“I am not going to start by breaking a promise to the American people,” he added about direct payments.
Biden’s message to the caucus comes as Democrats race to deliver the president’s first legislative priority, a sprawling coronavirus relief plan that so far lacks support from Republicans in Congress. One key sticking point so far has been over the stimulus checks, with some centrist Democrats — and many GOP lawmakers — calling for stricter income limits on the direct payments.
“We can better target the number, I’m ok with that,” Biden told House Democrats, according to multiple sources on the call.
But Biden also made clear that he would not shrink the overall size of his package to meet GOP demands. After a lengthy meeting Monday with GOP senators who pitched a $618 billion plan, Biden told Democrats that offer “was not even in the cards.”
Biden acknowledged that some lawmakers get “hung up” on the price tag when the nation is already facing a ballooning federal deficit and skyrocketing debt. Congress has passed nearly $4 trillion in assistance since the beginning of the pandemic.
The economy is expected to bounce back over the next several months, even without more stimulus aid from Congress, the Congressional Budget Office said earlier this week. But employment levels are unlikely to fully recover until 2024.
“We have to get this done. I’m not married to a particular, absolute number,” Biden said of the overall cost, noting that Democrats “can make compromises on several of the programs.”
Those estimates are “important,” Biden said of the Congressional Budget Office scores that tally the total price tag, “but what I’m thinking about is, who are we helping?”
The House will vote later Wednesday on a budget measure that marks the critical first step toward muscling Biden’s package through Congress without GOP votes. Democrats are confident they have the votes to adopt the budget, though there is some lingering anxiety among several moderate Blue Dog Democrats that the party should move other smaller relief bills as they wade into the thornier process known as reconciliation.
At one point on the call before Biden joined, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee interrupted the broader policy discussion to ask about redistricting. Speaker Nancy Pelosi herself interjected and steered the conversation back to the coronavirus relief bill, urging the caucus to “pass the budget bill with complete unity,” according to multiple people on the call.
Later Wednesday, Biden will speak privately with a group of Senate Democrats, who have been summoned to the White House as the Senate prepares to adopt its own budget this week.
Democrats are largely united behind Biden’s relief proposal, which would deliver badly needed money for vaccine distribution, small businesses and schools — in addition to raising the minimum wage to $15-an-hour and creating a national paid family leave program.
But top House and Senate Democrats still face some headwinds in the party about their party-line approach, particularly from centrists who worry about pushing a divisive bill through an already divided Congress. With zero margin for error, a single Democratic senator or just a handful of House Democrats could force the party to change tactics.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) — a moderate pushing for bipartisan talks rather than Democrats’ go-it-alone approach through reconciliation — said Biden has told him Democrats can’t afford to waste time by negotiating for months on end, only to ultimately pass their own package without GOP support.
“If it’s $1.9 trillion, so be it,” Manchin said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday. “If it’s a little smaller than that and we find a targeted need, then that’s what we’re going to do. But I want it to be bipartisan, so if they think that we’re basically going to throw all caution to the wind and just shove it down people’s throats, that’s not going to happen.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans will be waiting with a “host of amendments” to the budget measure, including provisions on whether “taxpayers should fund checks for illegal immigrants” and whether “Democrats should raise taxes on small businesses.”
The budget measure that the House and Senate plans to pass this week directs a dozen committees to start pulling together Biden’s pandemic aid plan over the next two weeks, including $1,400 stimulus checks, $350 billion in state and local aid and more controversial provisions, like a $15 minimum wage hike.
The Congressional Budget Office will soon release a report, at the request of incoming Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), that makes a persuasive case for including the minimum wage boost in reconciliation legislation — all the pieces of which must have a significant impact on the federal budget.
But it’s unclear if that will be enough to sway centrist lawmakers like Manchin, who oppose the $15-an-hour wage increase.
WASHINGTON – Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died from injuries sustained during the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol Building, was returned Tuesday evening to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda.
President Joe Biden arrived at the Capitol to pay his respects to the fallen officer at about 10 p.m. on Tuesday, alongside first lady Jill Biden.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy were present for the ceremonial arrival of Sicknick’s ashes at 9:30 p.m. ET. A viewing period for Capitol Police officers will last through the night.
Members of Congress will be able to pay their respects beginning on Wednesday at 7 a.m., and congressional leaders will speak at a ceremony later Wednesday morning.
Sicknick was granted the tradition of lying in honor at the Capitol Rotunda to pay tribute to distinguished Americans, and will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery, according to congressional Democrats. The tradition began in 1852, but historically it has been given to military officers and elected officials who have “lain in state.” More recently, Congress has allowed pre-eminent citizens to “lie in honor.”
The 42-year-old officer was reportedly struck in the head with a fire extinguisher during the hourslong attack on the Capitol waged by a pro-Trump mob. He later collapsed and died the next day from his injuries at a hospital.
“The U.S. Congress is united in grief, gratitude and solemn appreciation for the service and sacrifice of Officer Brian Sicknick,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a statement announcing Sicknick would lie in honor. “The heroism of Officer Sicknick and the Capitol Police force during the violent insurrection against our Capitol helped save lives, defend the temple of our democracy and ensure that the Congress was not diverted from our duty to the Constitution. His sacrifice reminds us every day of our obligation to our country and to the people we serve.”
Sicknick, originally from New Jersey, lived in Virginia and was the youngest of three brothers. He was a veteran-turned-critic of the war in Iraq, and had always dreamed of becoming a police officer, according to his brother. He had served with the U.S. Capitol Police since 2008.
He graduated from Middlesex County Vocational and Technical School in 1997, then joined the New Jersey Air National Guard. Sicknick “served his country honorably” and made his family “very proud,” his brother said. Sicknick was honorably discharged in 2003, according to Lt. Col. Barbara Brown, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey National Guard.
“Our hearts are heavy today as we mourn the loss of three brave and talented pilots killed during service to our state and nation. Their tragic deaths leave an emptiness in the lives of their families and loved ones, the entire National Guard community, and all of us,” Little said. “Our women and men in the Idaho National Guard bravely take on the inherent dangers of their work to serve the people of Idaho and the United States whenever called upon. As Idahoans, let’s quiet ourselves and reflect on their courage and sacrifice. Please join me in prayer for the heroes we lost and seek to comfort all the lives they touched.”
President Joe Biden puts the cap on a pen after signing an executive order in the State Dinning Room of the White House.
Alex Brandon/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Alex Brandon/AP
President Joe Biden puts the cap on a pen after signing an executive order in the State Dinning Room of the White House.
Alex Brandon/AP
In his first two weeks in office, President Biden has signed nearly as many executive orders as Franklin Roosevelt signed in his entire first month. And President Roosevelt holds the record.
Adding his signature to three executive orders on immigration Tuesday, Biden has now signed 28 executive orders since taking office. FDR signed 30 in his first month.
“By sheer volume, Biden is going to be the most active president on this front since the 1930s,” said Andy Rudalevige, a professor of Government at Bowdoin College.
Executive orders are the easiest presidential directives to track over time because they are all numbered and published in the Federal Register. But Biden is using many more levers of executive authority, also signing presidential memoranda, proclamations and letters.
Here’s how Biden stacks up with other recent presidents on executive orders:
Loading…
Biden’s actions so far include:
28 executive orders
4 substantive proclamations (plus one ceremonial)
10 presidential memoranda
2 letters (re-joining the World Health Organization and Paris Climate Agreement)
And while the numbers are large, these actions aren’t barrier breaking. They call for the creation of task forces, direct agencies to begin a regulatory process or explore a policy change.
“A lot of what these orders consist of are plans to make plans, in a sense,” said Rudalevige. “There’s a lot of reviewing, reporting, sort of an urging to rev up that process, but it’s not a substitute for the process itself.”
Executive actions can’t create new laws — they have to exist within the constraints of the constitution and existing statute. They direct the executive branch to do what is already in its power. And as a result they can be, and often are, reversed by the next president. In fact, many of Biden’s actions take aim at things President Trump had done with a swipe of his Sharpie.
“There’s a lot of talk with good reason about the number of executive orders that I’ve signed,” Biden said while signing the immigration executive orders. “I’m not making new law. I’m eliminating bad policy.”
Some Republicans have criticized Biden for pushing through Democratic priorities with a signature, after preaching unity and bipartisanship. The number of actions is notable, but these sorts of reversals are something most presidents do.
“The motto of the Reagan transition team was ‘when in doubt, undo.’ That was the motto,” said Phillip Cooper, a professor of government at Portland State University. Biden’s team, he said, “didn’t want to just undo, they wanted to put back in place what had been there before or pick up what had been there before and build on it.”
President Trump made reversing Obama administration policies a mission of his presidency. Now Biden is reversing the reversals. For instance, the letter he signed returning the U.S. to the Paris Climate Agreement, which Trump had just pulled the U.S. out of in November.
President Nixon signed an executive order on Jan. 23, 1969 creating his new Urban Affairs Council.
Harvey Georges/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Harvey Georges/AP
President Nixon signed an executive order on Jan. 23, 1969 creating his new Urban Affairs Council.
Harvey Georges/AP
Several other Biden executive actions relate to the coronavirus pandemic. This fits with another trend in presidential directives, there are a lot of them in times of crisis or war.
Combine a public health crisis, with the first year of a presidency and “the fact that he is coming after a president that he opposes. All of that is the perfect storm to get a flurry of executive orders that we’ve seen,” said Sharece Thrower, an associate professor of political science at Vanderbilt University.
Cooper says more than any administration in modern history, Biden’s team came in prepared, with the legal groundwork already carefully laid. This is a contrast with the early days of both the Clinton and Trump presidencies where there were drafting problems and legal overreach that opened them up to challenges and forced revisions. The Biden orders may not be as far reaching as advocates would like, but they may be more durable.
“If you look at the orders — the language of the orders and what they’re actually calling for by the agencies — seem to be very measured,” said Cooper. “Although they are in very controversial topics in some cases, you’re not seeing anything in there that’s substantively all that dramatic.”
Biden signs executive actions in the Oval Office of the White House on January 28.
Pool/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Pool/Getty Images
Biden signs executive actions in the Oval Office of the White House on January 28.
Pool/Getty Images
This gets at another purpose of executive orders: they can be the equivalent of very formally written press releases. They allow a president to signal that they are doing something — that they are delivering on the promises they made when they ran for office, even if the executive action is really just the first step in a long process of change.
The charge laid against Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who served a total of 15 years in house arrest before the generals released her in 2010, echoed previous accusations of esoteric legal crimes. In one case, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi had her lockup extended because an American man swam up to her lakeside villa unannounced, causing her to violate the terms of her confinement.
But if such crimes seem absurd, they carry real consequences. The military had made a habit of sidelining political rivals and critics by burdening them with arcane offenses.
Along with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, President U Win Myint, one of her political acolytes who was also detained on Monday, was issued a detention order for violating emergency coronavirus regulations. He was accused of greeting a car full of supporters during the electoral campaign season last year, according to U Kyi Toe, the official for the National League for Democracy.
If found guilty, Mr. Win Myint could face three years in prison. Holding a criminal record could preclude him from returning to the presidency.
On Tuesday, the United Nations Security Council, which had convened an emergency private meeting on Myanmar, declined to issue a statement condemning the coup; China and Russia opposed such a move.
In Washington, the State Department said that it had concluded the military’s takeover was, indeed, a coup d’état, a label that will affect some American foreign aid to the country.
President Biden on Tuesday evening paid respects to the late U.S. Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick, who was fatally wounded in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The president and first lady, both wearing face masks, stood before the urn for several moments and put their hands over their hearts. Biden made the sign of the cross.
Sicknick was fatally injured in the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 when a mob of pro-Trump rioters stormed the building in an effort to challenge the presidential election results and counting of the Electoral College votes. The officer was among five individuals who lost their lives as a result of the violence.
Sicknick is one of only five individuals who have laid in honor in the Rotunda. These include two Capitol police officers, Officer Jacob Chestnut and Detective John Gibson, who were killed in the line of duty in 1998.
Pelosi has been advocating for Schiff’s appointment on his behalf, said three of the people familiar with the matter. A spokesman for Pelosi declined to comment. A spokesperson for Schiff did not return a request for comment.
While Newsom is not personally close with Schiff, the congressman’s name has emerged in recent days as an increasingly-attractive choice among people in Sacramento. The pick would provide Newsom with some national star-power by association while giving Schiff a launching pad to run for governor or Senate, including the seat of Dianne Feinstein.
Still, Newsom is keeping even his closest aides and allies guessing. The California governor has been extremely guarded in his decisions on these matters, running much of his own reviews of potential candidates and keeping outside lobbying at bay, according to people familiar with his process. Some Newsom political advisers have urged him to appoint state assemblyman Rob Bonta, the first Filipino American state legislator and the child of farm worker organizers in the Central Valley who went on to earn his law degree from Yale and worked as a city attorney in San Francisco before going into local politics.
While Newsom, whose standing the state has slipped notably due to criticism over his handling of Covid, faced pressure to select people of color in his two previous picks, other aides to the governor said they could see him choosing the candidate he believes best fits the position. One aidenoted that the governor is a frequent cable news viewer and could be drawn to the idea of choosing someone with a national profile.
If that choice is Schiff, it would leave House Democrats temporarily with an even thinner majority than the razor-thin 221-211 edge they are working with now. But Pelosi’s involvement in the attorney general campaign did not surprise the people familiar with the behind the scenes machinations, given her close relationship to Schiff and deep roots in California politics.
The state AG post would move Schiff off the national stage but still offer him a highly visible platform. His public presence has noticeably lessened in recent months following the conclusion of the Russia investigation and first impeachment trial of then President Donald Trump, during which Schiff served as an impeachment manager.
Schiff is also a powerhouse fundraiser, which has led Democratic lawmakers and aides to speculate about his higher ambitions for office. He has often been mentioned as a potential candidate for House speaker when Pelosi leaves, or as a California senator when a vacancy opens up. Newsom appointed Alex Padilla last month to fill Vice President Kamala Harris’ senate seat.
If successful, Schiff would only be the latest of Pelosi’s allies who has found a comfortable landing spot in the state AG’s office after hitting a ceiling in House leadership. Becerra, the outgoing California attorney general, was appointed to the job in 2016 after term-limiting out of his job as House Democratic Caucus chairman.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) speaks to the media in Minneapolis, Minnesota on August 11, 2020. Stephen Maturen/Getty
Republican officials in Georgia cited a dubious rumor concerning Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) when leaping to the defense of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Tuesday.
Greene has been under increasing pressure due to past social media posts surfacing and revealing apparent approval of far-right conspiracy theories and extremist views that include support for assassinating prominent Democrats. A rising number of Republicans have joined Democrats in denouncing Greene as a proposal for her to be removed House committee assignments gains momentum and calls for her to resign or be removed from office continue.
However, GOP officials from Greene’s home district have defended her and on Tuesday released a letter favorably comparing her to a number of Democrats. The letter resurrected a conspiracy theory that Omar’s ex-husband Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is actually a brother she married to skirt immigration laws. No evidence to back up the rumor was presented. Omar vehemently denied the rumor when it emerged in 2016, issuing a statement stressing that “insinuations that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is my brother are absurd and offensive.”
“She [Greene] has broken no laws and done nothing illegal,” the group of 16 Republican officials from Georgia’s 14th Congressional District wrote in the letter, which Greene shared to Twitter. “Ilhan Omar can lie and marry her brother to circumvent our laws and not get in trouble … The double standards are atrocious, and quite frankly, an embarrassment.”
“We believe Marjorie Greene has been targeted because she is a conservative that represents conservatives like us and those across the district,” the letter continued. “Her committee assignments should not be withheld from her. We have elected her to represent us and we would ask for full representation.”
It is not clear whether the Democratic effort to remove Greene from her committee assignments has enough support to succeed. Most Republicans in the House have remained silent on Greene, although some key figures in the Senate including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have spoken against her. An amendment of the resolution to remove Greene from the committees has been drafted by pro-Greene House Republicans to instead apply to Omar, according to a Tuesday report from Forbes.
A January 2020 report from The New York Post claimed that the FBI was “reviewing” the allegations that Elmi, a British citizen, is Omar’s brother. There has been no indication that the purported review uncovered any evidence that would validate the rumor, but the claim has remained popular for some conservatives, especially those in far-right circles.
Former President Donald Trump, the key figure in the QAnon conspiracy theory that Greene was heavily associated with before entering politics, spoke forcefully against Omar multiple times during his presidency. At a rally held weeks before the 2020 election, Trump called on the Department of Justice to investigate the rumor about Omar’s ex-husband.
“If you look at the House with Pelosi and these people, it’s like they hate Israel and they believe in Omar, who came in here and married her brother or something, came in illegally,” Trump said during the October 16 campaign event in Florida. “Come on Justice, let’s go Justice, Department of Justice.”
Newsweek reached out to Omar’s office for comment.
Sean Hannity explores the hypocrisy of Democrats’ case against the former president.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., defended Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney on Tuesday following criticism of her decision to vote in favor of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment, saying that her experience and leadership are “invaluable to the Republican Party.”
“I believe @RepLizCheney is one of the strongest and most reliable conservative voices in the Republican Party. She is a fiscal and social conservative, and no one works harder to ensure that our military is well prepared,” Graham tweeted on Tuesday.
FAST FACTS
The comments come after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell defended Cheney on Monday.
Cheney has faced calls to resign from her post as House GOP conference chair since she and nine other Republicans crossed party lines to impeach Trump.
Follow below for more updates on Trump’s impeachment. Mobile users click here.
The Steering panel may resume deliberations Wednesday — the same day the entire House GOP conference will be meeting to debate whether to oust Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from her leadership job after she voted to impeach Donald Trump.
“No, we are going to be working through some things,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) briefly told reporters as he left the building.
GOP leaders could remove Greene from one or both of her committee posts. They could also reassign her. But any committee changes would need to first be approved by the Steering panel, which includes members of leadership and their vote carries more weight. The full GOP conference would ultimately need to approve any changes to Greene’s committee assignments.
Part of the internal debate around Greene has centered on precedent. Republicans don’t want to be seen as defending Greene’s behavior, but are reluctant to punish Greene for comments made before she came to Congress.
Democrats, hoping to force the GOP’s hand, have threatened to pass a resolution this week to boot Greene from her committees if McCarthy doesn’t act soon. The House Rules Committee will meet Wednesday to start prepping that measure for a floor vote.
Democrats have taken particular issue with Greene’s assignment on the House Education and Labor Committee since she has suggested prior to being elected to Congress that the Sandy Hook and Parkland school shootings are a hoax. Greene has also endorsed violence against Democrats, espoused racist views and dabbled in QAnon conspiracy theories.
Greene has attempted to walk back some of her comments about school shootings and has scrubbed a handful of her social media posts. But she has remained publicly defiant, tweeting she will “never” apologize. Over the weekend, Greene also claimed she had a phone call with Trump and has his full backing.
For now, Greene’s committee assignments are stuck in limbo. But the mere prospect of Democrats making a determination about the minority’s committee assignments has sparked concern among lawmakers about a tit-for-tat between the two parties; some Republicans are already vowing to go after Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) committee assignments.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) acknowledged that it could be a “risk” to take action on Greene. But he also said her behavior is beyond the pale and can’t go unchecked.
“There’s a picture of Greene with an automatic weapon, which you’ve probably seen. It says, ‘The squad’s worst nightmare,’” Hoyer said. “Our members believe that a statement has to be made about members who pose a threat, and clearly, she articulated that threat in that picture.”
As Rep. Liz Cheney’s political fate hangs in the balance, she has been noticeably quiet.
After voting to impeach President Trump three weeks ago, and strongly denouncing his actions in the immediate lead-up to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Wyoming Republican has kept her head down. Even when another Republican House member, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, traveled to her district to call for her voters to reject her in the next election, Cheney kept her mouth shut.
Given her senior leadership role in the House GOP, it briefly seemed like many of her colleagues might decide to get behind her and support impeachment. Instead, only a smattering of Republicans did, and her colleagues will now vote Wednesday on whether she will keep her post as the chair of their conference.
Cheney’s actions since the impeachment vote stand in stark contrast to those of Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, who was one of the other nine Republicans who voted to impeach Trump on Jan. 13. Kinzinger launched a new political action committee over the past week and has aggressively rebuked Trump, saying in press interviews and in a slickly produced video for his PAC that the GOP must rid itself of the former president’s influence.
“Until we push back and say, ‘This is not a Trump-first party, this is a country-first party’ … we’re going to be kind of chasing our tail,” Kinzinger said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“This no time for silence,” he says in the video.
Rep. Liz Cheney. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
That may be more true for Kinzinger than it has been for Cheney. He is a Republican in a state that is solidly Democratic whose path to statewide office could be enhanced by his loud and clear anti-Trump rhetoric. But there is still the matter of winning a Republican primary in the future, of course, whether that’s in Kinzinger’s district in the Chicago suburbs — which Trump won by 16 points — or statewide.
The Illinois GOP, for its part, is discussing a vote to censure Kinzinger for his criticism of Trump. Still, if Kinzinger were to run statewide, a rebuke from his own party could work in his favor.
Cheney not only represents a much more conservative state, she’s also been working to gain the support of a small and unique group of voters. She needs at least 118 other House Republicans to vote for her to keep her leadership post. And her calculation has been that waging a public messaging battle to defend her vote, or respond to Gaetz, or attack Trump, would hurt her chances of getting those votes.
“I think it’s best for her not to be seen as in a fight with anyone — not other members or Trump — and rather just defend her vote when the time comes,” said Brendan Buck, who worked for two Republican House speakers over the past decade. “For the members, she can’t feed into the idea she causes friction, even if Gaetz escalated.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, has been urging his conference to avoid infighting, and Cheney’s strategy has been to minimize internal disputes and be seen as working toward unity, while lobbying members personally for their support.
One Republican consultant close to many House members said that Gaetz’s stunt might have done his cause more harm than good, raising discomfort among Republicans who could imagine themselves in Cheney’s position. Buck said Cheney would likely “hope enough people see that as [Gaetz] overplaying his hand.”
“He’s not very popular” with his House Republican colleagues, Buck added.
But beyond the nuances of Cheney and Kinzinger’s particular political circumstances, their respective fortunes do raise a question that has bedeviled the Republican Party since 2015: How do you solve a problem like Donald John Trump? Do you stand up to him and the forces he has unleashed inside the GOP or try to accommodate them? Fight or flight?
For Cheney, that question will be partly answered on Wednesday in the House Republican leadership vote. But if she is booted from her leadership post, that could free her up to fight more. She could raise money to play in primary campaigns against Republicans who are seeking to turn the GOP from the Republican Party to the Trump Party.
“The vast majority of Republican voters, volunteers and donors are no longer loyal to the G.O.P. Their loyalty now lies with Donald J. Trump,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the freshman lawmaker who has quickly become well known for her belief in conspiracy theories and her unquestioning devotion to Trump.
Rep. Matt Gaetz. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)
That transfer of allegiance — from a party that is loyal to a certain set of principles and beliefs to one that is essentially devoted to one person — is what rubs many Republicans the wrong way. They are trying to avoid alienating Trump supporters while also reorienting the GOP around first principles.
“I have no disrespect for President Trump but the party has to move forward. The party is bigger than any one candidate,” said Henry Barbour, a member of the Republican National Committee from Mississippi. “We should embrace the things he did well and discard the mistakes he made.”
“If Republicans will focus on policy rather than conspiracy theories, that’s how we win a national election with more than 50 percent of the vote,” he said in an interview. He also said he would not have voted to contest the 2020 election results or seek to have them overturned, as all three Mississippi Republicans in the House did. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch also joined the lawsuit seeking to overturn the election result.
Barbour said he does not agree with Kinzinger that the U.S. Senate should find Trump guilty of the impeachment charge and convict him, which would bar the former president from holding political office in the future. But he did say he respects Kinzinger’s willingness to speak up, and that he has become increasingly frustrated that many politicians are unwilling to do so.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
“We’re a republic, not just a democracy. We really need strong leaders, people who are willing to lead because they believe in something and think it’s going to be good for people, and they understand they have more information than the average voter,” Barbour said. “You can’t just follow cable news rhetoric and the whims of the voters.”
But Terry Sullivan, a Republican consultant who was campaign manager for Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, said that it has become increasingly difficult for politicians to do anything that their most intense voters — the ones who participate in party primaries — do not support.
“Soon after they lead, most of them have former after their title,” Sullivan told Yahoo News.
Sullivan, who also oversaw the 2004 campaign for former South Carolina GOP Sen. Jim DeMint, said he first became concerned about the extremist currents inside the Republican Party over a decade ago. Sullivan no longer worked for DeMint — one of the most conservative members of Congress — in 2010, but as he watched him campaign for reelection during the rise of the tea party, “I was thinking that [DeMint] should be careful what he was starting.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. (Oliver Contreras/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
There was “thoughtful policy” discussed among some as the tea party movement took hold in the early 2010s, Sullivan said, but “the rhetoric was getting out of hand and becoming more intense and at the end of the day, it was losing the focus about conservative policy and becoming just anti-establishment and anti-institution.”
“You can start a revolution but the mob may finish it for you,” Sullivan said.
That sense of spiraling chaos is now shaping the decisions of the two Republican leaders in Congress, McCarthy in the House and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
McCarthy has less room to maneuver than McConnell. The House is a hotbox chamber where every member is up for reelection every two years, unlike the Senate, where members get six-year terms. McCarthy has sent mixed signals on just about everything, from Greene to Cheney to Trump. But his trip to meet with Trump last week in Florida and the photo of the two of them together is the most significant move he’s made.
McConnell also has done some fighting of Trumpism — and some flight. He voted not to move forward with the impeachment trial, after signaling prior to that that he was open to voting to convict Trump.
But the Senate Republican leader, known for being a tactician primarily interested in holding power, has nonetheless taken a more confrontational approach to Trumpism over the past few weeks. Most recently this week, he denounced Greene for endorsing “loony lies and conspiracy theories” that are a “cancer for the Republican Party.”
McConnell also backed Cheney, calling her “an important leader in our party” and someone “with deep convictions and the courage to act on them.”
It was a clear attempt to signal to Republicans in the House that they should support Cheney and it put pressure on McCarthy to punish Greene.
A Republican strategist said Greene’s lightning-rod profile could hurt Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections if she is not condemned and rejected, in the same way that polling indicates Democrats were hurt in the 2020 election by discussions of socialism and radical proposals tacitly embraced by some of their lawmakers, such as defunding the police.
Referencing one of the conspiracy theories that Greene has speculated about in the past, the strategist said: “There is no path back to the majority if our candidates are explaining Jewish space lasers next fall.”
Lawyers for Donald Trump on Tuesday denied that the former president incited a mob of supporters to storm the Capitol or that he tried to stop Congress from confirming President Joe Biden‘s Electoral College victory.
The arguments came one week before Trump’s unprecedented second impeachment trial is set to begin in the Senate. Trump was impeached in the House last month on one article of inciting an insurrection.
Those impeachment managers argued that Trump was “personally responsible” for inciting the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, which left five dead and forced an evacuation by a joint session of Congress, derailing their efforts to confirm Biden’s win.
Trump, during a rally outside the White House just before Congress convened that day, urged his supporters to march to the Capitol and pressure Republican lawmakers to object to the election results. Trump repeatedly called out then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the proceedings, to take action to stop Biden’s win from being certified.
“If you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump told the crowd. The House impeachment managers included that statement, and numerous others from the rally, as evidence of Trump using rhetoric that was “calculated to incite violence.”
But Trump’s lawyers, Bruce Castor Jr. and David Schoen, said in a 14-page filing that the phrase had nothing to do “with the action at the Capitol as it was clearly about the need to fight for election security in general.”
“It is denied that President Trump incited the crowd to engage in destructive behavior,” they wrote. “It is denied that President Trump intended to interfere with the counting of Electoral votes.”
Castor and Schoen joined Trump’s legal defense just days ago, following reports that a previous slate of lawyers had quit the team.
They also argued that since Trump was no longer president, an impeachment trial ought to be dismissed out of hand because the Constitution “requires that a person actually hold office to be impeached.”
The House Democrats had anticipated this argument from Trump’s team, writing in their own brief that “it is unthinkable” that the framers of the Constitution “left us virtually defenseless against a president’s treachery in his final days, allowing him to misuse power, violate his Oath, and incite insurrection against Congress and our electoral institutions simply because he is a lame duck.”
“There is no ‘January Exception’ to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution,” the Democrats argued. “A president must answer comprehensively for his conduct in office from his first day in office through his last.”
The majority of Republicans in the Senate apparently agree with Trump’s lawyers. Forty-five GOP senators voted last week to dismiss the trial as unconstitutional.
Legal scholars have noted that there is precedent for an impeachment after a person leaves office. They point to the 1876 case involving Secretary of War William Belknap, who resigned just before the House voted to impeach him on corruption charges. The House voted to impeach him but he was acquitted by the Senate.
Democrats, who hold 50 seats in the Senate, will have to persuade at least 17 Republicans to vote with them in order to convict Trump.
The impeachment managers also accused Trump of spending the months after his November loss spreading lies about election fraud and falsely claiming he won the race “by a landslide.”
The article of impeachment against Trump said the former president’s statements “encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — lawless action at the Capitol.”
Trump’s lawyers responded that “Insufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable jurist could conclude that the 45th President’s statements were accurate or not, and he therefore denies they were false.”
They added that Trump’s speech was protected by the safeguards of the Constitution: “If the First Amendment protected only speech the government deemed popular in current American culture, it would be no protection at all.”
Castor and Schoen also took issue with the choice of Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat and senior lawmaker in the Senate, to preside over the trial.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts oversaw Trump’s first impeachment, as the Constitution requires. But Roberts declined to assume the same role for Trump’s second trial, as the Constitution has no such mandate for the impeachment of a former president.
Trump’s lawyers lamented in their brief that Roberts was “replaced by a partisan Senator who will purportedly also act as a juror while ruling on certain issues.”
“The House actions thus were designed to ensure that Chief Justice John Roberts would not preside over the proceedings,” they wrote, “which effectively creates the additional appearance of bias with the proceedings now being supervised by a partisan member of the Senate with a long history of public remarks adverse to the 45th President.”
This is a widget area - If you go to "Appearance" in your WP-Admin you can change the content of this box in "Widgets", or you can remove this box completely under "Theme Options"
