it really is astounding how far right republicans have turned the system of governing into a complete fucking circus. blame democrats for whatever you want, but this is a fucking joke. and it's all on the republicans with either their antics or their inaction in letting these yahoos continue to act like children.
Flight Risk out NOW!
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another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Nothing but winning and it’s not just libs saying it. Eating their own. Imagine them with all three branches?
House Republican infighting getting worse after foreign aid vote
One GOP lawmaker said he serves with “some real scumbags,” while others fought over Speaker Mike Johnson’s strategy for bringing up the aid package
The House came together Saturday to pass a sweeping $95 billion foreign aid package, a rare moment of bipartisan cooperation in the closely divided chamber. But the move only intensified infighting among House Republicans, who split sharply on the strategy to deliver assistance to foreign allies including Ukraine and Israel.
In social media posts and TV interviews afterward, House Republicans took aim at one another — in unusually sharp terms— over the events that led up to the vote. Ultimately, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had to rely on a majority of Democrats to push through the most controversial piece of the package — $60 billion in aid to Ukraine for its war against Russia — in a gamble that could cost him his speakership.
“It’s my absolute honor to be in Congress, but I serve with some real scumbags,” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” calling out two GOP colleagues — Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Bob Good (Va.) — who have broken with Johnson and voted against other legislation proposed by the GOP majority.
Gaetz and Good have also endorsed Gonzales’s primary challenger, something Johnson has warned members against doing. Gonzales’s CNN comments prompted a third hard-line GOP colleague, Rep. Elijah Crane (Ariz.), to announce his support for Gonzales’s opponent, Brandon Herrera, a gun enthusiast with a large YouTube following.
Most House Republicans have grown weary of colleagues who consistently vote against legislation that must be addressed rather than work to seek compromise within the party. Since eight Republicans voted with all Democrats to oust then-speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), more pragmatic Republicans have become irate at the “no” bloc of the conference and encouraged GOP leadership to punish those members.
Hard-liners argue that as the majority party Republicans should push for ideological purity and take a firm stand in negotiations to exert concessions from a Democratic-led Senate and White House. But in voting against conservative measures they do not believe go far enough, other Republicans say, hard-liners are weakening Johnson’s hand in negotiations because the conference is not united around a set of demands.
The hard-line bloc has long objected to considering further Ukraine aid without legislation to secure American borders. In a nod to such demands, Johnson proposed voting on a border security bill on Saturday that largely mirrors a tough conservative proposal House Republicans passed last year. But in protest of Johnson’s foreign aid proposal, three hard-liners on the House Rules Committee — GOP Reps. Chip Roy (Tex.), Ralph Norman (S.C.) and Thomas Massie (Ky.) — prevented the bill from being considered under rules that would require only a simple majority for passage.
Other Republicans urged Johnson to still put the bill up for a vote under rules that would require two-thirds of the House for passage. The measure fell short.
“Those who voted to fund Ukraine’s borders instead of America’s KNEW for certainty that the separate (unattached to Ukraine) border security was going to die in the Senate, and are now dying for cover — so they’re casting blame,” Roy said after the vote on X. “Own it.”
Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) shot back at Roy on X, saying the “isolationist Republicans” were standing in the way of at least forcing Senate Democrats to take a politically difficult vote on border security.
“After each sellout, once the fury of Republican voters sets in, the self-serving lies begin,” Bishop said in his own post directed at Barr.
Massie told Barr, a fellow Kentucky Republican, to “quit blaming conservatives for your votes.”
The intraparty fights have spilled over on to the campaign trail, where Gaetz has taken the lead in ignoring Johnson’s warnings and campaigning against GOP colleagues. Gaetz visited San Antonio last month to hold a rally with Herrera where he bashed Gonzales and pushed for a more aggressive GOP conference.
There is no love lost with Gonzales.
“Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties,” Gonzales claimed Sunday, referencing allegations against Gaetz that the Department of Justice investigated but declined to prosecute last year.
The House Ethics Committee is still investigating Gaetz, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said Sunday on X that Gonzales was “laundering lies on CNN.”
Gonzales also targeted Good for his support of Herrera, apparently referencing a report by Jewish Insider that cited instances of Herrera posting videos “replete with imagery, music and jokes about the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.”
“Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi,” Gonzales said. “These people used to walk around with white hoods at night; now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.”
After Gonzales’s CNN interview, Herrera objected to the congressman’s characterization of him as a “neo-Nazi,” writing on X: “This is the death spiral ladies and gentlemen. He has to cry to his liberal friends about me, because Republicans won’t listen anymore.”
For Johnson, the infighting looms over his fate as speaker.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) had promised to try to remove Johnson from the speakership if he moved Ukraine aid, but she held back in hopes that her colleagues hear from angry constituents before returning to Washington.
Massie, who co-sponsored Greene’s resolution to oust Johnson, said he hopes Johnson resigns and predicted that if he does not, someone could trigger a “motion to vacate” even though much of the Republican conference does not want to devolve into chaos again.
In a tense Tuesday evening meetingwith Johnson and several rank-and-file Republicans, Gaetz told the speaker that if he moved ahead with his foreign aid plan that GOP colleagues would seek to oust him. He also threatened others in the room, saying the far-right bloc would target them on social media and campaign against them.
Meanwhile, some GOP critics of the hard-line faction have advocated for leadership to take harsher measures against the bloc.
Last week during a meeting with the speaker and lawmakers of the conservative Main Street Caucus, who prioritize governing, conversations revolved around how to punish members based on what could improve House functions. Several members suggested removing the three hard-liners — Roy, Massie and Norman — who sit on the House Rules Committee.
Johnson did not announce any decision whether on whether to follow through with that proposed plan., which many members from that meeting acknowledged is easier said than done since far-right members fundraise successfully off being targeted by “the establishment.”
The GOP has become more and more devoted to party over country and it's no surprise that they're hitting each other with purity tests. Dictatorships want 100% devotion. They don't want free thinkers (so the outcome should be obvious given how many call themselves "free thinkers"). The goal is not making America great or America first. It's party domination.
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The GOP has become more and more devoted to party over country and it's no surprise that they're hitting each other with purity tests. Dictatorships want 100% devotion. They don't want free thinkers (so the outcome should be obvious given how many call themselves "free thinkers"). The goal is not making America great or America first. It's party domination.
And it really sucks because we need a second viable party at a minimum for this democracy to work.
hippiemom = goodness
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To pass Ukraine aid, 'Reagan Republican' leaders in Congress navigated a party transformed by Trump
By STEPHEN GROVES and MARY CLARE JALONICK
Today
WASHINGTON (AP) — For Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Mike Johnson, the necessity of providing Ukraine with weapons and other aid as it fends off Russia's invasion is rooted in their earliest and most formative political memories.
McConnell, 82, tells the story of his father’s letters from Eastern Europe in 1945, at the end of World War II, when the foot soldier observed that the Russians were “going to be a big problem” before the communist takeover to come. Johnson, 30 years younger, came of age as the Cold War was ending.
As both men pushed their party this week to support a $95 billion aid package that sends support to Ukraine, as well as Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian missions, they labeled themselves “Reagan Republicans” an described the fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin in terms of U.S. strength and leadership. But the all-out effort to get the legislation through Congress left both of them grappling with an entirely new Republican Party shaped by former President Donald Trump.
While McConnell, R-Ky., and Johnson, R-La., took different approaches to handling Trump, the presumptive White House nominee in 2024, the struggle highlighted the fundamental battle within the GOP: Will conservatives continue their march toward Trump’s “America First” doctrine on foreign affairs or will they find the value in standing with America's allies? And is the GOP still the party of Ronald Reagan?
“I think we’re having an internal debate about that,” McConnell said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’m a Reagan guy and I think today — at least on this episode — we turned the tables on the isolationists.”
Still, he acknowledged, “that doesn’t mean they’re going to go away forever.”
McConnell, in the twilight of his 18-year tenure as Republican leader, lauded a momentary victory Tuesday as a healthy showing of 31 Republicans voted for the foreign aid; that was nine more than had supported it in February. He said that was a trend in the right direction.
McConnell, who has been in the Senate since 1985, said passing the legislation was “one of the most important things I’ve ever dealt with where I had an impact."
But it wasn’t without cost.
He said last month he would step away from his job as leader next year after internal clashes over the money for Ukraine and the direction of the party.
For Johnson, just six months into his job as speaker, the political crosscurrents are even more difficult. He is clinging to his leadership post as right-wing Republicans threaten to oust him for putting the aid to Ukraine to a vote. While McConnell has embraced American leadership abroad his entire career, Johnson only recently gave complete support to the package.
Johnson has been careful not to portray passage as a triumph when a majority of his own House Republicans opposed the bill. He skipped a celebratory news conference afterward, describing it as “not a perfect piece of legislation” in brief remarks.
But he also borrowed terms popularized by Reagan, saying aggression from Russia, China and Iran “threatens the free world and it demands American leadership.”
“If we turn our backs right now, the consequences could be devastating,” he said.
Hard-line conservatives, including some who are threatening a snap vote on his leadership, are irate, saying the aid was vastly out of line with what Republican voters want. They condemned both Johnson and McConnell for supporting it.
“House Republican leadership sold out Americans and passed a bill that sends $95 billion to other countries,” said Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who opposed the bill. He said the legislation "undermines America's interests abroad and paves our nation's path to bankruptcy.”
Johnson has been lauded by much of Washington for doing what he called “the right thing" at a perilous moment for himself and the world.
“He is fundamentally an honorable person,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who brokered the negotiations and spent hours on the phone and in meetings with Johnson, McConnell and the White House.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Johnson and McConnell “both showed great resolve and backbone and true leadership at a time it was desperately needed.”
When McConnell began negotiations over President Joe Biden's initial aid request last year, he quickly set the terms for a deal. He and Schumer agreed to pair any aid for Ukraine with help for Israel, Schumer said, and McConnell demanded policy changes at the U.S. border with Mexico.
On McConnell's mind, he said, was that Trump was “unenthusiastic” about providing more aid to Kyiv. Yet McConnell, whose office displays a portrait of every Republican president since Reagan with the exception of Trump, had a virtually nonexistent relationship with the man he often refers to not by name, but simply as “the former president.”
Still, Trump would prove to hold powerful sway. When a deal on border security neared completion after months of work, Trump eviscerated the proposal as insufficient and a “gift” to Biden's reelection. Conservatives, including Johnson, rejected it out of hand.
With the border deal dead, McConnell pushed ahead with Schumer on the foreign aid, with the border policies stripped out, solidifying their unusual alliance. The Senate leaders met weekly throughout the negotiation.
“We disagreed on a whole lot, but we really stuck together,” Schumer said.
“We just persisted. We could not give up on this."
Meanwhile, a small group of GOP senators began working on an idea they thought could give Johnson some political wiggle room. Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma took an idea that Trump had raised — structuring the aid to Ukraine as a loan — and tried to make it reality.
Through a series of phone calls with Trump, several House members, as well as the speaker, they worked to structure roughly $9 billion in economic aid for Ukraine as forgivable loans — just as it was in the final package.
“Our approach this time was to make sure that the politics were set, meaning that President Trump is on board,” Mullin said.
The conversations culminated in Johnson making a quick jaunt to Florida, where he stood side by side with Trump at his Florida club just days before moving ahead with the Ukraine legislation in the House.
It was all enough, with Democratic help, to get the bill across the finish line. The legislation, which Biden signed into law on Wednesday, included some revisions from the Senate bill, including the loan structure and a provision to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine. Nine GOP senators who had opposed the first version of the bill swung to “yes” largely because of the changes Johnson had made.
The result was a strong showing for the foreign aid in the Senate, even though the decision could prove costly for Johnson.
What comes next on Ukraine is anyone's guess.
While the $61 billion for Ukraine in the package is expected to help the country withstand Moscow's offensive this year, more assistance will surely be needed. Republicans, exhausted after a grueling fight, largely shrugged off questions about the future.
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you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
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another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Noem's getting clobbered from all sides for bragging about shooting a puppy.
I'm honestly not sure what she was going for with that. Some grand plan to get the left to complain about it so the right can say "Puppies? You guys kill babies!"? (Actually, I would not have been surprised if that had played out).
Turns out pretty much nobody supports this. And since she wrote it herself, only the truly unsalvageable will claim it's untrue (I've seen it once).
I kinda think she she shot herself in the foot here; usually to do that in the GOP you have show some loss of deference towards Trump...but this was a truly unique thing she pulled off.
I don't know whether she was going to be the running mate but I am quite doubtful she will now.
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you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
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you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Noem's getting clobbered from all sides for bragging about shooting a puppy.
I'm honestly not sure what she was going for with that. Some grand plan to get the left to complain about it so the right can say "Puppies? You guys kill babies!"? (Actually, I would not have been surprised if that had played out).
Turns out pretty much nobody supports this. And since she wrote it herself, only the truly unsalvageable will claim it's untrue (I've seen it once).
I kinda think she she shot herself in the foot here; usually to do that in the GOP you have show some loss of deference towards Trump...but this was a truly unique thing she pulled off.
I don't know whether she was going to be the running mate but I am quite doubtful she will now.
She must ahve been mildly retarded to think there was upside to this story.
Her odds to be VP cratered in the betting markets when this hit.
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mickeyrat
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you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
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you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
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you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
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you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene triggers effort to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson from office
By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING
3 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hardline Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called Wednesday for a vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, pressing ahead with her long-shot effort despite pushback from Republicans at the highest levels tired of the political chaos.
Greene, who is one of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, stood on the House floor and read a long list of “transgressions” she said Johnson had committed as speaker. Colleagues booed in protest.
The vote, which under House rules is required within two days, could happen imminently.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene triggers effort to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson from office
By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING
3 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hardline Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called Wednesday for a vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, pressing ahead with her long-shot effort despite pushback from Republicans at the highest levels tired of the political chaos.
Greene, who is one of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, stood on the House floor and read a long list of “transgressions” she said Johnson had committed as speaker. Colleagues booed in protest.
The vote, which under House rules is required within two days, could happen imminently.
It's all about the fundraising from it.
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mickeyrat
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene triggers effort to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson from office
By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING
3 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hardline Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called Wednesday for a vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, pressing ahead with her long-shot effort despite pushback from Republicans at the highest levels tired of the political chaos.
Greene, who is one of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, stood on the House floor and read a long list of “transgressions” she said Johnson had committed as speaker. Colleagues booed in protest.
The vote, which under House rules is required within two days, could happen imminently.
It's all about the fundraising from it.
of course. with fuckstick sopping up every last dollar from the rubes, what else can they do?
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you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
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House quickly rejects Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's effort to remove Speaker Johnson from office
By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING
8 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hardline Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tried and failed in sudden action Wednesday to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos.
One of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, Greene stood on the House floor and read a long list of “transgressions” she said Johnson had committed as speaker. Colleagues booed in protest.
Greene of Georgia criticized Johnson’s leadership as “pathetic, weak and unacceptable.”
No sooner than Greene triggered the vote on her motion to vacate the speaker from his office, the Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise countered by calling first for a vote to table it.
An overwhelming majority, 359-43, kept Johnson in his job, for now.
It’s the second time in a matter of months that Republicans have tried to oust their own speaker, an unheard of level of party turmoil with a move rarely seen in U.S. history.
As Greene pressed ahead despite pushback from Republicans at the highest levels, GOP lawmakers filtered towards Johnson, giving him pats on the back and grasping his shoulder to assure him of their support.
"We need steady hands at the wheel,” Johnson said afterward. “The country desperately needs a functioning Congress."
The Georgia Republican had vowed she would force a vote on the motion to vacate the Republican speaker if he dared to advance a foreign aid package with funds for Ukraine, which was overwhelmingly approved late last month and signed into law.
But in recent days it seemed her effort had cooled, as she and Johnson met repeatedly for a potential resolution.
Johnson of Louisiana marched on, saying he had been willing to take the risk, believing it was important for the U.S. to back Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and explaining he wanted to be on the “right side of history.”
“I just have to do my job every day,” Johnson said Monday.
In a highly unusual move, the speaker received a boost from Democrats led by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, whose leadership team had said it was time to “turn the page” on the GOP turmoil and vote to table Greene’s resolution — almost ensuring Johnson’s job is saved, for now.
Trump also weighed in after Johnson trekked to Mar-a-Lago for a visit, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee giving the speaker his nod of approval. And Trump’s hand-picked leader at the Republican National Committee urged House Republicans off the move.
Ahead of the vote, Trump said on social media, “I absolutely love Marjorie Taylor Greene,” but he said Republicans need to be fighting now to defeat Democrats in the November election.
“This is not the time,” Trump said, to oust the speaker.
The move now poses its own political risks for Greene, a high-profile provocateur.
Greene was determined to force her colleagues to be on the record with their vote – putting them in the politically uncomfortable position of backing the speaker and seen as joining forces with Democrats to save him.
The tally showed the strength, but also the weakness, of her effort, as most lawmakers voted to move past the infighting and allow the Republican speaker, just six months in the office, to keep the gavel.
Last year, the House chamber was brought to a standstill when eight Republicans voted to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s office, and Democrats declined to help save him.
Ousting McCarthy resulted in a nearly monthlong search for a new GOP leader, throwing the chamber into turmoil with an episode Republicans wanted to avoid before seeking voter support in the November election.
__
Associated Press writers Stephen Groves and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
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The backing for Haley — most recently in Indiana, where she grabbed more than 21% of the votes on Tuesday — signals persistent discontent among party voters with the former president. He is racking up primary victories even as he has been spending much of his time recently in a New York courtroom facing state criminal charges involving hush money payments to a porn actor.
Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador who qualified for the Indiana ballot before she ended her campaign two months ago, has not endorsed Trump.
A Haley campaign adviser did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the results.
Indiana Democrats did not have the option to vote “ uncommitted ” in their party primary. Unease about President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war has sparked a protest vote movement in some states, raising similar questions about the strength of his support in November.
Haley’s support was largest in Indiana’s urban and suburban counties. She won 35% of the vote in Indianapolis’s Marion County and more than one-third of the vote in suburban Hamilton County. As in other states, she did best in the most Democratic areas of the state.
The exception was Lake County, home to Gary, just south of Chicago. Haley won only 14% of the vote in Lake County.
Biden’s campaign attributed Haley’s Indiana showing to Trump’s trouble in suburbs and cited similar primary numbers in swing states such as Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The president has made an open appeal to Haley supporters to back him in November.
The Trump campaign claimed without evidence that Haley’s support came from Democrats, adding that he would carry Indiana in November, as in 2016 and 2020.
Two weeks ago in Pennsylvania, Haley received nearly 17% of the primary vote. She earned similar support in Arizona just weeks after her exit.
Trump, who won every Indiana county, brushed off Haley's support in an interview Tuesday with WGAL-TV of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
“All of those people are going to come to me,” he said.
In late January, Trump said prematurely that Haley did not have enough signatures to make Indiana’s primary ballot. While Haley did get the minimum 500 signatures needed in each congressional district to make the ballot, the margin was razor thin in the 7th District, which includes Indianapolis.
Haley’s campaign was largely absent from the state even while she was in the race.
Indiana, with its 11 electoral votes, is far from the swing state that Pennsylvania is. Trump won Indiana by 16 percentage points in 2020.
Nonetheless, Haley's support from 1 in 5 Republican voters raises questions about how they will vote in the fall. Before she dropped out, she took nearly 27% of votes in Michigan. She received 13% of the Georgia GOP vote shortly after her exit.
Haley, who ended her campaign after losses to Trump across almost all Super Tuesday states in early March, recently announced she was joining the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank. In her farewell speech a day after Trump’s big night, Haley declined to directly endorse him. She put the onus on Trump to win the support of the moderate Republicans and independent voters who had supported her.
“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that,” she said. “At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people.”
Trump had been withering in his criticism of Haley, calling her “Birdbrain” in speeches to his supporters and questioning her decision to stay in the race.
Just before Super Tuesday, Haley said she no longer felt bound by a pledge that required all GOP contenders to support the party’s eventual nominee in order to participate in the primary debates.
She has said little publicly but has continued to utilize her email outreach, via her Stand for America PAC, sending out updates on her Hudson appointment, as well as the return of her husband, Michael, from a South Carolina Army National Guard deployment that saw him stationed in African during a large portion of her primary campaign.
___
Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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House Republican infighting getting worse after foreign aid vote
One GOP lawmaker said he serves with “some real scumbags,” while others fought over Speaker Mike Johnson’s strategy for bringing up the aid package
“It’s my absolute honor to be in Congress, but I serve with some real scumbags,” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” calling out two GOP colleagues — Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Bob Good (Va.) — who have broken with Johnson and voted against other legislation proposed by the GOP majority.
Gaetz and Good have also endorsed Gonzales’s primary challenger, something Johnson has warned members against doing. Gonzales’s CNN comments prompted a third hard-line GOP colleague, Rep. Elijah Crane (Ariz.), to announce his support for Gonzales’s opponent, Brandon Herrera, a gun enthusiast with a large YouTube following.
Most House Republicans have grown weary of colleagues who consistently vote against legislation that must be addressed rather than work to seek compromise within the party. Since eight Republicans voted with all Democrats to oust then-speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), more pragmatic Republicans have become irate at the “no” bloc of the conference and encouraged GOP leadership to punish those members.
Hard-liners argue that as the majority party Republicans should push for ideological purity and take a firm stand in negotiations to exert concessions from a Democratic-led Senate and White House. But in voting against conservative measures they do not believe go far enough, other Republicans say, hard-liners are weakening Johnson’s hand in negotiations because the conference is not united around a set of demands.
The hard-line bloc has long objected to considering further Ukraine aid without legislation to secure American borders. In a nod to such demands, Johnson proposed voting on a border security bill on Saturday that largely mirrors a tough conservative proposal House Republicans passed last year. But in protest of Johnson’s foreign aid proposal, three hard-liners on the House Rules Committee — GOP Reps. Chip Roy (Tex.), Ralph Norman (S.C.) and Thomas Massie (Ky.) — prevented the bill from being considered under rules that would require only a simple majority for passage.
Other Republicans urged Johnson to still put the bill up for a vote under rules that would require two-thirds of the House for passage. The measure fell short.
“Those who voted to fund Ukraine’s borders instead of America’s KNEW for certainty that the separate (unattached to Ukraine) border security was going to die in the Senate, and are now dying for cover — so they’re casting blame,” Roy said after the vote on X. “Own it.”
Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) shot back at Roy on X, saying the “isolationist Republicans” were standing in the way of at least forcing Senate Democrats to take a politically difficult vote on border security.
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) came to Roy’s defense.
“After each sellout, once the fury of Republican voters sets in, the self-serving lies begin,” Bishop said in his own post directed at Barr.
Massie told Barr, a fellow Kentucky Republican, to “quit blaming conservatives for your votes.”
The intraparty fights have spilled over on to the campaign trail, where Gaetz has taken the lead in ignoring Johnson’s warnings and campaigning against GOP colleagues. Gaetz visited San Antonio last month to hold a rally with Herrera where he bashed Gonzales and pushed for a more aggressive GOP conference.
There is no love lost with Gonzales.
“Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties,” Gonzales claimed Sunday, referencing allegations against Gaetz that the Department of Justice investigated but declined to prosecute last year.
The House Ethics Committee is still investigating Gaetz, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said Sunday on X that Gonzales was “laundering lies on CNN.”
Gonzales also targeted Good for his support of Herrera, apparently referencing a report by Jewish Insider that cited instances of Herrera posting videos “replete with imagery, music and jokes about the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.”
“Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi,” Gonzales said. “These people used to walk around with white hoods at night; now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.”
After Gonzales’s CNN interview, Herrera objected to the congressman’s characterization of him as a “neo-Nazi,” writing on X: “This is the death spiral ladies and gentlemen. He has to cry to his liberal friends about me, because Republicans won’t listen anymore.”
For Johnson, the infighting looms over his fate as speaker.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) had promised to try to remove Johnson from the speakership if he moved Ukraine aid, but she held back in hopes that her colleagues hear from angry constituents before returning to Washington.
Massie, who co-sponsored Greene’s resolution to oust Johnson, said he hopes Johnson resigns and predicted that if he does not, someone could trigger a “motion to vacate” even though much of the Republican conference does not want to devolve into chaos again.
In a tense Tuesday evening meetingwith Johnson and several rank-and-file Republicans, Gaetz told the speaker that if he moved ahead with his foreign aid plan that GOP colleagues would seek to oust him. He also threatened others in the room, saying the far-right bloc would target them on social media and campaign against them.
Meanwhile, some GOP critics of the hard-line faction have advocated for leadership to take harsher measures against the bloc.
Last week during a meeting with the speaker and lawmakers of the conservative Main Street Caucus, who prioritize governing, conversations revolved around how to punish members based on what could improve House functions. Several members suggested removing the three hard-liners — Roy, Massie and Norman — who sit on the House Rules Committee.
Johnson did not announce any decision whether on whether to follow through with that proposed plan., which many members from that meeting acknowledged is easier said than done since far-right members fundraise successfully off being targeted by “the establishment.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/22/house-republicans-infighting-foreign-aid/
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WASHINGTON (AP) — For Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Mike Johnson, the necessity of providing Ukraine with weapons and other aid as it fends off Russia's invasion is rooted in their earliest and most formative political memories.
McConnell, 82, tells the story of his father’s letters from Eastern Europe in 1945, at the end of World War II, when the foot soldier observed that the Russians were “going to be a big problem” before the communist takeover to come. Johnson, 30 years younger, came of age as the Cold War was ending.
As both men pushed their party this week to support a $95 billion aid package that sends support to Ukraine, as well as Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian missions, they labeled themselves “Reagan Republicans” an described the fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin in terms of U.S. strength and leadership. But the all-out effort to get the legislation through Congress left both of them grappling with an entirely new Republican Party shaped by former President Donald Trump.
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While McConnell, R-Ky., and Johnson, R-La., took different approaches to handling Trump, the presumptive White House nominee in 2024, the struggle highlighted the fundamental battle within the GOP: Will conservatives continue their march toward Trump’s “America First” doctrine on foreign affairs or will they find the value in standing with America's allies? And is the GOP still the party of Ronald Reagan?
“I think we’re having an internal debate about that,” McConnell said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’m a Reagan guy and I think today — at least on this episode — we turned the tables on the isolationists.”
Still, he acknowledged, “that doesn’t mean they’re going to go away forever.”
McConnell, in the twilight of his 18-year tenure as Republican leader, lauded a momentary victory Tuesday as a healthy showing of 31 Republicans voted for the foreign aid; that was nine more than had supported it in February. He said that was a trend in the right direction.
McConnell, who has been in the Senate since 1985, said passing the legislation was “one of the most important things I’ve ever dealt with where I had an impact."
But it wasn’t without cost.
He said last month he would step away from his job as leader next year after internal clashes over the money for Ukraine and the direction of the party.
For Johnson, just six months into his job as speaker, the political crosscurrents are even more difficult. He is clinging to his leadership post as right-wing Republicans threaten to oust him for putting the aid to Ukraine to a vote. While McConnell has embraced American leadership abroad his entire career, Johnson only recently gave complete support to the package.
Johnson has been careful not to portray passage as a triumph when a majority of his own House Republicans opposed the bill. He skipped a celebratory news conference afterward, describing it as “not a perfect piece of legislation” in brief remarks.
But he also borrowed terms popularized by Reagan, saying aggression from Russia, China and Iran “threatens the free world and it demands American leadership.”
“If we turn our backs right now, the consequences could be devastating,” he said.
Hard-line conservatives, including some who are threatening a snap vote on his leadership, are irate, saying the aid was vastly out of line with what Republican voters want. They condemned both Johnson and McConnell for supporting it.
“House Republican leadership sold out Americans and passed a bill that sends $95 billion to other countries,” said Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who opposed the bill. He said the legislation "undermines America's interests abroad and paves our nation's path to bankruptcy.”
Johnson has been lauded by much of Washington for doing what he called “the right thing" at a perilous moment for himself and the world.
“He is fundamentally an honorable person,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who brokered the negotiations and spent hours on the phone and in meetings with Johnson, McConnell and the White House.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Johnson and McConnell “both showed great resolve and backbone and true leadership at a time it was desperately needed.”
When McConnell began negotiations over President Joe Biden's initial aid request last year, he quickly set the terms for a deal. He and Schumer agreed to pair any aid for Ukraine with help for Israel, Schumer said, and McConnell demanded policy changes at the U.S. border with Mexico.
On McConnell's mind, he said, was that Trump was “unenthusiastic” about providing more aid to Kyiv. Yet McConnell, whose office displays a portrait of every Republican president since Reagan with the exception of Trump, had a virtually nonexistent relationship with the man he often refers to not by name, but simply as “the former president.”
Still, Trump would prove to hold powerful sway. When a deal on border security neared completion after months of work, Trump eviscerated the proposal as insufficient and a “gift” to Biden's reelection. Conservatives, including Johnson, rejected it out of hand.
With the border deal dead, McConnell pushed ahead with Schumer on the foreign aid, with the border policies stripped out, solidifying their unusual alliance. The Senate leaders met weekly throughout the negotiation.
“We disagreed on a whole lot, but we really stuck together,” Schumer said.
“We just persisted. We could not give up on this."
Meanwhile, a small group of GOP senators began working on an idea they thought could give Johnson some political wiggle room. Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma took an idea that Trump had raised — structuring the aid to Ukraine as a loan — and tried to make it reality.
Through a series of phone calls with Trump, several House members, as well as the speaker, they worked to structure roughly $9 billion in economic aid for Ukraine as forgivable loans — just as it was in the final package.
“Our approach this time was to make sure that the politics were set, meaning that President Trump is on board,” Mullin said.
The conversations culminated in Johnson making a quick jaunt to Florida, where he stood side by side with Trump at his Florida club just days before moving ahead with the Ukraine legislation in the House.
It was all enough, with Democratic help, to get the bill across the finish line. The legislation, which Biden signed into law on Wednesday, included some revisions from the Senate bill, including the loan structure and a provision to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine. Nine GOP senators who had opposed the first version of the bill swung to “yes” largely because of the changes Johnson had made.
The result was a strong showing for the foreign aid in the Senate, even though the decision could prove costly for Johnson.
What comes next on Ukraine is anyone's guess.
While the $61 billion for Ukraine in the package is expected to help the country withstand Moscow's offensive this year, more assistance will surely be needed. Republicans, exhausted after a grueling fight, largely shrugged off questions about the future.
“This one wasn’t easy,” Mullin said.
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"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
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I'm honestly not sure what she was going for with that. Some grand plan to get the left to complain about it so the right can say "Puppies? You guys kill babies!"? (Actually, I would not have been surprised if that had played out).
Turns out pretty much nobody supports this. And since she wrote it herself, only the truly unsalvageable will claim it's untrue (I've seen it once).
I kinda think she she shot herself in the foot here; usually to do that in the GOP you have show some loss of deference towards Trump...but this was a truly unique thing she pulled off.
I don't know whether she was going to be the running mate but I am quite doubtful she will now.
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
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Her odds to be VP cratered in the betting markets when this hit.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Hardline Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called Wednesday for a vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, pressing ahead with her long-shot effort despite pushback from Republicans at the highest levels tired of the political chaos.
Greene, who is one of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, stood on the House floor and read a long list of “transgressions” she said Johnson had committed as speaker. Colleagues booed in protest.
The vote, which under House rules is required within two days, could happen imminently.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Hardline Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tried and failed in sudden action Wednesday to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos.
One of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, Greene stood on the House floor and read a long list of “transgressions” she said Johnson had committed as speaker. Colleagues booed in protest.
Greene of Georgia criticized Johnson’s leadership as “pathetic, weak and unacceptable.”
No sooner than Greene triggered the vote on her motion to vacate the speaker from his office, the Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise countered by calling first for a vote to table it.
An overwhelming majority, 359-43, kept Johnson in his job, for now.
It’s the second time in a matter of months that Republicans have tried to oust their own speaker, an unheard of level of party turmoil with a move rarely seen in U.S. history.
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As Greene pressed ahead despite pushback from Republicans at the highest levels, GOP lawmakers filtered towards Johnson, giving him pats on the back and grasping his shoulder to assure him of their support.
"We need steady hands at the wheel,” Johnson said afterward. “The country desperately needs a functioning Congress."
The Georgia Republican had vowed she would force a vote on the motion to vacate the Republican speaker if he dared to advance a foreign aid package with funds for Ukraine, which was overwhelmingly approved late last month and signed into law.
But in recent days it seemed her effort had cooled, as she and Johnson met repeatedly for a potential resolution.
Johnson of Louisiana marched on, saying he had been willing to take the risk, believing it was important for the U.S. to back Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and explaining he wanted to be on the “right side of history.”
“I just have to do my job every day,” Johnson said Monday.
In a highly unusual move, the speaker received a boost from Democrats led by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, whose leadership team had said it was time to “turn the page” on the GOP turmoil and vote to table Greene’s resolution — almost ensuring Johnson’s job is saved, for now.
Trump also weighed in after Johnson trekked to Mar-a-Lago for a visit, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee giving the speaker his nod of approval. And Trump’s hand-picked leader at the Republican National Committee urged House Republicans off the move.
Ahead of the vote, Trump said on social media, “I absolutely love Marjorie Taylor Greene,” but he said Republicans need to be fighting now to defeat Democrats in the November election.
“This is not the time,” Trump said, to oust the speaker.
The move now poses its own political risks for Greene, a high-profile provocateur.
Greene was determined to force her colleagues to be on the record with their vote – putting them in the politically uncomfortable position of backing the speaker and seen as joining forces with Democrats to save him.
The tally showed the strength, but also the weakness, of her effort, as most lawmakers voted to move past the infighting and allow the Republican speaker, just six months in the office, to keep the gavel.
Last year, the House chamber was brought to a standstill when eight Republicans voted to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s office, and Democrats declined to help save him.
Ousting McCarthy resulted in a nearly monthlong search for a new GOP leader, throwing the chamber into turmoil with an episode Republicans wanted to avoid before seeking voter support in the November election.
__
Associated Press writers Stephen Groves and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The ghost of Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign is ringing up significant support in state primaries despite her withdrawal from the race in March shortly before Donald Trump had clinched the Republican nomination.
The backing for Haley — most recently in Indiana, where she grabbed more than 21% of the votes on Tuesday — signals persistent discontent among party voters with the former president. He is racking up primary victories even as he has been spending much of his time recently in a New York courtroom facing state criminal charges involving hush money payments to a porn actor.
Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador who qualified for the Indiana ballot before she ended her campaign two months ago, has not endorsed Trump.
A Haley campaign adviser did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the results.
Indiana Democrats did not have the option to vote “ uncommitted ” in their party primary. Unease about President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war has sparked a protest vote movement in some states, raising similar questions about the strength of his support in November.
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Haley’s support was largest in Indiana’s urban and suburban counties. She won 35% of the vote in Indianapolis’s Marion County and more than one-third of the vote in suburban Hamilton County. As in other states, she did best in the most Democratic areas of the state.
The exception was Lake County, home to Gary, just south of Chicago. Haley won only 14% of the vote in Lake County.
Biden’s campaign attributed Haley’s Indiana showing to Trump’s trouble in suburbs and cited similar primary numbers in swing states such as Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The president has made an open appeal to Haley supporters to back him in November.
The Trump campaign claimed without evidence that Haley’s support came from Democrats, adding that he would carry Indiana in November, as in 2016 and 2020.
Two weeks ago in Pennsylvania, Haley received nearly 17% of the primary vote. She earned similar support in Arizona just weeks after her exit.
Trump, who won every Indiana county, brushed off Haley's support in an interview Tuesday with WGAL-TV of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
“All of those people are going to come to me,” he said.
In late January, Trump said prematurely that Haley did not have enough signatures to make Indiana’s primary ballot. While Haley did get the minimum 500 signatures needed in each congressional district to make the ballot, the margin was razor thin in the 7th District, which includes Indianapolis.
Haley’s campaign was largely absent from the state even while she was in the race.
Indiana, with its 11 electoral votes, is far from the swing state that Pennsylvania is. Trump won Indiana by 16 percentage points in 2020.
Nonetheless, Haley's support from 1 in 5 Republican voters raises questions about how they will vote in the fall. Before she dropped out, she took nearly 27% of votes in Michigan. She received 13% of the Georgia GOP vote shortly after her exit.
Haley, who ended her campaign after losses to Trump across almost all Super Tuesday states in early March, recently announced she was joining the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank. In her farewell speech a day after Trump’s big night, Haley declined to directly endorse him. She put the onus on Trump to win the support of the moderate Republicans and independent voters who had supported her.
“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that,” she said. “At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people.”
Trump had been withering in his criticism of Haley, calling her “Birdbrain” in speeches to his supporters and questioning her decision to stay in the race.
Just before Super Tuesday, Haley said she no longer felt bound by a pledge that required all GOP contenders to support the party’s eventual nominee in order to participate in the primary debates.
She has said little publicly but has continued to utilize her email outreach, via her Stand for America PAC, sending out updates on her Hudson appointment, as well as the return of her husband, Michael, from a South Carolina Army National Guard deployment that saw him stationed in African during a large portion of her primary campaign.
___
Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
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