Amendment drama: The bill also became a sweeping vehicle for several other GOP priorities such as ensuring parents know what their schooling options are and policies on transgender students. However, Republicans failed to shore up enough votes to add a sense of Congress that the Education Department should be eliminated by the end of the calendar year.
Roughly half of the 22 amendments considered on the floor were tacked onto the legislation ahead of the final vote, which came after some internal strife among Republicans about the limited debate. The amendments that received bipartisan support included requiring schools to provide parents timely notices on major cyberattacks and the GAO to submit a report to Congress on the cost of the requirements of the bill and to evaluate the impact of the bill on protecting parents’ rights.
The legislation — which has already faced condemnation from the White House — will not be brought up on the other side of the Capitol, said Senate Majority Leader Schumer, who vowed Friday that the bill “will meet a dead end” in his chamber.
The Education Department was also quick to criticize the bill.
“The Biden-Harris Administration is happy to work with House Republicans on the issues most important to parents. … Unfortunately, looking at Republican officials’ track record on education, it’s not rooted in the reality that parents are living in,” an Education Department spokesperson told POLITICO in a statement. “Whether it be cutting funding for public education, ignoring tragic gun violence in our schools, or banning books to fit a political agenda, Republican officials are focused more on playing politics than helping our parents, kids and schools.”
Still, the House vote does allow Republicans to use Democrats’ vote against a “Parents Bill of Rights” as 2024 campaign fodder.
While the measure was lauded by many Republicans, especially the party’s leadership, Democrats and the handful of Republicans who voted against the measure criticized it.
Buck also expressed a similar sentiment, tweeting that “the overwhelming majority of the House Republicans will now be on record supporting the idea of expanded federal powers in your child’s education.”
Pushback on transgender student provisions: Several LGBTQ advocacy groups denounced the legislation due to the inclusion of provisions that establish that a parent has the right to know whether their child’s school allows transgender girls to play on sports teams or use restrooms and changing rooms that match their gender identity. The bill would also require schools gain parental consent to allow students to use different names and pronouns or facilities that match their gender identity.
“These efforts to censor curriculum and force the outing of transgender and nonbinary students are borrowing from a discriminatory wave of bills sweeping the country — a wave of bills, incidentally, that the majority of voters have not asked for and do not support,” said David Stacy, the government affairs director for the Human Rights Campaign.
In the coming weeks, Republicans are expected to consider a bill — H.R. 734 (118), the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023 — that would restrict transgender girls from playing on women and girls’ sports teams.
Lawmakers attached the amendments seeking to mandate disclosures around transgender students by voice vote this week, signaling that lawmakers on both parties weren’t yet ready to force their colleagues into a roll call on the sensitive issue. The sports bill would be the next prominent opportunity for the GOP to put lawmakers on record for gender identity policies.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“The governor reiterated that he has never been interested in the Senate,” the source told POLITICO.
A prominent moderate and anti-Trump Republican, Hogan had recently announced that he is not running for president on the GOP ticket after openly flirting with a bid. That raised questions about what type of political future he imagined for himself: whether it be a run for the Senate or an independent campaign for the White House, which he has not ruled out.
Daines and Hogan spoke a few days after Hogan announced he’d forgo a Republican presidential run. Hogan, a popular politician in Maryland, was term-limited and ended his governorship at the beginning of this year.
In the wake of the GOP’s midterm losses in 2022, Daines has decided to wade into primaries in hopes of nominating quality Senate candidates. He has sought to lure former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick into the race for Senate in Pennsylvania. Senate Republicans hope Gov. Jim Justice jumps into the contest in West Virginia as well.
Though Hogan would be a prized recruit, Maryland is by no means a must-win state for Republicans as they seek to flip the Senate chamber. There are several more promising targets, with Democratic incumbents running in Republican-leaning states.
One reason that political insiders are watching Maryland’s Senate race is that many expect Sen. Ben Cardin, who is 79, to retire. Cardin said in January that he is undecided on a re-election bid. As of the end of last year, he only had $1 million on hand, according to campaign finance filings.
GOP officials went to great lengths to try to persuade Hogan to run for the Senate in 2022 against the state’s other Senator: Democrat Chris Van Hollen. They tapped Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, and moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to reel him in.
But Hogan ultimately decided against it, saying at the time that “I just didn’t see myself being a U.S. senator.”
Hogan declined through an aide to provide a comment for this story. The National Republican Senatorial Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
He is dropping hints everywhere. He’s put his coal business up for sale to pay off debts and met with National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) last week. He finished up his state’s legislative session earlier this month, pushing through a tax cut after Manchin helped direct federal funds to the state. And he’s been texting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), according to two people familiar with Justice’s interactions.
“The governor has a good political sense. So I am assuming that he’s going to get in,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “It would change things. He has a huge approval rating, he just passed the biggest tax cut in state history. He’s got a lot of good things to talk about.”
But Justice’s plans, not to mention Republicans’ confidence that he puts them in striking distance of picking up a Democrat-held seat, doesn’t faze the incumbent one “iota.” Manchin reiterated in an interview that he won’t decide whether he’ll run until the end of the year, describing himself as content to watch his rivals spar from afar — for a few months, at least.
“God bless them, it’ll be entertaining to watch their primary. That’s the greatest thing,” Manchin said.
The Senate GOP whiffed repeatedly during the 2022 midterms on trying to recruit popular governors like Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, Doug Ducey of Arizona and Larry Hogan of Maryland. Already this year, though, former Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts has joined the Senate via appointment. Justice is different: The party’s spent months courting him, and Republicans believe if he runs they will get much closer to picking up a Democrat-held seat.
In conversations with D.C. Republicans, Justice has discussed the pros and cons of making the jump from governor to senator, according to one of the people familiar with his interactions. Yet Justice has made no final public decision. And until he files his candidate paperwork, there’s still a chance he backs out.
Should he jump in, he’d immediately help Republicans solidify their path to a majority which runs through Ohio, Montana and West Virginia. They need to net two seats to take back the majority, regardless of the outcome of the presidential race.
Still, a Justice win isn’t straightforward. He’ll have to navigate Republican primary waters in his state that are already choppy thanks to Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), whom former President Donald Trump and the Club for Growth backed in a hotly contested House GOP primary last year.
Mooney launched his campaign almost immediately after the midterms, and Justice already feuded with him last year when the Freedom Caucus member defeated former Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.). Both Manchin and Justice supported McKinley over Mooney, a former Maryland state senator.
Not only did Justice cut a TV ad for McKinley, he openly questioned Mooney’s “ability to represent West Virginians well, after spending the majority of his time and life representing Maryland.”
In a preview of a potential Senate primary attack line, Justice also claimed last year that he had only met with Mooney once since he became governor. Mooney shot back to POLITICO that the governor’s response was “petty anyhow, the phone works both ways” — adding that he had five pictures with Justice, each of which showed him wearing different ties.
In an interview Thursday, with Justice’s potential launch looming, Mooney vowed that “I can beat whoever runs” but declined to lob fresh attacks at the governor: “I’ll wait for him to announce before I comment on any of that stuff.”
Mooney, a staunch fiscal conservative, could run to Justice’s right. He has already signaled he will knock the governor for endorsing Democrats’ $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure law.
Club for Growth President David McIntosh said his group won’t back Justice, whom he described as in “the moderate camp,” but would be open to supporting Mooney. Meanwhile, the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC closely aligned with McConnell, commissioned a poll showing Justice as the only candidate who can beat Manchin.
If he decides to run, Justice would also have to file personal financial disclosures that would invite more scrutiny of his financial holdings than he has faced in the past. Asked if he thought the primary sparring could turn personal, Mooney said pointedly: “You should ask him about that.”
The general election could get quite messy, too, in a state where everyone in politics seems to know each other. Manchin and Justice share a political network, with lobbyist and consultant Larry Puccio serving as an advisor to both.
“They are both my friends and wonderful people, past that I really don’t do interviews,” Puccio told POLITICO in a brief phone call. “I’m not an elected official and I prefer to keep my thoughts to myself.”
The race could scramble the close-knit Senate as well. Manchin endorsed a pair of moderate Republicans in the past, and they are returning the favor. One of them, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), said she’s already donated money to Manchin and expected little blowback back home for it. She made the donation a couple weeks ago at a joint event with Manchin, and encouraged other attendees to do the same, according to a person familiar with the matter.
“He’s a close friend. Should he choose to run again, I would anticipate endorsing him,” said the other, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Still, most Republicans suspect Manchin would likely bow out rather than face defeat by Justice. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said that “I keep hearing Manchin might not run again if he had to run against the governor.”
“He’s a force to be reckoned with in West Virginia. It’ll be hard for any Republican or Democrat to beat” Justice, said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.).
But Manchin isn’t conceding their point. Responding to the idea that Justice would either force him out or beat him, Manchin said: “They could be wrong on both. Who knows?”
Justice ran as a Democrat in 2016, with Manchin’s endorsement, and his later party switch irked the Democratic governor-turned-senator. Manchin then ran for re-election in 2018, defeating Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, but flirted with running against Justice in 2020.
With that in mind, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who chairs Democrats’ campaign arm, brushed aside any aura of invincibility around Justice: “Our incumbent is unbeatable, with a proven track record. So I’m confident.”
“If every time a candidate like Jim Justice got in a race and we said, ‘oh my God forget about it’, we wouldn’t have 51″ seats, said Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), a campaign arm vice chair.
The biggest potential wild card for Manchin would be running in a presidential year, requiring an extreme split-ticket path to victory in his red state. He won handily in 2012 alongside former President Barack Obama, whom he did not endorse, but plenty has changed in politics since then. Including the GOP governor looking to go to Washington.
“When he gets in, he’ll be a formidable opponent no matter if Manchin runs or not,” Daines said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
But legislators moved the bill targeting lawsuits the fastest. DeSantis called for the changes ahead of the session, and it’s also a top priority of major special interest groups including the state’s main business lobbies.
The bill shortens the time plaintiffs can file negligence lawsuits and contains a provision that would help property owners in lawsuits alleging lax security.
Some of the biggest and potentially most consequential changes, however, center on the state’s insurance carriers. The measures — which include changes to how attorney fees are paid — are designed to bring down the number of lawsuits filed against insurance companies, including those where business customers are plaintiffs. Some of the changes have long been sought by insurers but have been rejected by previous GOP legislative leaders.
Insurance has been a volatile industry in Florida due, in part, to the high number of hurricanes that ravage the state. In recent years, insurance rates have shot up while at the same time enrollment has spiked in Citizens Property Insurance, the state-funded insurer of last resort. But supporters of the bill contend that the measure was needed to fix a “toxic lawsuit” environment in Florida.
“We have a fundamental problem in Florida when you turn on your TV or your radio and the ad says if you have been an injured call an attorney first,” said Sen. Travis Hutson, the main sponsor of the legislation who said people in the state try to win a “litigation jackpot.”
But other legislators — including a handful of Republicans who voted against the bill — said the legislation goes too far and will harm consumers. They expressed deep skepticism it would do anything to stem an ongoing rise in insurance rates.
“There are 22 million Floridians who will now be exposed to higher risk, less safety and fewer options to hold wrongdoers accountable,” said Sen. Erin Grall (R-Fort Pierce). “Our constitution says liberty and justice for all not the few — all. And this bill is not justice for all.”
Sen. Lori Berman (D-Boynton Beach) called the bill “a gift from our governor to big businesses at the expense of our citizens and small businesses.”
The Senate voted 23-15 for the bill, HB 837, with five Republicans voting no and one Democratic legislator voting in favor of the measure. The House approved the bill last week.
The special interest groups that warred over the bill are bracing with rapid fallout from the legislation, claiming that thousands of lawsuits will be filled from some of the state’s well-known firms in order to get ahead of the new regulations.
The Florida Chamber of Commerce also announced it would start a legal fund to help defend the new law and that former Supreme Court Justice Alan Lawson, an appointee of former Gov. Rick Scott, would lead the effort.
Curry Pajcic, the president of the Florida Justice Association, did not say whether his group or others would move to block the changes after DeSantis signs them into law. But Pajcic, in a statement, said that “in just three short weeks, Florida lawmakers rushed through some of the largest rights-grabbing legislation in recent history.” He called it “a direct assault on the rights of every Floridian by insurance companies and corporate elites who think they can dictate which rights should be preserved and which can be tossed aside.”
Legislators are expected to quickly pass many of the governor’s other top priorities by the midway point of the session in early April — which will be shortly before DeSantis is scheduled to take another out-of-state trip including a visit to early primary state New Hampshire. DeSantis is widely expected to announce his 2024 presidential bid after the annual legislative session ends.
While Florida’s 60-day session is condensed compared to some other states, lawmakers usually handle high profile or contentious bills near the end. Part of the calculus is that in the past, legislative leaders tie the fate of major bills to negotiations with the annual budget, which is the one piece of legislation lawmakers are supposed to approve each year.
Democrats contend the torrid pace is to assist DeSantis’ expected presidential bid, but GOP legislators have brushed aside that suggestion.
“What really is the priority here isn’t any future election,” said Rep. Daniel Perez, a Miami Republican and the House Rules chair. “The priority here is why is Florida leading the country in so many different categories. Why are people flocking to Florida? It’s because of the policies we passed and this legislative session is a continuation of that.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The strategy is also an acknowledgment that the party’s reliance on super PACs funded by its richest supporters has been insufficient. In the last two elections, Republicans were unsuccessful in stopping Democrats from nabbing a narrow majority in the upper chamber. Arming themselves with better-funded recruits, many of whom can give their campaigns tens of millions of dollars, could help them finally net the two seats needed to reclaim the gavel.
Potential self-funders for this cycle include: Tim Sheehy, the Montana founder of an aerospace company, Eric Hovde, a real estate executive in Wisconsin, and West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a coal mining magnate.
“In politics as in life, money doesn’t buy happiness, but poverty doesn’t buy a damn thing,” said Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.). “So if you’ve got a candidate who can self fund, you can spend your money elsewhere.”
“Democrats are always going to outraise us,” he said.
There are no limits to how much candidates can donate or loan their own campaigns so a crop of rich recruits could offer a much-needed solution to the GOP’s now-systemic fundraising woes. The NRSC’s new chair, Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, has placed an emphasis on trying to secure candidates who are either exceptional at fundraising or personally wealthy, according to a source familiar with his thinking who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about strategy.
“It’s helpful,” Daines said in a brief interview. “We’ve got some work to do to catch up.”
In Wisconsin, Hovde, a businessman with experience in property development and banking, is seriously considering taking on incumbent Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, according to two sources familiar with his plans who were not authorized to publicly discuss them. He could inject an eight-figure sum into his bid against Baldwin, who raised some $33 million for her 2018 reelection.
Hovde, who made a failed Senate bid in 2012, also decided against a governor bid in 2022. This time he seems more likely to enter the fray. He has spoken with NRSC officials and has begun engaging potential staff.
“He’s thought about running for all kinds of offices,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), when asked about Hovde.
Some other well-funded potential recruits are also familiar names. Karrin Taylor Robson, an Arizona land-use attorney and developer, is considering a run for the seat currently held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), and David McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO, is weighing another run against Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.). Both dipped into their own largesse for failed bids in 2022.
And in Michigan, Detroit-area businessman Kevin Rinke is considering a run for the state’s open Senate seat after investing $10 million in a losing governor run in 2022.
In Montana, the home of Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, a top GOP target, Republican recruiters are eagerly courting Sheehy, a Navy SEAL-turned-aerial firefighting pilot. He is the founder of Bridger Aerospace, which was valued at $869 million last year. And in West Virginia, Justice, who is eyeing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s seat, was once reported to be a billionaire thanks to his coal mine empire. He has since experienced financial difficulties and is working to drill down sizable debts.
Both states have been top recruitment priorities for Daines.
Two self-funders are lining up to take on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio: Bernie Moreno, a car dealer-turned-tech executive who reported household assets worth tens of millions, and Matt Dolan, a state senator and a member of the family that owns the Cleveland Guardians. Dolan injected more than $10.5 million into his 2022 bid for an open Senate seat in the state and finished third in the primary. Dolan has declared a bid, while Moreno is considering one.
The GOP is well poised to recapture the Senate and West Virginia, Montana and Ohio are their top three targets. But fundraising problems have stymied them in the past. Democratic candidates’ financial advantage ballooned in 2022, ranging from $110.8 million in Georgia to $77.8 million in Arizona.
Republican super PACs consistently outraise their Democratic counterparts, especially on the Senate side. But Democrats’ candidate fundraising boom is still a major headache because candidates purchase TV ads at a discounted rate. Their money goes much farther in the final stretch of the campaign when both sides pummel the air waves.
“Republicans face an existential crisis that won’t be solved overnight, but we still need to figure out how to mitigate the damage in the short term,” said Kevin McLaughlin, the executive director of the NRSC in 2020. “Recruiting strong candidates who can both self-fund and win general elections is a great first step.”
The class of senators up in 2024 are no less prolific at fundraising. Baldwin, Brown, Tester and Casey all raised between $21 million and $33 million during the 2018 cycle. Only Brown’s GOP opponent, then-Rep. Jim Renacci, raised more than $8 million (and that was because he gave himself an $8 million loan).
Not all of the potential 2024 recruits are equally wealthy and there is certainly a difference between a candidate worth a billion dollars and one worth a couple hundred million. But even one or two candidates who are willing to make a significant investment can reduce the burden on the party committee and allied super PACs, which are then more free to spend in other races. It can also erase the cash-on-hand advantage that incumbent Democrats enjoy.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), for example, won his 2018 race by dropping more than $60 million of his own funds to oust Democrat Bill Nelson, setting the record for self-funding in a Senate campaign. But not every candidate will be as willing to part with their own cash. Even now, Scott said he would have welcomed more outside aid in his race.
“It’s always helpful to get more people to help you,” he said. “I wish there was more help.”
Several of the potential candidates — McCormick in Pennsylvania, Dolan in Ohio and Robson in Arizona — ran in 2022 and did not hesitate to invest. But none were able to win their respective primaries, a dynamic that could undermine the 2024 strategy.
McCormick spent some $14.3 million of his own funds (and raised another $5.9 million on his own). Robson spent more than $18 million from her accounts when she ran for governor last year.
The Senate GOP campaign arm has made no secret it would like McCormick to make another go after losing to Mehmet Oz in the 2022 primary. Oz also self-funded some $27 million, but was still unable to beat Democrat John Fetterman.
Robson, meanwhile, had a lengthy, wide-ranging meeting with Daines in March at the NRSC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., according to a person familiar with the encounter granted anonymity to discuss a private conversation who called it “productive” and said Robson left impressed by Daines and his team.
But both could still face primary competition from two MAGA-aligned candidates who also ran and lost in 2022: Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and Kari Lake in Arizona. Lake beat Robson in a GOP primary for governor despite a large cash deficit.
Few major Senate races will avoid competitive primaries, which drain party resources. Should Justice enter the race in West Virginia, he will have to face Rep. Alex Mooney, a conservative hardliner. In Montana, a Sheehy candidacy could butt up against GOP Rep. Matt Rosendale, who ran and lost to Tester in 2018.
But it seems increasingly likely that another contender for Senate in Montana, Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke, who served as Donald Trump’s secretary of the Interior, won’t enter the race. In an interview this month, he said he had not made a decision but that his current focus was on his work on the Appropriations Committee, which he described as a “full-time job.” “I can’t run the Senate campaign and be in Appropriations,” he said.
And when asked about Sheehy, he was effusive with praise: “I love Tim Sheehy. I helped him with his Purple Heart ceremony. I love him.”
Holly Otterbein contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“If you let Russia start to come in,” Sununu said, “and walk over Ukraine, you put all of Eastern Europe at risk. You put all of our NATO allies there at risk. And then when a NATO ally is now at risk, now you really risk having to put potential American troops on the ground, which nobody wants to see and shouldn’t happen.”
Sending $50 billion in aid to Ukraine, Sununu said, is “a deal,” if it means not having to send troops to fight a war in Europe.
“There are voices in our party that don’t see a vital American interest in Ukraine. But I see it differently,” former Vice President Mike Pence said on ABC’s “This Week.” Pence called DeSantis’s description of the war as a territorial dispute “wrong” and said the U.S. “ought to provide the tanks, the missiles and the aircraft that the Ukrainian military can use to take the fight to the Russians.”
“We have Russian aggression on the move, again, just as they did under [President Barack] Obama and Crimea, as they did under President [George W.] Bush in Georgia. And we have to meet this moment with American strength,” Pence said.
Taking a stand against Russia in Ukraine also sends a message to China, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said.
While there is territory being taken by Russia, “this is bigger than that for us.” Chinese President Xi Jinping is watching, Rounds said, and should the U.S. fail to assist Ukraine, Xi may see it as a sign that China can make similar moves in Taiwan without facing American interference.
“[Xi] wants to see how we respond and whether or not we can keep our allies together, whether or not. … NATO stays together or whether or not it strengthens NATO. So, this is a bigger picture than just territory,” Rounds said.
The war in Ukraine has divided the Republican Party in recent months, with some viewing it through a Cold War lens and others suggesting the conflict is not as important to Americans as other issues. With his statement last week, DeSantis joined with Republicans such as Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the latter camp.
“While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” he said in his statement to Fox News.
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“If you let Russia start to come in,” Sununu said, “and walk over Ukraine, you put all of Eastern Europe at risk. You put all of our NATO allies there at risk. And then when a NATO ally is now at risk, now you really risk having to put potential American troops on the ground, which nobody wants to see and shouldn’t happen.”
Sending $50 billion in aid to Ukraine, Sununu said, is “a deal,” if it means not having to send troops to fight a war in Europe.
“There are voices in our party that don’t see a vital American interest in Ukraine. But I see it differently,” former Vice President Mike Pence said on ABC’s “This Week.” Pence called DeSantis’s description of the war as a territorial dispute “wrong” and said the U.S. “ought to provide the tanks, the missiles and the aircraft that the Ukrainian military can use to take the fight to the Russians.”
“We have Russian aggression on the move, again, just as they did under [President Barack] Obama and Crimea, as they did under President [George W.] Bush in Georgia. And we have to meet this moment with American strength,” Pence said.
Taking a stand against Russia in Ukraine also sends a message to China, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said.
While there is territory being taken by Russia, “this is bigger than that for us.” Chinese President Xi Jinping is watching, Rounds said, and should the U.S. fail to assist Ukraine, Xi may see it as a sign that China can make similar moves in Taiwan without facing American interference.
“[Xi] wants to see how we respond and whether or not we can keep our allies together, whether or not. … NATO stays together or whether or not it strengthens NATO. So, this is a bigger picture than just territory,” Rounds said.
The war in Ukraine has divided the Republican Party in recent months, with some viewing it through a Cold War lens and others suggesting the conflict is not as important to Americans as other issues. With his statement last week, DeSantis joined with Republicans such as Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the latter camp.
“While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” he said in his statement to Fox News.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Rep. Chip Roy said an indictment of the former president would be “politically-motivated” — a symptom of what Roy called a “politicized ‘justice’ system that will be (is being) weaponized against ALL Americans.”
Sen. JD Vancetweeted “We simply don’t have a real country if justice depends on politics,” maintaining that a Trump indictment would not cause him to reconsider his endorsement of the former president in 2024.
Prominent Trump-allied Republicans such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the former president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., also responded in support of McCarthy’s tweet as Democrats immediately hit back.
“The guy who created a committee to look into ‘weaponization of government’ is using his powers in government to stop an independent prosecution of his boss,” Rep. Eric Swalwellwrote in his own tweet.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg defended the ongoing investigation in various media appearances this week, saying his team of prosecutors are “focused on the evidence and the law.”
Earlier in the morning, Greene unleashed a tirade of accusations against Bragg and “Biden’s DOJ,” calling on congressional Republicans to respond with legal action.
“Republicans in Congress MUST subpoena these communists and END this! We have the power to do it and we also have the power to DEFUND their salaries and departments!” Greene tweeted. “The American people deserve a government that actually works for them NOT a bunch of self centered communists who bail out their donors, protect the elites, and weld [sic] their power to punish their political enemies!”
Meanwhile, Vivek Ramaswamy, the only Republican presidential hopeful in 2024 to comment so far, said a Trump indictment “would be a national disaster,” and that it is “un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its political rivals,” before calling on the Manhattan DA to “reconsider this action and to put aside partisan politics in service of preserving our Constitutional republic.”
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So far, they’ve been right. But some lawmakers are still growing agitated.
“I think the devil is in the details and we will see what happens,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an interview. “But has he made decisions that progressives disagree with? Absolutely. We will see what comes up in the next year.”
The emerging gulf between the president and his progressive base provides a window into how Biden world views the looming presidential campaign. As Democrats adjust to divided government, the president — who has watched Democratic predecessors, including one for whom he served as vice president, make similar machinations before — seems comfortable defying some of the wishes of his own party.
The most significant intra-party flashpoints have come over crime, which looms as a defining issue ahead of next year’s election.
Initially, the White House announced it would oppose a GOP-led crime resolution for the District of Columbia on the grounds that it was an infringement on the city’s autonomy. A majority of House Democrats voted against the measure. Then Biden did a sudden about-face earlier this month, saying he would sign the bill if it reached his desk. The president said he continued to back D.C. statehood and home rule, but could not support the city council’s sweeping reforms, which included lowering statutory maximum penalties for robbery, carjacking and other offenses.
The uproar from progressives was sudden and fierce, with many saying they felt blindsided by Biden’s decision after the House had already held its vote.
“If the President supports DC statehood, he should govern like it,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tweeted. “Plenty of places pass laws the President may disagree with. He should respect the people’s gov of DC just as he does elsewhere.”
But Biden’s change echoed a growing worry among Democrats who feared being labeled as soft on crime. Last November, several House races in New York that centered on crime concerns went to Republicans. And just days before the president signaled his opposition to the D.C. bill, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot lost her reelection bid, largely due to the perception she had not done enough to fight crime in the nation’s third-largest city.
Biden’s team has long been wary of charges of being soft on the issue. He has long denounced any liberal call to “defund the police” and has always made sure to twin calls for police reform with support for law enforcement. The D.C. bill, White House aides believed, was too extreme and not reflective of the public’s current mood.
Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat facing his own reelection for his Virginia seat in 2024, defended Biden’s recent decision on signing legislation that would reverse the reform on the D.C. criminal code. He noted even the city’s mayor vetoed the measure when it passed the council.
“I don’t view it as a big political strategy or an election strategy [for Biden]. I just view it on the merits,” Kaine said. “I can understand why he’s doing those things.”
The White House downplayed the disagreement, saying Democrats remain aligned on significant issues like protecting Social Security and Medicare and noting how progressives rallied around the budget Biden unveiled last week. Louisa Terrell, White House director of the office of legislative affairs, made clear the president “is consistent, he’s the same guy from the campaign to the White House.”
“We’re in constant communication with the Hill,” Terrell said. “We’re trying to be respectful, we’re all in the family. Sometimes we hear ‘this could have been done differently’ and we get that. And then we move on and work together.”
But some Democrats fear the president has also begun to shift to the right on the thorny issue of immigration, which also looms as a political vulnerability. The Biden administration last year struggled to contain a record surge of migration at the border. Although illegal border crossings for the past two months have plummeted under new rules, administration officials fear that the lifting of a key pandemic-era immigration restriction in May could fuel another rush of migrants.
Some Democrats already are alarmed by stricter rules the Biden administration plans to implement for asylum-seeking migrants. Now they’re upset he’s considering restarting family detention at the border, a policy the administration had largely ended at the beginning of Biden’s term.
Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.), and Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.) — respectively the chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus — issued a joint statement calling on the Biden administration to dismiss “this wrongheaded approach.”
“We should not return to the failed policies of the past,” the lawmakers said. “There is no safe or humane way to detain families and children, and such detention does not serve as a deterrent to migration.”
The White House quickly pointed out that no final decision has been made on family detention. They added that Biden has not changed his position on immigration but is instead responding to changing migration patterns and court orders stemming from GOP lawsuits.
Other Democrats were enraged that earlier this week Biden went back on a campaign pledge to halt drilling on federal land by approving a massive $8 billion plan to extract 600 million barrels of oil from federal land in Alaska.
The Alaska site, known as the Willow Project, would be one of the few drilling agreements Biden has approved freely, without a court order or a congressional mandate. But, officials note, ConocoPhillips has held leases to the prospective site for more than two decades, and administration attorneys argued that refusing a permit would trigger a lawsuit that could cost the government as much as $5 billion.
That did little to assuage anger on the left.
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), the first Gen Z member of Congress, said he was “very disappointed” Biden broke his promise to both environmentalists and young voters.
“Youth voter turnout was at its highest in 2020 & young folks supported him because of commitments such as ‘no more drilling on federal land,’” Frost, 26, tweeted this week. “That commitment has been broken.”
Some progressives have voiced concern that one of their top links to Biden, former chief of staff Ron Klain, has left the White House. But others believe that their relationship with the White House would remain strong, with some on the left praising Biden’s move to aid Silicon Valley Bank.
“What I see the president doing is maintaining a steady hand in the middle of a financial crisis,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), when asked by POLITICO about Biden’s decisions on crime and drilling.
The art of the compromise comes naturally to Biden, a longtime senator who prioritized bipartisanship even when Democrats controlled both congressional branches during his first two years in office. Ignoring some howls of protest from within his own party, Biden often reached across the aisle and was rewarded with some bipartisan victories, including a $1 trillion infrastructure bill and a modest gun reform package.
The ability to pass much legislation going forward was sharply curtailed by the November midterms, in which Republicans secured a narrow victory in the House. And Biden’s budget was perceived as largely aspirational, while another liberal priority — student loan relief — seems destined to be struck down by the Supreme Court.
The percolating progressive resentment comes as Democrats continue to wait for Biden to make his intentions about 2024 official. The president has both declared publicly and privately told confidants he plans to run for reelection. But the timeline for his final decision appears to continually slip as aides note Biden does not face a serious primary challenger from the left while the Republican field has been slow to form.
Advisers had initially looked at an announcement around February’s State of the Union, or perhaps next month, timed to campaign finance reporting deadlines. But while April is still in play, members of the president’s inner circle have begun to discuss May or June for a decision.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Biden is not a dead man walking; he’s an old man getting around stiffly. Biden is vulnerable, but certainly electable; diminished, but still capable of delivering a message; uninspiring, but unthreatening.
No one is going to mistake him for a world-beater. In the RealClearPolitics polling average, he leads Donald Trump by a whopping 0.8 percent. If his job approval has been ticking up, it’s still only at 44 percent. He walks as if he is only one step away from a bad fall, and an NBC poll earlier in the year found that just 28 percent of people think he has the mental and physical health necessary to be president.
That said, he’s in the office, and no one else is. Incumbency bestows important advantages. The sitting president is highly visible, is the only civilian in the country who gets saluted by Marines walking out his door every day, has established a certain threshold ability to do the job, and can wield awesome powers to help his cause and that of his party.
Since 1992, Trump is the only incumbent to have lost, failing to join Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama as re-elected incumbents.
Biden was never going to be the next LBJ or FDR as a cadre of historians had seemingly convinced him early in his presidency. But he punched above his weight legislatively during his first two years, getting more out of a tied Senate and slender House majority than looked realistically possible. He’s set up to have the advantage in this year’s momentous debt-limit fight, since it’s hard to see how congressional Democrats aren’t united and congressional Republicans divided.
Biden’s age is a liability for him, but comes with a significant benefit — he does not look or sound like a radical any more than the average elderly parent or grandparent. This has enabled him to govern from the left — he would have spent even more the first two years if he could have — without appearing threatening or wild-eyed. He hasn’t restored normality to Washington so much as familiarity as the old hand who has been there since 1973 and made his first attempt at national office in 1988.
Since the midterms and likely in anticipation of a reelection campaign, Biden, who usually does whatever his party wants him to do, has shown a small independent streak. It’s hardly Bill Clinton-level triangulation, but the president is apparently mindful of the need to make a few feints to the center and of how progressive squawking can help him look more moderate.
He said he wouldn’t veto congressional action blocking a D.C. crime bill, earning a rebuke from AOC among others. He’s considering bringing back family detention at the border, and pro-immigration groups are outraged. His approval of the Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope “greenlights a carbon bomb,” according to the group Earthjustice.
Importantly, in 2024, nothing Biden does will be considered in isolation, but instead compared to his Republican opponent. As of now, Trump has the best odds of being, once again, that adversary. Trump would have some significant chance of beating Biden, simply by virtue of being the Republican nominee, and there’s always a chance that events could be Biden’s undoing.
But Trump would probably be weaker going into a rematch than the first time around. He lost to Biden in 2020 — before he denied the results of a national election, before a fevered band of his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, before he indulged every 2020 conspiracy theory that came across his desk, before he said the Constitution should be suspended and before he made his primary campaign partly about rebuking traditional Republicans that the GOP suburbanites he’d need in a general election probably still feel warmly about.
There’s also a strong possibility that Trump gets indicted once, or even twice, in coming months. Such charges would be perceived as unfair by Republicans — perhaps rightly so — but they would add to the haze of chaos around Trump.
Ron DeSantis or another Republican contender presumably matches up better against Biden, based on the generational contrast and the absence of Trump’s baggage alone. Yet, if a non-Trump candidate wins the nomination, he or she will have Trump in the background, probably determined to gain revenge against him or her. Imagine, if after Biden defeated the rest of the Democratic field in 2020, they didn’t leave the race and collectively endorse him, but sulked and found ways to undermine him.
Then, there’s the state of the GOP generally. It has an impressive crop of governors. Otherwise, it hasn’t seemed to take on board the lessons of the last couple of years. First, there’s a real chance that it will re-nominate Trump, after everything. Second, various state parties are irresistibly drawn to politically toxic, proven losers. In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, who got wiped out in the gubernatorial race last year, is thinking about running for Senate next year and handily leads in early polling. Kari Lake, who threw away a winnable gubernatorial race that she still maintains she won, is looking to enter the GOP primary for Senate, and would be a prohibitive favorite.
There’s no fortune quite like being lucky in your enemies, and Biden could well get a big break in this respect yet again. However much Republicans may wish he were a pushover, he’s not, and they should be acting accordingly.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
