After a third day of voting and 11 rounds of roll call with no real change, the Republican Party still hasn’t managed to elect a speaker, MAGA-infused conservative hardliners are holding the House hostage and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is still trying to convince everyone that he can pull of some sort of deal.
Continue reading “Republicans Win Second Vote As Majority – To Adjourn. Again.”George Santos Will Almost Certainly Be Sworn In—It’s Just A Question Of When
The neverending speakership-election debacle that’s left Congress in an unprecedented legal limbo has also stranded George Santos, the member-elect who fabricated several aspects of his resume, in his own void. Santos — and the other freshmen members of Congress — have not been sworn in, and won’t be until the ongoing feud within the Republican Party reaches a truce and members finally elect a House speaker.
TPM spoke with experts to find out whether the floor fight might affect his future. The consensus was that neither the scandal nor pending investigations are likely to stop Santos from being seated.
Continue reading “George Santos Will Almost Certainly Be Sworn In—It’s Just A Question Of When”Where Things Stand: There Is Still No Speaker
That is where things stand.
(In all seriousness we will be bringing back my daily Editors’ Blog post next week after our brains recover from the dumpster that is on fire on the House floor right now.)
In the meantime, Emine Yücel and I are covering all of today’s madness here.
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Biden Will Award 12 Who Defended Capitol, Blocked Big Lie On Jan 6 Anniversary
The White House announced on Thursday that President Joe Biden will give several individuals who defended democracy after the 2020 election the Presidential Citizens Medal to mark the second anniversary of the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
Continue reading “Biden Will Award 12 Who Defended Capitol, Blocked Big Lie On Jan 6 Anniversary”Trump Who?
There’s a dog not barking here that may be obvious but is worth mentioning. It’s not just that Donald Trump’s low-energy endorsement of Kevin McCarthy isn’t carrying the day. It’s that Trump’s name hasn’t really come up at all. Lauren Boebert, in her nominating speech, name-checked him to note how his endorsement of McCarthy was not swaying her. But that’s the exception that proves the rule. Not in the sense that she’s not taking Trump’s guidance but because she’s even discussing him. Trump’s wishes, feelings, threats, anger and really anything else about him are just completely absent from this entire drama. In a way that is the biggest story here.
It’s Messy and It’s Fine
I thought it was worth making a simple point. The spectacle of the last two days is an embarrassment. The House GOP and really the GOP generally has shown itself incapable of governing in the most basic sense. But I’ve heard some suggestions that this is sort of a lo-fi reenactment of the events of two years ago: more chaos, more craziness, more dysfunction. It’s worth pushing back a bit on that appraisal. This is democracy. If anything there is something a bit invigorating about seeing vote after vote where the outcome, immediate or eventual, isn’t at all clear. One vote, followed by various frenzied negotiation, another vote, followed by more.
Continue reading “It’s Messy and It’s Fine”Congrats, There Is No House Of Representatives Right Now
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Reaping What They’ve Sowed
No heroes. No good guys. No redeeming characters.
The House GOP internecine strife is, in the short term, more damaging to themselves than to the country, which makes it fun to watch, at least for a while.
But in the longer term, it doesn’t much matter who prevails in the speaker vote. Kevin McCarthy and the fractious members opposing him all embrace the same “tear it all down” impulses. They’re driven by the same destructive motives and play to the same base political instincts.
Watching them rip each other apart live on national TV offers a palliative schadenfreude. But it won’t last forever. In the meantime, there is essentially no House of Representatives: The members can’t be sworn in. Committees can’t form. Oversight can’t happen.
They’re already achieving destruction of a kind.
What Happened Yesterday?
If you weren’t able to follow along closely with us, the day pretty much went like this:
- Noon ET: The House (such as it is: they’ re all still members-elect) gavels into session.
- Approx. 1:30 p.m. ET: McCarthy loses on 4th ballot for speaker.
- Approx. 3:15 p.m. ET: McCarthy loses on 5th ballot for speaker.
- Approx. 4:30 p.m. ET: McCarthy loses on 6th ballot for speaker.
- A little after 4:30 p.m. ET: The House adjourns until 8 p.m. ET.
- 8 p.m. ET: The House reconvenes.
- Approx. 8:30 p.m. ET: After a raucous vote, the House adjourns until noon ET today.
What’s Next?
When the House reconvenes at noon today, don’t be surprised if it adjourns again pretty quickly. Absent a deal of some kind, McCarthy and the Republicans appear reluctant to continue with the spectacle of losing floor votes.
But is there a deal yet? Not as of this morning.
Lots of rumor and conjecture.
The contours of all the deals floated since the fall election remain similar: McCarthy’s foes want maximum leverage over him to continue to foment chaos and weaken him. McCarthy keeps caving to those demands, but it fails to win him a deal.
Perhaps the best way to think about it is: The Freedom Caucus wants to do to McCarthy what McCarthy and the GOP conference want to do to Biden.
There’s no compelling protagonist here. Just a pack of antagonists looking to do damage.
Credit Where Due
The NYT, which has often struggled to capture the true nature of the modern Republican Party, comes close to getting it:
That ideology of destruction defies characterization by traditional political labels like moderate or conservative. Instead, the party has created its own complicated taxonomy of America First, MAGA and anti-Trump — descriptions that are more about political style and personal vendettas than policy disagreements.
‘I’m 6’2″ 275’
What’s Jack Smith Up To?
Very little overt investigative action from Special Counsel Jack Smith has been publicly visible so far. The main exception was a batch of subpoenas that went out in the fall to state and local election officials in the key jurisdictions Trump was focused on during the 2020 election aftermath. Now news outlets have gotten ahold of the responses to those subpoenas from two jurisdictions. No big new reveals:
- Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas): The AP, via public records requests, obtained a 35-page document responding to the Smith subpoena.
The records do not include any communication from Trump himself and do not appear to show attempts to coerce county officials, as Trump tried to do in Georgia. But they do show how Trump’s lawyers for weeks positioned themselves for post-election legal challenges in the county. They alleged that thousands of ballots had been improperly cast and, weeks before the election, filed a public records request aimed at scrutinizing the process by which mail-in and absentee ballots were counted.
- Milwaukee County, Wisconsin: CNN obtained the response.
Second Oath Keeper Trial Continues
The second of the two seditious conspiracy trials against Oath Keeper members continues in Washington, D.C., with testimony from a new witness that “the extremists hatched an explicit plan to enter the Capitol and stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory,” TPM alum Rachel Weiner reports.
Alaska Oath Keeper Won’t Lose State House Seat
After a weeklong trial, a state judge has rejected a complaint that an Oath Keeper was ineligible to serve in the state legislature under a provision of the state Constitution that bars people from holding public office if they belong to a group that seeks to overthrow the U.S. government by violence.
Incoming state Rep. David Eastman (R) “did not have a specific intent to further the Oath Keepers’ unprotected speech or conduct,” the judge ruled.
Feeling It
Sonia Sotomayor, on how she feels about the current direction of the Supreme Court:
- “sense of despair”
- “shell-shocked”
- “deeply sad”
Rim Shot
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House GOP Majority Wins Its First Vote… To Adjourn Til Tomorrow
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) failed to win the gavel again after a sixth House speakership vote Wednesday evening. When the House reconvened at 8 p.m ET Republicans unified for the first time in two days and voted to adjourn until 12:00 p.m. ET Thursday.
Continue reading “House GOP Majority Wins Its First Vote… To Adjourn Til Tomorrow”What Will The Evening Hold?
The House is set to come back into session at 8 p.m. ET. You can follow along with the TPM team here. But the House may not be in session for long. Kevin McCarthy told reporters he thought it was “best” not to vote again tonight because the results would be the same (he falls short of a majority) but that talks were continuing. Not a sure bet we’ll see a quick adjournment, but that definitely looks possible.
Continue reading “What Will The Evening Hold?”Failed State
When we talk about the GOP as a failed state run by assorted warlords think about stuff like this.
Continue reading “Failed State”