Politics and views in the United States.

House Republicans want citizenship proof for federal election voting, under White House pressure Israel shows restraint after Iran's attack and Trump's hush money trial starts.

TRANSCRIPT

(bells ringing)

Welcome to 2024 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

Our bill will establish new safeguards.

It'll put us on par, by the way, with virtually every other democracy around the world that also prohibits non-citizen voting.

Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, says his conference backs legislation to require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.

It's already illegal for non-citizens to cast those ballots and it almost never happens.

Although some jurisdictions do allow it in local races.

Johnson is repeating the conspiracy theory that the Biden administration is letting in millions of migrants to tip the election to Democrats.

After Iran's attacks, Johnson says the House will vote on long-delayed aid for Israel.

It's not clear if Johnson would let aid for Ukraine be included.

The embattled speaker faces a possible rebellion from hard-right lawmakers over that.

But Republican House Foreign Affairs Chair, Mike McCaul, says the countries face the same threats.

These rockets and these drones are being bought by Russia and they're killing Ukraines every day.

What happened in Israel last night happens in Ukraine every night.

Under pressure from a White House concerned about a wider war, Israel has put off striking back.

Israel and its allies shot down almost all of the drones and missiles.

And in a historic shift, at least two Arab nations helped with that.

Turnover in election officials has increased, but not as much as feared.

Rachel Orry with the Bipartisan Policy Center says more are leaving office, but the trend is slow.

She says most folks in those offices still serve for more than four years.

So when we see a turnover in a chief election official, it isn't always the case that someone new is coming in who doesn't know what they're doing.

Rather, we see more often that it is folks with lots of experience in elections who are stepping into these chief roles.

A New York Times Siena College poll finds views of former President Donald Trump's time in office have grown more favorable over time.

This comes even as the former president faces an unprecedented criminal trial starting today.

Republican New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu says border security and the economy are simply more important.

People are upset by January 6th.

They're upset by the election denial.

They have every right to be.

I am, but at the end of the day, they need a culture change to get America back on track.

The Tennessee legislature has been sharply divided on gun rights for years, but a bill to let teachers carry concealed weapons in classrooms has just passed that Senate.

Democratic State Senator London Lamar calls that extremely dangerous.

Teachers don't want it.

The school districts don't want it.

Nobody doesn't want it.

It's not gonna work.

It's going to cause more school shootings.

Under the legislation, staff would not have to be trained in de-escalation and parents would not be informed.

A quarter of US teachers say their school had a gun lockdown in the past year.

I'm Catherine Carley for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.