Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWinevetoed a bill Friday that would have banned gender-affirming care for minors, bucking his party as it seeks to make fear-mongering about transgender youth central to its 2024 election strategy.
“Were I to sign House Bill 68, or were House Bill 68 to become law, Ohio would be saying that the state—that the government—knows better what is medically best for a child than the two people who love that child the most: the parents,” DeWine said at a press conference Friday. “I cannot sign this bill as it is currently written.”
The governor said he made his decision after meeting with families “both positively and negatively affected” by gender-affirming care. “Parents have looked me in the eye and told me that but for this treatment, their child would be dead,” he said. “And youth who are transgender have told me they are thriving today because of their transition.”
The bill passed the Ohio legislature, which is gerrymandered to the hilt to protect a Republican supermajority, in December. Public testimony about the bill’s effects stretched for nearly an entire day, with more than 500 people coming out against the legislation.
In his Friday comments, DeWine said that the bill, which also would have banned transgender girls from participating on athletic teams that align with their gender identity, would only impact a relatively small number of Ohio minors. “But for those children who face gender dysphoria and for their families,” he said, “the consequences of this bill could not be more profound.” The governor added that the decision was “about protecting human life.”
The Ohio GOP has enough of a majority to override DeWine’s veto, but it isn’t yet obvious when or if that might happen.
Though DeWine sank the bill, he did say he shared the concerns of the bill’s proponents, and proposed several administrative rules that would, he said, address their goals and have a better chance of surviving judicial review. Those rules include pushing state agencies to ban gender-affirming surgeries for minors and directing them to collect comprehensive data on both minors and adults who seek out gender-affirming care. The governor also proposed creating rules to prevent “pop up clinics or fly-by-night operations.”
The move was a rare rebuke of the GOP’s relentless march toward criminalizing various forms of gender-affirming care for minors and adults. According to a tally maintained by The New York Times, more than 20 states now have laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care. Before this year, that number was only three.
Ohio’s Democratic Minority Leader, Nickie Antonio, released a statement praising DeWine’s veto. “I want to thank the thousands of advocates, kids, parents, religious and business leaders who spoke out against this dangerous bill,” Antonio said. “This veto belongs to you.”
In an ideologically split 4-3 decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Friday that the state’s electoral maps, which were gerrymandered over a decade ago to favor Republicans, were unconstitutional, setting up a redrawing of the maps in advance of the 2024 election in the crucial presidential swing state.
The court’s majority said that over half of the state assembly’s 99 districts, and at least 20 of its 33 Senate districts, violated the state’s constitutional requirement for districts to be made of “contiguous territory.”
“Given the language in the Constitution, the question before us is straightforward,” wrote Justice Jill J. Karofsky in the majority decision. “When legislative districts are composed of separate, detached parts, do they consist of ‘contiguous territory’? We conclude that they do not.”
The GOP-favored maps, first drawn in 2011 when Scott Walker took over the state’s governorship and reinforced in 2022 when conservatives controlled the state’s highest court, have given the Republican Party a stranglehold in the Wisconsin legislature.
The GOP holds a 64-35 majority in the state assembly and a 22-11 majority in the state senate, even as the state’s electorate remained deeply split in recent presidential elections. In 2020, the state broke for Joe Biden by just over 20,000 votes.
The decision was praised by Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers. “Wisconsin is a purple state, and I look forward to submitting maps to the Court to consider and review that reflect and represent the makeup of our state,” Evers said in a statement. “And I remain as optimistic as ever that, at long last, the gerrymandered maps Wisconsinites have endured for years might soon be history.”
Robin Vos, a Republican and the Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly, argued that “the case was pre-decided before it was even brought.” Vos added: “[It’s a] sad day for our state when the State Supreme Court just said last year that the existing lines are constitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court will have the last word.”
Lawmakers must draw up new maps by mid-March 2024, but with time running out, the court’s majority said if the two parties fail to agree, the court would step in and create constitutional maps that would not advantage either Republicans or Democrats.
The decision reflects the momentous right-to-left swing the court has undergone in the last year. In April, current liberal Justice Janet Protasiewiczbeat a far-right candidate in the most expensive court election in U.S. history, shifting the court from conservative to liberal control.
During her campaign, Protasiewicz had described the state’s electoral maps as “unfair” and “rigged,” leading some GOP officials, led by Vos, to call for her impeachment if she ruled in favor of redrawing the districts.
Protasiewicz did rule for the majority, but Vos had already appeared to back off on Wednesday. “[Impeachment is] one of the tools that we have in our toolbox that we could use at any time,” he said in an interview. “Is it going to be used? I think it’s super unlikely.”
Young Republican voters overwhelmingly want Donald Trump to be the GOP nominee in 2024, and they only disagree on whether he should choose Tucker Carlson or Vivek Ramaswamy as his running mate, according to a straw poll of participants who attended Turning Point Action’s annual AmericaFest.
Obtained exclusively by RealClearPolitics, the results provide a snapshot of the youth vote just weeks before the Iowa caucuses. The online poll was conducted by Turning Point Action Dec. 17-18 and surveyed 1,113 attendees at the TPUSA conference in Phoenix, Ariz.
The results show Trump as the clear favorite with 82.6% of respondents choosing the former president as their first choice. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second with 7.6%, while Vivek Ramaswamy followed closely in third with 5.8%. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who has garnered national media attention and a recent bump in momentum, finished fifth.
Barely more than 1%, or 12 voters, at the Trump-friendly event said they preferred Haley compared to the 2.5% who remained “undecided.”
The topline results are not surprising given that the founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, remains an ardent ally of the former president and previously served as the CEO of Students for Trump. But the survey sheds light on a question currently dominating Trump world.
When asked whom Trump should choose as his vice president if he wins the nomination, 35%, a plurality, settled on former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson. Another 25.7%, meanwhile, preferred Ramaswamy. Both men made headlines with their remarks at the conference.
Ramaswamy responded from the main stage to criticism from CNN host Van Jones, who called him a demagogue earlier this month. “Just shut the f–k up,” the businessman-turned-politician said to applause. For his part, Carlson downplayed the idea of entering politics himself.
“It’s like the weather,” the pundit replied when asked about joining the ticket with Trump. “I can’t control it,” Carlson said after floating Ramaswamy instead for VP. “I don’t think I’d be that great at that.”
On the eve of the primary, the results reflect the policy appetites of the right-leaning youth. Attendees ranked border security and “deporting Biden-era illegal immigrants” as their top priority ahead of “election integrity” and “defunding the deep state,” which ranked second and third. Meanwhile, ending diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives from the government, which has been a calling card of the DeSantis campaign, ranked as their lowest priority.
Mirroring a larger shift on the right, the survey also shows a youth vote increasingly skeptical of foreign aid to Ukraine but largely supportive of Israel’s war with Hamas. A clear majority, 55.4%, backed giving lethal aid to Tel Aviv, less than 1% supported sending the same to Kyiv, and 39.4% responded that the United States shouldn’t provide such supplies to either Israel or Ukraine.
Congress generally earns poor approval ratings, but the young Republicans seemed to like newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson, with 57% either somewhat or strongly approving of his job performance. They were somewhat split, meanwhile, on whether the House should have expelled former New York Rep. George Santos, who made numerous false representations about himself during the previous election.
While 32% approved of the Santos expulsion, 47% disapproved of the history-making move which had only occurred five times previously.
The same week that the House approved an impeachment inquiry of President Biden, 49.6% said that they supported removing him from office. Another 24.3% reported that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas should be impeached, while 15.2% wanted Attorney General Merrick Garland gone.
As both parties court the youth vote, the survey found that young Republicans in the Turning Point orbit are unsatisfied with RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. An overwhelming 87% said that she should step down, and 56% reported that her departure would make them “more likely” to donate to the party. Charlie Kirk supported Harmeet Dhillon in her unsuccessful challenge of McDaniel earlier this year.
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Sen. Alex Padilla approached President Biden at a campaign fundraiser at a sprawling, multilevel mansion in the Pacific Palisades last weekend to offer a warning.
Biden was at the palatial home of investors José Feliciano and Kwanza Jones to court donors and talk about his administration’s record, but Padilla pulled the president aside to discuss negotiations playing out behind the scenes in the Senate.
Padilla was worried that Biden was about to set a harmful precedent. The White House, he knew, was considering agreeing to permanent immigration policy changes to win Senate Republicans’ support for roughly $110 billion in one-time aid to Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies.
Oct. 2022 photo of President Biden greeting, from front right, Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and his wife Angela Padilla, after arriving on Air Force One at LAX.
(Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press)
“The primary message I was seeking to convey is warning [Biden] that Republican senators were dragging him into territory that was harmful policy,” Padilla told The Times in a Thursday interview. Biden “was listening intently” and asked when Padilla was last in contact with staffers in the West Wing, the senator said.
Padilla would not comment further on Biden’s response but said that since Thanksgiving, he has on “at least a daily basis” been in contact with the aides in the West Wing, including White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president.
“I wish we were having a conversation and making sure we get [the change] right,” Padilla said. “I think right now we’re in the conversation of making sure we don’t get it wrong.”
Padilla’s concerns — and his fierce lobbying of the White House — signal that the Ukraine, Israel and border policy deal Biden and Senate leaders are hoping to strike may have trouble winning widespread Democratic support.
Congress must pass a supplemental funding bill soon in order to get Ukraine the help it needs to fend off Russia’s invasion, argue Biden, Senate leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who visited Washington this week.
White House officials and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas intervened this week after it became clear that a bipartisan group of senators had failed to reach a deal. Zients, White House chief of staff, met with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and dropped by negotiations on Capitol Hill on Thursday to emphasize that Biden supports more funding for border security and is open to immigration policy changes, according to a White House official.
“The president actually does really think we need to do something on the border,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.
Republicans have pushed for provisions that would allow border officials to expel migrants without screening them for asylum; expand the detention of immigrants, including families; expand the use of fast-tracked deportations from the border to the interior of the U.S.; and limit who can seek asylum. Republicans also sought to end the president’s authority to fast-track humanitarian entry to the U.S., which Biden has turned to repeatedly to welcome tens of thousands of migrants from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Venezuela and Cuba.
The White House is seriously considering two of the GOP’s proposals: Allowing border officials to swiftly expel migrants if the number of arrivals at the border exceeds a certain level and raising the standard used to initially determine whether a migrant might qualify for asylum.
“There is not yet an agreement on principles,” a congressional staffer familiar with negotiations told The Times. “Legislative text is a long way off. Negotiators are continuing to make progress towards a deal.”
Though Republicans insist a deal is out of reach, Democratic negotiators and White House officials have signaled they were open to moving closer to GOP demands on border policy in order to reach a deal before the year’s end. “We’re making progress,” a White House aide said Thursday. “We’re not there yet. But the conversation is going in the right direction.”
Late Thursday, Schumer cut senators’ holiday short, requiring them to stay in Washington next week for votes. It is unclear when or whether legislative text will emerge or a floor vote be scheduled. And even if the White House and Senate come through with a Christmas miracle, they would still need support from Democrats, who like Padilla have expressed deep concern, and the Republican-controlled House, which is in recess until January.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) signaled Thursday he would not recall his chamber back to Washington.
“For some reason, the Biden Administration waited until this week to even begin negotiations with Congress on the border issue,” he wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “While that work should continue, the House will not wait around to receive and debate a rushed product.”
House Republicans earlier this month approved a $14-billion package to bolster Israel’s efforts in the Gaza Strip. The bill, though, slashed funding approved by Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, making it dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Under Johnson, the House has not approved additional funding for Ukraine or American allies in the Pacific. House Republicans, though, are pushing the Senate negotiators to include their May immigration bill in any deal with the White House.
That legislation, which amounts to a wish list of GOP immigration priorities, would crack down on unlawful immigration by limiting asylum, codifying former President Trump-championed border policies, extending the border wall, criminalizing visa overstays and mandating that companies verify employees’ legal eligibility to work.
Much of what is being considered in negotiations would hamstring U.S. Customs and Border Protection while failing to deal with the root cause of migration, said Jason Houser, who was chief of staff at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement until March.
Houser also worried that negotiations could revive a version of the pandemic-era Title 42 policy, which allowed border officials to quickly expel migrants without considering their requests for asylum. Under the Trump-era policy, arrivals of migrants at the border actually increased, in part because many migrants re-crossed the border immediately after being expelled. Expulsion is not the same as formal deportation, a process that can come with consequences such as criminal prosecution and a five-year ban from the U.S.
Making it easier for border officials to expel migrants won’t lower the number of people trying to cross the border because some countries will not readmit citizens that the U.S. turns away, Houser said. Expelled migrants — and the human traffickers who move them across borders — would simply try again.
Kerri Talbot, executive director of the advocacy group Immigration Hub, hopes the negotiations will ultimately fail. Resurrecting an expulsion authority not linked to national public health would be a “blunt tool” that would fail to consider the circumstances of each case, she said.
Talbot also worries that the White House is weighing raising the legal bar migrants have to clear in their first interview with a border agent to avoid being fast-tracked for deportation.
“Almost no one has an attorney at that stage,” said Talbot, a veteran immigrant advocate who helped write the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the Senate. “So some people with valid cases will get blocked.”
The White House would be making a political mistake by conceding to Republicans’ demands, Talbot and Beatriz Lopez, also of Immigration Hub, wrote in a Tuesday letter to White House staff.
“The majority of voters in America are pro-immigrant and pro-orderliness — not for separating families, deporting long-settled immigrants or ending our asylum system,” they wrote. “Accepting GOP demands is accepting a deficit in support for President Biden in 2024.”
Other experts, though, say that come next November, a border policy deal might not harm Biden’s reelection chances.
Much of the reported White House concessions “is a signal that the Biden administration is trying to court the middle if not the right wing on immigration,” said Tom Wong, a political science professor and the founding director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at UC San Diego. Although the move could alienate people on the left, voters in the middle “are most consequential” in presidential elections, Wong said.
“The Biden administration is taking a political risk by moving to the right on immigration,” Wong said. But for people on the left, a second Trump term “would be far more dangerous to our immigration system than a second Biden administration giving in on some Republican policy proposals,” he added.
Padilla would not say how he would vote on any bill. He, like other senators, is still waiting to see what negotiators produce. But he said he would be hard-pressed “to concede bad policy to Republicans and have nothing to show for helping Dreamers, agriculture workers, essential workers and other long term residents of the United States working, paying taxes, contributing to the strength of our economy.”
“That would be a horrible place to be in going into [the next election],” Padilla said. “When [Biden] ran for president, he talked about restoring the soul of the nation, staying true to our democratic values and speaking on behalf of asylum seekers and refugees.”
“When you hear of a lot of ideas that are being entertained, it is absolutely concerning,” Padilla said.
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Erin B. Logan, Courtney Subramanian, Andrea Castillo
Former president and current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump gleefully reminded the audience that he’d become a ”dictator” for the first day of a second presidential term in a rambling keynote at the New York Young Republicans Club (NYYRC) annual gala at the ritzy Cipriani restaurant on Wall Street.
During his 80-minute speech to a crowd of 1,000 MAGA donors, politicians, and influencers on Saturday, Trump brought up viral comments he made last Tuesday in a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity, who asked the former president whether he would commit to not abusing his presidential power to retaliate against political enemies if re-elected in 2024.
Trump replied that he would only be a dictator on “day one.” “We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling,” he said. “After that, I’m not a dictator.”
The GOP frontrunner returned to the line Saturday. “[Peter] Baker today in TheNew York Times said that I want to be a dictator,” Trump complained, referencing an article covering how Trump and his allies are “leaning into” the charge that they plan on assuming dictatorial powers if re-elected. “I didn’t say that. I said I want to be a dictator for one day.”
In recent years, the NYYRC winter soiree has become something of a gathering point for the American far-right conservatives. At last year’s installment, NYYRC president Gavin Waxdeclared “total war” on the right’s political enemies, vowing to “do battle in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets.”
The club’s president reprised those remarks Saturday night. “Since I know the deep state is listening tonight, once President Trump is back in office, we won’t be playing nice anymore,” Wax said. “It will be a time for retribution. All those responsible for destroying our once-great country will be held to account after baseless years of investigations, and government lies and media lies against this man,” he said, vowing “to turn the tables on these actual crooks and lock them up for a change.”
Trump greeted Wax’s speech warmly, twice calling it an “excellent speech.”
In his first-ever appearance at the 111-year-old annual event, the former president claimed that Democrats’ “newest hoax” is to call him a threat to democracy. “This is their new line. Here we go again — ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ ‘Mueller, Mueller, Mueller,’ ‘Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.’ One hoax after another,” Trump added.
Trump also delivered a message to President Joe Biden, who greeted his original “day one” comment by joking, “Thank God, only one day.” “I can only say to Joe: Be very careful what you wish for, but [what] you have done is a terrible thing.”
Outgoing Senator Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, warned on Sunday that Donald Trump might “impose his will” on the country if reelected president in 2024.
Romney has served as a senator for the Beehive State since 2019, previously served as the governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007, and received the Republican nomination for president in 2012. Over the last several years, Romney has emerged as a prominent critic of Trump and the overall direction of the GOP under his leadership.
Citing those frustrations, he recently announced his intention to retire from the Senate at the end of his current term, airing out yet more grievances with his colleagues on the way out. On Sunday, Romney appeared on NBC News’ Meet the Press where he warned that Trump’s past and current behaviors present a grim forecast for his potential reelection, as opposed to anything he might say at rallies.
“I think we agree that we have looked at his behavior, and his behavior suggests that this is a person who will impose his will, if he can, on the judicial system, on the legislative branch, on the entire nation. When he called people to come to Washington, D.C., on January 6, that was not a random date. That was the date when peaceful transition of power was to occur. He called that on purpose. There’s no question he has authoritarian rulings and interests and notions which he will try and impose.”
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s team via email for comment.
Senator Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, is seen. Romney on Sunday suggested that Trump will try to “impose his will” on the country if given the opportunity. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Trump is currently the leading candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination as he seeks to retake the White House. National polling averages have consistently given him near or over 50 percent support from likely Republican voters, while his closest rivals, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, have struggled to maintain double-digit support.
During Romney’s Sunday appearance, host Kristen Welker pressed him for a reaction to Trump’s recent claim that he would be a “dictator” on “day one” of his second term if reelected. While Trump did subsequently attempt to downplay the comment, for many, it lined up with recent reports indicating his alleged plans to install loyalists throughout the federal government and conduct mass deportations, among other things.
“Donald Trump is kind of a human gumball machine,” Romney said. “A thought or a notion comes in and it comes out of his mouth. There’s not a lot of filter that goes on…He just says whatever. I don’t attach an enormous amount of impact to the particular words that come out and try to evaluate each one. I do think you can look at his record as president and in particular the last months of his presidency and say this is a dangerous approach, it’s an authoritarian approach. That gives me far more concern than him playing to the crowd as he did.”
Speaking at the New York Young Republican Club’s 111th annual gala on Saturday night, Trump repeated his claim that he wants to be dictator for “one day” if he reenters the White House.
“[Peter] Baker today in The New York Times, he said that I want to be a dictator. I didn’t say that, I said I want to be a dictator for one day,” the former president said. “And you know why I wanted to be a dictator? Because I want a wall, right? I want a wall and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A deal to provide further U.S. assistance to Ukraine by year-end appears to be increasingly out of reach for President Joe Biden. The impasse is deepening in Congress despite dire warnings from the White House about the consequences of inaction as Republicans insist on pairing the aid with changes to America’s immigration and border policies.
After the Democratic president said this past week he was willing to “make significant compromises on the border,” Republicans quickly revived demands that they had earlier set aside, hardening their positions and attempting to shift the negotiations to the right, according to a person familiar with the talks who was not authorized to publicly discuss them and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The latest proposal, from the lead GOP negotiator, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., came during a meeting with a core group of senators before they left Washington on Thursday afternoon. It could force the White House to consider ideas that many Democrats will seriously oppose, throwing new obstacles in the difficult negotiations.
Biden is facing the prospect of a cornerstone of his foreign policy — repelling Russian President Vladimir Putin from overtaking Ukraine — crumbling as U.S. support for funding the war wanes, especially among Republicans. The White House says a failure to approve more aid by year’s end could have catastrophic consequences for Ukraine and its ability to fight.
To preserve U.S. backing, the Biden administration has quietly engaged in Senate talks on border policy in recent weeks, providing assistance to the small group of senators trying to reach a deal and communicating what policy changes it would find acceptable.
The president is trying to satisfy GOP demands to reduce the historic number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border while alleviating Democrats’ fears that legal immigration will be choked off with drastic measures.
As talks sputtered to a restart this past week, Democrats warned Republicans that time for a deal was running short. Congress is scheduled to depart Washington in mid-December for a holiday break.
“Republicans need to show they are serious about reaching a compromise, not just throwing on the floor basically Donald Trump’s border policies,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday before Republicans made their counteroffer.
But the new Republican proposal dug in on policy changes that had led Democrats to step back from the negotiations, according to the person familiar with the talks. The GOP offer calls for ending the humanitarian parole program that’s now in place for existing classes of migrants — Ukrainians, Afghans, Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Haitians. That idea had been all but dashed before.
Additionally, those groups of migrants would not be allowed to be paroled again if the terms of their stay expire before their cases are adjudicated in immigration proceedings.
GOP senators proposed monitoring systems such as ankle bracelets for people, including children, who are detained at the border and are awaiting parole. Republicans want to ban people from applying for asylum if they have transited through a different country where they could have sought asylum instead. GOP lawmakers also want to revive executive powers that would allow a president to shut down entries for wide-ranging reasons.
Further, after migrant encounters at the border recently hit historic numbers, the GOP proposal would set new guidelines requiring the border to be essentially shut down if illegal crossings reach a certain limit.
Lankford declined to discuss specifics after the Thursday meeting, but said he was trying to “negotiate in good faith.” He said the historic number of migrants at the border could not be ignored. The sheer number of people arriving at the border has swamped the asylum system, he said, making it impossible for authorities to adequately screen the people they allow in.
“Do you want large numbers of undocumented individuals and unscreened individuals without work permits, without access to the rest of the economy?” Lankford said.
The lead Democratic negotiator, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, did not quickly respond to the GOP proposal.
Senators had made some progress in the talks before Thursday, finding general agreement on raising the initial standard for migrants to enter the asylum system — part of what’s called the credible fear system. The administration has communicated that it is amenable to that change and that it could agree to expand expedited removal to deport immigrants before they have a hearing with an immigration judge, according to two people briefed on the private negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Immigration advocates and progressives in Congress have been alarmed by the direction of the talks, especially because they have not featured changes aimed at expanding legal immigration.
Robyn Barnard, director of refugee advocacy with Human Rights First, called the current state of negotiations an “absolute crisis moment.” She warned that broadening the fast-track deportation authority could lead to a mass rounding up of immigrants around the country and compared it to the situation during the Trump administration. “Communities across the country would be living in fear,” she said.
“The White House is going to have to engage particularly if Senate Democrats are unwilling to do what we are suggesting be done,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., at a news conference Thursday.
The White House has so far declined to take a leading role in negotiations. “Democrats have said that they want to compromise. Have that conversation,” said White House press secretary Karine-Jean Pierre.
After every GOP senator this past week voted not to move ahead with legislation that would provide tens of billions of dollars in military and economic assistance for Ukraine, many in the chamber were left in a dour mood. Even those who held out hope for a deal acknowledged it would be difficult to push a package through the Senate at this late stage.
Even if senators reach a deal, the obstacles to passage in the House are considerable. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has signaled he will fight for sweeping changes to immigration policy that go beyond what is being discussed in the Senate. Also, broad support from House Democrats is far from guaranteed, as progressives and Hispanic lawmakers have raised alarm at curtailing access to asylum.
“Trading Ukrainian lives for the lives of asylum seekers is morally bankrupt and irresponsible,” Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, as part of a coordinated campaign by Hispanic Democrats.
The unwieldy nature of the issue left even Lankford, who was one of the few senators optimistic that a deal could be reached this year, acknowledging the difficulty of finding an agreement in the coming days.
“There’s just a whole lot of politics that have been bound up in this,” he said as he departed the Capitol for the week. “Thirty years it hasn’t been resolved because it’s incredibly complicated.”
Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.
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Inmates could try to kill Donald Trump “just to make a name for themselves” if the former president is jailed, according to an expert in the prison system.
The comment was made by Robert Rogers in an interview with Newsweek. He is an associate professor of criminal justice at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro and he used to work for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Trump has been indicted in four separate criminal cases, two by federal authorities and two at the state level. The 2024 Republican frontrunner is accused of orchestrating the payment of hush money to a pornographic actress; mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021; and breaking the law while attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, both nationwide and in the state of Georgia specifically. Trump has pled not guilty to all charges and has repeatedly said that the cases against him are politically motivated.
Newsweek has reached out to Donald Trump for comment via the online press enquiry form on his official website.
If convicted, Trump could become the first former U.S. president to be sent to prison. Any such move would leave authorities with a number of dilemmas as they seek to keep him safe while preserving his mental health and ensuring justice is done. As an ex-president, Trump is entitled to Secret Service protection for the rest of his life.
Rogers told Newsweek that, if sent to jail, Trump would most likely be dispatched to “a maximum-security penitentiary so that none of his fanatical followers could possibly break him out.”
Donald Trump sits at the defense table in his civil business-fraud trial in New York State Supreme Court on December 7, 2023 in New York City. The former president could be killed by another prisoner “just to make a name for themselves” if he is imprisoned, a leading academic told Newsweek. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez-Pool/GETTY
Referencing the business tycoon, Rogers added: “I would anticipate that he would not have any contact with inmates in the general population.
“If he had any contact at all with other prisoners, it would probably be in a separate, secured unit with other ‘dirty’ cops, prosecutors and judges,” he said. “In other words, he would be in a special unit with others whom the run-of-the-mill inmates would like to harm for putting them there in prison in the first place.”
Rodgers added that the danger to Trump would come if he is allowed to mix with the general prison population: “He would undoubtedly have a number of adoring fans. However, there would also be inmates who would try to kill him, in spite of Secret Service protection, just to make a name for themselves so that they would go down in history, not as common criminals and losers, but as someone who had killed an American president.”
Attorney Tray Gober, a managing partner at Texas-based law firm Lee, Gober & Reyna, told Newsweek that authorities would have to balance keeping Trump safe with ensuring isolation doesn’t collapse his mental health.
Gober said: “While considerations like isolation, heightened surveillance, and strategic placement address security concerns, it’s equally important to preserve an inmate’s mental health. Placing a high-profile inmate in solitary confinement may solve the problem of how to protect that person from attack, but it can destroy their mental health.
“Therefore, for any high-profile inmate with special security needs, it’s paramount for prison authorities to incorporate monitored outside recreational time, as well as secure shower and dining facilities, to strike the delicate balance between ensuring safety and upholding the principles of justice,” Gober added.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Retiring Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the ousted former House speaker, said he is endorsing Donald Trump for president and would consider serving in his Cabinet if the GOP front-runner were to win back the White House.
McCarthy had a rocky relationship with the former president, notably when he declined to publicly support Trump’s bid for a second term, despite being one of his earliest and most loyal allies. But they always seem to patch things up, and as McCarthy prepares to leave Congress he gave his nod.
“I will support the president. I will support President Trump,” McCarthy said in excerpts of an interview to air this weekend on “CBS News Sunday Morning.”
McCarthy has not disclosed his post-Congress plans, but asked if he would willing to serve in a Trump cabinet, he said, “In the right position, look, if, if I’m the best person for the job, yes.”
“Look, I worked with President Trump on a lot of policies. I, we, worked together to win the majority,” he told CBS’ Robert Costa in the interview, his first to air on TV since announcing he will leave Congress. “But we also have a relationship where we’re very honest with one another.”
GOP lawmakers, even those who have opposed Trump strongly at times, are swiftly falling in line behind the party’s presumed nominee, as they brush past and ignore some of his more alarming authoritarian rhetoric.
McCarthy, as he led the House’s slim GOP majority, had withheld his support for Trump as tried to keep a more neutral air and fundraise from wealthy donors, some of whom have soured on the former president.
Also mindful that a number of rank-and-file lawmakers come from congressional districts that President Joe Biden won, McCarthy held back his endorsement so as not to put them in a political bind.
But McCarthy, who depended on Trump’s backing to become speaker after a grueling 15-vote spectacle in January, has often made his way back to Trump.
In the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, McCarthy at first called it one of the saddest days he had experienced in Congress, putting the blame on the former president — only to dash to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida weeks later to mend the relationship.
McCarthy was ousted as House speaker in October by his hard-right detractors, including some of Trump’s most loyal allies among the House GOP.
Traditionally, the GOP has been the nemesis of expanded marijuana legalization. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been proud of preventing national movement. They party also has been quick to blame cannabis use for everything including mass shooting and the fentanyl crisis. But over the last couple of years, a few Republican champions have emerged and it is a bit startling.
The cannabis industry held its breathe with the election of the Biden/Harris ticket. Vice President Harris had been a foe and there was fear about what would happen when they entered office. The reality is nothing happened. Despite Biden’s promise of helping, it took 3 years for him to consider cannabis rescheduling. He has refused to nudge Congress to support federal legalization and Harris has remains out of site.
Photo by FatCamera/Getty Images
In a surprise to most, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, came out in support of the taxation and regulation of recreational cannabis. DC is overseen by Congress and has been begging for statehood for generations. Currently, they still have the federal elected overseeing how parts of the city are run. In 2014, Nearly two-thirds of D.C. voters favored legalizing recreational marijuana for in a 2014 ballot initiative. In the District, the possession of up to 2 ounces of marijuana is decriminalized for residents 21 years or older for recreational or medical use, according to the district’s marijuana laws. Comer is very open to following the voter wishes.
Also, Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) reintroduced the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) 2.0 Act, signaling a renewed effort to end federal marijuana prohibition in states where it is legal. And it is being driven by Republicans. Co-sponsored by Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), Brian Mast (R-FL), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Troy Carter (D-LA), it goes beyond decriminalizing state cannabis programs by proposing a federal tax-and-regulate framework for the cannabis industry.
You also have Rep Nancy Mace (R-SC) has lead efforts for SAFE Banking and more and has worked across the aisle to support the cannabis industry.
While this is a good sign, it doesn’t mean it has full throttle support from the GOP. Ohio is a a hot mess as Republicans feel voters were confused when 70% voted and passed recreational marijuana, they are now working to gut it. They can learn from Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) who told Florida voters who doesn’t care 70% voted for cannabis, he knows better.
There is a saying about politics make strange bedfellows, I guess marijuana makes odd cannabis buddies.
Things got weird on the ABC talk show “The View” once again on Thursday morning when co-host Joy Behar bizarrely compared the Republican presidential debate that took place the night before to her “G-spot.”
‘It’s Like My G-Spot!’
Behar, 81, said this while her co-hosts talked about how hard it was to actually watch this debate, as it aired on News Nation.
“I would love to know the stats as to how many people watched that,” co-host Sunny Hostin said, with Sara Haines adding that she couldn’t even find where to watch it. “Exactly,”
“It’s like my G-spot!” Behar exclaimed, much to the shock of her audience.
In this same segment, Behar slammed Trump for not attending the debate.
“I say the next time they want to do this, they should do it in a jail cell,” Behar continued. “And then he’ll show up.”
Check out this full segment in the video below.
Trump Not Participating In Debates
Trump has made it clear that he sees no upside in himself participating in the Republican presidential debates during this go-round.
“They’re not watchable,” Trump said last month, according to The Messenger. “You know, the last debate was the lowest-rated debate in the history of politics, so therefore do you think we did the right thing by not participating?”
“The public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had,” Trump wrote on social media back in August. “I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!”
Trump’s 2020 campaign press secretary Hogan Gidley told News Nation before the debate that if the former did attend, he would “suck all the oxygen out of the room.”
“It’s fascinating to watch in politics,” Gidley said. “I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and I’ve never seen somebody with a stranglehold on a movement or on the base like Donald Trump has.”
Behar has long had one of the worst cases of Trump derangement syndrome of anyone in the media, and that’s saying a lot. Earlier this month, Behar bizarrely dared Trump to try and get “revenge” on her if he is reelected in 2024.
“Donald Trump is running for president for two reasons: to stay out of jail, and to get revenge on his enemies,” said co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, who previously worked in the Trump administration. “And when he speaks we should listen and, frankly, it’s scary.”
“Try it! Go ahead!” Behar exclaimed in response, looking at the camera as she addressed Trump directly. “Try it! We have this show every day! Okay, Donald?”
Back in June, Behar demanded that Trump be “locked up already.”
“He’s a grifter. He’s a grifter,” she said of Trump, according to Daily Mail. “Lock him up already. Lock him up.”
“Nixon was caught on tape and that was the end of his career as president,” she continued. “This guy is caught on tape talking about grabbing women’s genitalia – he didn’t learn from that or from Nixon and now he’s continuing to tape himself. That is really the definition of stupidity.”
Check out that clip in the video below.
Behar comparing the Republican presidential debate to her “G-spot” is nothing short of nutty. It remains to be seen how much longer ABC executives will think that it is worth keeping her around.
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Anyone watching the fourth Republican primary debate tonight would be forgiven for thinking that Nikki Haley was the favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination next year.
Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy sure were acting like it. Neither man had finished answering his first question before he began attacking the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador. “She caves any time the left comes after her, anytime the media comes after her,” warned DeSantis, the Florida governor. Ramaswamy went much further. He called Haley “corrupt” and “a fascist” for suggesting that social-media companies ban people from posting anonymously on their platforms.
The broadsides continued throughout the two-hour debate in Tuscaloosa, Alabama: DeSantis and Ramaswamy used every opportunity to go after Haley, even when they were prodded to criticize the Republican who is actually dominating the primary race, Donald Trump.
“I’m loving all the attention, fellas,” Haley said at one point. What she’d love even more is about 30 additional points in the polls. As well as Haley has been doing lately, she is capturing just about 10 percent of Republican voters nationwide, according to the polling average. Time is running out for her—or any other GOP candidate—to catch Trump. He skipped this meeting of the Republican also-rans, just as he did the three previous debates. This debate narrowed to four Trump alternatives, but the evening devolved into a familiar dynamic: Most of the challengers largely declined to criticize—or even discuss—Trump.
Chris Christie was the exception, as usual. The former New Jersey governor lit into Trump and mocked his rivals for being too “timid” to do the same. “I’m in this race because the truth needs to be spoken: He is unfit,” Christie said. Acting the part of pundit as much as candidate, Christie noted ruefully how little Haley, DeSantis, and Ramaswamy wanted to talk about Trump and how fearful they seemed to be of angering him. DeSantis tiptoed toward criticism of Trump when he warned Republicans not “to nominate somebody who is almost 80 years old.” “Father Time is undefeated,” DeSantis said. But when he danced around the question of whether Trump was mentally fit to serve again as president, Christie bashed him. “This is the problem with my three colleagues: You are afraid to offend.”
Ramaswamy was next to speak. Instead of contradicting Christie and confronting Trump, he held up a handwritten sign that read, NIKKI=CORRUPT.
The reluctance of Trump’s rivals (aside from Christie) to attack the former president has frustrated Republicans who are rooting against his renomination. But on some level it makes sense. Haley, DeSantis, and Ramaswamy aren’t actually running against Trump—at least not yet. The best way to think of these Trump-less debates is as a primary within a primary. The four Republicans on stage tonight were battling merely for the right to face off against Trump. In sports terms, these preliminary matchups are like the divisional round of the NFL playoffs, except that Trump has already earned a bye to the conference championship. (The general election would be the Super Bowl.)
The all-important question is whether one of these four can break away from the others in time to wage a fair fight against Trump. The window for doing so is closing fast, but it is not shut completely. Although Trump is capturing nearly 60 percent of Republican primary voters in the national polling average, he remains below 50 percent in Iowa and New Hampshire, the early states where his challengers are campaigning most aggressively. A majority of Republicans in both Iowa and New Hampshire are backing someone other than Trump at the moment, suggesting at least the possibility that Haley or DeSantis could consolidate the anti-Trump vote and overtake him in one or both states. Trump’s lead has been consistent—and it has actually grown since the debates started without him—but historically, primary races are most volatile in the final few weeks before voters begin casting ballots.
The debate stage has shrunk by half since the first GOP primary forum in August, when eight candidates met the Republican National Committee’s criteria for participation. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina ended his bid after appearing in last month’s debate in Miami, as did North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who did not qualify.
Yet four candidates might be as small as it gets. No more RNC-sanctioned debates are scheduled before the Iowa caucuses on January 15 or the New Hampshire primary eight days later. If Trump wins both states against a divided field—as polls suggest he will—his nomination would probably seem unstoppable.
The most likely path to preventing Trump’s nomination is the same as it was when the primary began: for anti-Trump Republicans to agree on a single candidate to go up against him one-on-one. Nikki Haley is making her move. But if tonight’s debate revealed anything, it’s that her Republican competitors aren’t ready to let her have that chance.
During the fourth Republican Party debate on Wednesday night, the candidates present in Alabama were asked how they would address “the crisis on the southern border.”
National polls show immigration and migrants entering the United States illegally as among the top issues in the country. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie wasn’t able to answer the question when it was posed by the moderators, but Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, ex-South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy discussed the topic at length.
DeSantis spoke passionately about going after those who bring fentanyl into the country.
“The drug cartels are invading our country and they are killing our citizens,” DeSantis said.
GOP presidential candidates former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, left, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, right, on Wednesday participate in the Republican primary debate in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The candidates were asked what they would do about the “crisis at the southern border.” (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The Florida lawmaker went on about the dangers of fentanyl in the U.S., relating a story about the drug’s residue being on the floor of an Airbnb rental, which he said resulted in the death of a baby.
“Is this acceptable in this country? I know the elites in D.C., they don’t care. They don’t care that fentanyl is ravaging your community. They don’t care that illegal aliens are ravaging our community and overwhelming our community,” DeSantis said. “The commander-in-chief not only has a right, you have a responsibility to fight back against these people. And it means you’re going to categorize them as foreign terrorist organizations.”
He then advocated for continuing construction of a wall along the southern border.
“Here’s the thing: If we had a wall across the southern border, which I support, this would not have happened. We need to build a wall across the southern border. I’ll get it done,” DeSantis told the audience, as he parroted Trump’s promise from years ago by saying that he’d make Mexico pay for it.
Before Haley discussed the issue, she was asked about comments she made regarding catching and deporting illegal migrants. Haley clarified that she would at first deport “all of the seven or eight million illegals that have come [into the U.S.] under [President Joe] Biden’s watch.”
“We have to stop the incentive of what’s bringing them over here in the first place,” she added, noting temporary protective status given to Venezuelans.
Haley said migrants who have been in the country longer should be examined if they’ve been “vetted” and “paid taxes.”
Regarding illegal drugs, she called for “special operations” to deal with cartels. Haley also said China should be punished for producing fentanyl.
“Look at where fentanyl came from. Let’s go to the heart of the matter. It came from China. That’s why we need to end all normal trade relations with China until they stop murdering Americans with fentanyl,” she said. “I promise you they need our economy. They will immediately stop that.”
Ramaswamy said, “The easy part is talking about how we’re going to use our military to secure the border. I will, and I believe that everybody else wants to do the same thing.”
He also supported action against China but said the “harder part” is addressing the “mental health epidemic raging across this country like wildfire” rather than hitting the “the demand side of it.”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Man, we’ve seen some politician sex scandals over the years, but this one is WILD!
Christian Ziegler is the chairman of the Florida Republican Party. As the GOP chair in a state run by Republicans, he’s a powerful guy in the MAGA movement. And his wife is even more influential with conservatives on a national level. See, Bridget Ziegler is the co-founder of Moms for Liberty. They’re the group that have been trying to ban books at school libraries across the country — you know, pretty much anything to do with African American history or positive depictions of gay folks. Really gross, fascist s**t.
So according to a wild new report from a local paper called the Florida Trident, these two family values leaders have, for the past three years, been part of… a throuple. Yep, a woman has come forward to the police saying she was in a consensual three-way sexual relationship with the Zieglers. That of course is in no way a crime — we’ll get to the criminal accusations in a moment.
As always with this kind of scandal, we must say, we aren’t about shaming consenting adults for their lifestyles. If a married couple decide they want to spice things up and invite a third into their lives, who are we to judge? But these are people who are FIRMLY and VOCALLY anti-LGBT. Hell, Bridget is credited with being instrumental in creating Governor Ron DeSantis‘ infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill! And the last we checked, a throuple — even a MFF one — ain’t exactly that whole Bible-thumping idea of straightitude. It’s not Adam and Eve and Bianca, you what we mean? That makes the Zieglers a pretty foul sort of hypocrites, if true. They’re trying to make it harder and harder for LGBT kids, meanwhile they secretly get to do whatever they want in the bedroom? Get bent.
Anti-LGBT MAGA stars Christian and Bridget Ziegler. / (c) Bridget Ziegler/X
The thing is, we haven’t even gotten to the real scandal…
The reason this woman has come forward is because she’s accusing the ironically named Christian of rape! In a police report obtained by the Trident, the woman claims that while she and Christian were alone at her home on October 2 — with no Bridget — he committed sexual battery against her.
Details are scant in the heavily redacted report, which was filed way back on October 4, but it’s explicitly a “sexual assault complaint.” The woman also claims Christian filmed the three-way sexual encounters with her and his wife, and the sources told the outlet that a search warrant was executed on the politician’s phone.
No charges have been filed yet, and the Zieglers have not commented publicly. However, Christian’s attorney Derek Byrd confirmed the investigation in a statement. He assures his client has been “fully cooperative with the Sarasota Police Department” and will be “completely exonerated.” He goes on to imply the alleged victim is doing this for money or maybe even politics:
“Unfortunately, public figures are often accused of acts that they did not commit whether it be for political purposes or financial gain. I would caution anyone to rush to judgment until the investigation is concluded. Out of respect for the investigation, this is all Mr. Ziegler or myself can say at this time.”
We’ll have to see how this plays out, but now that the accusation is public, we’re guessing it’s going to be a lot harder to keep the Zieglers’ real “family values” out of the spotlight.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence and would like to learn more about resources, consider checking out https://www.rainn.org/resources.
[Image via Christian Ziegler/Bridget Ziegler/Facebook.]
In the last couple of years, the elected members of the GOP have lukewarm, best about legal cannabis. Early on, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was the leader of the GOP’s policy including blocking weed, but he seems to slightly be losing his gip. The House passed SAFE Banking and has been very open to less restrictions on the cannabis industry providing more opportunities and tax revenue, but McConnell blocked the bill. Earlier this year, the Senate took up SAFER Banking only to have chaos in House delaying any action. Unfortunately for the GOP, the last Gallop polling shows republicans want weed, but does the GOP care?
The current House speaker, Mike Johnson (R-LA) has a very clear vision of the future and believes if he works hard enough, he will be able put now laws and restrictions in place to do it. turns out 55% of Republicans support legal weed, but does their party’s majority focus matter to the electeds?
The recent two elections show the GOP seems to be out of step with enough of their base to hand them election failures. Speaker Johnson doesn’t smoke, swear, drink or use banks. But the good news he has shown a certain willingness to work with Democrats around budget.
Photo by uschools/Getty Images
If Johnson is open to budget deals, passing SAFER Banking in the Senate will be a benefit for state via the tax revenue and the economy. SAFER Banking will be help the cannabis industry continue to grow providing more job and cash into the economy. Despite the constant increase of new customers, the onerous federal and state legal issues puts a drag on the legal marijuana industry and has a direct hit to bottom lines.
The Biden administration has begun the process of changing the classification of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. In summer, the Department of Health and Human Services — after conducting a scientific review — recommended that marijuana be moved to Schedule III. The Drug Enforcement Administration is now tasked with making the final decision, likely to come in the first half of next year.
Other good news is there is now a significant chuck of the alcohol and tobacco industry are vested in the cannabis world and legalization only benefits those industry’s bottom line.
If the GOP wants to start winning elections, they are going to have start listening to voters. And legal marijuana and medical marijuana is probably the safest first step.
Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump were, for the moment, great political allies. The two were even developing a friendship that, impressively, seemed to transcend the campaign trail. What was on the horizon, though, was not so idyllic.
Much of that, at least early on, was driven by DeSantis’s wife.
Casey DeSantis was born in Ohio in 1980 and met her future husband on a driving range at the University of North Florida. The two were married in 2009, less than three years before DeSantis’s congressional run. Hindsight, and anyone with even a cursory understanding of modern Florida politics, will tell you that this fact provides a snapshot of the politically ambitious mindset of the couple. And anyone who understands DeSantis’s thought processes will divulge that Casey—a former Jacksonville television personality—is the most influential adviser and powerful force in DeSantis’s universe. This force was put on display during the general gubernatorial election as DeSantis’s campaign prepared the now infamous “Build the Wall” ad.
Few things during DeSantis’s 2018 campaign got more attention—and triggered more outrage among libs, another desired outcome—than the Trump-worshipping TV spot that featured Ron and Casey’s daughter Madison paying tribute to Trump’s southern border wall. The ad shows DeSantis using gleeful baby talk, encouraging Madison to “build the wall” as she plays with building blocks. In the same ad, he reads to his then infant son, Mason, from a book meant to evoke Trump’s former reality show, The Apprentice. “You’re fired!” DeSantis reads before noting to Mason, “That’s my favorite part.” The ad concludes with DeSantis using a Make America Great Again campaign sign to teach Madison to read.
The ad was narrated by Casey DeSantis, who played the main role in the ad but who was anything but supportive behind the scenes. Though she was a lifelong conservative and DeSantis’s most trusted adviser by a long shot, she had never been a natural Trump supporter. She thought the TV ad was at best silly and at worst humiliating and was completely opposed to running it. And Ron DeSantis would not green-light the spot without her approval.
“Casey was apprehensive about the wall commercial,” said a former DeSantis campaign staffer. “She did not have a great deal of comfort in [Ron’s] marrying himself to Trump. But the ad was not going to run without her approval, and they had to convince her to agree. There were direct conversations on this.”
Despite her initial protests, Casey finally relented. She understood that Trump’s power with the Republican base was at its peak. He could make political fortunes and end them, all in a single tweet. If Ron DeSantis was to continue on the promising political trajectory he and Casey had laid out, she knew she had to swallow her pride and play the part.
“She values winning and destiny way more than love, or hate, or however you want to say it,” the former campaign staffer said. “It was part of a winning strategy. [DeSantis] needed Trump in many ways, and Trumpism was winning Republican primaries at that point. Just look at how Adam Putnam begged to be accepted into Trump’s world even after Trump endorsed DeSantis.”
“That is him testing the political party that he says he’s going to lead” just “one year out from the election, to see what they will tolerate as an institution,” the MSNBC anchor explained Monday.
It means that “every single member of that party will now have to answer whether this is who they are, whether this is what they stand for, whether this is the cause of their party,” Maddow added.
Republican 2024 front-runner Trump and his allies have ramped up their extremist rhetoric in recent weeks with their reported plans to silence opponents and critics and carry out mass deportations if he wins back the White House.
“In real life,” Maddow noted, “a country under threat stands up for itself when the institutions that make up the civic and political life of the country stand up and say what they’re for and what they can no longer stand for.”
Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, said Sunday that the House will make a decision on whether to bring charges of impeachment against President Joe Biden by early next year.
The House Oversight Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the Biden family after then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, announced the investigation in early September. At the center of the Biden impeachment inquiry is his alleged involvement in his son Hunter Biden‘s foreign business dealings. The White House has repeatedly denied that the president ever had any involvement in his son’s business.
On Wednesday, Representative James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee signed subpoenas for Hunter Biden and the president’s brother, James Biden, along with other members of their family and Rob Walker, a former business associate of the president’s son. Hunter Biden has been asked to appear for a deposition on December 13, James Biden is expected to attend a deposition on December 6 and Walker is scheduled for November 29.
President Joe Biden speaks to autoworkers at the Community Complex Building on November 09, 2023 in Belvidere, Illinois. Representative Jim Jordan says that the House will make a decision to bring charges of impeachment against President Joe Biden by early next year. Scott Olson/Getty Images
Representative Jordan, a member of the House Oversight Committee, outlined a timeline for the probe into Biden and his family during an interview on Fox News‘ Sunday Morning Features with host Maria Bartiromo.
“I believe that we will get the depositions and the interviews done in this calendar year and then make a decision early next year whether there are actual, the evidence warrants going through articles of impeachment and moving to that stage of the investigation,” the Republican told Bartiromo.
“We have a constitutional duty to do oversight. We’re now in the impeachment inquiry phase of our oversight duty. We’re driven by the facts. We’re driven by the evidence. Not by the politics like the Democrats are when they attacked President Trump,” Jordan said.
The congressman, who is a close Trump ally, was referring to the former president’s two impeachments, in 2019 and then again in 2021. Trump also faces significant legal troubles, with multiple criminal indictments against him and a civil fraud trial underway in New York.
Newsweek reached out to Jordan and the White House via email for comment.
The White House has said that House Republicans have a political agenda against Biden.
“With just over a week to go until House Republicans may again thrust the country into a harmful and chaotic government shutdown, the most extreme voices in their party like James Comer are trying to distract from their repeated failures to govern,” White House spokesman Ian Sams wrote in a memo addressing Wednesday’s subpoenas.
“Instead of using the power of Congress to pursue a partisan political smear campaign against the President and his family, extreme House Republicans should do their jobs,” he added.
The House Oversight Committee has spent months investigating the Biden family, issuing subpoenas for Hunter Biden’s and James Biden’s bank records and former associates of the president’s son to testify. According to House Republicans, the Biden family has cumulatively received more than $24 million from foreign nationals, including from countries like China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Kazakhstan, over a five-year period.
“The House Oversight Committee has followed the money and built a record of evidence revealing how Joe Biden knew, was involved, and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes. Now, the House Oversight Committee is going to bring in members of the Biden family and their associates to question them on this record of evidence,” Comer said in a statement.
The GOP congressman said that the records reveal how the Biden family benefited from the business dealings “to the detriment of U.S. interests.”
The Biden administration and Democrats have said repeatedly that Republicans have not uncovered evidence of any criminality by the president. While Hunter Biden did earn substantial sums from foreign business deals, it’s not clear that any of these actions were illegal or that they benefited the president financially.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, received backlash from Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters after he indicated in a closed-door meeting with House GOP moderates this week that there is insufficient evidence at the moment to move forward with formal impeachment proceedings.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and staunch Trump supporter, mentioned previous House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s support in launching the impeachment inquiry while criticizing Johnson.
“After 8 R’s and all D’s ousted him, we found checks to Joe Biden and evidence of a massive money laundering scheme and now the new guy you are told is way better doesn’t want to impeach. Such progress,” Greene wrote in an X, formerly Twitter, post.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, a Republican who worked as an aide in Donald Trump’s White House, said on Sunday that she is terrified to think that the former president may once again serve in the Oval Office.
Trump, who is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has recently been shown to be leading President Joe Biden in five out of the six key swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, according to a New York Times & Siena College poll released last week. Multiple national polls also show the former president leading Biden.
Those survey results come despite Trump’s numerous legal troubles, as he faces a wave of indictments at both the state and federal levels. The former president has been sued by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, and indicted in four separate cases: two brought by special counsel Jack Smith at the federal level, one by the Manhattan district attorney, and another from prosecutors in Georgia. He has denied wrongdoing in all cases.
Farah Griffin, who served as Trump’s White House director of strategic communications, regularly shares her thoughts and criticism of the former president in her role as a co-host of The View. She also provides political commentary to various media outlets, and has been staunchly critical of Trump since he left the White House.
In a Sunday post to X, formerly Twitter, Farah Griffin shared her thoughts on Trump’s 2024 election bid after receiving a copy of ABC News’ chief Washington correspondent, Jonathan Karl’s new book Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party.
Got an advance copy of @jonkarl’s new book: Tired of Winning and it paints a scary picture of an increasingly isolated, unhinged Trump who is surrounded by those who won’t challenge him. It’s a must read. Terrifying to think he may be POTUS again.
“Got an advance copy of @jonkarl’s new book: Tired of Winning and it paints a scary picture of an increasingly isolated, unhinged Trump who is surrounded by those who won’t challenge him. It’s a must read. Terrifying to think he may be POTUS again,” Griffin wrote on X.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump and Farah Griffin via email for comment.
Former US president and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump leaves after speaking at a campaign rally in Claremont, New Hampshire, on November 11, 2023. Former Trump aide, Alyssa Farah Griffin, said on Sunday she is terrified to think Trump may be president again. JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP/Getty Images
Previously, Farah Griffin spoke to CNN‘s Jake Tapper in August about Trump’s election interference case in Georgia, suggesting that Trump may see declining poll numbers in the early months of 2024.
“The Trump team is worried about this series of events where they may have from January to March he could effectively be on two different trials. He’s benefited tremendously and remarkably from these indictments and the polls and in his fundraising,” the former Trump aide said.
“I think you’re going to see that decline in the new year though, campaigns are going to be in full swing, you’re going to come up on the Iowa caucus. He may not be able to attend events because of trial dates,” she said.
“I think he is very cognizant that could force him to lose a very critical election window ahead of actually determining who the nominee is, so he is worried about that.”
Meanwhile, Trump has previously taken aim at Farah Griffin. In a post to Truth Social in May he called his former aide a “sleazebag,” “loser” and a “backbencher,” after her comments about Trump’s appearance on a CNN town hall special.
Farah Griffin had said, “America got to see who he is last night: a ranting, raving lunatic.”
A number of other prominent Republicans are warning voters what it could mean for America if Trump does win in 2024.
“He represents a clear and present danger. He is a threat and I take him at his word. When a candidate says, ‘I am your retribution’ to his base, that’s not good for the rest of us. People need to get their heads out of their behinds when it comes to what that threat is,” Steele said.
“Donald made me the very first political prisoner held by this country for failing to waive a First Amendment constitutional right,” Cohen, who is a key witness in the trial, said in an MSNBC interview on All In With Chris Hayes. “Let me be very clear about something: I won’t be the last if in fact he gets into office.”
Trump and his allies say that the former president made the U.S. stronger, and that Biden has weakened the country’s standing in the world. The former president often accuses Biden and Democrats of “destroying” the country, and says the legal challenges he faces are all politically motivated.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Looking for solutions to inflation, a couple of Republican presidential candidates at Wednesday night’s GOP debate pointed the finger at energy costs, saying increased oil drilling would bring down prices across the board.
But there’s one arguable flaw in that argument: The United States is already producing oil at a record pace.
In response to a question from NBC debate moderator Lester Holt on what could be done to immediately help Americans manage the cost of living, biotech Vivek Ramaswamy said, “Increase the supply of energy. That brings down the cost of energy, grows the economy.”
“Drill. Frack. Burn coal. Embrace nuclear,” he added.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took the same tack in his answer.
“When you go ahead and you tell people we are going to unleash every bit of American energy, every bit of its potential, what happens in the futures markets? The prices go down,” he said.
“We should focus not just on being energy independent. We should focus on being energy dominant,” said Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.).
According to EIA data, crude oil production rose to 13.053 million barrels in August, the latest month for which data is available and barely edging our November 2019’s 13.000 million.
The White House has been touting that inflation ― measured by monthly growth compared to the same month the year before ― has been steadily falling for most of this year. However, polling shows price levels remain near the top of voters’ minds and Republicans have blamed profligate federal spending for the surge.
The Federal Reserve, which is in charge of keeping inflation down, did not raise interest rates at its most recent meeting that ended Nov. 1, a sign it was confident inflation was returning to the central bank’s 2% annual target.
But in its post-meeting statement, the Fed’s policymaking panel warned, “The Committee will continue to assess additional information and its implications for monetary policy.”
