any tax suspension would require of course action by congress. but the president will give a speech today throwing the administration support behind a three month gas tax holiday which would breathe new life into an issue that has so far been stalled on capitol hill. kevin liptak is live for us with this news. what is the administration saying about this? reporter: officials are certainly very bullish on this move. and it is something that the white house had been considering for months. they held off until now, but clearly president biden wants to show that he is taking some initiative on this issue and so in a speech later today the president will call on congress to pass a three month suspension of the gas and diesel tax. he wants to go until the end of september. he will also call on states to temporarily suspend their own gas taxes and he will renew these calls for oil and gas companies to up their refining capacity. and so administration officials claim that taken tog
worker too scared to even say her own name out loud in public, a steep price for those who defended democracy and did their job. the committee unveiled new information about previously unknown activity involving wisconsin s republican senator ron johnson. his aide offered to hand deliver fake electors to vice president mike pence on january 6th, now, johnson claims this is a nonstory. cnn s manu raju pressed him on this. reporter: why was he even asking for that? because somebody delivered this to our office and asked to deliver that to the vice president. reporter: who is the person that delivered it? i have no idea. and new reporting this morning on ivanka trump, this is a reminder of what she told the january 6th committee in a taped deposition when asked about bill barr s conclusion that there was no widespread election fraud. i respected attorney general barr, so i accepted what he was saying. barr made those claims on december 1st, 2020, but nine days la
refining capacity. the administration estimates the moves could lower gas prices by at least $1 a gallon, if they can get it all through congress. i should say, this faces steep opposition from some on capitol hill, even from some of the president s own party, and members of the administration have even conceded there are significant downsides to do this, jim. plus, significant new evidence in the latest hearing from the january 6th committee, witnesses testify that former president trump and sitting gop lawmakers were directly involved in pushing fake slates of electors in multiple states to attempt to overturn the 2020 election while the president s personal attorney rudy giuliani admitted they had no evidence of widespread fraud to back up that plan. he turned the call over to mr. eastman, who then proceeded to talk about the importance of the rnc helping the campaign gather these contingent electors. did you also receive a call from u.s. representative andy biggs of
when the earthquake hit, it really reduced them to rubble. and what made it worse is the fact that the depth of the quake was 10 kilometers, so quite to the surface, because of which the casualty figures have gone up. we all know this region has been home to conflict for decades. they haven t had the money really to put together an infrastructure, to protect themselves from natural calamities and earthquakes. and this comes at a time, brianna, when afghanistan is in the midst of a humanitarian and economic crisis. brianna? this is making it so much worse. vedika sud, thank you for the update. we ll continue to follow this. the election lies pushed by former president trump and his allies now becoming a huge legal problem for the media outlets that repeated them. in a new move by the biden administration to make cigarettes a little less addictive.
new this morning at least 285 people are feared dead and hundreds more injured after a powerful earthquake hit eastern afghanistan. the 5.9 magnitude quake struck south of kabul. officials say with heavy monsoons in the area, the quake made homes especially vulnerable. w.h.o. says that its teams are providing emergency response. state department confirms a second american has been killed fighting for ukraine. stephen zabielski died while fighting alongside ukrainian forces in the southern part of the country. he was 52 years old and is survived by his wife and five stepchildren. last week two americans fighting for ukraine were captured and detained by russian backed separatists. and secretary of state antony blinken expected to hold a virtual meeting today with