Tag: government organizations – us

Former US fighter pilot arrested in Australia over China training allegations ‘singled out,’ lawyer says | CNN

The lawyer for former US Marine Corps pilot Daniel Duggan said he was “singled out” for extradition to the United States to face charges of training Chinese military fliers, even though other Australians provided military services to foreign states.

Australia’s attorney-general last month accepted an extradition request from Washington for Duggan, who was arrested in rural Australia in October. He remains in custody in Sydney, and his next court date is on Feb. 13.

Duggan is accused of training Chinese pilots to land on aircraft carriers, and faces charges of money laundering and breaking US arms control laws in the United States, according to a 2017 indictment unsealed in December.

He was arrested the same week that Britain announced a crackdown on former military pilots training Chinese fliers.

Duggan’s lawyer Dennis Miralis said outside a Sydney court on Tuesday that Duggan “contests and denies” the US allegations, and intended to contest the extradition request.

“He has clearly, in our view, been singled out in circumstances where the Department of Defense has admitted that it has known of many Australian citizens who have performed foreign services in other jurisdictions with foreign states of a military nature,” he told reporters.

The defense minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Australia launched a review into the obligations former Defence Force personnel have to protect state secrets, after reports Australians were among Western military pilots who had been approached to help train the Chinese military.

Duggan was arrested in rural Australia in October after returning from China, where he had lived since 2014.

He became an Australian citizen after serving in the Marines for 12 years, and later renounced his US citizenship.

The final decision to surrender Duggan would be made by the attorney-general after the court decides whether he is eligible to be extradited, Miralis said.

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January 9, 2023
DOJ appeals decision that faulted Air Force for 2017 Texas church shooting | CNN Politics

CNN
—

The Justice Department on Monday formally appealed a 2021 federal court ruling that found the US government was mostly responsible for the 2017 mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, arguing that the court erred when it said the government was more at fault for the massacre than the shooter himself.

During the shooting, the gunman, former US Air Force member Devin Patrick Kelley, killed 26 people and wounded 22 others at the First Baptist Church in the small community of Sutherland Springs. He died later that day from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“The attack on innocent victims at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs was an inexpressible tragedy and the United States unequivocally does not seek to excuse the Air Force’s failure to submit Kelley’s fingerprints and record of conviction for inclusion in NICS databases,” attorneys for the department wrote in court papers filed Monday evening. “Nonetheless, under settled Texas and federal law, the United States is not liable for Kelley’s actions, and is certainly not more responsible for those acts than the murderer himself.”

DOJ spokeswoman Dena Iverson said in a recent statement that the government and plaintiffs have been engaged in a months-long effort to resolve the case through an out-of-court resolution.

“Although the formal mediation has now ended, we remain open to resolving the plaintiffs’ claims through settlement and will continue our efforts to do so,” Iverson said.

In a July 2021 ruling from US District Judge Xavier Rodriguez for the Western District of Texas, the court found the government 60% responsible for the harm that happened in the shooting and “jointly and severally liable for the damages that may be awarded.”

Rodriguez concluded the Air Force failed to exercise reasonable care when it didn’t submit the shooter’s criminal history to the FBI’s background check system, which increased the risk of physical harm to the general public.

“Even if the United States could be liable, the court erred in apportioning 60% of the responsibility to the United States (20% for line employees and 40% for supervisors), leaving only 40% for Kelley,” the DOJ attorneys argued in their filing on Monday.

“The court committed legal error in apportioning a share of responsibility to the United States under a negligent supervision theory after already imposing liability for the acts of the supervised line employees – under Texas law, these theories are mutually exclusive. Moreover, the court erred by holding the United States more responsible for Kelley’s outrages than Kelley himself,” they wrote.

In its filing, the DOJ asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to hold oral arguments to hear the appeal, writing: “The record in this case is voluminous and the legal issues are important and complex. Oral argument will be of substantial benefit to this Court in understanding the important issues in the case.”

Victims of the shooting and families who suffered a loss in the incident have previously voiced opposition to the DOJ’s plan to appeal the decision, with an attorney for some of them saying on Monday that the move “dealt a blow to America’s safety.”

“The DOJ’s appeal asks the court to hold that flagrantly and repeatedly violating the law – for over thirty years – by allowing child abusing felons and domestic violence offenders’ guns does not risk the safety of the public. The twenty-six dead and twenty-two injured at the Sutherland Springs mass shooting disagree,” Jamal Alsaffar, the lead attorney for the Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church families, said in a statement.

Kelley was charged in military court in 2012 on suspicion of assaulting his spouse and their child. Kelley received a bad conduct discharge, confinement for 12 months, and was demoted to E-1, or airman basic.

But despite his history of domestic abuse and questionable behavior involving firearms, Kelley was able to purchase the Ruger AR-556 rifle he allegedly used in the shooting from a store in San Antonio in April 2016, a law enforcement official previously told CNN.

The failure to relay that information prevented the entry of his conviction into the federal database that must be checked before someone is able to purchase a firearm. Had his information been in the database at the National Criminal Information Center, it should have prevented gun sales to Kelley. Federal law prohibits people convicted of a misdemeanor crime involving domestic violence from owning firearms.

Rodriguez’s order stated that no other individual – not even the shooter’s parents or partners – knew as much as the government did about his violent history and the violence he was capable of committing.

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January 9, 2023
90% of Californians are under flood watches as another storm threatens mudslides, power outages and deadly inundation | CNN

CNN
—

Much of California can’t soak up another drop of rain. Yet the state is getting pummeled again with torrential downpours and ferocious winds, causing power outages and treacherous travel conditions.

More than 34 million Californians were under a flood watch Monday – about 90% of the state’s population and 10% of the US population.

Parts of the central California coast got walloped with 1 to 1.25 inches of rainfall per hour, the Weather Prediction Center said. Extensive rainfall there Monday triggered significant flooding, mudslides, debris flows and closed roadways.

Widespread rainfall totals of 3 to 6 inches have been observed from just south of San Francisco to just north of Los Angeles. Isolated amounts of 6 to more than 10 inches have been observed in the higher terrain near the coast.

As the rain shifted slowly to the south Monday toward Los Angeles, the National Weather Service there warned of the risk of flooding, debris flow in land scarred by recent wildfires and an increased risk of rock and mudslides in mountains and on canyon roads.

And hurricane-force wind gusts topping 74 mph thrashed states across the western US. More than 37 million people were under wind alerts Monday in California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Arizona and Wyoming.

A 132-mph wind gust lashed Oroville, California. Residents in Washoe City, Nevada, were hit with a 98-mph gust, the Weather Prediction Center said.

TRACK THE STORMS

“Expect widespread power outages, downed trees and difficult driving conditions,” the National Weather Service in Sacramento tweeted. “Now is the time to prepare if you have not already!”

Almost 92,000 homes, businesses and other power customers had no electricity Monday evening, according to PowerOutage.us.

And the central California coast could be at risk of a tornado, CNN Meteorologist Dave Hennen said.

The severe weather is part of a relentless parade of atmospheric rivers slamming the West Coast.

California is now extremely vulnerable to flooding because much of the state has been scarred by historic drought or devastating wildfires – meaning the land can’t soak up much rainfall.

And after an onslaught of storms since late December led to deadly flooding, Gov. Gavin Newsom warned Sunday: “We expect to see the worst of it still in front of us.”

Two bouts of major rainfall are expected to hammer the West Coast over the next few days – without much of a break between events for the water to recede.

The system is part of an atmospheric river – a long, narrow region in the atmosphere that can transport moisture thousands of miles, like a fire hose in the sky.

The atmospheric river slamming California on Monday could result in a 1-in-50 year or 1-in-100 year rainfall event near Fresno, the Weather Prediction Center said.

A moderate risk – level 3 of 4 – of excessive rainfall covers over 26 million people in California, including in San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Fresno, where rain could fall at 1 inch per hour.

The San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz County has risen 14 feet in just over four hours and is in major flood stage. Parts of the county will experience “widespread flooding at shallow depths,” and the city of Santa Cruz will have serious flooding, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and US Geological Survey.

The threat will shift further south Tuesday, with a level 3 of 4 risk centered over Los Angeles.

“While some of the forecast rain totals are impressive alone, it is important to note that what really sets this event apart are the antecedent conditions,” the National Weather Service office in San Francisco said.

“Multiple systems over the past week have saturated soil, increased flow in rivers and streams, and truly set the stage for this to become a high impact event.”

In Sacramento County, officials warned “flooding is imminent” and issued evacuation orders for the Wilton community near the Cosumnes River before roads become impassable.

Wilton residents also had to evacuate during last week’s storm, when exit routes flooded quickly, officials said.

El Dorado, Monterey, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara and Alameda counties have issued evacuation warnings or recommendations for some areas due to possible flooding and other safety risks as forecasters warned of swelling rivers.

Residents in all all areas of Montecito, parts of Santa Barbara and Summerland are being ordered to evacuate immediately due to the threat of the ongoing storm, the local fire department announced Tuesday.

Montecito is a haven for the rich and famous, including Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex; Oprah Winfrey and Ellen Degeneres. Monday marks exactly five years since heavy rains in the area caused deadly mud- and landslides.

Santa Barbara County authorities are advising residents to “be prepared to sustain yourself and your household for multiple days if you choose not to evacuate, as you may not be able to leave the area and emergency responders may not be able to access your property in the event of road damage, flooding, or a debris flow.”

Newsom on Sunday asked the White House for an emergency declaration to support response and recovery efforts.

“We are in the middle of a deadly barrage of winter storms – and California is using every resource at its disposal to protect lives and limit damage,” Newsom said in a statement. “We are taking the threat from these storms seriously, and want to make sure that Californians stay vigilant as more storms head our way.”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Monday issued a Local Proclamation of Emergency due to the ongoing series of winter storms that began New Year’s Eve, according to a news release from his office.

This storm system arrives on the heels of a powerful cyclone that flooded roads, toppled trees and knocked out power last week to much of California. Earlier, a New Year’s weekend storm system produced deadly flooding.

At least 12 Californians have died from “storm-related impacts” such as flooding since late December, the governor’s office said.

In San Luis Obispo County, dive teams from the sheriff’s office and Cal Fire rescuers were searching Monday for a 5-year-old child reported to have been swept away in flood waters near the Salinas River in San Miguel.

“Floods kill more individuals than any other natural disaster,” California Emergency Services Director Nancy Ward said Sunday. “We’ve already had more deaths in this flood storm since December 31 than we had in the last two fire seasons of the highest fire acreage burned in California.”

Flood-related deaths can happen when drivers attempt to cross standing water.

“Just a foot of water and your car’s floating. Half a foot of water, you’re off your feet. Half foot of water, you’re losing control of your vehicle,” Newsom said.

“We’re seeing people go around these detours because they don’t see any obstacles – they think everything is fine, and putting their lives at risk or putting first responders lives at risk.”

For anyone who doesn’t need to travel during the peak of this storm, “please don’t,” California Secretary of Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot said. “Be prepared for power outages and other interruptions. Have those flashlights, the candles, batteries, charge cell phones at the ready.”

Already, flooded roads, toppled trees and downed power lines are making travel difficult, California Highway Patrol said. Some fallen trees crushed cars and homes over the weekend. On Monday, portions of the Pacific Coast Highway – US 101, a major north-south highway, were closed.

The Santa Barbara Airport, a tri-county regional airport, is closed because of flooding airport officials said Monday.

California is experiencing “weather whiplash,” going from intense drought conditions to now contending with its fifth atmospheric river, Newsom said.

Much of the state has already seen 5 to 8 inches of rain over the last week. Two to 4 more inches of rain are expected across the coasts and valleys – and even more in mountains and foothills through Tuesday.

Rising from swelling rivers could spill over and inundate communities.

The rainfall over the weekend brought renewed flood concerns for streams, creeks and rivers. The Colgan Creek, Berryessa Creek, Mark West Creek, Green Valley Creek and the Cosumnes River all have gauges that are either above flood stage or expected to be in the next few days.

“The cumulative effect of successive heavy rainfall events will lead to additional instances of flooding. This includes rapid water rises, mudslides, and the potential for major river flooding,” the National Weather Service said Monday.

The moisture is expected to sink southward Monday night, making flooding “increasing likely” over the Southern California coastal ranges Tuesday, the weather service said. Fierce winds are expected to accompany the storm as it pushes inland.

“Valley areas will likely see gusts as high as 45-50 mph, with gusts greater than 60 mph possible in wind prone areas,” the National Weather Service in Reno said. The Sierra Ridge could receive peak gusts between 130 to 150 mph Monday.

For those at higher elevations, intense snow and ferocious winds will be the biggest concerns.

Parts of the higher elevations in the Sierra Nevada have gotten more than 100” – or 8.3 feet – of snow in just the past few weeks, the Weather Prediction Center said.

Now, another 6 feet of snow is expected in some parts of the Sierra.

As the storm pushes inland, more than 5 feet of snow could fall along the Sierra Crest west of Lake Tahoe, the weather service said.

The heavy snow and strong winds could lead to near whiteout conditions on roads.

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January 9, 2023
Giuliani subpoenaed amid special counsel investigation into Trump’s fundraising | CNN Politics

Washington
CNN
—

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has subpoenaed Donald Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani, asking him to turn over records to a federal grand jury as part of an investigation into the former president’s fundraising following the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the subpoena.

The subpoena, which was sent more than a month ago and has not been previously reported, requests documents from Giuliani about payments he received around the 2020 election, when Giuliani filed numerous lawsuits on Trump’s behalf contesting the election results, the person said.

Prosecutors have also subpoenaed other witnesses who are close to Trump, asking specifically for documents related to disbursements from the Save America PAC, Trump’s primary fundraising operation set up shortly after the 2020 election, according to other sources with insight into the probe.

Taken together, the subpoenas demonstrate prosecutors’ growing interest in following the money after the 2020 election as part of their sweeping criminal probe around Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss of the presidency.

Save America was part of broader fundraising efforts by Trump and the Republican Party that raised more than $250 million after the election. Since then, the political action committee has compensated several lawyers who now represent Trump and his allies in January 6-related investigations.

The subpoenas to other witnesses in addition to Giuliani were sent in late December, according to the other sources.

The information the prosecutors seek is still being collected, the sources said. With Giuliani, the investigators have prioritized getting financial information from him, one person said.

The inquiry to Giuliani came from David Rody, a former top prosecutor in New York who specializes in gang and conspiracy cases and is assisting Smith with examining a broader criminal conspiracy after the election, according to some of the sources.

In response to being informed of CNN’s reporting on Giuliani’s subpoena and asked for a statement, Ted Goodman, his adviser, said, “The mayor is unaware of the specific claims by this so-called ‘anonymous source,’ and therefore is not in position to respond.”

A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.

A representative for Trump has not responded to a request for comment.

CNN previously reported the Justice Department in September subpoenaed witnesses for financial details about the Save America PAC, and that a portion of Smith’s office would dig into possible financial and campaign contribution crimes. The Giuliani subpoena and other December subpoenas represent a new round of inquiry, now from Smith’s office, which took shape over the holidays.

After the election, Trump and the Republican National Committee raked in millions of dollars as they told supporters the election was being stolen, marketing the fundraising effort as election defense. At the time, some officials working on the fundraising effort knew that Joe Biden’s electoral win was legitimate, despite Trump’s insistence it was fraudulent, the House Select Committee found in its own investigation.

Smith’s office hasn’t brought any charges. Federal prosecutors in New York previously investigated Giuliani for activities in Ukraine during the Trump presidency. While that led to prosecutors accessing his electronic devices, they declined to charge him with any crime.

Giuliani is likely to be a central figure in any probe of Trump’s close political circles after the election. After serving as Trump’s private attorney during the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the former chief federal prosecutor and mayor of Manhattan dove into Trump’s attempts to claim electoral victory. He unsuccessfully argued a case before a federal judge in Pennsylvania – where Trump sought to throw out the popular vote – and connected with state lawmakers as he tried to convince them of election fraud.

In the weeks after the 2020 election, Giuliani also held freewheeling press conferences, repeating allegations that he never could prove.

A Trump campaign attorney told the January 6 committee that Giuliani had asked to be paid $20,000 a day for his post-election work for Trump. The campaign declined to pay him that, according to election and House select committee public records.

Subpoenas issued last year to a wide swath of Trump-connected witnesses also asked questions about the Save America PAC, including how its funds were used in 2020 and early 2021, and about Giuliani, as CNN previously reported.

Giuliani hasn’t personally received distributions directly from the PAC, according to campaign finance records. Yet his company, Giuliani Partners, was paid $63,400 for travel reimbursement by Trump’s campaign committee in mid-December 2020. Giuliani’s New York-based security company also received a $76,500 payment from another Trump-backed entity, the Make America Great Again PAC, for travel expenses, in early February 2021, according to the records.

In addition to the financial inquiry, Smith’s office is also pursuing possible criminal cases around the Trump campaign’s use of fake electors in battleground states and the pressure on Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election’s result. In all of those schemes, Giuliani was a central player.

In his House select committee testimony, Giuliani explained that his team working with Trump pivoted to focus on state legislatures that could block the election result after his attempts failed in the courts. The New York state bar suspended him from practicing law because of his 2020 election efforts, and he’s also facing an attorney discipline proceeding in Washington, DC.

He declined to answer some questions the House asked about his work for Trump after the election, citing attorney confidentiality. Giuliani could try to make similar claims in the federal investigation, though the Justice Department has legal mechanisms in which it can try to overcome witness refusals to answer questions.

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January 9, 2023
The most chilling warning for Americans from Brazil’s version of January 6 | CNN Politics

CNN
—

On the face of it, the mob storming of government buildings in Brazil in support of a defeated ex-president making false claims of electoral fraud looks like a copycat assault on democracy inspired by the US Capitol insurrection.

But for Americans, the reality of the comparison between the insurrection inspired by the 45th US president on January, 6, 2021, and the latest revolt by supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, dubbed “Trump of the Tropics,” is even more troubling. Brazil is in turmoil after hundreds of Bolsonaro supporters stormed congressional buildings, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace in the capital Brasilia. The assault came a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who returned to power after a 12-year hiatus following a victory over Bolsonaro in a run-off election on October 30.

While many elements of the situation in Brazil overlap with the populist conservatism epitomized by former President Donald Trump’s inner circle in the US, it also poses the question of whether the US, under assault from its own anti-democratic movement, is beginning to resemble the political turmoil that has long raged in less stable regions of the world.

For now, there are growing questions over whether key extremists in Trump’s inner circle, like Steve Bannon, helped fan the violence in Brasilia and doubts over the Brazilian election, as part of a bid to destabilize democracies worldwide.

Bolsonaro did not explicitly provoke the gathering of protesters as Trump did, and was not in the country at the time of the riot. He did, however, adopt the Trump playbook, sowing doubt about the vote’s legitimacy, refusing to concede his election loss and profiting from disinformation spread on social media. But his behavior is not necessarily an outlier in a nation and a continent where democracy is perpetually fragile and at risk.

Brazil was a military-run dictatorship until 1985 after the crushing of an earlier attempt at democracy, and civilian self-government since then has often been rocked by corruption, fears of military takeovers and prosecutions of former presidents. The erosion of democracy and the use of violence as a political tool were a feature of much of the Western Hemisphere long before Trump latched onto them.

So, while it may look like Brazilian extremists are copying their brethren in the US, the world’s most important democracy could actually be importing the characteristics of malfunctioning and chaotic political societies abroad.

Violence had long been feared following October’s election. Bolsonaro supporters, spurred by his false claims of electoral fraud, that mirrored Trump’s own behavior after the 2020 election, clearly incited his supporters. Just as in the United States, there are elements among Brazilian legislators and in political power in the states who support Bolsonaro and his efforts to undermine democracy.

The new House majority in Washington is packed with Republican members who voted not to certify President Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020 based on false claims of ballot fraud. And the new Speaker Kevin McCarthy only finally won the job on a 15th ballot after an intervention from Trump – poignantly on the night that marked the second anniversary of Congress returning to work after the Capitol riot.

In other echoes of January 6, Bolsonaro – like his populist, nationalist political cousin Trump – is currently in Florida. Like the 45th US president, he also prepared to undermine the election in advance and refused to concede defeat after making complaints about voting machines that were rejected by judges. The closest he got was when he said he would comply with the Constitution.

So far, Brazil’s democracy, as America’s did two years ago, has held firm, and protesters have been flushed out of government buildings. But the Biden administration has been concerned from the start about the implications of Bolsonaro’s election denialism in a nation that is a political and economic fulcrum in Latin America. It warned publicly and in private, weeks before the election that then-President Bolsonaro should not sabotage democracy, clearly understanding the parallels with Trump and more broadly the dangers facing Brazilian democracy since the end of military rule in the 1980s.

Biden, who has put the threats to global democracy at the center of his foreign policy, condemned the assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in a tweet. “Brazil’s democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined,” Biden wrote. “I look forward to continuing to work with @LulaOficial,” he wrote, referring to the current president.

But the violence in Brazil came as a jolt after the last year in which democracy appeared to be making a comeback around the world, including in the United States where voters in some swing states rejected election denialism pushed by many of Trump’s political proteges in the midterm elections.

The most powerful example that Washington can send to Brazil, and other nations where political systems are under duress, is that democracy bent but didn’t break in 2021, and that those who threatened it are starting to be held to account.

But two dates, January 6 in the US and January 8 in Brazil, now stand as flashing warning signs that the health and survival of free elections anywhere cannot be taken for granted.

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January 9, 2023
Why is Wall Street cheery all of a sudden? | CNN Business

New York
CNN
—

It’s only early January, but so far in 2023 the pendulum on Wall Street has swung (to paraphrase Billy Joel) from sadness to euphoria.

Stocks are off to a solid start following last year’s dismal performance. Even though the Dow fell more than 110 points, or 0.3%, to close Monday’s session it is still up more than 1% this year. The S&P 500 ended Monday down 0.1% while the Nasdaq gained 0.6%. But those two indexes are each up about 1.5% since the end of 2022.

Even the CNN Business Fear and Greed Index, which looks at seven indicators of market sentiment, is now inching closer to Greed territory — after languishing in Fear mode for the better part of the past few weeks.

But why is there such optimism on Wall Street all of a sudden? The headlines still aren’t necessarily that great.

Yes, the market cheered Friday’s jobs report because it showed slowing wage growth that could lead to a further reduction in inflation pressures and smaller rate hikes from the Federal Reserve. But it also showed the pace of job growth is slowing — and that could be a precursor to an eventual recession.

Meanwhile the Institute for Supply Management’s latest data showed the services sector, a big engine of the US economy, contracted last month. And several high-profile companies in the tech, consumer, financial services (and yes, media) industries have announced big layoffs or unveiled plans to hand out pink slips. Retailers such as Macy’s

(M) and Lululemon

(LULU) are warning about sales and profits.

Add all this up and it doesn’t sound like cause for celebration.

But Wall Street is a funny place: Good news is often viewed as a bad sign, and vice versa.

Sure, it would be a big plus if the Fed is able to pull off a proverbial soft landing, slowing the economy without leading to a full-blown recession and/or significant decline in corporate profits. But that’s a big if.

There’s another possibility that bulls are clinging to as well: that there will be a recession, but a mild one that also just so happens to be one of the most widely expected and telegraphed downturns in recent memory. This isn’t a proverbial black swan. There is no “Lehman moment” to catch everyone off guard.

As long as the Fed can get inflation under control, investors might not be too concerned by a recession anyway. At least, that’s the ‘glass is half full’ argument.

“Any recession will be perceived by investors to be less problematic if inflation is judged to be sufficiently contained, and the Fed is prepared to mount an appropriate monetary response,” said Robert Teeter, managing director of Silvercrest Asset Management, in a report.

Teeter added that falling inflation levels should boost stocks this year “even as earnings remain lackluster.”

But others see a problem with that argument.

“Our concern is that most [investors] are assuming ‘everyone is bearish’ and, therefore, the price downside in a recession is also likely to be mild,” said strategists at Morgan Stanley in a report.

Instead, the Morgan Stanley strategists think investors might be surprised by just how much lower stocks go if there is a recession. They noted that the market may not be pricing in “much weaker earnings.”

Investors may also be underestimating how far the Fed is willing to go with rate hikes in order to make sure inflation finally starts to fall.

“Many investors have been reassured by the strength of the US labor market. Yet…the Federal Reserve is determined to tighten monetary policy until that strength is eradicated — the recession clock is ticking,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, in a report.

And Shah does not believe the recession will be mild. She wrote after Friday’s jobs report that “a hard landing looks to be the most likely outcome this year.”

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January 9, 2023
GOP leaders scramble to secure vote for House rules package | CNN Politics

CNN
—

The House is expected to vote Monday evening on the rules package for the 118th Congress, in what will mark the first test of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s slim Republican majority after he made key concessions to GOP hardliners to win the gavel.

McCarthy’s concessions to the hardliners alienated some centrist House Republicans, and GOP leaders were racing Monday to alleviate those concerns. Sources told CNN that GOP leaders placed numerous calls and texts to Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who said Sunday she was “on the fence” over the House rules package.

McCarthy’s allies have been fanning the airwaves to try to clarify what is and isn’t in the rules package, particularly as it relates to defense spending.

Republican leadership is still confident they will have the votes for the rules package, but with such little margin for error – and this vote seen as McCarthy’s first test of whether he can govern – leaders are leaving little to chance.

GOP leaders are hoping to quickly push past the rules and onto their legislative agenda, with a vote slated for Monday evening after the rules on a bill to roll back $80 billion funding to staff up the Internal Revenue Service that was included in the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive social spending bill passed by Democrats in the last Congress.

Still, the skirmish over the House rules underscores the herculean task McCarthy faces as the leader of a House with a slim four-vote Republican majority that gives a small bloc of members on either side of the Republican political spectrum outsized sway to stand in the way of legislation.

In order to flip the 20 GOP holdouts last week, McCarthy agreed to a number of concessions. That included returning the House rules so that one member can move for a vote to oust the speaker. The California Republican agreed to expand the mandate of a new select committee investigating the “weaponization” of the federal government to include probing “ongoing criminal investigations,” setting up a showdown with the Biden administration and law enforcement agencies over their criminal probes, particularly those into former President Donald Trump.

McCarthy also signed off on a pledge that the Republican-led House would pair any debt ceiling increase to spending cuts and would approve a budget capping discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels – which, if implemented, would roll back the fiscal 2023 spending increase for both defense and non-defense spending from last month’s $1.7 trillion omnibus package.

Texas Rep. Tony Gonzalez was the first Republican to oppose the House rules on Friday. He said on Fox News Monday morning that he remained a no.

“I’m against the rules for a couple different reasons. One is the cut in defense spending, I think that’s an absolutely terrible idea, the other is the vacate the chair. I mean I don’t want to see us every two months be in lockdown,” Gonzalez said.

Mace said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” she was still “on the fence” about the rules package because she didn’t support “a small number of people trying to get a deal done or deals done for themselves in private.”

Republicans expected to back the rules package are also coming to grips with the concessions that McCarthy had to make to secure the speakership.

Rep. David Joyce, a moderate Ohio Republican, told CNN that McCarthy should be concerned that a single member can force that vote of no-confidence on the speakership.

“I’m not the speaker. So it concerns Kevin more than it concerns me, but that just took it back the way it was originally. And I don’t think that is going to change the way we do business around here,” he said, adding it should only be used in the most extreme of circumstances.

Asked if everyone agrees with that, Joyce told CNN: “Probably not.”

Rep. Tom Cole, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, told CNN: “I’m willing to cut spending and we need to do that. I’m not willing to cut defense and that is half the discretionary budget.”

Republican allies of McCarthy have sought to push back on the notion they will cut defense spending, saying it’s domestic spending that will be targeted.

“There’s going to be good conversations, there already has been, that you can’t cut defense, right? It needs to go on a very predictable trajectory,” said Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican. “We have massively increased spending on the non-defense programs, because that’s always the deal, right? There’s plenty to work with there, in my opinion.”

House GOP leaders are planning to hold votes this week on a bevy of red-meat messaging bills on taxes, abortion and energy, starting with Monday’s vote to roll back the IRS funding increases.

The bill is likely to pass the House on party lines but won’t be taken up by the Democratic-majority Senate.

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January 9, 2023
Biden struggles to confirm judges in the South and thwart Trump’s impact | CNN Politics

CNN
—

President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats have moved quickly to appoint scores of judges during the past two years, outpacing former President Donald Trump, but they have stalled in the South.

The dearth of nominees offered in southern states, notably where both US senators are Republican, threatens to undercut Biden’s large-scale effort to counteract Trump’s effect on the federal judiciary, particularly to bolster civil rights and ensure voter protections.

The Biden team’s well-documented diversification of the courts – nominees have been overwhelmingly women and people of color, such as Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and offered professional diversity, including public defenders and civil rights lawyers – has withered when it comes to district courts in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Texas, where more than a dozen such court vacancies exist.

“That is where the entrenchment of hyper-conservatism is real and difficult to uproot,” said Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

The pattern of vacancies, particularly in the South, is not lost on the Biden selection team, led by political veterans with deep experience in judicial selection and confirmation. (Biden, himself, as a senator from Delaware, once led the Senate Judiciary Committee.)

“All of these seats are deeply important to us. We care about all of these vacancies,” Paige Herwig, senior counsel to the President, told CNN. “It’s not a secret that a large number of vacancies are in states with two Republican senators. But we are always here in good faith. We are here to work with home state senators.”

Many states beyond the South with two GOP senators, such as Idaho, Oklahoma and Utah, lack nominees for court vacancies, but the South is disproportionately affected because of its sheer population and number of open seats. The South also endures as a battleground for intense litigation over civil rights and liberties.

Federal judges are appointed for life and can become a president’s most enduring legacy. Judges’ effect on American life is clear, from the top at the Supreme Court, down to district court judges who decide which litigants even get to trial.

District courts are “the gateway to access to justice,” Nelson said.

District court judges have also shown their muscle in recent years by blocking executive branch policy with nationwide injunctions. Biden’s early initiatives, notably over immigration and student-debt relief, were first thwarted in lower courts by Republican-appointed judges.

During Biden’s first two years, the White House and Senate Democrats plainly prioritized judicial vacancies in blue states, where they could make swift and immediate progress.

Overall, Biden won confirmations for 97 appointments to the US district courts, appellate bench and Supreme Court over the past two years.

For the comparable two-year period, Trump, who set out to transform the federal courts the help of White House counsel Don McGahn and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, had named 85 judges. They scouted out likeminded conservative ideologues and then accelerated appointments in the following years by openly encouraging judges to retire to generate more vacancies.

U.S. Supreme Court says Trump-era border policy to remain in effect while legal challenges play out

10:08

– Source:
CNN

Like other progressive leaders, Nelson praises the Biden focus on a more diverse bench. Yet she said the White House could step up the pace of nominations and the Senate can move faster on the nominees it has received.

“Nancy Abudu is an excellent example of someone whose nomination has been stalled,” Nelson said. Abudu, a litigation director at the Southern Poverty Law Center, would, if confirmed, be the first Black woman on the US appeals court for the 11th Circuit, covering Alabama, Georgia and Florida. She was designated for an open Georgia seat and endorsed by the state’s two senators, both of whom are Democrats.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which had been evenly split between Democrats and Republicans last year, deadlocked in May on Abudu’s nomination, and she had been awaiting a procedural vote by the full Senate that then would have allowed an up-or-down vote on confirmation. Biden has renominated her for the new Congress.

The question now is whether the White House will be able to ramp up negotiations with red-state senators and whether the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, will ease the practice of requiring district court nominees to have the backing of home-state senators.

By the terms of the Constitution, a president seeks the “advice and consent” of the Senate judicial appointments. Senators traditionally have influenced the selection of nominations to district and appellate courts in their home states, even to the point of blocking a disfavored candidate. In recent years, however, presidents have been able to wield more latitude for appeals court nominations.

The Judiciary Committee, however, will not hold a hearing on a district court nomination unless both home-state senators have signed off, in what’s referred to as the “blue slip” process. These blue slips of paper, as they are relayed to the committee, are intended to signify that a home-state senator has been consulted in the president’s choice. For Biden’s judicial selections, that process poses significant roadblocks.

Herwig, overseeing the judicial selection machinery, stresses that Biden is trying to generate consensus and says appointments for a Louisiana-based seat on the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit (Judge Dana Douglas) and Indiana-based seat on the 7th Circuit (Judge Doris Pryor), which arose from some dealings with GOP senators, “demonstrate that there are possibilities to work together.” The Senate confirmed Douglas and Pryor, both former US magistrate judges, in December.

A second seat on the powerful 5th Circuit appellate court, covering Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, is open with no nominee. Judge Gregg Costa, based in Texas, had announced about a year ago that he would be resigning in August 2022.

While a good portion of the open seats can be chalked up to Democratic and Republican differences, another notable appellate vacancy – for a Maryland seat on the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit – rests in Democratic hands.

Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, announced her retirement more than a year ago, and made it effective in September 2022. But Biden and Sen. Ben Cardin, Maryland’s senior senator, have been at odds over a successor, and the White House apparently does not want to more forward without Cardin’s backing. Herwig would not comment on that vacancy, and a Cardin spokeswoman said the senator was awaiting word from the White House on his suggested nominees.

In the meantime, the 4th Circuit, resolving appeals from Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia district courts, remains closely divided with seven Democratic and six Republican appointees.

Biden’s team signaled from the start its priority for the judiciary, and White House chief of staff Ron Klain, a former Supreme Court law clerk, has been fixated on filling the bench. Klain worked with then-Sen. Biden on the Judiciary Committee and separately helped evaluate judicial candidates in the Clinton and Obama administrations.

Herwig is a product of the Senate, too, previously serving two Democratic senators who sit on the Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein and Amy Klobuchar.

In the South, however, where voting rights and immigration disputes rage, change has been slow. Going forward, as Democrats gained one more seat in the November midterm elections toward their Senate majority, southern states are likely to become a critical arena for an administration determined to reshape the bench.

The Administrative Office of the US Courts reports that as of January 6, there were 82 vacancies on federal district and appellate courts. Biden has designated nominees for only about half of those vacancies. (There are a total 677 authorized judgeships at the trial-level US district courts, 179 on the US courts of appeals and nine on the Supreme Court.)

The South has a disproportionate share of those vacancies without nominations.

Of all 50 states, Florida and Louisiana have the most openings with no nominees pending, 4 apiece. Texas has three vacancies with no nominees pending, and Alabama two (one dating to mid-2020) with no nominees offered.

It is plain, given the number of vacancies and how long some have existed, that it will not be easy to fill them. And it is unclear whether the Democratic White House and Republican senators are truly talking to each other, or actually talking past each other.

Press secretaries for Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, deeply invested in the ideology of the bench, and regularly opposing Biden appointees, said the senators were working with the administration on judges.

In Louisiana, the communications director to Sen. John Kennedy, another member of the Judiciary Committee, said Kennedy’s office had no information to provide on possible appointments in Louisiana.

Ryann DuRant, press secretary to Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, said the White House reached out to Tuberville soon after he became a senator in 2021 to address the courts, but that since then, “there has been radio silence from the White House.”

“When the White House is ready to move forward on Alabama judicial nominees,” DuRant added in a statement, “Senator Tuberville welcomes the opportunity to discuss as a part of his role to provide advice and consent.”

McKinley Lewis, communications director for Florida Sen. Rick Scott, said the senator welcomed “an open, good faith dialogue with the White House to ensure any nominees to serve on Florida’s federal courts will respect the limited role of the judiciary and will not legislate from the bench.”

Herwig declined to detail any conservations yet stressed that there was no senator with whom her team would not work.

It’s unclear whether the Senate Judiciary Committee will feel increased pressure, from its Democratic ranks or from outside liberal interests, to amend the “blue slip” process.

Trump’s total appointments in four years reached 231, a figure that might be hard for Biden to match, if stalemates continue in Republican-dominated locales.

There are at least another 20 vacancies expected in 2023, based on information gathered by the Administrative Office of the US Courts. About a third of those are in southern locales.

At some point, judges weighing retirement, and equally concerned about whether Biden could successfully tap a replacement, may simply opt against stepping down during his remaining presidency.

In the Trump years, his GOP allies openly encouraged judges thinking about retirement to just do it. It was a sign of how vigorously Republican leaders wanted to shape the courts.

Speaking specifically of Supreme Court justices, former Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said in a 2018 radio interview, “If you’re thinking about quitting this year, do it yesterday.”

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January 9, 2023
Bonds are back, but for how long? | CNN Business

A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.

New York
CNN
—

Stocks soared on Friday to their best day in more than a month. The Dow gained 700 points and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose by 2.3% and 2.6% respectively, as traders bet that a slowdown in wage growth could mean that inflation may finally be cooling off.

But the big turnaround story during the short first week of the year isn’t just about equities, it’s also about bonds.

What’s happening: US Treasuries recorded their worst year in history in 2022, but investors are suddenly reversing course. They now appear quite optimistic about the bond market.

Last year’s bond massacre came as the Fed raised short-term interest rates at the fastest speed in about four decades, lifting the Fed funds rate to its highest level in over a decade. Bonds are particularly sensitive to those increases — as rates are hiked, the price of existing bonds falls as investors prefer the new debt that will soon be issued with those higher interest payouts.

But now investors are betting that those rate increases are mostly over and that inflationary pressures are on a downswing.

Treasuries just notched their strongest start to a year since 2001, back when investors eagerly purchased government debt under the (correct) assumption that then-Fed chair Alan Greenspan was about to slash interest rates. This time around, investors are scooping up bonds as they anticipate the pace of Fed interest rate hikes will soon ease.

That’s great news for Treasuries. Core bonds, or US investment grade debt, tend to perform well during Fed rate hike pauses. Since 1984, core bonds have been able to generate average 6-month and 1-year returns of 8% and 13%, respectively, after the Fed stopped raising rates, according to data from LPL Financial.

That anticipation could be seen at the end of last week. Treasuries tumbled following strong private jobs data earlier in the week but quickly rebounded when US payroll data showed that wage growth was weakening.

The gains are in sync with economists’ positive outlooks for falling yields and rising bond prices in 2023.

The other side: The problem is that there’s no guarantee that interest rates will actually come down, and investors could find themselves blindsided if they don’t.

“The potential for rates to go high and stay higher for longer would hit bond markets hard, especially considering weaker economies would likely force governments to borrow more,” said Chris Varrone, managing director at Strategas, a Baird Company.

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers issued a warning on Friday to bond investors who assume that inflation is easing and a new era of low interest rates is upon us.

“I suspect tumult” for bonds in 2023, Summers said on Bloomberg Television. “This is going to be remembered as a ‘V’ year when we recognized that we were headed into a different kind of financial era, with different kinds of interest-rate patterns.”

Persistently high inflation may have put a damper on holiday shopping.

Macy’s chair and CEO Jeff Gennette said Friday that lulls during the non-peak weeks of the fourth quarter “were deeper than anticipated” and that consumers will continue to feel pressured into 2023, reports my colleague Ramishah Maruf.

Macy’s said Friday its net sales from the holiday quarter will likely be at the low-end to mid-point of its previously issued forecast range of $8.16 billion to $8.4 billion. It reported Q4 sales of $8.67 billion in 2021.

Americans spent more this season to keep up with high prices. US retail sales increased 7.6% during the period between November 1 to December 24 compared to the same time last year, according to the Mastercard Spending Pulse. US retail sales were lower than expected in November, falling 0.6% during the month, which was the weakest performance in nearly a year.

Gennette warned that consumer sentiment is unlikely to change with the new year.

“Based on current macro-economic indicators and our proprietary credit card data, we believe the consumer will continue to be pressured in 2023, particularly in the first half, and have planned inventory mix and depth of initial buys accordingly,” the Macy’s CEO said.

The company expects to report full results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 in early March 2023.

China’s heavy-handed crackdown on tech giants is coming to an end and the country’s economic growth is expected to be back on track soon, according to a top central bank official, my colleague Laura He reports.

The crackdown on fintech operations of more than a dozen internet companies is “basically” over, said Guo Shuqing, the Communist Party boss at the People’s Bank of China, in an interview with state-run Xinhua news agency on Saturday.

“Next, we’ll promote healthy development of internet platforms,” said Guo, who is also chairman of China’s Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission. “We’ll encourage them to come out strong in leading economic growth, creating more jobs, and competing globally.”

His remarks came on the same day Chinese billionaire Jack Ma gave up control of Ant Group after the fintech giant’s shareholders agreed to restructure the company.

Chinese tech stocks listed on US exchanges have already enjoyed a dream start to 2023.

The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index — a popular index tracking Chinese firms listed in the United States — soared 13% in the first two trading days of 2023. That was the index’s best yearly start on record, according to data compiled by Refinitiv dating back to 2003.

US-listed shares of Chinese e-commerce firms Alibaba

(BABA), JD.com

(JD), and Pinduoduo

(PDD) added $53 billion to their combined market value last Wednesday alone.

The sweeping regulatory crackdown since late 2020 had driven investors away. In 2021 and 2022, the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index plummeted 46% and 25% respectively.

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January 9, 2023
House GOP select panel will target DOJ and FBI and their ‘ongoing criminal investigations’ | CNN Politics

CNN
—

House Republicans are gearing up to investigate the Department of Justice and the FBI, including their “ongoing criminal investigations,” setting up a showdown with the Biden administration and law enforcement agencies over their criminal probes, particularly those into former President Donald Trump.

The new House GOP majority has proposed that a new select subcommittee be formed – a result of one of the key concessions House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made to his opposition to secure the gavel.

In addition to having the power to investigate all ongoing criminal probes of the executive branch, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government would also “be authorized to receive information available to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,” giving it access to the most highly classified information in Congress, according to the proposal.

An earlier draft of the select subcommittee proposal gave it less power and was much narrower in scope: It would have only been able to focus on the FBI, DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security, and made no mention of getting access to ongoing criminal investigations.

Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, an early holdout against McCarthy who became a key negotiator for the hard-liners, said on Fox News that changes made to the select subcommittee proposal, particularly seeking a budget as big as the January 6 select committee, was key to getting those initially opposed to McCarthy on board.

“So we got more resources, more specificity, more power to go after this recalcitrant Biden administration,” Roy said Friday. “That’s really important.”

The select subcommittee would be under the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee, which is partly why Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the committee’s incoming chairman, was crucial to the negotiations last week that led to the proposal. As Judiciary chair, Jordan would oversee the subpoenas of the select panel. By contrast, the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol made subpoena decisions unilaterally. Jordan has foreshadowed that he will make investigating assertions that the FBI and DOJ have been politicized a key focus of the House Judiciary Committee as chairman.

“We’re going to get into what’s going on at the FBI,” Jordan said Sunday on Fox.

If the proposal passes, McCarthy would be able to select 13 lawmakers to serve on the subcommittee, five of whom would be chosen in consultation with House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. McCarthy would also pick the subcommittee chair. This was similar to the setup of the January 6 select committee, for which then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave then-Minority Leader McCarthy five spots to fill. But when Pelosi rejected two of McCarthy’s picks, the California Republican pulled all his members from serving on the panel.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said Friday on Fox, “It looks like I will probably be on that committee but I can’t say that I will run it.”

Another Republican, Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, who is being investigated by federal prosecutors for his role in trying to impede the transfer of presidential power in 2020, would not rule out serving on the select panel.

“Why should I be limited? Why should anybody be limited just because someone has made an accusation?” Perry, who chairs the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus, said Sunday in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “Everybody in America is innocent until proven otherwise.”

The proposal for the subcommittee panel is included in the House rules package, which establishes the rules and committees for the 118th Congress, and is set to receive a vote on Monday.

The select subcommittee would be required to issue a final report by January 2, 2025, and dissolve shortly after.

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January 8, 2023
El Paso shelter says video of officer slamming person on ground shows ‘excessive force’ | CNN

CNN
—

A homeless shelter in El Paso, Texas, released a video showing what the group said was Customs and Border Protection officials apprehending a person outside of its welcome center.

The Opportunity Center for the Homeless posted the surveillance video, which shows someone who appears to be in law enforcement pushing the person up to the teal windows at the entrance of the building and then slamming the person to the ground and handcuffing them.

Another person who appears to be in law enforcement stands over them.

The group says the surveillance video was taken at 11:50 a.m. on January 6.

It is unclear what led up to the incident. CNN reached out to the Opportunity Center for the Homeless Sunday night to inquire about the person’s whereabouts or condition following the January 6 incident and whether there was any additional video taken before or after the footage that was shared on social media.

Opportunity Center for the Homeless founder Ray Tullius issued a statement saying, “Through the years, the Opportunity Center for the Homeless has had a respectful and long-standing working relationship with law enforcement officials in the community.

“[On Friday], an individual receiving services at the Welcome Center, located at 201 E. 9th Avenue, was apprehended in front of the facility by Customs and Border Protection officials with what seems to us to be excessive force.

“To our knowledge, this is an isolated incident. However, it raises our concerns for the well-being of the individual taken into custody and all the guests receiving services in our homeless programs. As we have done it for the last twenty-nine years, the Opportunity Center for the Homeless will continue to extend a helping hand to those in need of help,” the statement reads.

In a statement, US Customs and Border Protection said its Office of Professional Responsibility is reviewing the incident.

“Although, at the moment we do not have all the details of what occurred during this incident, CBP takes all allegations of misconduct seriously, investigates thoroughly, and holds employees accountable when policies are violated,” the agency said.

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January 8, 2023
Republican Sen. Ben Sasse resigns to become University of Florida president, opening seat for appointment by Nebraska governor | CNN Politics

CNN
—

Sen. Ben Sasse, a Republican who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump after the attack on the US Capitol, officially resigned from the Senate Sunday, opening up his seat for appointment by Nebraska’s Republican Gov. Jim Pillen.

Sasse announced last year that he would step down from his position to become the University of Florida’s next president. His academic appointment by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was approved by the university’s Board of Trustees in November despite criticism from students and faculty over the secretive search process, Sasse’s limited relevant experience and his past criticisms of same-sex marriage.

“I’m here rather than at some other school, or rather than trying to claw to stay in the United States Senate for decades, because I believe that this is the most interesting institution in the state that has the most happening right now, and is therefore the best positioned to help lead our country through a time of unprecedented change,” Sasse told the UF board at the time.

Sasse made little secret of the frustration he felt with the Senate and the changing nature of the Republican Party. He explained his decision to vote to convict Trump by saying that the former president’s lies about the election “had consequences” and brought the country “dangerously close to a bloody constitutional crisis.” He was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump after the House of Representatives impeached him for incitement of an insurrection.

Before his election to the Senate in 2014, Sasse was president of Midland University, a private Lutheran liberal arts school in Nebraska with an enrollment of about 1,600 students. He graduated from Harvard and earned a PhD in American history at Yale and also worked at Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey and private equity firms, according to his website.

The University of Florida has an enrollment of over 60,000 students on a 2,000-acre campus with over a thousand buildings. Unlike Sasse, the university’s most recent presidents had extensive careers as administrators at major universities prior to taking the school’s top job.

Sasse was reelected to another six-year term in 2020. His resignation will not change the balance of power in the Senate. The seat will temporarily filled by an appointment made by Pillen, who was elected in November and was sworn in on Thursday.

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January 8, 2023
Analysis: The speaker fight is over but the chaos is just beginning | CNN Politics

A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

CNN
—

This is not the end of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s nightmare, rather just the beginning.

Having won the coveted job, the California Republican has leveled up to a new series of challenges with higher stakes for all Americans, and less room for error for a man who needed 15 tries to get the gavel.

Related: Read this profile from McCarthy’s hometown

This week Republicans must try to coalesce around the concessions McCarthy made and pass a package of rules to govern the House for the next two years. It’s an open question whether the party’s moderates, such as they are, will all buy in to the cut, cut, cut mentality McCarthy has agreed to.

Unlike the Senate, which has standing rules that carry over from year to year, the House adopts a new rules package for each Congress. This year, in particular, as they take over from Democratic control, Republicans want to make their mark in the rules package. The Rules Committee has posted a text and summary of the proposed rule changes.

Some of the new elements include things that amount to framing – replacing “pay as you go” language for budget matters with “cut as you go.”

Other elements could have more concrete consequences, like forcing specific votes to raise the debt ceiling and enacting spending cuts before the debt ceiling is raised. That debate will come to a head in the coming months as the government runs out of authority to add to the $31 trillion national debt.

On Sunday, Republicans all said they would try to avoid cutting defense and Medicare spending, which leaves a relatively small portion of the federal budget – think the Environmental Protection Agency and other regulatory arms of the government – from which to carve out spending.

The other way, besides spending cuts, for the government to cut down on deficit spending, is to raise taxes. The proposed rules reinstate a requirement that a House supermajority of 3/5, rather than a simple majority, sign off on any tax increases.

If McCarthy fails to live up to these promises, the rules also allow for any member to force a vote on a “motion to vacate the chair” – ousting him from the speaker’s chair – at any time. It would only take a handful of Republicans, along with all Democrats, to oust him.

This rules package effectively limits his ability to negotiate with the Democrats who run the rest of the federal government. McCarthy can marshal House Republicans to vote for steep spending cuts, but his greatest difficulty will be in finding legislation that can pass the House and not be immediately rejected by the Senate or vetoed by President Joe Biden.

Just like with his quest to be speaker, McCarthy will rely only on Republicans to pass the rules package and he can only afford to lose four.

Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas has already said he will oppose the rules package because he worries it will lead to cuts in defense spending.

“How am I going to look at our allies in the eye and say, ‘I need you to increase your defense budget, but yet America is going to decrease ours,’” Gonzales said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

Another Republican, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, said on the same program that she likes a lot of the rules package, but she is “on the fence” about it because it was formulated behind closed doors with fringe Republicans.

It’s an irony both that the rules package is perceived as being hashed out behind closed doors and that those who held out on supporting McCarthy argued they were achieving a path to a more open government.

We don’t yet know all of the concessions McCarthy made to bring the ultra conservatives along. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas denied during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he had been promised a position on the powerful Rules Committee, for instance. He said that would ultimately be up to the rest of the Republican conference.

There was also some question about how McCarthy would enforce a pledge to cap spending for the 2024 fiscal year at 2022 spending levels.

A main issue for Roy was that individual members should be able to offer amendments and get votes on spending bills on the House floor.

Leaders from both parties have barred such amendments by the full House in order to pass bundled-up spending bills. They have relied on debate in the Appropriations and Authorization committees.

Roy is among the critics who refer to Republican and Democratic leaders as the “uniparty” for this reason.

“Too often bills are cooked up with handful of people, they’re brought through with the Rules Committee, jammed through, put on the floor and you have to vote yes or no,” Roy told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday. “A little temporary conflict is necessary in this town.”

He wants more of the openness and free form debate – the kind that Americans saw on the House floor during the speaker fight – to be present in spending discussions.

“You say, ‘Well, are we going to have this kind of conflict going forward?’ I hope so,” Roy said.

The idea that these debates are necessary was even being adopted by critics of the drawn-out speaker fight, like Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas.

“The more that you actually have everyone involved in it, the less likely it is that it gets blown up at the end,” Crenshaw told Tapper.

But things will get increasingly difficult for McCarthy, and maybe the country, when he needs to negotiate with Senate Democrats and Biden – and also appease the fringe that does not mind a trip to the brink.

Roy urged party leaders to work quickly and openly to find a path to raise the debt ceiling, rather than waiting until there’s a must-do-immediately moment.

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January 8, 2023
Pro-Bolsonaro supporters breach security barriers and break into Brazilian Congress | CNN

CNN
—

Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro breached security barriers set up by the Armed Forces on Sunday and gained access to the country’s congressional building, the Supreme Court and the Planalto Presidential Palace, according to images shown in Brazilian media.

Footage showed massive crowds walking up a ramp that leads to the congressional building, where they had reached the Green Room, located outside the lower House of Congress’ chamber, Interim Senate President Veneziano Vital do Rogo told CNN Brasil.

Images from other outlets showed them entering the Supreme Court and the presidential palace.

The breaches come about a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose return to power after a 12-year hiatus comes after he defeated Bolsonaro in a run-off election on October 30.

Supporters of Bolsonaro – who has left Brazil and is currently in the United States – have been camped out in the capital of Brasília since then. Justice Minister Flavio Dino had authorized the Armed Forces to set up the barriers and guard the congressional building Saturday due to the continued presence of pro-Bolsonaro supporters.

President Lula is currently not in the palace and neither house of Congress is currently in session.

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January 8, 2023
Biden heads to the border for the first time as president | CNN Politics

CNN
—

President Joe Biden is heading to the US-Mexico border on Sunday on the heels of major policy announcements and following relentless calls from Republicans who believe the trip is overdue.

The trip to the border – the first for Biden since he took office – comes as the administration wrestles with a growing number of migrants, overwhelming federal and local resources. Republicans, some border-district Democrats in Congress and even Democratic mayors have criticized Biden for failing to address record levels of border crossings.

With his visit to El Paso, Texas, on Sunday, Biden is seizing on an issue that’s been a political liability for his administration, while calling on Congress to overhaul the US immigration system to meet current needs.

But the patchwork of policies put in place by the administration to manage the border so far has often put Biden at odds with his own allies who argue that the administration’s approach is too enforcement heavy.

“It’s enraging and sad to see a Democratic administration make it harder for vulnerable people to seek asylum all because they’re scared of angry MAGA voters on this issue,” a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus told CNN, responding to the latest policy announcements.

Previewing the trip, a White House official said the president will “meet with federal, state, and local officials and community leaders who have been critical partners in managing the new migration challenge impacting the entire Western Hemisphere with record numbers of people fleeing political oppression and gang violence in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Cuba.” The president is scheduled to spend about three hours on the ground.

Biden will evaluate border enforcement operations, touring the Bridge of the Americas Port of Entry alongside Customs and Border Protection officers, members of Congress and local officials and law enforcement.

The White House said it’s the busiest port in El Paso and received $600 million under bipartisan infrastructure law.

Biden will then visit the El Paso County Migrant Services Center to meet with local officials, faith leaders and non-governmental organizations “who have been critical to supporting migrants fleeing political oppression and economic collapse in their home countries.”

The official said the president will also spend time with local business leaders to hear about the economic impact of migration in the region and worker shortages.

Biden will be joined by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; Texas Reps. Veronica Escobar, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, all Democrats; El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser; El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego; and additional community and business leaders.

Mayorkas on Sunday defended Biden’s approach to addressing the migrant surge at the southern border, saying the administration was operating in a humane but necessary way.

“We are dealing with in a broken immigration system that Congress has failed to repair for decades, and there is unanimity with respect to that reality,” Mayorkas told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week,” while attributing the surge to regional displacement impacting the entire Western Hemisphere.

“We want individuals who qualify for relief under our laws to come to the United States in a safe and orderly way. And that is why we are building lawful pathways so people do not have to place their lives and their life savings in the hands of ruthless smugglers,” he said.

Mass movement across the Western Hemisphere has posed an urgent challenge for Biden, who in his first few months in office faced a surge of unaccompanied migrant children at the border and later, the abrupt arrival of thousands of Haitian migrants.

Since 2021, there have been more than 2.4 million arrests along the US-Mexico border, according to US Customs and Border Protection data. That includes people who have attempted to cross more than once. Many have also been turned away under a Trump-era Covid restriction known as Title 42 that allows federal authorities to expel migrants quickly, citing the Covid-19 pandemic.

The arrival of thousands of migrants has strained border communities, including El Paso. The city has prided itself on being a welcoming place for migrants but has been overwhelmed in recent months with the sudden arrival of thousands of migrants, straining local resources and prompting pleas for federal assistance.

Anxiety about the scheduled end of Title 42 prompted thousands of migrants in recent weeks to turn themselves in to border authorities or to cross into the United States illegally in a very short period.

The policy was scheduled to lift last month, but a Supreme Court ruling kept the rule in place while legal challenges play out in court.

Federal data shared with CNN indicates that migrant encounters in El Paso have dropped drastically since December, when thousands crossed on a daily basis.

There have been less than 700 daily encounters on average over the last few days, compared to nearly 2,500 at its peak in December, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

DHS said it deployed 100 additional personnel to the El Paso region in December, and this week, the department will open another temporary facility to process migrants. Shelters in Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, have also seen a decrease in migrants, DHS said.

Biden has said he wanted to wait until he knew an outcome in the Title 42 legal machinations before traveling to the border and accused Republicans calling for him to travel there of playing political games.

“They haven’t been serious about this at all,” he said.

El Paso has been at the center of the immigration debate dating back to the Trump administration, which piloted the controversial family separation policy in the region.

While Biden has condemned Trump-era immigration policies, his own administration has wrestled with striking a balance between enforcement and holding up its humanitarian promises.

In El Paso, Biden will be faced with the history of his predecessor and the challenges he faces as the administration tries to stem the flow of mass migration in the hemisphere.

He’ll also be visiting a state whose governor has been a fierce critic of the Biden administration’s immigration policies. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who already criticized the president’s upcoming visit on Twitter, has sent thousands of migrants on buses to Democratic-led cities and deployed the National Guard along the Texas-Mexico border, including in El Paso.

In recent months, the El Paso sector has surpassed the Rio Grande Valley sector in migrant arrests. RGV has historically been one of the busiest sectors for border crossings. The El Paso sector patrols 268 miles of international border.

Last November, border authorities encountered more than 53,000 migrants in the El Paso sector, according to the latest available data from US Customs and Border Protection.

Last year, El Paso – whose mayor, Leeser, is a Democrat – began sending migrant buses to New York City, following in the footsteps of Republican governors, to try to get people to their destination and decongest the city. That effort has since stopped.

Escobar, who represents El Paso, said in a tweet that she’s “excited” to welcome Biden to the city. While she didn’t place a big emphasis on Biden visiting the border, she made clear she welcomed it in recent weeks and urged the federal government to provide assistance to the city.

John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said that the president is looking forward to seeing firsthand the situation on the border ahead of the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico City.

“The President is very much looking forward to seeing for himself first-hand what the border security situation looks like, particularly in El Paso. He’s very much also interested in getting to talk to Customs and Border Patrol agents on the ground who are actually involved in this mission to get their first-hand perspectives of it,” Kirby told reporters Friday.

Ahead of Biden’s border visit, the administration also announced plans to expand the policy and include Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans while it remains in place. Title 42 has so far largely applied to migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Venezuela.

The announcements Biden made Thursday reflect the administration’s effort to prepare for the end of Title 42, along with putting in place programs to manage the surge of migrants that have coincided with the anticipated end of the rule.

The administration will now accept up to 30,000 migrants per month from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela under a humanitarian parole program geared toward those nationalities. Those who do not come to the US under that program may be expelled to Mexico under Title 42.

The announcement drew criticism from immigrant advocates and Democrats who argued the policies will put migrants who are seeking asylum in harm’s way.

“The expansion of Title 42 to include Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans is a broken promise,” said Dylan Corbett, executive director of Hope Border Institute, in a statement. Hope Border Institute has been assisting migrants who have arrived in El Paso.

“Border communities will continue to work hard to pick up the broken pieces of our nation’s immigration system and show that our future lies not with expulsion and deportation, but with humanity and hope,” he added.

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus grilled top Biden officials, including Mayorkas, over the newly announced border policies in a call Thursday, according to two sources in attendance.

Members felt blindsided by the new policies and frustrated with the lack of engagement prior to their rollout, the sources said.

“It was really heated,” one source said, adding that members were “livid” that the administration didn’t consult with them ahead of time. The call included officials with the Department of Homeland Security and the White House.

One of the sources of tension during the call was a new asylum regulation that could bar migrants who are seeking asylum in the United States from doing so if they passed through another country on their way to the US-Mexico border. The restrictions are reminiscent of limits rolled out during the Trump administration, though officials have rejected the comparison.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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January 8, 2023
Kevin McCarthy, the view from home | CNN Politics

CNN
—

The young man smiling in the last Bakersfield High School student newspaper for the 1983 school year was captioned – “Most Likely to Succeed.”

That graduating student wasn’t then-senior Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who on Saturday became the House speaker for the 118th US Congress, a powerful position that puts him second in line to the American presidency.

“I was most likely to succeed,” laughs Marshall Dillard, McCarthy’s classmate and friend. “I’m sure he’s surprised some of his teachers. You’d have never thought this if you saw Kevin in high school.”

The lighthearted teasing traces back to Dillard and McCarthy on the high school football field in Bakersfield, California. The team was and is still called “The Drillers,” a reference to the oil industry of the district. Bakersfield sits in the southern end of California’s Central Valley and is one of the largest cities in the state’s 20th Congressional District.

It’s the district McCarthy represents as one of the most powerful Republican lawmakers in the country. With House Republicans holding a slim majority in the 118th Congress, a group of GOP hard-liners prompted a messy and historic floor fight for control of the speaker’s gavel. After voting had spilled into a fifth day, McCarthy broke through by conceding to a series of demands that weakened the power of the speakership. But ultimately, he won the gavel.

This was the sort of well-worn political knuckle fight of the DC scene – but far from the region that raised a young Kevin McCarthy.

Here, he’s known as the son of a firefighter whose less-than-stellar grades would suggest a far less powerful career path. But like the working town that raised him, the lack of polish would impart lessons that follow McCarthy today and offer clues into his speakership.

“He made up for it because he was scrappy, and he worked hard,” says Dillard. “In football, he wasn’t the biggest person. He wasn’t the fastest person. He wasn’t the strongest person. But he was going to give it his all.”

Rather than being seen by classmates as most likely to succeed, McCarthy was voted one half of Bakersfield High’s “Best Couple.” His girlfriend, Judy, would become his wife.

“Before he was going to ask her out, that’s the only time I saw him nervous,” remembers Dillard. The rest of the time, McCarthy charged into classes, sports or clubs with an ambition that eclipsed his apparent credentials.

Fellow students gravitated to McCarthy, not just for his humor and confidence, but for his friendship.

Dillard, now the principal of William Penn Elementary in Bakersfield, says a single moment from their teenage years speaks to the man who now leads the US House of Representatives. Dillard, who is Black, was the star player on the Bakersfield High School football team. He recalls a time when their high school was scheduled to play against a team from a notoriously racist rival high school. McCarthy and a couple of other White football teammates reassured Dillard, “They’re going to have to come through us before they get to you.”

“That cemented our bond,” says Dillard. The men have remained friends through the years, sharing their struggles, successes and tales of parenthood. Dillard declined to share his political leanings or say if he even agrees with McCarthy’s politics: “He always gets my vote. Politics is politics. They do what they do. I know Kevin on a personal level.”

On the 1983 yearbook’s local business sponsorship pages, “McCarthy’s Frozen Yogurt” takes up half a page. McCarthy has spoken about the yogurt shop belonging to his uncle and the place where he opened his first small business, “Kevin O’s Deli.”

In pictures: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

Dillard, who would attend Stanford University, remembers Kevin O’s as a couple of tables in the corner of the yogurt shop. When Dillard would return home on school breaks, his friend always gave him a free sandwich.

Catherine Fanucchi, a farmer in Bakersfield, also grew up with McCarthy and calls him a friend today. She, like Dillard, left the Central Valley for school and a career – hers was as a lawyer. But home beckoned, and she joined her family farm, which traces its Bakersfield origins 100 years back.

“I would never see him staying down,” Fanucchi says of McCarthy. “He’s not that guy. He sees the sunny side of the street, and he’ll manage to find it.”

McCarthy would not stay at that sandwich shop long, sending in an application while he was in college to be a 1987 summer intern in Washington with then-Rep. Bill Thomas, a Republican from California.

His application came across the desk of Thomas’ chief of staff, Cathy Abernathy.

“He didn’t make the cut for summer,” recalls Abernathy, who would hire him for the fall in the Bakersfield district field office. “He will mention in speeches often: ‘I’m the congressman from the district that turned me down to be an intern.’ It’s a true story.”

McCarthy became Thomas’ protégé, learning about constituent work and then the politics of Sacramento and Washington. Ambition and an ability to engage with nearly everyone separated him from others.

“Well, he’s probably the best homegrown candidate for public office that we have. Born and raised, then community college, college, and his masters’ degree – all from here,” says Abernathy, who remains a longtime ally. They have a symbiotic political, yet deeply personal, relationship. She recalls how just months after her husband died, McCarthy officiated her daughter’s wedding, offering counsel and solace to the family.

“He’s in a bigger job, but he hasn’t forgotten small town America.”

Thomas left Congress in 2007 and was succeeded by McCarthy. In the December 26 issue of The New Yorker, Thomas blasted his former protégé, saying, “Kevin basically is whatever you want him to be. He lies. He’ll change the lie, if necessary.”

“The Kevin McCarthy who is now, at this time, in the House, isn’t the Kevin McCarthy I worked with,” Thomas was quoted as saying.

The criticism came on top of Thomas’ first harsh public comments about his former staffer and friend shortly after the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol. Thomas gave an interview to a local TV station accusing McCarthy of rolling over for Donald Trump and his election lies for political expediency.

McCarthy declined to speak with CNN for this story.

McCarthy did condemn Trump soon after the attack on the Capitol, saying, “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.”

But not long after, McCarthy made a stunning reversal, saying, “I don’t believe he (Trump) provoked if you listened to what he said at the rally.”

Since then, McCarthy has catered to some of his party’s contentious members, vowing to reinstate Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia on committees if Republicans won back the House.

And despite the back-and-forth on Trump, the former president supported McCarthy’s run for speaker and made calls on his behalf for the holdout votes. Trump has publicly referred to McCarthy as “My Kevin.”

The political malleability is familiar to Bakersfield conservative Paul Stine. The men have known each other since 1995, battling when they were young Republicans. “Kevin is the most adaptable politician I have ever seen in my life,” says Stine.

When they were younger, Stine viewed McCarthy as too centrist, like Thomas and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“If the Kevin of today had been the Kevin of the 1990s, I doubt he and I would have ever had an adversarial relationship. I think he knows how to evolve his positions enough to stay viable in the political game. Do I consider him a conservative ideologue? No, not at all,” Stine says.

Dave Noerr, the mayor of Taft, a city in McCarthy’s district, brushes off the criticism, calling it a part of today’s politics. Noerr, who has worked with McCarthy since the early 2000s, calls him “unique and thorough in understanding energy and agriculture.”

Noerr has worked in and around the oil industry for most of his life. His town and the entire district relies on the energy industry for jobs and money but is seeing a rapid evolution as oil production gets slammed.

“By Kevin McCarthy coming from this area, understanding the need and the opportunity to integrate all those resources for the betterment of mankind, that is going to be critical to getting rid of the fantasies being peddled of some and the misunderstanding of so many,” says Noerr.

Fanucchi, the Bakersfield farmer, declines to express her politics and state whether she agrees with McCarthy’s positions. More important to her is having a powerful representative in Washington who understands the challenges of feeding the nation in today’s economy.

“He comes from here,” Fanucchi says of McCarthy. “We have direct access to him, and he has access to people to help us tell our story. Our story is that the lifeblood of the Central Valley, of California, is Ag, which requires water and requires space. I don’t ascribe to the belief that you have to be like me to think like me, to do something great for us in Kern County or for our nation. I think you have to have clear eyes and a strong mind and work hard.”

A Republican, Noerr has hopes that the slim majority his party now holds in the House will be a blessing to help his district, rather than a challenge.

“The deep rifts that currently exist and unfortunately have been exacerbated recently, he’s (McCarthy) got to get rid of. We can find the common ground,” Noerr says. “Instead of having arguments, we have conversations. We will find that common ground. Do I think he can do that? Absolutely, I think he can.”

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January 8, 2023
How McCarthy’s unprecedented leadership battle is a reflection of Fox News and right-wing media | CNN Business

CNN
—

It’s Tucker Carlson versus Sean Hannity in the Republican Party.

The divisions inside the GOP, being laid bare on national television via the dramatic fight between Kevin McCarthy and a faction of rebels over the House speakership, mirror the rift that has been forming for some time in right-wing media and which is strikingly clear in Fox News primetime.

Some corners of the right-wing media universe, represented by the Carlsons of the world, revel in the chaos. Carlson has made that clear on his broadcasts this week, effectively cheering on the Never Kevin camp in the House and arguing that what we are seeing on television — a paralyzed GOP unable after six votes to elect a House speaker — is healthy.

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

“If you prefer democracy to oligarchy, if you prefer real debates about issues that actually matter, it’s pretty refreshing to see it,” Carlson said of the public infighting taking place in the House, which is set to go back into session at noon on Thursday.

Then there are the personalities and outlets that more closely align with Hannity, who has gone on record against the mutiny facing McCarthy and argued on the California congressman’s behalf.

To be clear, Hannity hasn’t outright bashed the Republicans staging the rebellion against McCarthy. He’s mostly played polite. And he’s tried downplaying the friction, insisting it’s not a crisis. But Hannity has represented the wing of right-wing media — and the larger GOP — that would like to see Republicans unite and not be consumed by disorder.

“Should Republicans have worked this all out in private, long before yesterday? Yeah, absolutely. And behind the scenes I spoke to many of them, and I urged them to work it out,” Hannity said Wednesday night. “They apparently did not listen to my advice.”

After those comments, Hannity invited on Rep. Lauren Boebert for an interview which turned quite combative. The Fox News host repeatedly pressed the far-right congresswoman on what the rebel group plans to do, given that they are clearly a small minority of the GOP. Hannity at times noted that Boebert was evading and not answering his simple questions.

“I asked you a simple question congresswoman. I feel like I’m getting an answer from a liberal,” an exasperated Hannity said toward the conclusion of the interview, in which Boebert repeatedly kept speaking over him.

Of course, while Hannity, McCarthy, and others might be frustrated with the rebels now, they all played roles in bolstering their power in recent years. Which is the irony that cuts straight to the heart of the matter.

Much like the Republican Party laid the groundwork over the years for the rise of Donald Trump, people like Hannity have laid the groundwork for the rise of people like Carlson. They’ve catered to their views, refused to call out their nonsense, and chosen to attack entities like the media instead of dealing with the own mess in their backyard.

Now they’re reaping what they sowed: a party comprised of a growing number of erratic figures who don’t mind — and even perhaps prefer — watching the world burn.

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January 8, 2023
As police in Idaho faced mounting criticism, investigators worked meticulously behind the scenes to nab a suspect | CNN

CNN
—

In the weeks after four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death in a home near campus, police faced mounting criticism from the public as the investigation appeared to be at a standstill.

In fact, court documents show, a team of local and state law enforcement officers, along with a slew of FBI agents, were working meticulously through the holiday season to catch the alleged killer.

Weeks before making an arrest on December 30, investigators began setting their sights on Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old PhD student in criminology at a nearby university who has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.

“I bristled in the days after the arrest when people questioned whether police had the right man because a PhD candidate in criminal justice would be too smart for this crime,” said John Miller, a CNN law enforcement analyst and former New York Police Department deputy commissioner. “You can teach a master’s class on how to do a complex criminal investigation based on this case.”

The brutal nature of the November 13 killings set off a wave of fear and anxiety in Moscow, a small college town on the Idaho-Washington border that had not reported a murder in seven years.

Police found the door to the off-campus residence open and the bodies of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and 20-year-old Ethan Chapin in rooms on the second and third floors. Two other young women were in the three-floor, six-bedroom rental at the time but were not injured, according to police.

Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt told CNN she saw “lots of blood on the wall” when she arrived at the scene. She said there were multiple stab wounds on each body, likely from the same weapon. One victim had what appeared to be defensive stab wounds on the hands.

Moscow police initially told the public the attack was targeted and there was no threat to the community. Days later, however, Police Chief Jason Fry backtracked: “We cannot say that there is no threat to the community,” he said. Many students began leave town.

Authorities remained tight-lipped, withholding details of the crime and some of the leads they were tracking. For weeks, law enforcement officials said they had not identified a suspect or located the murder weapon.

Jim Chapin, the father of Ethan Chapin, said in a November 16 statement that the lack of information from the university and local police “further compounds our family’s agony after our son’s murder.”

“For Ethan and his three dear friends slain in Moscow, Idaho, and all of our families, I urge officials to speak the truth, share what they know, find the assailant, and protect the greater community,” the statement said.

As frustrations continued to mount, pundits and relatives of the victims became even more critical of the apparent lack of progress in the case.

“It takes a while to put together and piece together that whole timeline of events and the picture of really what occurred,” Idaho State Police spokesman Aaron Snell said on November 22, nine days after the killings. “A lot of this the public doesn’t get to see because it’s a criminal investigation. But I guarantee you behind the scenes, there’s so much work going on.”

One day later, Steve Goncalves, Kaylee’s dad, told CNN he was focused on securing justice for his daughter, despite the dearth of information.

“We all want to play a part in helping, and we can’t play a part if we don’t have any real substantial information to work from,” he said.

Asked what he’d heard from local police, Goncalves said, “They’re not sharing much with me.” He suggested Moscow police might be limited in what they can share.

One bit of information initially not shared publicly was that a review of surveillance footage from the area around the home brought to investigators’ attention a white sedan, later identified as a Hyundai Elantra, according to a probable cause affidavit released Thursday in the case against Kohberger.

By November 25, law enforcement in the area had been notified to be on the lookout for such a vehicle, the affidavit said.

And several days later, officers at nearby Washington State University, where the suspect was a graduate student in the criminal justice program, identified a white Elantra and subsequently found it was registered to Kohberger.

This was just part of the behind-the-scenes work in a complex quadruple homicide investigation where any hint to the public about a suspect or the various leads police are following can cause it to fall apart, according to experts.

“We don’t want to tip off suspects or spook them so that they end up going on the run. We don’t want them trying to get rid of evidence or destroy things,” said Joe Giacalone, adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a retired NYPD sergeant who directed the department’s homicide school and the Bronx cold case squad.

“There’s a lot of people in the public that need to apologize to the police department,” Giacalone said. “That Moscow, Idaho, police chief took a beating and he kept on moving ahead.”

Miller agreed: “They were willing to take it on the chin, from the public, from the press, from local critics, in order to keep the case clean and keep the investigation going.”

One crucial clue not shared by police was that one of the two roommates who survived told investigators she saw a masked man dressed in black in the house the morning of the attack, according to the probable cause affidavit.

The roommate, identified in the document as D.M., said she “heard crying” in the house that morning and a male voice say, “It’s ok, I’m going to help you.” D.M. said she then saw a “figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose walking towards her,” the document said.

“D.M. described the figure as 5’ 10” or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows,” according to the affidavit. “The male walked past D.M. as she stood in a ‘frozen shock phase.’”

Kohberger’s driver’s license information, which was reviewed by investigators in late November, turned out to be consistent with the description provided by the surviving roommate, the affidavit said, noting specifically his height and his “bushy eyebrows.”

Armed with driver’s license and plate information, investigators were able to obtain phone records that indicated Kohberger’s phone was near the victims’ residence at least 12 times between June 2022 to the present day, the affidavit said.

Those records also showed that Kohberger’s phone was near the crime scene again after the killings, between 9:12 a.m. and 9:21 a.m., the document said.

“For weeks before the arrest, so called experts, pundits and some in the press criticized the Moscow police for not being up to the task and for not having an arrest,” Miller said. “It’s not like ‘Law & Order,’ ‘Blue Bloods’ or ‘CSI.’”

From the morning the murders were discovered, Miller said, the Moscow police knew they needed help and brought in the state police homicide squad and the FBI.

“What the Moscow police had, that the FBI and the state police could never have, was they knew the area,” Miller said. “They knew the community and they knew the people and they had a very engaged community. But the FBI brought technical prowess and expertise. And what the state police brought was experience in homicide investigations and a state-of-the-art lab.”

By mid December the public criticism of the police department continued to grow as few details of the investigation were made public.

But the court documents show that investigators worked through the holidays to build their case, which included DNA found at the scene of the killings and at the Pennsylvania home of Kohberger’s family.

“The general public tends to think all of this happens overnight,” said retired FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole. “You have a group of investigators from different agencies coming together and working together. It’s very challenging.”

Investigators learned that Kohberger received a new license plate for his Elantra five days after the killings, the affidavit said, citing records from the Washington State Department of Licensing.

At the scene of the killings, investigators found a tan leather knife sheath on the bed next to one of the victims, the affidavit said. On its button snap, the Idaho State Lab would later find a single source of male DNA.

Late last month, Pennsylvania law enforcement recovered trash from Kohberger’s family home in Albrightsville, according to the affidavit. That evidence, too, was sent to the Idaho State Lab.

The DNA in the trash is believed to belong to the biological father of the person whose DNA was found on the sheath, the document said.

On December 29, authorities requested an arrest warrant for Kohberger on four counts of first-degree murder and burglary, according to the affidavit.

The next day, a Pennsylvania State Police SWAT team moved in on the Kohberger family home. They broke down the door and broke through windows in what is known as a “dynamic entry” – a rare tactic used to arrest “high risk” suspects, a law enforcement source told CNN.

Kohberger was booked into the Latah County jail last week after being extradited from Pennsylvania. The affidavit, with many previously unknown details of the case, was released Thursday as the suspect made his first court appearance in Idaho.

Kohberger did not enter a plea and he is due back in court on Thursday. A court order prohibits the prosecution and defense from commenting beyond the public records of the case.

Moscow police “took a lot of criticism and a lot of heat in those seven weeks after the incident,” University of Idaho Provost and Executive Vice President Torrey Lawrence told CNN. “And I’m just so thankful that they stayed committed to that case and to sharing only what they could share so that they didn’t disrupt the investigation… If they had shared more, we could wonder would Mr. Kohberger have been able to elude them.”

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January 8, 2023
CBP seizes $9.1 million worth of cocaine at the Pan American Dock in Puerto Rico | CNN

CNN
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US Customs and Border Protection officers seized 877 pounds of cocaine on board the San Juan-Santo Domingo Ferry at the Pan American Dock in Puerto Rico last month.

The drugs, which have an estimated value of $9.1 million, were spotted on December 26 during a routine cargo inspection. Officers removed a board covering the floor of a cargo platform to reveal 355 packages that tested positive for cocaine, the CBP said in a statement.

“Our experienced CBP officers remain vigilant, utilizing their training and available tools to stop dangerous drugs from entering the country,” Roberto Vaquero, director of field operation for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, said in the statement.

Homeland Security Investigations took custody of the contraband for further investigation, according to the CBP.

CBP has seized 77,000 pounds of drugs in the first two months of fiscal year 2023, according to the CBP Data Portal.

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January 7, 2023
How McCarthy survived the House chaos to win the speaker’s gavel | CNN Politics

CNN
—

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz strode into House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s office on Monday night with a list of demands. Among them: The chairmanship of a key House Armed Services subcommittee.

McCarthy rejected the offer. That decision set in motion a chain of events that left Gaetz and McCarthy locked in open confrontation on the House floor late Friday night. Gaetz, McCarthy’s staunchest opponent, dramatically denied McCarthy the final vote he needed to become speaker – then Gaetz and the last holdouts abruptly changed course allowing McCarthy to win the speaker’s gavel on his 15th attempt.

See the moment Rep. Kevin McCarthy was elected House speaker

Before the final vote, pandemonium erupted on the House floor after Gaetz waited until the very end of the 14th ballot to vote “present” when McCarthy needed one more “yes” vote. Stunned after believing he had the votes, McCarthy faced his most embarrassing defeat yet. McCarthy’s allies encircled Gaetz to try to find a way forward. McCarthy soon made a bee-line for discussion and started engaging Gaetz, too.

After McCarthy walked away from Gaetz, looking dejected, Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers moved toward the conversation and lunged at Gaetz, having to be physically restrained by Republican Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina. Rogers, a Republican from Alabama who earlier in the week warned the GOP dissidents they would lose their committee assignments, told Gaetz he would be “finished” for continuing to wreck the speaker’s vote.

Nearby, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was trying to convince Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana, another McCarthy holdout, to take her cell phone and speak to former President Donald Trump, who was on the line.

Finally, the House clerk announced for the 14th time that no one had the votes to be speaker. Republicans moved to adjourn the chamber until Monday. As the vote timer counted down, 218 Republicans had voted yes, a majority that would have sent McCarthy home for the weekend and left the House in paralysis at the hands of Gaetz and his allies.

But with less than a minute left to go in the vote, Gaetz moved toward the front of the chamber, grabbing a red index card to change his vote on adjournment. Gaetz walked toward McCarthy, and the two briefly exchanged words. McCarthy then raised his hand and yelled out, “One more!” as he triumphantly walked toward the front of the chamber to change his vote, too. It was the GOP leader’s final negotiation capping an emotional roller coaster over the course of four days as he was held hostage by a narrow faction of his conference. Dozens of Republicans followed McCarthy and Gaetz to defeat the adjournment measure, and McCarthy’s victory, at last, was at hand.

The six Republican holdouts all voted present on the 15th ballot, giving McCarthy a 216-212 victory to end the longest speaker’s race since 1859. Rep. Tom Emmer, one of McCarthy’s top deputies, went up and down the aisles telling Republicans on the House floor not to clap for Gaetz or Rep. Lauren Boebert when they announced their votes, like they had for other holdouts who had flipped to McCarthy earlier in the day.

Asked why he reversed course on McCarthy, Gaetz said, “I ran out of things I could even imagine to ask for.”

McCarthy expressed relief as he left the floor: “I’m glad it’s over.”

McCarthy denied Gaetz was offered the subcommittee gavel he had sought earlier in the week in exchange for his vote. “No one gets promised anything,” McCarthy said.

GOP lawmaker had to be restrained while confronting Gaetz. Hear what he told him

The chaotic scramble to the speakership came after days of marathon negotiations that exposed deep divides within the GOP and threw into question their ability to govern effectively in the 118th Congress. But McCarthy’s victory after facing 20 defectors on Tuesday also highlighted the successful strategy concocted by McCarthy and his top lieutenants to defeat the self-proclaimed “Never Kevin” movement led by Gaetz.

McCarthy’s strategy led to a breakthrough over two votes Friday afternoon, when McCarthy flipped 14 Republicans who had voted against him following marathon talks over House rules – setting the stage for the 11th-hour chaos with the final six holdouts.

It’s too soon to say whether the four-day speaker drama will become little more than an historical footnote for the 118th Congress, or if it’s an early indicator of even more bruising fights to come. But the fight over the speaker’s gavel exposed the bitter fault lines bubbling up in the Republican Party for the better course of a decade that will hover over the House for the next two years.

McCarthy’s concessions to the GOP dissidents are significant and could ultimately cut his tenure as speaker short. Among the rules changes: McCarthy agreed to restore a rule allowing a single Republican member to call for a vote to depose him as speaker, the same rule that led to John Boehner’s decision to resign as speaker in 2015.

Still, McCarthy’s victory Friday now gives him the long-sought speaker’s gavel and the chance to lead a House that will quickly turn its focus to investigating President Joe Biden, his administration and his family. More challenging for McCarthy and his conference are the looming fights later this year over government spending and the debt ceiling, where McCarthy cut deals on spending during this week’s negotiations likely to be unacceptable both to Democrats and the White House as well as Senate Republicans.

This account of how McCarthy finally won the fifth longest speaker’s fight in history is based on dozens of interviews throughout the week as the drama played out on and off the House floor with the fate of McCarthy’s political career and the legislative body itself hanging in the balance.

Analysis: Dana Bash reacts to McCarthy thanking Trump for speaker role

The morning following McCarthy’s Monday meeting with Gaetz, things got even worse for the GOP leader.

In a tense meeting in the basement of the Capitol with the full House GOP Conference, McCarthy and Gaetz got into a screaming match. McCarthy called out his detractors for asking for personal favors, including Gaetz, whom he said informed him he didn’t care if Democrat Hakeem Jeffries was elected speaker so long as he didn’t get the job.

Afterward, the Florida Republican accused McCarthy of acting in bad faith by asking him for a list of demands – and then by later berating him over it.

“It was very unseemly,” Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, one of the 20 who initially opposed McCarthy.

That meeting – where Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado called out “bulls**t” on McCarthy and where the GOP leader engaged in heated exchanges with Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania – set the stage for the furious four-day battle.

Afterward, McCarthy and his allies knew they had a problem. They saw his opposition growing amid anger over McCarthy’s threats and tough talk. So they began to work on a strategy: Take the temperature down and divide the opponents away from Gaetz and provide concessions to far-right members of the conference who want more say in the legislative process.

McCarthy explains tense House floor discussion with Gaetz

At noon, the House gaveled in the 118th Congress, and lawmakers swarmed the House floor, children in tow, for what was supposed to begin a day of pageantry. In a sign of the new Republican rules, the magnetometers installed by outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the wake of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol were removed from the doors to the House floor.

The first order of business quickly revealed the depth of the GOP opposition to McCarthy’s speakership bid.

McCarthy needed 218 votes, a majority of the House, meaning he could only lose four of the 222 Republicans as long as all Democrats voted for Jeffries. The clerk called out the names of all 434 members to vote in alphabetical order. McCarthy was denied a majority before the House clerk was through the “C’s,” and 19 Republicans voted for someone other than McCarthy – leaving him 15 votes short.

Jeffries, the new Democratic leader, got the most votes with 212.

McCarthy’s camp hunkered down, preparing to go through multiple votes for speaker for the first time in a century. “We’re going to war,” a senior GOP source told CNN.

McCarthy’s opponents were just as dug in. “We will never cave,” said Rep. Bob Good of Virginia.

On the second ballot, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio – the Republican rabble-rouser turned McCarthy ally – rose to nominate McCarthy, after he had received six votes from the holdouts. Gaetz followed Jordan by nominating the Ohio Republican himself as a candidate. All 19 Republicans holdouts consolidated around Jordan, and the count ended in the same place as the first ballot.

Before the third vote, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, who had voted for McCarthy on the first two ballots, told CNN that McCarthy failed to “close the deal.” When his name was called minutes later, Donalds announced he was voting for Jordan, McCarthy’s first defection.

The list of McCarthy’s opponents grew to 20 when the third vote was announced, and the House adjourned for the day.

After the Tuesday’s three failed votes, McCarthy had debated having another GOP conference meeting. But the California Republican was advised not to, worried it would not be productive and would lead to another heated venting session that was leaked to the press in real time.

Hear Kevin McCarthy’s first speech as House speaker

Instead, McCarthy’s camp ultimately decided small meetings would be more fruitful after the two factions retreated to their corners. McCarthy made his own round of calls Tuesday evening, including to former President Donald Trump. Before leaving the Capitol, McCarthy claimed to reporters he believed he was “not that far away” from the votes he needed.

McCarthy said that the former president “reiterated support” for his speaker bid.

The day before the vote for speaker, the former president had declined to issue a statement reiterating his endorsement of McCarthy despite a behind-the-scenes effort from several McCarthy allies to get Trump to do so.

Finally, on Wednesday morning, Trump did release a statement on his social media site urging the House GOP to “VOTE FOR KEVIN.”

The former president’s message had little effect.

“I disagree with Trump. This is our fight. This isn’t Trump’s,” said South Carolina GOP Rep. Ralph Norman, one of the McCarthy dissenters.

Trump continued to keep the House drama at arms’ length until Friday, when he made calls to Gaetz and Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona while they were on the House floor. After McCarthy won the speakership, Trump congratulated him on his social media site.

When the House gaveled back into session Wednesday, McCarthy lacked the votes to adjourn the session, as some of his allies had wanted in order to keep negotiating. So McCarthy headed toward a fourth ballot.

Jordan urged McCarthy’s opponents not to nominate him again. Instead, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas stood instead to nominate Donalds – the very Republican who had defected the day prior.

While the McCarthy opponents did not grow their ranks – a sigh of relief for McCarthy – the California Republican still lost one vote: Rep. Victoria Spartz, an Indiana Republican, who voted present. Spartz told reporters her vote was intended to encourage the two sides to get back to the negotiating table.

There were other signs that some of McCarthy’s backers weren’t willing to stick by him forever. Rep. Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican and House Freedom Caucus member, told CNN that “at some point” McCarthy needed to step aside and let now-Majority Leader Steve Scalise run. “What I’ve asked is that if Kevin can’t get there, that he step aside and give Steve a chance to do it,” Buck said.

The atmosphere on the House floor on Wednesday was buzzing by the second vote. While Tuesday’s session was relatively calm, the opposing factions gathered on the floor to hold talks in real time in between the speaker votes.

At the same time the House was taking vote after vote for speaker, Biden was speaking in Kentucky at an event with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell promoting the 2021 infrastructure bill McConnell helped pass. Biden’s speech gave the White House – and Senate Republicans – a split screen that laid bare the vast contrast with the House Republican infighting.

“It’s embarrassing for the country,” Biden said of the House chaos.

After the sixth vote ended with an identical outcome as the fifth, the House adjourned for several hours. The break gave the two sides more time to negotiate, and some of the hardliners said they saw some progress.

A group of Republicans decamped to the office of Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the new House majority whip. Bishop said things had changed over the past couple of hours and he was “encouraged” by the talks.

But it wasn’t clear that the meeting would lead to a breakthrough. Gaetz pledged that the McCarthy dissenters could continue to hold votes “until the cherry blossoms fall off the trees.” Boebert said the “boats are burned” when it comes to any future negotiations with McCarthy.

When the House gaveled back into session, Republicans moved to adjourn for the night rather than take another failed speaker vote. GOP leaders were hopeful that the ongoing talks would convince McCarthy’s opponents to vote for adjournment, but with just four votes to spare, the roll-call vote was tight.

All Democrats and four McCarthy opponents voted against adjourning, and the motion was in danger of failing – which would have forced the House to keep voting for speaker. But two Democrats weren’t in attendance, and the House clerk gaveled an end to the vote, 216 to 214.

McCarthy had at least one more day to try to get his detractors to yes.

On Wednesday evening, McCarthy agreed to several key concessions to try to flip at least some of his opponents.

McCarthy had been in talks with Roy, who told GOP leaders he thought he could get 10 holdouts to come along with him. McCarthy also met separately Wednesday evening with freshman members who voted against him.

In perhaps the biggest concession, McCarthy agreed to allow just one member to call for a vote to oust a sitting speaker. McCarthy had initially proposed a five-member threshold, down from current conference rules that require half of the GOP to call for such a vote.

McCarthy also pledged to allow more members of the Freedom Caucus to serve on the Rules Committee and to hold votes for bills that were priorities for the holdouts, including on border security and term limits.

In another sign of a breakthrough, a McCarthy-aligned super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, agreed to not get involved in open primaries in safe seats – one of the demands conservatives had asked for but McCarthy had resisted.

“I think we’re making progress,” McCarthy said Thursday morning as he arrived at the Capitol for a third day of votes.

The GOP dissidents also sounded a positive note. “We’re making some progress,” Bishop told CNN as he was walking into a meeting Thursday morning with other GOP hardliners.

Despite the optimistic chatter Thursday morning, the House gaveled into session at noon without a deal. And while McCarthy’s allies had considered trying to postpone additional votes so a deal could be finalized, McCarthy lacked the votes to adjourn.

Instead, lawmakers followed two tracks into the evening: taking vote after vote on the House floor for speaker, while negotiations continued behind closed doors.

The outcome did not change with each floor vote. While the GOP holdouts shifted who received their anti-McCarthy votes – Boebert nominated Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma on vote No. 9, and Gaetz nominated Trump on the 11th ballot – none shifted to McCarthy’s side.

Twenty-one Republicans didn’t support McCarthy on ballot number seven. Same with eight, nine, 10 and 11.

Behind the scenes, however, the holdouts who weren’t in the “never Kevin” camp continued talking with McCarthy and his allies, inching closer to a deal.

By the early evening Thursday, there was an offer “on paper.” Three of the key negotiators – Emmer, Roy and Donalds – huddled with McCarthy in his ceremonial office, following a session in Emmer’s office for one group to review the written agreement to break the stalemate. Another group huddled in the member’s dining room on the first floor of the Capitol to discuss a separate part of the written deal.

“We’re still working through it,” Roy said leaving Emmer’s office.

“Each meeting is more positive than the last. And that’s a very nice sign,” Rep. Patrick McHenry, a key negotiator on McCarthy’s side, told reporters.

The discussions in Emmer’s office continued late into the evening Thursday in an attempt to get to yes. Chipotle was wheeled in for dinner.

One factor complicating the talks was a handful Republicans were expected to leave Washington due to various family issues. Buck left Thursday afternoon for a planned medical procedure. Rep. Wesley Hunt flew back to Texas to be with his wife and newborn, who had to spend some time in the neonatal intensive care unit.

On Friday morning, House Democrats marked the second anniversary of the January 6, 2021, attack on the steps of the Capitol. Just one Republican attended: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

Republicans huddled once again as a conference for the first time since the heated Tuesday meeting. This time, McCarthy organized a conference call, which could be more easily managed, rather than an in-person session. On the call, McCarthy told his conference that a deal had not yet been finalized but that progress had been made. He specifically thanked Roy, a key holdout, for his role.

Before the House gaveled back into session, McCarthy predicted he would win over some holdovers, though there were still reasons for him to be pessimistic the finish line was in sight.

“I’ll be voting for Byron Donalds,” Norman told CNN on his way to the floor, saying he was still reviewing the emerging agreement.

The 12th vote for speaker began the same as the 11 before it. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona was the first Republican to vote against McCarthy. Then Bishop, the next McCarthy opponent in the roll call, rose to cast his vote.

“McCarthy,” Bishop said, prompting his fellow Republicans to leap from their seats with a standing ovation.

Freshman Rep. John Brecheen of Oklahoma was the next to flip, prompting another round of Republican cheers. By the end of the roll call, 14 holdouts, including Norman, had called McCarthy’s name. He was still short of the votes he needed for speaker, but the tide had turned. Only seven McCarthy opponents remained.

On the 13th vote, the GOP leader peeled off one more detractor, Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland. The House voted to adjourn until 10 p.m. ET – providing time both for the two missing McCarthy supporters time to return to Washington and for McCarthy’s allies to turn up the heat on the remaining holdouts.

McCarthy needed two more votes. McCarthy and his allies focused on Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana and freshman Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona either to support McCarthy or vote present, lowering the vote threshold to win a majority.

There were multiple avenues to a majority and the speakership for McCarthy. The simplest path was to peel off two more votes and hit 218. But if McCarthy’s remaining GOP opponents would not vote for him, the California could still obtain a majority if three of the six detractors voted “present.” In addition to Rosendale and Crane, McCarthy’s allies looked to Boebert as a potential present vote.

Gaetz and Boebert appeared to acknowledge the end of the speaker fight was near before the House returned to session, sitting for a joint interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity and expressing vague optimisms for the rules changes the holdouts had won.

But as the House gaveled back into session, Gaetz went to McCarthy’s senior aide and asked whether the House could adjourn until Monday. Gaetz offer was rejected, leading to the final chaos over the course of the 14th and 15th votes for speaker.

Early Saturday morning, following 14 losses and more than 84 hours after the beginning of the 118th Congress, the House clerk finally announced McCarthy was elected House speaker.

Before the chaos over the final vote, McCarthy earlier Friday had sounded an optimistic note that the lengthy fight over the gavel would actually help Republicans. “So this is the great part. Because it took this long, now we’ve learned how to govern,” McCarthy said. “So now we’ll be able to get the job done.”

Gaetz, however, suggested the historic fight would have a different impact on McCarthy’s speakership. Due to the concessions, Gaetz argued, McCarthy will be governing in a “straitjacket.”

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January 7, 2023