Rosalynn Carter memorial service to be attended by US presidents and first ladies – live | US news

As the House gears up to vote on expelling him, George Santos said yesterday he has no plans to resign:

Republican House speaker Mike Johnson told reporters he had discussed his “options” with Santos, potentially a sign that he had encouraged him to leave office voluntarily. While the House rejected an attempt to expel Santos earlier this month, many Congress watchers believe lawmakers are ready to give him the boot after the release of the ethics committee report into his conduct.

With George Santos’s position in Congress as tenuous as ever, the Guardian’s David Smith spoke to his biographer, who likened the New York Republican to another well-known politician from the Empire state:

“I always thought it would be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.” So says Matt Damon in the title role of The Talented Mr Ripley, the Oscar-winning film from 1999. The line would make a fitting political epitaph for George Santos, the New York Republican facing imminent expulsion from Congress after a scathing House ethics committee report cited “overwhelming evidence” of lawbreaking.

Santos, 35, also faces federal charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, false statements, falsification of records, aggravated identity theft and credit card fraud, in a 23-count indictment in his home state. If convicted, he is likely to spend years in prison.

“This story is a tragedy,” says Mark Chiusano, author of The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos, a book published this week. “He is someone who is clearly very ambitious and wants to live a kind of wealthy life, a life of fame and notoriety, and he is trying to attain essentially a version of the American dream, which so many people have sought over the years.

“The sad thing is that he realises pretty early on that he’s not going to get there, he’s not going to be able to make a ton of money on Wall Street, he’s not going to be as famous as The Real Housewives, for example. Because of the difficulty and grittiness of the usual road to the American dream, he decides to go a different route.

“He starts making everything up, rather than [be like] members of his family who just kept their heads down and worked hard and tried to build a life. He tries to take this shortcut and the shortcut eventually catches up with him and it’s a real tragedy. He has no one to blame but himself but he is in a very difficult place now.”

House Democrats will move to expel Santos this afternoon

Nikki Haley’s campaign has called the endorsement of AFP Action – a Super Pac founded by the conservative Koch Brothers – a sign of “huge grassroots” support.

“I’m honored to have the support of Americans for Prosperity Action, including its millions of grassroots members all across the country,” Haley told the New York Times.

“AFP Action’s members know that there is too much at stake in this election to sit on the sidelines. This is a choice between freedom and socialism, individual liberty and big government, fiscal responsibility and spiraling debt. We have a country to save, and I’m grateful to have AFP Action by our side.”

Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity endorses Nikki Haley for president

Joe and Jill Biden have left the White House on this chilly Tuesday to attend Rosalynn Carter’s tribute service in Atlanta:

Here’s more from the Associated Press on the life of Rosalynn Carter, a former first lady who was viewed as a political enforcer of her husband during his four years in office, and later became one of the country’s best known advocates for mental health:

The Washington chattering class, often unsure what to make of outsiders, dubbed Rosalynn Carter the “Steel Magnolia” when she arrived as first lady.

A devout Baptist and mother of four, she was diminutive and outwardly shy, with a soft smile and softer Southern accent. That was the “magnolia”. She also was a force behind Jimmy Carter’s rise from peanut farmer to winner of the 1976 presidential election. That was the “steel”.

Yet that obvious, even trite moniker almost certainly undersold her role and impact across the Carters’ early life, their one White House term and their four decades afterward as global humanitarians advocating peace, democracy and the eradication of disease.

Through more than 77 years of marriage, until her death on Sunday at the age of 96, Rosalynn Carter was business and political partner, best friend and closest confidant to the 39th president. A Georgia Democrat like her husband, she became in her own right a leading advocate for people with mental health conditions and family caregivers in American life, and she joined the former president as co-founder of the Carter Center, where they set a new standard for what first couples can accomplish after yielding power.

“She was always eager to help his agenda, but she knew what she wanted to accomplish,” said Kathy Cade, a White House adviser to the first lady and later a Carter Center board member.

Carter aides and friends to give tribute at service, family to read scripture

Biden, Harris expected in Georgia for Rosalynn Carter memorial