Musk said such decisions will be determined by a content moderation panel. READ MORE HERE

• Supreme Court weighs in on Trump taxes | US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts put a temporary hold on the requirement for former President Trump to turn over his tax returns to a congressional committee in a tussle over his taxes since 2019. This ruling comes the same week as the court denied Senator Lindsey Graham’s appeal to avoid testifying about his involvement in lobbying Georgia state officials to influence the 2020 election outcome. READ MORE HERE

PUBLIC FORUM

Danger Zone: The coming conflict with China with author Hal Brands

If the rest of the 21st century will be defined by strategic competition, Professor Hal Brands posits the 2020s will be the most intense and definitive decade. As the US-China rivalry hits fever pitch, China’s aggression toward Taiwan, economic coercion and military escalation will only escalate during this critical period, which Brands and co-author Michael Beckley label the “Danger Zone.”

Join the United States Studies Centre for an event featuring Professor Hal Brands, author of Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China in conversation with USSC's Senior Lecturer in US Politics and Foreign Policy Dr Gorana Grgic to discuss these issues.

WHEN
SYDNEY | Tuesday, 8 November, 3.30 pm - 5.00 pm AEDT

LOCATION
Level 5 Meeting Room, The Michael Spence Building (F23), Corner of Eastern Avenue and City Road, The University of Sydney, Camperdown NSW 2006

COST
Free, but registration is essential 

ANALYSIS

A Republican midterm win will boost US China strategy

Dr Michael Green, CEO, United States Studies Centre

The growing polarisation on display ahead of the US midterm elections next week does not bode well for the Biden administration. If Republicans gain a majority in the US House of Representatives, as polls suggest, they will unleash a torrent of debilitating partisan attacks on the administration. The Jan. 6 committee will be disbanded; US President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, will be investigated; Biden could face impeachment proceedings; and the wing of the Republican Party beholden to Fox News host Tucker Carlson and his adulation of the Kremlin will threaten to block funding for Ukraine. Although increased congressional scrutiny on some issues will be welcome—for example, to examine the administration’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal—much of it will be painful for the White House and unnerving for US allies concerned about US leadership.

But as far as competition with China is concerned, divided government could be just what is needed to unite Americans around the administration’s strategy. This is because Republicans tend to push Democratic administrations to deliver on defence and trade—two critical pillars of competition with China. At the same time, any potential divisiveness will be tempered by the fact that the US Congress and average Americans agree on confronting the China challenge more than they agree on just about anything else.

Sceptics will argue that the pro-defence, pro-trade Republican Party no longer exists—that it was destroyed when Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. It is true that the Republican base has become more skeptical of trade agreements, and dangerously isolationist voices have emerged within the party’s “Make America Great Again” wing. But there is also more bipartisanship in Congress on competition with China than ever before. Indeed, this is one of the few areas of consensus in Washington these days. It was a bipartisan coalition that pushed through the CHIPS and Science Act in August, which will arm the administration with $50 billion to revitalise the US semiconductor industry, attract allied investment to the United States, and maintain the free world’s edge over China in the race to dominate emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. The original author of that bill was Sen. Todd Young, a Republican from reliably conservative Indiana, and the bill was co-sponsored by liberal stalwart Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York. The China threat makes for strange bedfellows indeed.

This is an excerpt from A Republican midterm win will boost US China strategy, first published in Foreign Policy.

BY THE NUMBERS

Strong Australian support for US access to military facilities

In the recent US midterms 2022 polling, an overwhelming majority (72 per cent) of Australian respondents wanted US access to Australian military facilities to stay the same or increase. Twenty-seven per cent wanted to see an increase in US access and 45 per cent wanted it to stay the same. This is in stark contrast to the 10 per cent who wanted the access to decrease and seven per cent who wanted to remove US military access altogether.

The support was bipartisan, although a strong 40 per cent of Coalition voters wanted to see an increase, compared to 18 per cent of Labor voters. However, even for Labor voters, only 11 per cent said they wanted to decrease access.

This is an excerpt from US midterms 2022: The stakes for Australia and the alliance by Director of Research Jared Mondschein and Research Associate Victoria Cooper

VIDEO

US Midterms 2022 with Jane Coaston and Annabel Crabb

What US issues are the biggest concern for US and Australian voters? What is the state of play going into the midterms? What do the midterms tell us about what to expect in the 2024 US presidential election?

To explore these topics, USSC hosted a special US midterms event featuring The New York Times' Jane Coaston, ABC's Political commentator Annabel Crabb, and USSC's CEO Dr Michael Green.

Catch more podcast and video analysis on the United States here.

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

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