Senate Witness Shuts Down Hawley’s Naked Transphobia

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Not Today

During a Senate hearing on abortion access yesterday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) tried to manufacture a Fox-friendly “gotcha” moment with one of the witnesses with snarky questions about her recognizing that trans men and non-binary people can get pregnant.

• “I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic and it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing them,” the witness, UC-Berkeley law professor Khiara Bridges, fired back.
• Hawley proceeded to whine about “being treated like this.”

DOJ Launches Reproductive Rights Task Force

The Justice Department announced on Tuesday a special team called the Reproductive Rights Task Force, which aims to find ways for the federal government to protect reproductive health and abortion rights in wake of the Supreme Court’s dismantling of Roe v. Wade and GOP-controlled states’ subsequent abortion bans.

• The task force will monitor and respond to “all state and local legislation and enforcement actions” that threaten to, among other things, prevent out-of-state travel for abortions and block access to FDA-approved abortion pills, according to the DOJ’s announcement.
• Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta will chair the group.

Jan. 6 Hearing Postponed Due To New Info From Cipollone Testimony

House Jan. 6 Committee member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Axios on Tuesday that the panel decided to move its hearing that was initially scheduled for tomorrow to next Thursday due to receiving “an infusion of new testimony.”

• More specifically, new testimony from ex-White House chief counsel Pat Cipollone, which has “opened up a number of different avenues,” according to Raskin.

Catching Up On Yesterday’s Jan. 6 Hearing

The House Jan. 6 Committee held its seventh hearing yesterday afternoon, during which the panel laid out how Trump mobilized his already-enraged supporters–including far-right extremists–to storm the Capitol as a last-ditch attempt to cling to power.

• Here’s our liveblog, of course
• “How Trump Edited His Jan. 6 Rally Speech To Target Pence” – Matt Shuham
• “Ellipse Rally Organizers Planned Second Event Outside SCOTUS On Jan. 6” – Josh Kovensky
• “The White House Meeting That Drove ‘Team Sane’ Insane” – Josh Kovensky

Also this happened:

Twitter Sues Elon Musk For Trying To Weasel Out Of Deal

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is now facing a lawsuit from Twitter after he announced that he was terminating his $44 billion deal to buy the social media giant.

Twitter’s court filing includes screenshots of what seem to be some pretty solid self-owns on Musk’s end when he tried to troll the company on its own platform:

ISIS Leader Killed In Drone Strike, US Says

U.S. Central Command reported on Tuesday that ISIS leader Maher al-Agal had been killed in a drone strike that the U.S. carried out earlier that day in northwest Syria.

FLOTUS Apologizes For Comparing Latinos To Tacos

First Lady Jill Biden, or rather, her press secretary, said on Tuesday that she “apologizes that her words conveyed anything but pure admiration and love for the Latino community” a day after the first lady, speaking at a Latino civil rights conference, praised the diversity of the Latino community as being “as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio.”

She’s also gonna need to apologize for that pronunciation of “bodega.”

John Bolton, Proud Coup-Doer

John Bolton, Trump’s mustachioed, war-lovin’ former national security adviser, knows that not just anyone, especially Trump, can try to overthrow duly elected country leaders:

Also, Tapper, shouldn’t you have maybe pressed him a little on that???

Anyway, I’m reminded of the one (1) Trump tweet that made me crack up unironically, when he said that if he had listened to Bolton, the U.S. “would be in World War Six by now.”

Spicer Loses Bid To Sue Biden Over Military Board Ouster

A federal judge on Monday threw out ex-White House press secretary/Melissa McCarthy impersonator Sean Spicer and fellow ex-Trump administration crony Russell Vought’s lawsuit against Biden for kicking them off military academy boards.

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