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Democrats defended their prosecution of Donald Trumps impeachment trial on Sunday and hinted at the possibility of criminal charges, after failing to convince enough senators the former president was guilty of inciting the deadly Capitol attack.

The 57-43 vote for a conviction, which fell short of the two-thirds majority required, was still the biggest bipartisan impeachment vote in US history and amounted to a complete repudiation of Trumps conduct, lead House manager Jamie Raskin insisted. Seven Republicans crossed party lines to vote with every Democratic and independent senator after the five-day trial.

But the tactics of Raskin and his team have come under scrutiny, with some Democrats asking if the decision not to seek witness testimony, after senators voted early on the trials final day to allow it, was a mistake.

Specifically, evidence was not heard from the Washington congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler about a call between Trump and Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy during the 6 January riot showing that the president would not call off his supporters.

Well Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election theft than you are, Beutler said Trump replied when the House minority leader pleaded for him to recall the mob who overran the Capitol in support of the presidents false claims of a stolen election.

On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that the question of whether to call witnesses sparked lengthy debate among the House managers, who ultimately agreed to a deal to accept Beutlers statement as a written record. The decision diverted the likelihood of the trial extending days, if not weeks as both sides deposed witnesses.

I know that people are feeling a lot of angst, and believe that maybe if we had this, the senators would have done what we wanted, Stacey Plaskett, a congressional delegate from the Virgin Islands and impeachment team member, told CNNs State of the Union.

We didnt need more witnesses, we needed more senators with spines. We believe that we proved the case, we proved the elements of the article of impeachment. Its clear that these individuals were hardened, that they did not want to let the [former] president be convicted, or disqualified.

Raskin concurred.

These Republicans voted to acquit in the face of this mountain of unrefuted evidence, he told NBCs Meet the Press. Theres no reasoning with people who basically are acting like members of a religious cult.

Among the 43 senators to vote to acquit Trump was Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader who nonetheless followed his not guilty vote with a fiery and contradictory post-trial speech on the Senate floor, in which he condemned Trump for a disgraceful dereliction of duty.

Theres no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day, McConnell said. No question about it.

President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office as an ordinary citizen, the Kentucky Republican added, raising the prospect of criminal charges for the 45th US president over the riot. He didnt get away with anything. Yet.

Neither Raskin nor Madeleine Dean, an impeachment manager who told ABCs This Week McConnell was speaking out of two sides of his mouth, ruled out criminal prosecution for Trump, saying the decision would be up to others.

Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland and a frequent Trump critic, went further.

There was yesterdays vote, but theres still a number of potential court cases that I think hes still going to face, in criminal courts and the court of public opinion, he told CNN. This is not over and were going to decide over the next couple of years what the fate of Donald Trump and the Republican party is.

Prosecutors in Georgia are investigating calls by Trump and an ally, Lindsey Graham, in which state Republican officials were pressured to overturn Bidens victory.

Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator for Connecticut, said Trumps acquittal proved he was still firmly in charge of the Republican party, and that trial witnesses would not have swayed any more senators.

They werent going to get any more Republican votes than they had and I think they made the right decision to move to closing arguments, he told CNN. I dont know that they would have lost votes, I just am pretty confident they were at their high watermark yesterday morning. I know that [among the] Senate Republican caucus, I cant figure out who their eighth or ninth vote was going to be.

Donald Trumps going to be in charge of their party for the next four years. As they were deathly afraid of him for the last four years, they are going to continue to be afraid of him for the next four years.

Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana senator who was among the Republican dissidents, expanded on his reasoning for his vote after declaring on Saturday it was simply because [Trump] is guilty.

We can see the president for two months after the election promoting that the election was stolen, he told ABC. He scheduled the rally for 6 January, just when the transfer of power was to take place. And even after he knew there was violence taking place, he continued to basically sanction the mob being there. And not until later did he actually ask them to leave.

Cassidy said he was unconcerned by a backlash in Louisiana, where the state GOP has censured him and the chair of the Republican caucus warned him not to expect a warm welcome back.

I have the privilege of having the facts before me and being able to spend several days deeply going into those facts, he said.

As these facts become more and more out there, and folks have a chance to look for themselves, more will move to where I was. People want to trust their leaders, they want people to be held accountable.

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Democrats defend decision not to call witnesses as strategy under scrutiny - The Guardian

The 2018 and 2019 numbers come from a smaller sample than the National Election Survey election-year data, but even if we dismiss 2019 as a blip, it is noteworthy that the Democratic share has fallen every survey since 2008. It is becoming more difficult to write this off as simply a return to the pre-Obama status quo.

Many minorities who no longer identify as Democrats have become independents rather than Republicans much like their white Catholic predecessors initially did but this means their loyalties are increasingly up for grabs on Election Day.

In order to understand what may be occurring, it is useful to examine which kind of minority voter leans Republican. For Hispanics and Asian-Americans, this raises the question of assimilation. If these newer groups follow the path laid by earlier generations of Italians and Jews, they will come to identify themselves more and more as white rather than as minorities. The political scientists lvaro Corral and David Leal show that Latinos whose family had been in America for three generations were more likely to vote for Mr. Trump in 2016. My analysis of Pew survey data from 2018 reveals that there is a big gap between the immigrant Hispanic generation and the third generation (representing a child of a U.S.-born Hispanic). Almost 80 percent of the immigrant Hispanic generation voted Democratic, whereas the third generation figure was about 60 percent.

Mr. Trumps more defensive, cultural brand of nationalism and occasionally racist comments were once thought to be a deal-breaker for minority voters. However, these messages can resonate with minorities. In addition, according to my analysis, Hispanics who are American-born and native English speakers are more likely to believe others see them as white. Hispanics and Asians who say their American identity is extremely important to them also feel warmer toward white Americans.

Hispanics who predominantly speak English are more secure about their position in American society. When asked in 2018 whether Mr. Trumps election gave them serious concerns about their place in America or whether they were confident they belonged, these Hispanics were 22 points more confident than those who predominantly speak Spanish.

For African-Americans, data from a Qualtrics survey I conducted shows that voters with the weakest attachment to their Black identity had a higher propensity to vote for Mr. Trump, and these voters were more likely to live in ZIP codes with a smaller Black population. While just 16 percent of African-Americans in our sample said their Black identity was not especially important to them, the political scientist Tasha Philpot writes that attendance at a Black church is often linked to a stronger Black identity, and thus to higher Democratic identification. And if Black voters moved away from what Ismail White, a political scientist at Duke, calls social networks within the Black community, that might limit the power of the community to enforce a Democratic-voting norm.

Joe Bidens coalition, which is less dependent on minority votes, could insulate the Democrats from the political risks of any minority movement away from the left. Meanwhile, Mr. Trumps better-than-expected performance in 2020 suggests a Republican coalition of secure minorities and anxious whites may be a match for the emerging Democratic majority of anxious minorities and secure whites.

Eric Kaufmann (@epkaufm), a professor of politics at Birkbeck, University of London, is the author of Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities and is affiliated with the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology and the Manhattan Institute.

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Opinion | How Stable Is the Democratic Coalition? - The New York Times

In the latest stimulus package, Democrats are moving ahead with plans to provide American families with $3,000 per school-aged child over the year next. Although the increase would be temporary, some lawmakers want to see a permanent boost put in place to dramatically reduce child poverty in the U.S.

On Monday night, the House Ways and Means Committee released the details of many of the policies under consideration in the third Covid-19 relief package. That includes a proposal that would institute a fully refundable child tax credit for 2021 and increase the amount to $3,000 per child ages 6 to 17 and $3,600 annually for children under the age of 6.

There's already a child tax credit in place that provides $2,000 per child for 2020. When Americans file their taxes, they can claim the credit for children under 17. The current credit is income-based, so those making over $200,000 ($400,000 for married couples filing jointly) will see the amount of their credit gradually phased out. If taxpayers' credit exceeds their taxes owed, they can get up to $1,400 as a refund.

The Democrats' new proposal would increase the credit amount by $1,000 ($1,600 for those with children under 6) and allow taxpayers to receive the full amount as a refund. Additionally, the plan would make the credit payable in monthly installments of $250 and $300, respectively, rather than just once a year. The payments would start to phase out for individuals earning more than $75,000 a year or $150,000 for those married filing jointly.

If passed, the Treasury Department could issue advance payments of up to half the 2021 child tax credit starting in July based on families' 2019 or 2020 tax return information. If there is any overpayment of the credit, individuals making less than $40,000 ($60,000 for couples filing jointly) will not need to repay the amount, nor will it be garnished from wages.

"It is an historic proposal in terms of lowering child poverty," says Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. But it's only a temporary increase. If it were to become permanent, it would be a "landmark achievement," he says.

Some Democrats are proposing to permanently increase to the child tax credit. Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) re-introduced the American Family Act on Monday, which would permanently increase the child tax credit by $1,000 per child ages 6 to 18 and $1,600 for children under 6. The credit, like the proposed language in the relief bill, would be paid monthly.

The American Family Act also provides the benefit for higher-income earners. Individuals who earn up to $150,000 and married couples filing jointly who earn up to $200,000 can qualify. Additionally, the bill proposes indexing the credit to inflation so that it will not be diminished over time.

Currently, the combination of the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit, which subsidizes low-income working families, lifts 5.5 million children out of poverty a year, Marr tells CNBC Make It. A permanent $3,000 child tax credit would lift an additional 4.1 million children above the poverty line, he estimates. "It's not quite doubling, but it's really a similar order of magnitude," Marr says.

DeLauro's office projects that the increase to the child tax credit, if implemented on a permanent basis and with a higher income cap as she has proposed, would cut overall childhood poverty by 45% in the U.S.

"The inclusion of an expansion and improvement of the child tax credit in coronavirus rescue legislation moving in the House this week is groundbreaking, but we cannot stop there," DeLauro says. "We must use this moment to pass the American Family Act and permanently expand and improve the child tax credit by increasing the benefit to families and providing payments monthly. Children and families must be able to count on this benefit long after the end of this pandemic."

Senator Mitt Romney proposed a similar increase to the child tax credit last week, but created a permanent increase of $3,000 a year per child for school-aged children and $4,200 per child under 6.

In order to fund the new child assistance, Romney's proposal would reduce the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) and eliminate Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the State and Local Tax Deduction (SALT) and the head-of-household tax filing status, as well as several other credits for children and families.

The Democrats' legislative proposal, meanwhile, would not eliminate any existing child or family programs, but instead add as much as $120 billion to the federal deficit to cover the cost.

Marr says that while Romney's plan proposes a higher payment for younger children, it's "completely counterproductive" because it then claws back two-thirds of those gains by eliminating other credits that work in tandem for families.A lot of these family assistance programs work in concert with others to help low-income families, Marr says.

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Democrats push forward with temporary $3,000 child tax credit, but some want to make increase permanent - CNBC

Polling data reflect those anecdotes. His job-performance numbers were always higher than his vote share, so even people who werent voting for him thought he was doing a good job and was fighting for the right things and had the right priorities, says Marshall Cohen, the DGAs political director, who reviewed polling on Cooper over the course of the 2020 campaign.

Some of Coopers success, he knows, is rooted in his identity as a white man. That may have enabled him to hold on to moderate voters last year who might otherwise have been scared off by trends among Democrats nationally. Cooper, for example, wasnt tied to progressive causes like the Defund the police movement. By contrast, Jaime Harrison, a 44-year-old Black Democrat who ran against Republican Senator Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, was tagged with that causewhich frustrated him, he told me, because he repeatedly distanced himself from it.

Racism exists at all different levels in our society, Cooper told me. It would probably be easier for me to be way out there on [issues of race and racial disparity] than Jaime, because of the racism that exists out there. Voters may have been thinking that he may be a certain way because of his race and thinking that I may be a certain variety because of my race.

Another factor that may have helped Cooper: From the beginning of his first term as governor, hes built up his own fundraising apparatus, which means he didnt have to rely on outside groups to support his reelection and could shape his own public image. Meanwhile, he also established (and largely funded) a political operation through the state Democratic Party that recruited and supported other candidates around North Carolina. Those allies helped him break the legislatures Republican supermajoritywhich, in his first two years as governor, had the power to override his vetoesand gave him centers of political support around the state.

Then theres Coopers aggressive messaging: The governor devoted much of the last campaign to ripping into his Republican opponent, Dan Forest, especially Forests opposition to mask wearing and other COVID-19 restrictions. Cooper and his aides have become famous in Democratic circles for heavily investing in opposition research on Cooper himselfso much so that they record in advance responses to a range of potential attacks. Many of these campaign ads never air, but are ready to go if need be, usually with Cooper speaking directly to the camera.

In last years election, for example, aides told me Cooper knew hed likely be slammed for vetoing a bill that would have required local sheriffs to turn over undocumented arrestees to federal immigration authorities. So he recorded an ad explaining that he thought the measure was unconstitutional and would cost the state money. The ad tested well with focus groups, so the campaign ran with itwhile responding with their own heavily negative ads attacking Forest on several issues. Coopers view on going negative: I think its important to be up front with where you differ with your opponent and be ready to take that on. One of his political aides was more direct about their approach: You may score, but youre going to get bloodied.

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What Does This Man Know That Other Democrats Dont? - The Atlantic

New administration, new promises. But is it politics as usual in Washington?

Despite President Joe Biden's pledge to reach across the aisle, Democrats appear ready to go it alone to muscle through a massive COVID relief bill. Both chambers of Congress have now passed a budget resolution that will allow Democrats to advance the plan without Republican support.

Reconciliation allows Congress to pass things that have to do with finances with a simple majority, instead of a super majority.

"It's been employed now regularly during the Obama administration and the Trump administration, especially during first few years of the Trump administration when Republicans had complete control," said Muhlenberg College political science professor Chris Borick.

In the current climate Democrats have control of Congress. It's being utilized for the next COVID relief package.

Republican Senator Pat Toomey says it undermines attempts at bipartisanship, which he says Congress has proven it can do.

"I guess those days are behind us," Toomey said.

Democratic Lehigh Valley Congresswoman Susan Wild says this will get things moving at a time when Americans desperately need relief. Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan, also a Democrat, agreed.

"As much as I believe there is strong unity and bipartisanship and I believe that is active and alive in Congress, I believe there is a time you have to move forward efficiently, and this is one way to do that," Houlahan said.

Toomey also criticized Democrats for trying to attach "liberal wish list items" in the $1.9 trillion package.

"There are a number of us moderates in Congress who are looking very, very hard at this plan to make sure we don't include items on people's wish lists," Wild said.

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Democrats in Congress appear ready to muscle through massive COVID relief bill - WFMZ Allentown