Harris says she will visit the U.S.-Mexico border, calls GOP criticism ‘shortsighted’

Two events Tuesday reinforced just how much revisionism regarding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is prevailing in GOP ranks, in subtle but highly pertinent ways.

The Senate early in the day released the first big report on Jan. 6, but the report conspicuously avoided a specific word: “insurrection.” The word appeared 11 times in the report, but only when directly quoting someone or citing a report that used it. CNN quoted those involved, saying it was left out to ensure the bipartisanship of the report — i.e. Republicans, at best, viewed it as overly provocative.

Reinforcing that gradually emerging reality later Tuesday was a Q&A with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Asked about whether the Capitol riot was an insurrection, he demurred, citing his past commentary on the matter and suggesting that should suffice.

Former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe won the Democratic nomination for governor Tuesday night, pulling away from four rival candidates early with a commanding lead as he pursued a chance to run for a second term in office.

Faced with a historically diverse set of choices, many voters expressed a pragmatic desire for a nominee who would have the best chance of winning in November against Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin, a former private equity executive selected in a GOP convention last month.

McAuliffe, who served from 2014 to 2018, seemed to fit that bill as a popular former governor who might have run for reelection after that term except that the Virginia Constitution prohibits a second consecutive span in the Executive Mansion. He is also a prodigious fundraiser, which is likely to be put to the test against Youngkin, a multimillionaire who could spur the most expensive gubernatorial race in state history.

Vice President Harris on Tuesday said the Biden administration will continue to push for federal legislation on voting rights, even as chances in the Senate dimmed for a Democratic-led bill aimed at combating restrictive laws recently passed by GOP state legislatures.

“These laws that are being passed are so transparently going to have the effect of impeding, suppressing and making it more difficult for people to vote,” Harris said during a news conference in Mexico City.

Earlier Tuesday, an all-hands push by some of the nation’s top civil rights leaders failed to dissuade Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) from his opposition to a major Democratic voting rights bill, leaving advocates with few clear options.

While Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is backing the alternative bill, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has made clear that most Republicans would oppose it, calling it an “unnecessary” license for the Justice Department to intervene in state election laws.

Harris said the Biden administration is “not going to give up talking” about ways to move forward. She framed the decision facing lawmakers as one that goes to the heart of what America stands for.

“Honestly, the bottom line on this is that if we don’t stand up for our democracy, I mean, what do we have left worth fighting for?” Harris said.

She added: “I think most Americans, you know, when we raise our hand and place hand on chest and pledge allegiance, when we talk about patriotism, when we talk about pride ... we understand that the fundamental right to vote is one of the highest ideals and measures of who we say we are. So let’s be who we say we are. How about that?”

During a news conference in Mexico City on Tuesday afternoon, Harris pledged to visit the U.S. border with Mexico and fired back at Republican critics who have pressed her to go, calling them “shortsighted” for not focusing on the root causes of migration from Central America to the United States.

Speaking after meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Harris told reporters she has already “spent a lot of time” at the border during her years as senator from California.

“And so let’s talk about what’s going on in the places that are causing the issue at the border,” she said. “I think it’s shortsighted for any of us who are in the business of problem-solving to suggest we’re only going to respond to the reaction as opposed to addressing the cause.”

During her trip this week, Harris has been peppered with questions from reporters on why a visit to the border was not included on her itinerary. She has repeatedly said that she will go at some point and has defended her decision, arguing that she is not “not discounting the importance of the border.”

Pressure on congressional Democrats to enact federal voting protections mounted outside Washington on Tuesday, as Democratic state lawmakers trying to fend off hundreds of proposals to curtail voting access grow increasingly frustrated over the inaction in Washington.

Much of the focus Tuesday centered on Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who met with civil rights leaders but remained undeterred in his opposition to the For the People Act, Democrats’ far-reaching elections, ethics and campaign finance overhaul that has the backing of top party leaders including President Biden.

In addition, however, more than three dozen state lawmakers from Arizona delivered a letter Tuesday to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) telling her that “more leadership is necessary” to pass the For the People Act. Sinema is a co-sponsor of the bill, but lawmakers said they are dissatisfied with her lack of urgency or advocacy for it.

“As fellow Arizona legislators we are calling upon you with respect and urgency to stand up in this crucial moment for our state and for our country and to make the promise of our democracy real for us all,” the letter states. In an interview, state Rep. Athena Salman, one of the signatories, said: “The thing that’s so frustrating is that urgency to do the bare minimum to fight for and protect our democracy — I just have yet to see it from our senior senator.”

A spokesman for Sinema defended the senator, saying she “strongly believes the right to vote, faith in the integrity of our electoral process, and trust in elected officials are critical to the health and vitality of our democracy,” and is “committed to working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to strengthen our democracy and strengthen Americans’ confidence in our government.”

Similarly, dozens of Texas lawmakers have signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Biden underscoring what they described as the urgent need for federal action given the near-certainty that Republicans will try again to pass voting restrictions in the state after Democrats blocked action last week.

The letter will be delivered Wednesday, according to several Texas Democrats who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a draft document. The letter exhorts Congress to show the same commitment to voting rights that state House Democrats demonstrated in Austin on May 30, when they staged a walkout that scuttled a piece of voting legislation known as Senate Bill 7 by denying Republicans a quorum.

“Democrats in Texas are doing all we can to sound the alarms in Washington at the federal level,” state Rep. Chris Turner, the chairman of the Texas House Senate Democratic Caucus, said in an interview Tuesday. “The attack on voting rights that we have seen here in Texas — that is not new from Texas Republicans, but it is escalating. We need, and Texas voters need, protections from the federal government to see that Republicans don’t get away with disenfranchising voters in this state and across the country.”

Polls close in Virginia’s primaries at 7 p.m. Eastern, with Democratic nominations for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general on the ballot, along with contested Democratic and Republican primaries for state House of Delegates seats. Terry McAuliffe, a former governor, is seeking a comeback against four other Democrats.

Follow The Post’s live results from Virginia here.

Will New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy become the first Democrat reelected to that office since the 1970s? He has no primary challenger, while Republicans are selecting their nominee today. Polls close at 8 p.m. Eastern.

Follow The Post’s live results from New Jersey here.

Former president Donald Trump on Tuesday congratulated Nigeria on indefinitely suspending Twitter after the social media giant temporarily froze the account of the country’s president.

“Congratulations to the country of Nigeria, who just banned Twitter because they banned their President,” Trump said in a statement issued through his Save America PAC. “More COUNTRIES should ban Twitter and Facebook for not allowing free and open speech — all voices should be heard. In the meantime, competitors will emerge and take hold. Who are they to dictate good and evil if they themselves are evil? Perhaps I should have done it while I was President. But Zuckerberg kept calling me and coming to the White House for dinner telling me how great I was. 2024?”

The statement is Trump’s latest salvo against American social media giants — although he has not previously gone so far as to congratulate another country for adopting such a ban.

Twitter in January indefinitely banned Trump, citing the risk of further incitement of violence after the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Facebook, too, cited public safety in its decision to ban Trump from the platform for two years. The company said last week it will reinstate the former president only if “the risk to public safety has receded.”

Last week, Twitter removed a post by Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, that vowed to punish separatists in the nation’s southeast whom authorities have blamed for attacks on federal property.

“Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War,” wrote Buhari, a retired general, referring to the 1967-1970 conflict. “Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.”

Twitter deleted Buhari’s post, calling it abusive.

Danielle Paquette contributed to this report.

Weeks of talks between Biden and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) on an infrastructure plan ended Tuesday with no agreement and the White House shifted its focus to dealing with a bipartisan group of lawmakers.

Capito said Tuesday she was “disappointed” in Biden’s decision to end negotiations with her and other Republicans regarding his infrastructure plans after weeks of failed attempts to find common ground.

The Republican lawmaker emerged as one of the GOP leaders charged with persuading the president to end his effort to raise taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans to pay for his proposal. But ultimately, Capito and her conservative peers were unsuccessful.

“After negotiating in good faith and making significant progress to move closer to what the president wanted, I am disappointed by his decision,” she said in a statement.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement that Biden told Capito that the latest offer from her group “did not, in his view, meet the essential needs of our country to restore our roads and bridges, prepare us for our clean energy future, and create jobs.” Biden also was disappointed, Psaki said, “that, while he was willing to reduce his plan by more than $1 trillion, the Republican group had increased their proposed new investments by only $150 billion.”

Biden spoke with Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and urged them to continue trying to develop a bipartisan proposal.

Republicans were frequently criticized for being unwilling to partner with Democrats on initiatives and projects that liberals said would have benefited Americans in red states. But Capito said she and her conservative colleagues always engaged the president “in good faith.”

Ultimately, Biden — who had already decreased the budget of his original plan in an effort to attract Republicans — was not willing to make further cuts or to walk away from his belief that wealthier Americans and companies should contribute more to fund efforts.