Mike Johnson faces Republican-led ouster vote as Congress returns this week – live

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Johnson calls on Columbia’s Board of Trustees to “immediately remove” university president

Right on cue, Johnson has released a statement responding to the news that Columbia University is canceling its main commencement ceremony, in which he condemned both the university president and protesters.

“President Shafik and Columbia University administrators have displayed a shocking unwillingness to control their campus,” he said. “They’ve allowed outside agitators and terrorist-sympathizing students and faculty to rewrite campus rules and spew vile, anti-Jewish aggression. Now, thousands of students who’ve worked hard to achieve their degrees will not get the recognition they deserve.”

Johnson called on Columbia’s Board of Trustees to “immediately remove” Shafik and appoint a new president who will crackdown on the protests.

Since her appearance before a Republican-led Congressional committee last month, Shafik has been facing calls for her resignation from all sides. As she delivered testimony in Washington that remarks that some students and free speech advocates saw as far too acquiescent of Republican talking points, protesters set up a pro-Palestinian solidarity encampment on Columbia’s campus.

Shafik called on the NYPD to remove the protestors, a move that resulted in more than 100 arrests and sparked solidarity protests across the US. Last week, protesters occupied Columbia’s Hamilton Hall for hours before police in riot gear cleared the building and arrested more than 100 demonstrators.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene will meet privately with the House speaker this afternoon, CNN’s Haley Talbot reports. Greene, Talbot said, requested the meeting.

The reported summit comes as Greene is pressing ahead with a removal vote against Johnson, who is all-but certain to survive with the help of Democrats. Greene has been vague on when exactly she would trigger the motion.

During the meeting, Johnson will conceivably try to persuade Greene of what he has argued publicly: that the vote won’t end in his removal and is only likely to inflict further political damage on their already turbulent majority.

Even though Johnson’s job is likely safe, for now, remaining in power with the help of Democrats is only likely to make hardliners angrier, fueling their grievance that he has abandoned his conservative principles since becoming Speaker.

Only three House Republicans have publicly stated their support for Johnson’s ouster, it is possible that number could grow if Greene forces a vote.

Johnson has tried to turn attention away from the party’s infighting by focusing on an issue that unites his members: fury toward the college campus protests.

Trump held in contempt, again

Juan Merchan, the judge in Trump’s hush money criminal trial, has again held the former president in contempt of court, fining him another $1,000 for violating the terms of his gag order and threatening him with the possibility of jail time for future violations.

“As much as I do not want to impose a jail sanction ... I want you to understand that I will, if necessary, and appropriate,” Merchan warned Trump.

On social media and in his public comments, Trump has leveled repeated attacks on the trial, the jury, the judge, the lawyers and even the witnesses, including his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen.

Follow those developments at the link below.

Sunday show recap: over the weekend, elected elected officials weighed in on a variety of matters.

Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, warned that comments by Kari Lake, a Trump acolyte running for the state’s other Senate seat, could incite violence. Last month Lake told voters to “strap on a Glock” ahead of the 2024 elections. “It’s dangerous,” he told NBC News during an interview on “Meet the Press.” “What Kari Lake said could result in people getting hurt or killed.”

In an interview on CBS, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem would not say whether she met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un even though it appears she fabricated the encounter in her book. “I’m not going to talk about my specific meetings with world leaders. … This anecdote shouldn’t have been in the book and as soon as it was brought to my attention I made sure that was adjusted.”

Noem also doubled down on her decision to kill her 14-month old dog Cricket, despite widespread blowback. “The reason that this story is in the book — because people need to understand who I am and some of those difficult decisions,” she told CBS.

California congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat who has been visiting colleges around the country during student protests, said the president should join him.

“I think the president should and will get out there on campuses,” he told CBS, adding: “This is a defining moment for this generation, similar to anti-Vietnam protests, anti-apartheid protests, anti-Iraq war protests and they’re telling us that over 30,000 people have died. It’s time for this war to end.”

Columbia cancels main commencement ceremony amid antiwar protests

Columbia University announced on Monday that it had canceled next week’s university-wide commencement ceremony amid pro-Palestinian protests that have roiled the campus and spread to colleges across the country. Instead, the university said it would hold smaller “school-level” ceremonies for students.

“Based on feedback from our students, we have decided to focus attention on our Class Days and school-level graduation ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers, and to forego the university-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15,” university officials said in a statement.

It continued: “These past few weeks have been incredibly difficult for our community. Just as we are focused on making our graduation experience truly special, we continue to solicit student feedback and are looking at the possibility of a festive event on May 15 to take the place of the large, formal ceremony.”

At Columbia, students set up an encampment on campus to protest Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the local health ministry. The protesters at Columbia and elsewhere have called on their universities to divest funds from companies or businesses that support the Israeli military and its operations in Gaza.

The decision comes after the University of Southern California canceled its main graduation ceremony amid campus-wide protests while allowing other commencement activities to continue.

“Security concerns were one of the main reasons for our decision on whether to hold a large commencement ceremony,” a university official said in a statement to The Guardian.

Mike Johnson faces Republican-led ouster vote as Congress returns this week

Good morning and welcome to the politics liveblog.

Congress returns to Washington this week with all eyes on the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to face a vote over his ouster in the coming days.

House Democratic leaders have said their members would lend enough votes to shield Johnson from removal, an effort led by far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Though her drive to depose Johnson is almost certain to fail, Greene has said she plans to force the vote to show that the conservative speaker must rely on Democrats to keep his job. Republicans’ wafer-thin majority in the House gives any individual member with a grievance enormous leverage over the party’s agenda – and the fate of the Speaker.

Johnson has infuriated hardline conservatives after working across the aisle to pass a government funding measure and approve a foreign aid package with assistance for Ukraine. But many are reluctant to trigger a a repeat of last year’s ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which plunged the chamber into chaos as they searched for his replacement.

So far, Greene is joined publicly by just two other House conservatives: congressmen Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Paul Gosar of Arizona.

Elsewhere in Washington:

Biden will return to the White House from his home in Wilmington, Delaware. At midday, he will present the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy to the US Military Academy Army Black Knights, before hosting King Abdullah II of Jordan for lunch. Later this evening, he will host a Cinco de Mayo reception in the Rose Garden with first lady Jill Biden.

Vice president Kamala Harris is headed to Detroit for the second stop on her “Economic Opportunity Tour”.

Donald Trump is back in a New York courtroom for his criminal trial involving a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniel. Proceedings are due to start around 9am in New York. Readers can follow here for updates.

Trump on Sunday night appeared to ride to the defense of Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar, who was recently indicted in a $600,000 bribery scheme involving Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank. Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, Cuellar a conservative Democrat in a swing district was a “Respected Democrat Congressman” and accused the Biden administration of targeting him because he tends to align with Republicans on border security: “They’re a bunch of D.C. Thugs, and at some point they will be paying a very big price for what they have done to our Country,” Trump wrote.

Politico reports that second gentleman Doug Emhoff will host a small group of Jewish college students at the White House amid the turmoil sweeping university campuses. Emhoff, who is Jewish, has led the White House’s fight against antisemitism.