McCarthy’s Speaker Bid Imperiled on the Right despite Trump’s Lobbying

An Update on McCarthy’s Campaign to Win the Speaker’s Gallows and Other White House Post-Democracy Campaigns

McCarthy is campaigning to win the speaker’s gavel, as he tries to regain the majority. And a key part of that strategy has been elevating potential critics and controversial Trump allies.

The Biden administration continues to rely on a Trump-era pandemic emergency rule, known as Title 42, that allows border authorities to turn migrants away at the US-Mexico border. The number of US border encounters exceeded 2 million in the fiscal year ended in 2022, according to US Customs and Border Protection. More than one million were turned away because of Title 42.

McCarthy said that impeachment will not be used for political purposes. “That doesn’t mean if something rises to the occasion, it would not be used at any other time.”

“I’m very supportive of Ukraine,” McCarthy said. “I think there has to be accountability going forward. You need not a blank check but always make sure the resources are going where they are needed. The Senate should have the ability to debate it openly.

McCarthy declined to name how many seats he thinks Republicans will pick up on Tuesday, but said he was confident it will “be at least enough to win the majority.” McCarthy did say that, in his eyes, “anywhere over 20 is a red wave.”

And McCarthy, who had to drop out of the speaker’s race in 2015 amid opposition from the far right House Freedom Caucus, told CNN he believes he’ll have the support this time around to secure the coveted speaker’s gavel – both from his conference and from former President Donald Trump.

How Will We Get There, or What Can We Don’t Expect to Happen When We Leave the State, or Should We Leave It At The Border?

He said that if migrants were asked to remain in Mexico while they waited for their immigration proceedings in the US, they would have to leave right off the bat.

McCarthy said that he wanted to help stop the flow of fentanyl across the border by attacking China first and making sure that anyone who wants to move it can.

Most bills will be primarily messaging, unlikely to overcome the president’s veto or the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, and will have to pass legislation to raise the national borrowing limit at some point next year. McCarthy, however, signaled Republicans will demand spending cuts in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling, teeing up a risky fiscal showdown that could lead to a disastrous debt default.

Wouldn’t you first say that you should change your behavior, so that you don’t keep raising and all the time, if you gave a person a higher limit? he said. You should not say, “Oh, I am going to allow you to keep spending money.” No household should do that.”

McCarthy acknowledged that Republicans would raise the debt ceiling under Trump, but said that’s not the case now that Biden has been in office.

McCarthy denied that he would risk a default by using the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip. You don’t risk a default.”

To that end, McCarthy has vowed to reinstate freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to her committee assignments, despite being stripped of her assignments by Democrats last year for her inflammatory remarks.

Greene, who was not in the Monday night meeting, said she’s spoken with McCarthy, and that the speaker’s office is coordinating a process for how to release the footage more widely, beyond Fox News, while also ensuring it doesn’t violate any security concerns.

“She’s going to have committees to serve on, just like every other member … He said that members request different committees and as we go through the steering committee, we will look at it. “She can put through the committees she wants, just like any other member in our conference that gets elected.”

The member who has spouted conspiracy theories is not the only one. Most recently, some Republicans have mocked the brutal attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, or peddled fringe conspiracy theories about the incident.

What will we learn from Senator Scalise and the other Republicans in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, if the president is honest with him?

He asked the president to refrain from making comments about people who have different opinions, and not to call people idiots if they have different opinions. “I think leadership matters, and I think it probably starts with the president. And it will start with the speaker as well.”

But hard-right Republicans seized the opportunity to extract promises — and in some cases apologies — from their would-be leaders. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has said she will support Mr. McCarthy and predicted he would give her a significant amount of power in a Republican-led House, asked Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the party’s No. 2, whether he would commit to investigating Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Justice Department for their treatment of defendants being held at the D.C. jail without bail in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida asked Mr. Scalise about comments he made on a private conference call days after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, in which he agreed with Mr. McCarthy that Mr. Gaetz’s comments about conservatives he deemed insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump had been dangerous and “potentially illegal.”

Mr. Scalise apologized and said he should have waited until he had more facts to comment, according to two people familiar with the exchange who described it on the condition of anonymity.

The chaos showed how Republicans were toiling to find a way forward as they tried to reconcile their disappointing results in the mid-terms with the influence of Mr. Trump. As Mr. Trump received an unusual torrent of internal blame for his string of losses in the midterm elections, former Vice President Mike Pence made his most stern comments yet about him.

“It’s going to be a narrow one,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma. “It makes it really critical that you’ve got somebody with superb political skills. Somebody that knows every part of this conference.”

Aside from plotting potential retribution, there is also concern among those who support McCarthy over what kind of deals he could be willing to make in order to secure the votes for speaker.

Mr. Norman, who has described himself as a “hard no” against Mr. McCarthy, declined to discuss his call with Mr. Trump, describing it as a “private conversation.” He said he was still undecided about whom he would support for speaker. Mr. Crane did not respond to requests for comment.

When Nancy Pelosi in 2018 found herself about a dozen votes short of what she would need to secure the speaker’s gavel, she quietly picked off defectors, methodically cutting deals to capture exactly enough support to prevail. Ms. Pelosi won seven votes by agreeing to limit her tenure, 12 by promising to implement rules that foster more bipartisan legislating, and one by creating a subcommittee chairmanship for herself, all of which she won over her sole would-be challenger.

A series of pledges have been made by the California Republican to appease the right flank of his party. He called on Alejandro N Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to step down or face possible impeachment. He promised Ms. Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments for making a series of violent and conspiratorial social media posts before she was elected, a plum spot on the Oversight Committee.

The House select committee investigated the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol and has promised to hold public hearings. He has been quietly meeting with ultraconservative lawmakers in an effort to win them over. On Monday night, he encouraged his members to vote against the spending bill.

A group of hardliners immediately after the elections had a conversation about putting up a protest challenger to McCarthy during the GOP internal leadership elections in order to force him to negotiate. They settled on GOP Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona.

Lawmakers who were at a recent meeting said that a resolution was offered to remove McCarthy holdouts from their panel assignments if they didn’t back down. They agreed that it may not be the best move for now.

McCarthy supporters have also contemplated using hardball tactics, including trying to kick critics off their committees if they don’t fall in line and threatening to team up with Democrats to elect a more moderate speaker. At one point, the group even started wearing “O.K.” buttons around the Capitol, which stands for “Only Kevin” – a joking nod to McCarthy’s opposition.

The teams win. Fractured teams lose,” GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, co-chair of the centrist-leaning Main Street Caucus, told CNN, pointing to McCarthy’s broad support among the conference. We can’t allow a few to hold the conference hostage.

Moderates may be willing to follow through with the same hardball tactics used by the far right, which could backfire for McCarthy. GOP sources believe that McCarthy’s supporters wouldn’t take the package down because of the opposing rules package.

The dynamic offers a preview of the tensions between the moderate and MAGA wings that are likely to spill over next year with a razor-thin House majority. Part of what’s fueling the divide: House Republicans who identify as either centrist or part of the GOP’s so-called governing wing feel validated following a midterm cycle in which many extremists candidates failed.

“People need to recognize we don’t need to double down on failed policies and failed candidates,” said Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican. The way that the midterms were conducted was due to people who are left of center being the most successful.

GOP Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas said that it was important that Republicans don’t start on January 3 with no idea as to what they would accomplish. We have to show the American people that they have trust and confidence in us after giving us a slim majority.

GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of the handful of Republican lawmakers to come out in firm opposition to McCarthy as speaker, also acknowledged the reality of a narrowly divided House.

He told CNN that he and his friends were in a community of common fate. “We have to acknowledge that the ship isn’t going anywhere if five people won’t row in that direction. And that’s true on impeachment, it’s true on the speakership vote, it’s true on the budget, it’s true on policy choices.”

“Some of the questions that remain unanswered is what other deals are going to be cut, you know, what guarantees, what concessions are going to be made?” The man asked. “We got to be careful that we don’t give a lot of that leverage away.”

Tease Up the Republican Party: Where Are We Going? Why Did Boehner Leave the House? A Correspondence with Burchett

According to a member, they expressed concern to McCarthy about restoring the motion to leave the speaker’s chair. The tool was constantly wielded over former Speaker John Boehner’s head before he eventually resigned, and most Republicans are concerned that it would hamper their ability to effectively govern.

McCarthy let his members discuss potential rules changes and other concessions in the latest conference-wide meeting, even though there is still no resolution on the controversial motion to vacate the chair.

At this point many members are still preaching unity, calling the private deal-making part of the process, and emphasizing that the conference will come together when the new Congress begins January 3. In order to unite behind McCarthy, the Republican Governance Group sent a letter to their colleagues.

“It shouldn’t be a surprise that Republicans are out there having conversations and talking about different points of view,” GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida told CNN.

While the high-stakes negotiations have been going on, members from warring groups have been having fun with one another. Burchett hosted a Christmas party in his office this week, where all corners of Capitol Hill came together, including some anti-McCarthy lawmakers. Burchett at one point rode the skateboard of Gaetz’s wife as they stood in front of the Mountain Dew fountain.

The various groups agree on most things and are not going to have a tense election, said Rep. Moore, a Utah Republican who identifies himself as part of the governing wing.

“I’ve said this over and over again: there is not this, like, enormous amount of drama,” Moore told CNN. I had a meeting with the House Freedom Caucus members to talk about what we agree on. And it’s an enormous amount.”

Even though the California Republican had made a number of key concessions to win over his critics, they still hadn’t made a decision about their support for him as speaker.

But now with just one day to go, a group of at least nine Republicans have made clear that they’re still not sold – despite McCarthy’s warning and even after he gave in to some of their most ardent demands, which he outlined during a Sunday evening conference call.

McCarthy is still working to seal the deal, with enough hardliners threatening to deny him the top job on Tuesday and his allies growing increasingly anxious that he is giving away his power for nothing.

And yet, House Republicans are poised to kick off their new majority on Tuesday without a clear sense of who their leader will be – raising the prospect of a brutal, once-in-a-century floor fight that could delay establishing committees, conducting oversight or legislating. McCarthy’s backers are hoping for a last-minute resolution, but are bracing themselves for the worst, as the conference gathers one last time before the speaker vote.

“To be honest, we are preparing for a fight. Not the way we want to start out in our new majority, but you can’t really negotiate against the position of ‘give us everything we ask for and we won’t guarantee anything in return,’” Rep. Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, a member of the centrist-leaning Republican Governance Group, told CNN.

“I give Kevin a ton of credit. He worked really hard to find a way forward after bringing everyone in. A way to make this place run better. But I get the feeling that not everyone is negotiating in good faith.”

McCarthy worked the phones with both supporters and critics to find consensus on rules changes designed to win over holdouts.

How Kevin McCarthy has fought for the House Floor: The hard no votes that have failed to stop him from running the floor and taking his place on committees

He has only four chances to get through the House floor and so far five Republicans have vowed to oppose him, with around a dozen more saying they aren’t there yet.

The rules package was finished over the weekend. McCarthy told Republicans on the conference-wide call Sunday evening that he had agreed to the five-person threshold on the motion to vacate, which he billed as a compromise.

McCarthy released the final rules package later that evening and also put out a “Dear Colleague” letter making one last pitch for the job, which included additional promises about how he’d govern as speaker – including ensuring that the GOP’s ideological groups are better represented on committees.

That group is still pushing for a single member to be able to call for a vote toppling the speaker, which is what it used to be before Speaker Nancy Pelosi changed the rules, and they also want a commitment that leadership won’t play in primaries.

“Thus far, there continue to be missing specific commitments with respect to virtually every component of our entreaties, and thus, no means to measure whether promises are kept or broken,” the letter, obtained by CNN, states.

In another strategic move, McCarthy postponed races for any contested committee chairs until after the speaker vote. He said it was to allow freshman members to have input in the process, but other members believe it was a way to insulate himself from potential criticism from members who end up losing their races.

In phone calls and text messages during the holidays, McCarthy’s defenders vowed to him and each other they wouldn’t let a handful of members control their conference.

“People want to get to work and this has just been holding us up,” Rep. David Joyce of Ohio, a leader of the Republican Governance Group, told CNN, of the protracted speaker’s fight. “I have people who say they don’t care if it is 500 times, they are voting for Kevin. There is no one else.”

McCarthy’s opposition, however, has also been working in tandem – and they are far more practiced in playing hardball, though the Freedom Caucus has been openly divided over McCarthy.

Following that secret ballot vote, where McCarthy won 188-31, a bloc of five “hard no” votes strategically began to trickle out their public statements of opposition. And after negotiations earlier last month dragged on, an additional group formalized their demands to McCarthy in a letter – further upping pressure on the Republican leader to cut a deal.

If McCarthy can’t clinch the majority of those present and voting for a candidate on the first ballot, the House will keep voting until someone does – something that hasn’t happened since 1923.

The committee in charge of administrative matters sent a letter last week outlining the practical implications and pitfalls of a drawn-out speaker’s fight. The committees won’t be able to pay staff if the House Rules package is not approved.

Student loan payments for committee staff won’t be disbursed if there isn’t a rules package in place by January, warns a memo obtained by CNN.

It’s just one of the many ways a battle over the next speaker could paralyze the House and the Republican majority from operating efficiently in their opening days with some of the harshest penalties falling on rank-and-file staffers.

McCarthy supporters have argued that there is no genuine alternative and that there is no consensus candidate that can get 218 votes. Rep. Bob Good, a Virginia Republican who is one of the “hard no” votes against McCarthy, promised on Fox News Monday that a new speaker candidate will emerge on the second ballot, though he refused to name who that will be.

CNN reported last week that boxes from McCarthy’s office were moved into the speaker’s suite, which is a standard protocol since he is committed to seeking the job.

“It is a bizarre game of chicken where both sides have ripped the steering wheel off the dashboard and are just going pedal to the metal,” one member said of the ongoing standoff between pro- and anti-McCarthy factions.

The Best Opinions of the Week: Frederick Huntington Gillett’s 1923 Campaign to Protect the Left and His Charges against the Establishment

Editor’s Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We looked at the best opinions of the week from CNN and other outlets.

Frederick Huntington Gillett was the model of a New England gentleman. Educated at Amherst College and Harvard Law School, he glided through 16 terms in the US House. A reporter joked that the Massachusetts congressman would refuse coffee for fear it would keep him awake, because Gillett was so calm and laid back.

His inoffensiveness helped him get the support of his Republican colleagues for House Speaker in 1919 and 1921. In 1923 Gillett was denied victory by a small group of progressive Republicans, who refused to part with their money after party leaders moved to give more power to rank and file members.

McCarthy deserves a big share of the blame for the spectacle of a legislative majority spending days trying to organize itself, wrote Jill Filipovic. The president said that McCarthy in the early days after the January 6 attack. It was Trump who was responsible for it but he didn’t support his impeachment and who helped bring the conservatives into office and protect them, so they are experiencing the all-too-predictable outcome of handing power to the crazy.

If McCarthy doesn’t manage to get the leadership, a powerful and vocal contingent of his party has publicly humiliated him and expressed their lack of confidence in his control.

The rebels relied on his philosophy of political combat even though they did not heed Trump’s instructions. He helped to spur a younger, more extreme cohort to step up and demand power. The burn-down-the-house conservatives will do almost everything in pursuit of victory, especially since they believe chaos, instability, and hyper-competitiveness have great political value. Some of the Trump loyalists are close to concluding that they do not need him, or need to follow his every move.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/08/opinions/kevin-mccarthy-chaotic-victory-opinion-column-galant/index.html

The Countdown to Day Two: Damar Hamlin’s Collapse in Buffalo, Fla., On January 6, 2021, the Day Joe Biden Was Born

The speakership drama extended through the second anniversary of January 6, 2021, when rioters stormed the Capitol to try to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president. Police pulled their guns at the door of the House chamber, to protect its members, who were later evacuated.

On Friday, Biden honored a number of heroes from that day, including Michael Fanone, a former Washington, DC, police officer injured in the riot. If Republicans can agree on a speaker, the same GOP leaders who lied about the election will take control of the House, Fanone wrote for CNN Opinion.

“This week marks two years since the most violent day of my law enforcement career, the same violent uprising that House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and many others in his party continue to downplay,” Fanone noted. “The violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol two years ago, almost taking my life, ignored my pleas that I have kids.”

Americans held their breath when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed moments after tackling a rival player on Monday Night Football. Hamlin was resuscitated on the field and was able to speak and move his limbs by the end of the week.

Coy Wire, a former Bills and Atlanta Falcons player, wrote on his website about the physical pains that he went through in his nine seasons in the National Football League. I have screws and a titanium plate in my neck. I had multiple concussions, including one in Buffalo where I had no recollection of what happened until I watched the game during film sessions the next day. I remember vividly how scary injuries can be.”

“That’s why, as the horrific scene unfolded on Monday night … and as tears came pouring down players’ faces as they prayed … mental wounds were reopened as haunting memories came flooding back in.”

A few hours before Hamlins collapse, a former high school and college football player was watching his two young sons play a game of playground football. One year older than my oldest, I was talking to another dad who also played college football and has an 8-year-old son. We discussed his son playing full tackle football for the first time. I don’t think my son should be allowed to hit that early. Or maybe ever. I just can’t.”

In 1971 the Detroit Lions’ Chuck Hughes died from a heart attack at Tiger Stadium, becoming the only player in the National Football League to die on the field. Less than 10 minutes after Hughes’ body was taken off the field, the game was back on, Pearlman noted. But times have changed since then. “Fifty-two years after the Hughes tragedy, the Bills-Bengals game was rightly suspended after Hamlin’s collapse…”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/08/opinions/kevin-mccarthy-chaotic-victory-opinion-column-galant/index.html

Why Harry and Meghan are the royals? Why Harry is the prince of a family: Why Harry, Meghan and the royal family want a spare

“If the Russian account is accurate, it was the cell phones that the novice troops were using in violation of regulations that allowed Ukrainian forces to target them most accurately,” Andelman wrote. The Russian military has made a lot of errors, and as the Makiivka attack shows, they are very much to blame. Putin’s most ardent apologists have now begun turning on the military establishment.”

“Avatar: The Way of Water” may be on its way to earning as much as $2 billion at the box office, but Jeff Yang was wary of going to see director James Cameron’s sequel until his 14-year-old son persuaded him. Though I had recalled feeling like the 2009, it was more of an off-puttingImmersive experience than an actual Motion Picture, and I had to Overcome my reflexive cynicism in the First half of the film.

“Audiences and critics now and in the future will laud Cameron’s creativity and attention to detail, and they should – but they likely won’t know how much of the franchise’s incredible worldbuilding is simply an act of elaborate collage, snapping together elements pulled from scores of our world’s oldest civilizations, while ascribing them to fantastical cat people rather than resourceful human beings,” Yang wrote.

Prince Harry chose to title his new book, publishing Tuesday, “Spare,” after the adage that people in the line of succession need to have “an heir and a spare.”

The book’s revelations are already being called “jaw-dropping,” but there’s a basic contradiction in the continuing saga of Harry, Meghan and the royal family, wrote Peggy Drexler.

A complaint that they preferred a private life without the media attention that comes with being a royal was the reason why they quit the family. In an excerpt from an upcoming interview, Harry stated that he wants a family. Not an institution.

It’s fodder. William and his wife, Kate, are accused of encouraging Harry by throwing him on the floor after an altercation with his brother in the film, Spare.

“Competition between children is common, and sibling rivalry between brothers even more so, especially when there are just two of them,” noted Drexler, a psychologist. Most aren’t born into families with hierarchies that remind them of where they came from. A lot of works of art were inspired by the brotherly discord. One of the most common dramas of human nature is Harry.

The Last Stand before the Senate Appoints Kevin McCarthy: Controversy in the House Select Committee on Intelligence: CNN’s Frustrated Viewpoint

A world affairs columnist, Frida Ghitis, is a former CNN producer and correspondent. She writes for CNN, The Washington Post, and the World Politics Review. The views in this commentary are of her own. View more opinion on CNN. The piece has been updated to reflect the latest news.

With the war in Ukraine growing more tense by the day, and the United States playing a pivotal role in preventing Russia from succeeding in its efforts to win an unprovoked war, one might be excused for thinking the new leadership in the US House of Representatives would restrain its impulses to politicize some of the most sensitive areas of foreign policy. But no such thing is happening.

Anyone concerned that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would find it difficult to steer a moderate course after having to compromise with the most extreme members of the Republican Party to win the seat, had their fears confirmed this week when McCarthy announced he was barring key Democrats from the crucial House Select Committee on Intelligence.

McCarthy tried to paint the decision as one of high-minded, security-conscious patriotism. It was the opposite of that. The speaker had recorded vows of vengeance which he couldn’t ignore.

He promised a year ago that if Republicans got the majority, he would strip Pelosi, Swalwell and other Democrats from their committees.

Democrats removed Republican Reps. MarjorieTaylorGreene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona from their committees due to support from Republicans. But that was because of Rep. Greene’s incendiary and violent statements, such as supporting the execution of prominent Democrats, agreeing with comments calling the 2018 Parkland, Florida, high school shooting a “false flag,” among others. She later backtracked from those comments and said that in 2018 she was “upset about things” and felt she could not trust the government. As for Rep. Gosar, the House voted to censure and remove him from committees over a photoshopped anime video he posted on social media showing him appearing to kill Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joe Biden.

Complicating matters for them both, Greene and Gosar, election deniers who have embraced all manner of outlandish conspiracy theories, had used their social media accounts to stoke the flames that resulted in the assault on the US Capitol in the coup attempt of January 6.

The committee had a tradition of bipartisanship, key to fulfilling its functions, until the arrival of Trump and the tensions caused by news that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to try to help him get elected – an issue the committee necessarily had to confront.

It had to address the desperate plea for more American weaponry by the Ukranian government. Trump threatened to withhold funding from Ukraine asking President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019 to “do us a favor though” and announce an investigation of Joe Biden, a man he correctly surmised could defeat him in 2020.

These were legitimate topics for the committee. So much so, that Trump’s self-serving mishandling of relations with Ukraine resulted in his first impeachment.

Integrity is a word McCarthy should use sparingly, especially in the context of committee assignments. McCarthy is giving plum seats to his new ally, Greene, who made a name for herself initially with her embrace of the deranged ideas of QAnon, which she later distanced herself from, and has spewed an endless stream of outrageous statements, including suggesting that Jews have used space lasers to start forest fires. She distanced herself from those comments as well. McCarthy is assigning committee assignments to a liar, George Santos of New York, who is the new congressman.

Then there are the signs of his own weak integrity. His denunciation of Trump from the House floor on January 6th, followed promptly by an pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago is something that will be remembered by many. Groucho Marx said, “If you don’t like them, I have others.”

There’s the time he forcefully denied a New York Times report that, in a GOP leadership meeting after the January 6 attack, he said Trump should resign. He said the Times report was false and wrong. There is a tape of him saying that.

The stories surrounding the contents of a laptop belonging to the President’s son are not worth the time and effort. The former intelligence committee chief had also come under fire for inartful paraphrasing of the call between Zelensky and Trump. The Speaker accused Schiff of leaving the country less safe by exploiting his position as committee chairman.

As for Swalwell, McCarthy is justifying himself by alluding to the case of a Chinese spy who had developed ties with California politicians, including Swalwell, a decade ago. Swalwell says he cut ties with her after being told by the FBI. GOP leaders had no objections to Swalwell serving and were discussing the matter two years ago. That, of course, was before he became one of Trump’s lead accusers.

The speaker can pick or remove members of the Intelligence Committee. He needs a majority of the House to pass a committee’s budget. His efforts to get her from the Foreign Affairs Committee were more difficult because of the antisemitic statements she made.

“[A]s we enter a new Congress,” McCarthy wrote to the Democrats’ leader, “I am committed to returning the Intelligence Committee to one of genuine honesty and credibility that regains the trust of the American people.” Sadly, at the worst possible time, during a moment of rising global tensions, he is doing precisely the opposite.

It is important to ask who is on each side of the line that the Arkansas governor drew in her response to the State of the Union address.

The unspoken purpose of Biden’s theatrical delivery on Tuesday night, and much of his presidency, is to ask Americans who the real extremists are. And the GOP’s behavior before, during and after his big night appears to be offering an emphatic answer – to moderate voters at least – as Republicans tolerate election deniers and use their investigatory muscle on topics that aren’t top of mind for most Americans.

Sanders spoke moments after Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was on her feet yelling “liar” at Biden, with the House chamber sounding more like a heckler-filled late-night comedy club than a solemn state occasion. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy was trying to be nice, but he was among those Republicans who voted against certifying Biden’s election victory. And it was McCarthy who embraced ex-President Donald Trump after his baseless claims of a stolen election incited an unprecedented insurrection at the US Capitol. He appeased some of the members of his party to get into power last month.

New York congressman George Santos is currently the focus of a distraction that the new House majority is trying to overcome. Nick LaLota told CNN he can’t talk about what Republicans ought to be doing while talking about GeorgeSantos.

The hearings showed how politicized the investigations have become, and raised questions about the underlying question at issue, which is the FBI blocking users from sharing a New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

While party leaders are able to fire up vital base voters, cook up a general stench of scandal, and potentially hurt the Biden administration, they are also at risk of alienating moderate voters because they highlight their most extreme, media-hungry personalities.

Of course, political normality is in the eye of the beholder. The country is in a state of decline due to the left-wing cultural purge, according to the argument presented by the senator.

If you look at the results of the elections last year in states like Ohio, you realize that voters reject far-right extremists in primaries even if it’s for a rising star in the party.

The president used this tactic to his advantage in the mid-terms and he was able to portray himself as the bulwark between the moderates and the conservatives.

Biden used his strategy to goad the most radical followers of McCarthy into acting out on Tuesday night after he said that Americans didn’t like fighting in Congress.

McCarthy, meanwhile, dodged efforts from reporters to get him to comment on the performance of Greene, with whom he has developed a strong political relationship. While he had hoped to avoid a public spectacle of extremism with millions watching on TV, his hopes of keeping his job long term rely on radicals like Greene and her wilder colleagues. One of the main reasons why McCarthy has not repudiated Santos is that he has a small majority.

After the Biden speech, she apologized for her poor behavior but she provided Democrats with an exact image they want to highlight. She said she was “pissed off” and “I don’t clap for liars.” Nancy Pelosi told CNN that the American people had a chance to choose between chaos and stability.

Not every Republican is tolerating the party’s incivility. Romney told Santos that he had no place in the House. LaLota, meanwhile, in his interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, stressed how the New York Republican had become a distraction from the party’s priorities.

“We want to talk about putting our economy back on the right track, securing our border, hold the administration accountable – these are the things that Republicans campaigned on, these are the things that Republicans want to govern on,” LaLota said.

There are a lot of issues for the House Republican chairmen to deal with, like the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Covid-19 epidemic and the border crisis. It should be possible for a genuine investigation of Biden and his son to be part of the oversight as well.

House Oversight Chair James Comer warned of a “coordinated cover-up by Big Tech, the Swamp, and mainstream news” to suppress a story that could hurt Biden.

On the basis of the same kind of foreign misinformation that was used to sway the presidential election, former senior officials from the social media network made a mistake in suppressing the story. But they repeatedly testified that they had received no orders from the FBI to do so, undermining claims by top Republicans that the bureau tried to censor a story that could hurt Biden in the election.

Schumer said that the release of Speaker McCarthy’s footage would endanger the safety of the Legislative Branch and allow those who want to commit another attack to learn how Congress is safeguarded.

The House speaker gave a huge amount of documents to a friendly media outlet after facing significant pressure from his right flank to stop the work of the House Select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

During his bid for the speakership, McCarthy vowed to hold hearings on the security failures that led to the Capitol getting overrun, and he told the select committee to preserve all of its records for potential future review by the newly empowered GOP majority.

Carlson on his Monday night program said his team was reviewing the security footage. He is responsible for spreading false claims related to the siege, including that the FBI could be to blame.

The public is interested in seeing security footage from the attack and so the chief judge of DC federal court ruled in favor of CNN and more than a dozen other news outlets. However, these video releases haven’t been automatic or guaranteed. The public can release the videos after they are played in court, on a case by case basis.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the chamber’s top Democrat, was not consulted about the release of the security footage, a source familiar told CNN. The source told CNN that McCarthy did not consult his leadership before making the decision.

The footage may reveal the location of security cameras, which will make it more difficult for the Capitol police to do their job. He also expressed concern that the video footage would expose “highly-guarded plans for continuity of government.”

It was hard to overstate the security risks of using material like this if it were used badly, said Tim Mulvey in a statement to CNN.

Is the Capitol in danger? A senator argues against the Fox News host’s access to a U.S. Capitol interior surveillance camera

January 6 defendants have access to thousands of hours of videotapes, but they can’t release the material because the videos are restricted by a protective order.

“Once the capabilities of a U.S. Capitol interior surveillance camera, including its position and whether it pans, tilts or zooms, is disclosed to the public via the release of a single video from that camera, the cat is out of the bag,” Justice Department prosecutors wrote in a July 2021 court filing.

There’s a chance that the Capitol could be in danger if a Fox News host’s access to thousands of hours of security tapes from the attack on the U.S. Capitol becomes public.

He issued the warning following reporting by Axios that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy granted Fox News host Tucker Carlson access to more than 40,000 hours of the tapes.

The Democrats held a teleconference on the matter shortly after 4:30 pm with Mississippi’s Bennie Thompson, who was the former chair of the House Select Committee.

“We can’t give away our national security,” Greene said, “Everyone in Congress agrees. I think the American people agree with me. We don’t want Russia or China or any of these other countries being able to study all the entries and exits of our capital. That is foolish.

Thompson went on to detail the painstaking process the select committee followed during its investigation to access the security footage, and his worries the same procedures aren’t in place today.

The Capitol Police Chief said that when Congressional Leadership or Congressional Oversight Committees request things like this, they must give it to them.

I stated that the tapes belonged to the American public when asked about them in the press. He told the Times that sunshine allows people to make their own decisions.

The FBI is looking for a way to protect himself from the riot: McCarthy’s request for the footage to be released to the media

McCarthy is hoping that outsourcing this work to the media will be a way to appease his right flank without upsetting his moderates and majority makers.

Schumer said in the letter that McCarthy gave the footage to Carlson to be used on his show and it was obvious that he was not being honest with the truth.

Some people were concerned about how long the footage would be taken out in the press, and others just wanted to know what was going to happen.

Sources said McCarthy assured his leadership team that he wants to move swiftly, but said they need to be deliberate about how they handle it to ensure the release does not endanger their security. He also told lawmakers that other media outlets will get access to the footage after Carlson airs his exclusive, but it could take a few weeks.

CNN, along with a group of other media organizations, has signed on to a letter calling for congressional leaders to grant access to the security footage from the riot.

“Unlike Democrats, we do work very effectively with the Capitol Police. And we respect law enforcement,” Stefanik told CNN. “This is about transparency.”

But one of his closest allies – Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who also has downplayed the January 6 attack – backed his decision to give the footage to Carlson. She told CNN she played a role in McCarthy’s decision to turn the footage over to Carlson, but she wouldn’t go into further detail.

A lot of the parameters for what Carlson’s team couldn’t air were given to them. “Yes … of course (there were parameters) they’re being extremely careful and responsible.”

Matt Gaetz would not say if the commitment made to encourage him to vote present, and support the cause of the California Republican, was part of the reason he urged the speaker to release the footage.

Jeffries said that he was going to talk to the speaker this week about figuring out an approach that made sense and respects the security concerns of the members.

Top Democrat eta’ : What are we waiting for when we hear the rest of the media? A source familiar with the matter

Top Democrats are waiting to see what footage is ultimately released before taking position on whether the full media should also have access to it, a source familiar with the matter said.