House of Representatives

Subterms

    Latest story

    100 Shares17 Views

    With Shutdown Looming, Biden Points to Republican Infighting

    by

    The president and his team insist they do not want the government to shut down. But they are also confident that Republicans will receive the blame if it does.President Biden’s shutdown strategy is simple: Avoid one, if possible. But if not, make sure Americans know whom to blame.His aides at the White House and in his re-election campaign have spent the past several days describing the consequences of what they call an “extreme Republican shutdown” of the government: delayed disaster relief; no food stamps for poor women and children; no pay for troops, air traffic controllers, Border Patrol or Transportation Security Administration agents.“They pull the country toward an extreme government shutdown in the name of draconian cuts to education, law enforcement, Meals on Wheels and Head Start,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said in describing House Republicans.The president and his team are quick to insist that they do not want a shutdown, especially a lengthy one, because of the harms that would ripple across America. But they are also confident that Republicans will receive the blame, as they have during standoffs that temporarily shuttered government agencies in years past.White House aides also believe that the intraparty fighting in Congress is putting Republican dysfunction on display, to the benefit of Mr. Biden and Democrats. Speaker Kevin McCarthy and a handful of his most conservative colleagues are refusing to keep the government open unless their demands for border security and spending cuts are met. “Extreme House Republicans are playing partisan games with people’s lives and marching our country toward a government shutdown that would have damaging impacts across the country,” the White House said in a statement on Thursday, highlighting nearly 2,000 disaster recovery projects that would be delayed by a shutdown.Mr. McCarthy has tried to draw Mr. Biden into the drama by suggesting that he would be responsible for a work stoppage because of his refusal to support Republican proposals for more restrictions on migrants at the border with Mexico.Speaker Kevin McCarthy has suggested Mr. Biden is responsible for a government shutdown because of his refusal to support Republican proposals on immigration.Kenny Holston/The New York Times“The president, it’s in his hands,” Mr. McCarthy, Republican of California, told reporters on Capitol Hill this week. “He can keep the government open by taking an action on the border.”Mr. Biden has also been under pressure from members of his own party to confront the surge of migrants at the border, thousands of whom are putting enormous stress on social services in big cities like New York and Boston.The president and his aides have pointed to their efforts to provide more migrants with a chance to receive work permits. And they have repeatedly noted that Republicans blocked a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s immigration system that might have helped the authorities manage migration more easily.Advisers to Mr. Biden, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss White House and campaign strategy, are confident that — with a little nudging — Americans will place the blame squarely on House Republicans if the government shuts down this weekend. That could benefit the president for the remainder of his term, they say, by bolstering his leverage with lawmakers and eroding support for the Republican majority in the House.Campaign aides also say the sense of disgust among Americans with the shenanigans on Capitol Hill will help Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign by sharpening the contrast with his rivals. Former President Donald J. Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination, has urged House conservatives to shut down the government, a move that Mr. Biden’s advisers and supporters are quick to point out.“Except for President Trump, who called for Republicans to shut down the government, no one actually wants this, because it means real people will get hurt,” said Stephanie Cutter, a veteran Democratic strategist who has helped presidents develop messages inside the White House and during campaigns.Those running Mr. Biden’s campaign would be wise to repeatedly draw the public’s attention to the similarities between Mr. Trump and his conservative allies in Washington, Ms. Cutter said.“Republican infighting and dysfunction is the best example of the difference between Bidenomics and MAGAnomics,” she said. “These situations, when you’re thinking about your closing arguments, help you really crystallize the choice voters will have a year from now.”The president’s team has begun to do just that.His campaign issued a statement on Monday blasting Mr. Trump’s call for a shutdown, accusing House Republicans of “gleefully letting Donald Trump function as their chief political strategist at the expense of American families.” Mr. Biden’s most recent campaign ad, titled “The Way,” emphasizes bipartisan legislative achievements even as the current Congress is in stalemate.Inside the West Wing, the president’s closest advisers have been sending out daily talking points for their allies to deliver as a shutdown looms. Stephen Benjamin, the director of public engagement at the White House, and Anita Dunn, one of the president’s top strategists, emphasized those issues on a conference call on Thursday with Democratic surrogates.Aides are encouraging allies to stress several points.First, they are told to repeatedly remind voters that Mr. Biden and Mr. McCarthy shook hands on a spending agreement months ago that was supposed to avert a shutdown. The speaker, under pressure from his conservative members, later reneged on the deal.Second, Biden allies are urged to note how isolated Mr. McCarthy is. Senate Republicans, including Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, have urged their House colleagues to accept a short-term agreement to keep the government open.Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is among the Republicans who have urged their colleagues in the House to accept a short-term agreement to keep the government open.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesFinally, Biden officials are asking their supporters to be specific about the pain that a shutdown is likely to inflict.The White House warned in a statement this week of the impact of a shutdown on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, which helps poor families buy food.“During an extreme Republican shutdown, women and children who count on WIC would soon start being turned away at grocery store counters, with a federal contingency fund drying up after just a few days and many states left with limited WIC funds to operate the program,” the statement said.The White House went into further detail with a state-by-state breakdown of exactly how many women, children and infants were enrolled in the program — 421,294 in Florida, 207,728 in Michigan, 139,765 in Arizona and so on — and at risk of losing assistance. More

    More stories

    • 175 Shares15 Views

      in US Politics

      The Biden impeachment hearing was a fishing expedition – no one took the bait

      by

      There was a commonsense question at the heart of Thursday’s congressional hearing on whether to launch a formal impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden that Republicans are counting on Americans to ask themselves. Would any foreign business hire the president’s son, Hunter, if it were not for his father?Out of that, Republicans on the House of Representatives oversight committee spun a vision of Biden Sr sitting atop a sprawling crime family that would be the envy of the mafia. But, as so often in modern American politics, the spectre of Donald Trump was lurking in the shadows.This was not an impeachment hearing. It was a hearing to decide if there is enough evidence to merit an impeachment inquiry into the president.But it was clear from the moment the Republican committee chair, James Comer, banged his gavel to launch more than six hours of accusation, distraction, attacks on witnesses and grandstanding that, for his party at least, the matter was already settled.Comer promised “a mountain of evidence, revealing how Joe Biden abused his public office for his family’s financial gain”. If so, it wasn’t immediately evident amid the endless flashing of documents and emails on to the committee’s screens, and the convoluted attempts to make connections through supposition and suspicion.At the heart of the Republican case is that foreign business interests in Ukraine, China and beyond only hired Hunter Biden, described by one congressman as a man “addicted to drugs who frequented prostitutes”, because he offered the reward of “influence peddling” with his father going back years to when he was vice-president.Comer then made the leap to claim that, therefore, Joe Biden must have been on the take.“For years, President Biden has lied to the American people about his knowledge of and participation in his family’s corrupt business schemes. The door was wide open to those who purchased what a business associate described as the Biden brand,” he told the hearing.“These business targets include foreign oligarchs who sent millions of dollars to his family. It also includes a Chinese national who wired a quarter of a million dollars to his son.”A YouGov poll last month found that nearly three-quarters of Americans do think Hunter used his father’s position to make money. A little more than half of Democrats agreed, although the findings were blunted by the fact that the poll also said a majority of Americans think the children of all US presidents profit from their parents.But most Americans did not agree that meant Joe Biden was being paid off, although the fact that 43% do and 28% are not sure should worry the White House as evidence that the Republican accusations have some traction.There’s little doubt that Hunter made millions from foreign business deals. In June, he agreed a plea deal admitting that he failed to pay taxes on millions in 2017 and 2018, although that agreement fell apart after a judge blocked it. In August, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed a special counsel to investigate Hunter’s finances.But even the Republicans’ own witnesses would only go so far as to say that, while there was enough evidence for an investigation, it was not enough to establish the president’s guilt.The Republicans called on law professor and Fox News legal analyst, Jonathan Turley, to explain why an impeachment inquiry could not be avoided. He stated as fact that Hunter Biden was corrupt and said the country needed to know if the president was in on it.“The question is, did the president know? Did he encourage this type of corruption? And the key here once again … you have to begin with a recognition that what Hunter Biden and his associates were doing was corrupt. That’s what influence peddling is,” said Turley.Asked if, in that case, Congress was “obligated to have this inquiry”, Turley agreed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I believe it’s your duty to determine if the president is involved in what is a known form of corruption,” he said.Still Turley acknowledged that, as things stand, the evidence is not there.“I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment. That is something that an inquiry has to establish, but I also do believe that the House has passed the threshold for an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Biden,” he said.That would make any impeachment inquiry a fishing expedition. Or at least a distraction from what the Democrats say is really going on.The lone witness for the Democrats, Michael Gerhardt, a professor of jurisprudence at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told the committee that the evidence did not show that the president was, in effect, in the pay of his son.“There have been lots of assumptions, lots of accusations. But the dots have not been connected,” he said.The Democratic congresswoman Melanie Ann Stansbury connected other dots. She said the hearing wasn’t really about Biden at all but a “chilling” attempt to make the dozens of pending criminal charges against Trump seem “like they’re not serious crimes”.“What is this hearing actually about? It’s a campaign strategy. It’s a misuse of official resources. It is this committee and loyalists of Donald Trump doing his bidding to bolster his chances of winning back the White House and securing their majority in the next election,” she said.“I think it’s obvious who the grand puppet master is here.” More

    • 138 Shares23 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans struggle to provide proof of wrongdoing at Biden impeachment inquiry

      by

      Republicans struggled to put forward any evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden during a hearing on Thursday that’s part of a newly launched impeachment inquiry.The hearing did not go well for Republicans, who control the US House and allege Biden was connected to his son’s business dealings that could have resulted in bribery and corruption. They have been investigating the matter for months and have yet to produce evidence linking the president to his son’s financial affairs. They failed to do so again on Thursday. Instead, the strategy appeared to be to lay the groundwork to justify a longer fishing expedition.The three Republican witnesses who testified on Thursday all conceded they did not have firsthand knowledge of any criminal activity by Biden. Two of those witnesses, Jonathan Turley, a conservative law professor, and Bruce Dubinsky, a forensic accountant, acknowledged that the information put forward so far by the committee did not amount to corruption.“I have previously stated that, while I believe that an impeachment inquiry is warranted, I do not believe that the evidence currently meets the standard of a high crime and misdemeanor needed for an article of impeachment,” Turley said in prepared testimony. Still, Turley argued that there were signs of influence-peddling and that the committee should investigate further.Republicans were reportedly caught off-guard by Turley’s conclusion and an unnamed Republican aide told CNN the hearing was an “unmitigated disaster” for the effort.“I am not here today to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud, or any wrongdoing. In my opinion, more information needs to be gathered and assessed before I would make such an assessment,” Dubinsky, the forensic accountant, said in his opening statement.Thursday’s hearing, led by the House oversight committee, is titled The Basis for an Impeachment Inquiry of President Joseph R Biden Jr. The other Republican witness was Eileen O’Connor, a former assistant attorney general in Department of Justice’s tax division, who wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal criticizing the investigation into Hunter Biden’s finances. O’Connor served on Trump’s 2016 transition team for the treasury department, the Washington Post reported.The impeachment inquiry appears to be a thinly veiled effort to try to muddy the waters as Donald Trump, who leads the Republican primary field, faces four different criminal cases after being twice impeached.With little concrete evidence to work with, Republicans instead relied on Hunter Biden’s business transactions and text messages to try to cast aspersions on the president. They offered no connection to Joe Biden.“The dots are not connected. The name that’s been mentioned the most often in this hearing is Hunter Biden, not President Biden,” Michael Gerhardt, the lone Democratic witness and a law professor at the University of North Carolina, said several hours into the hearing.“The problem is when you sling mud, you have to have mud,” Representative Jared Moskowitz of Florida said at one point.The White House essentially ignored the hearing. Instead, its press office blasted out several versions of the same statement throughout the day with a countdown until the government shuts down for lack of funding.“There are 60 hours and 55 minutes until the government shuts down because of extreme House Republicans’ chaos and inability to govern. The consequences for the American people will be very damaging – from lost jobs, to troops working without pay, to jeopardizing important efforts to fight fentanyl, provide food assistance, and more. Nothing can distract from that,” one such statement read on Thursday morning.With little substance to debate, and no fact witnesses to testify, the hearing often turned theatrical. At one point, Greg Casar, a representative of Texas, asked members to raise their hands if they thought both Hunter Biden and Donald Trump should be tried, and held accountable for their actions if convicted. All of the Democrats present raised their hands, but no Republicans did.“I think it is worse than embarrassing that Republicans won’t raise their hands. They refuse to say that equal justice under the law should apply to everyone,” he said.Democrats also rebuked Republicans for moving forward with an impeachment inquiry absent a full vote from the US House authorizing it. It is not clear whether there is enough GOP support for impeachment in the House for it to survive a full vote.The New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also accused Republicans of presenting a fabricated text message between Jim and Hunter Biden – the president’s brother and son, respectively – that she pointed out omitted critical context. Representative Byron Donalds of Florida displayed a selectively edited exchange between the two in the format of iMessages, which was not how the committee originally received the communication.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn his opening statement, Representative James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House oversight committee, claimed the panel had obtained a “mountain of evidence” showing corruption.“He lied by telling the American people that there was an ‘absolute wall’ between his official government duties and his personal life. Let’s be clear: there was no wall. The door was wide open to those who purchased what a business associate described as ‘the Biden Brand’,” he said.But the New York representative Daniel Goldman, a Democrat, pointed to the fact that Republicans had declined to call Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s business partner to testify. He noted that, in an interview with the committee, Archer had said Joe Biden “never discussed business with Hunter Biden and his associates, he got nothing from the businesses, and never took any official acts related to the businesses”.Republicans also rejected at least two efforts to subpoena Rudy Giuliani, a close ally of Donald Trump who was instrumental in spreading allegations of improprieties by Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden is currently suing Giuliani for the “total annihilation” of his data privacy.For years, Republicans have sought to link Hunter Biden’s business dealings with foreign companies to Joe Biden. But after reviewing thousands of pages of Hunter Biden’s financial records, they have yet to turn up any kind of substantial evidence, according to the New York Times. GOP lawmakers hope to build enough of a case of bribery and abuse of power by Biden.The hearing comes as Republicans have struggled to pass a spending plan to keep the US government open. Democrats have seized on the Thursday hearing to accuse Republicans of being unserious about passing a spending plan.Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican who chairs the House ways and means committee, also said Biden was connected to his son’s business dealings, something Republicans have been unable to prove. “Whether it was lunches, phone calls, White House meetings or official foreign trips, Hunter Biden cashed in by arranging access to Joe Biden, the family brand,” Smith said in his opening remarks.In a lengthy response, Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, blasted Republicans for focusing on impeachment days before the US government was set to shut down due to lack of funding.“We’re 62 hours away from shutting down the government of the United States of America and Republicans are launching an impeachment drive based on a long debunked and discredited lie,” he said. “They don’t have the votes because dozens of Republicans recognize what a futile and absurd process this is.”Republicans have said they will move forward with impeachment, even if the government shuts down. More

    • 150 Shares17 Views

      in US Politics

      US shutdown moves ever closer as McCarthy digs in over stopgap deal

      by

      A government shutdown appeared all but inevitable as the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, dug in on Thursday, vowing he will not take up Senate legislation designed to keep the federal government fully running despite House Republicans’ struggle to unite around an alternative.Congress is at an impasse just days before a disruptive federal shutdown that would halt paychecks for many of the federal government’s roughly 2 million employees, as well as 2 million active-duty military troops and reservists, furlough many of those workers and curtail government services.But the House and Senate are pursuing different paths to avert those consequences, even though time is running out before government funding expires after midnight on Saturday.The Senate is working toward passage of a bipartisan measure that would fund the government until 17 November as longer-term negotiations continue, while also providing $6bn for Ukraine and $6bn for US disaster relief.The House, meanwhile, has teed up votes on four of the dozen annual spending bills that fund various agencies in hopes that would cajole enough Republicans to support a House-crafted continuing resolution that temporarily funds the government and boosts security at the US border with Mexico. It’s a long shot, but McCarthy predicted a deal.“Put your money on me; we’re going to get this done,” he said in a CNBC interview. “I think we can work through the weekend. I think we can figure this out.”Lawmakers were already weary from days of late-night negotiating. The strain was evident at McCarthy’s closed-door meeting with Republicans on Thursday morning, which was marked by a tense exchange between the speaker and Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, according to those in the room.Gaetz, who has taunted McCarthy for weeks with threats to oust him from his post, confronted the speaker about conservative online influencers being paid to post negative things about him. McCarthy shot back that he wouldn’t waste his time on something like that, Gaetz told reporters as he exited the meeting.McCarthy’s allies left the meeting fuming about Gaetz’s tactics.With his majority splintering, McCarthy is scrambling to come up with a plan for preventing a shutdown and win Republican support. The speaker told Republicans he would reveal a Republican stopgap plan, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, on Friday, according to those in the room, while also trying to force Senate Democrats into giving some concessions.But with time running out, many GOP lawmakers were withholding support for a temporary measure until they had a chance to see it. Others are considering joining Democrats, without McCarthy’s support, to bring forward a bill that would prevent a shutdown.With his ability to align his conference in doubt, McCarthy has little standing to negotiate with Senate Democrats. He has also attempted to draw Joe Biden into negotiations, but the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said Congress and the White House had already worked out top-line spending levels for next year with an agreement this summer that allowed the government to continue borrowing to pay its bills.McCarthy was deviating from that deal and courting a shutdown by catering to Republicans who said it didn’t do enough to cut spending, he said.“By focusing on the views of the radical few instead of the many, speaker McCarthy has made a shutdown far more likely,” Schumer said.Biden also sought to apply more pressure on McCarthy, urging him to compromise with Democrats even though that could threaten his job.“I think that the speaker is making a choice between his speakership and American interests,” Biden said.The White House, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, notified staff on Thursday to prepare for a shutdown, according to emails obtained by the Associated Press. Employees who are furloughed would have four hours on Monday to prepare their offices for the shutdown. More

    • 138 Shares28 Views

      in Elections

      G.O.P. Eyes Bribery and Abuse of Power Impeachment Charges for Biden

      by

      The first hearing in the impeachment inquiry comes as Republicans are grasping for evidence tying President Biden to his son’s foreign business dealings.Top House Republicans are eyeing potential impeachment charges of bribery and abuse of power against President Biden, according to senior House officials familiar with their plans, as they push forward with an inquiry that seeks to tie him to his son’s foreign business dealings.Building up to the inquiry’s first hearing scheduled for Thursday, Republicans have stepped up their efforts to cast suspicion on Mr. Biden, releasing material they characterized as incriminating but which contained no proof of wrongdoing. The lawmakers have been grasping for months for evidence to fuel their impeachment case, which has yet to provide a basis for either potential charge they are considering.On Wednesday, they released records of wire transfers from a Chinese businessman to Hunter Biden in 2019 that listed his father’s Wilmington, Del., address, suggesting that was an indication that the elder Biden had profited off those transactions. But the home was Hunter Biden’s primary residence at the time.Later in the day, a powerful panel voted to release 700 more pages from the confidential tax investigation into Hunter Biden, including an affidavit from an I.R.S. agent who concluded that he and his business associates received potentially more than $19 million in foreign income, but who makes no allegation the income was illegal.The documents also include an email in which a prosecutor at the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware prohibited investigators from mentioning President Biden in a proposed search warrant in August 2020. Republicans argue that shows the Justice Department was biased in favor of Mr. Biden, but the warrant was being prepared months before the elections, during a period when the agency’s longstanding policy is to avoid taking high-profile actions against any political candidate.The G.O.P. has struggled so far to link Hunter Biden’s business activity to the president or get anywhere close to revealing proof of high crimes and misdemeanors. Despite their review of more than 12,000 pages of bank records and 2,000 pages of suspicious activity reports, none of the material released so far shows any payment to his father.Leaders of the three panels carrying out the inquiry — the Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means Committees — hope to accumulate evidence that the elder Biden abused his office, accepted bribes or both, according to the officials familiar with it, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details.The officials emphasized that the inquiry might never result in impeachment charges if the evidence they compile does not support such charges — or any other. And Republicans are privately cognizant that they currently lack enough support within their ranks to push charges through the House, and that any charges would be dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.For Thursday’s hearing before the Oversight Committee — the first since Speaker Kevin McCarthy, under pressure from his right flank, announced the inquiry — Republicans have booked a trio of conservative legal analysts to opine about the Bidens and the law. The analysts are not, however, in a position to present new facts in the case.The Oversight panel is considered the lead committee, according to the officials, and will investigate any allegations of corruption against the president and his family. The Judiciary Committee will focus on the Justice Department, while Ways and Means will handle any sensitive tax information pertinent to the inquiry.Democrats have criticized Republicans for moving forward with an impeachment inquiry in the absence of any incriminating evidence against the president.“Haven’t we already been doing this for the last nine months?” asked Representative Jared Moskowitz, Democrat of Florida and a member of the Oversight Committee, in an interview. “They don’t have anything on Joe Biden.”With divisions among House Republicans threatening to lead to a government shutdown this weekend, Mr. McCarthy has explicitly tried to leverage his impeachment inquiry to persuade hard-right lawmakers to keep the government open. Thursday’s hearing is — at least in part — an attempt to make the case to right-wing lawmakers and voters that Republican-led committees are making progress in their investigation of Mr. Biden, the chief political rival of former President Donald J. Trump.Speaker Kevin McCarthy has explicitly tried to leverage his impeachment inquiry to convince hard-right lawmakers to keep the government open.Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times“It’s hard to grasp the complete derangement of this moment,” said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland and the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee. “Three days before they’re set to shut down the United States government, Republicans launch a baseless impeachment drive against President Biden. No one can figure out the logic of either course of action.”Republicans are plowing ahead anyway. The inquiry is expected to stretch on for weeks, and Republicans believe it is beneficial to them politically to keep it active and grabbing news headlines to serve as a counterweight to the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump and the 91 felony counts he faces.Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the Oversight Committee, said in an interview that his staff would continue to work on the impeachment inquiry even during a government shutdown when many nonessential workers face furloughs.“We’ve got five staffers working on this, and they’re very passionate about it,” he said.On Tuesday, he said his committee had obtained two bank wires totaling $260,000 that demonstrate that Hunter Biden received money from Chinese nationals in which his address was listed as the Wilmington, Del., home of his father.Representative James R. Comer, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, said his staff would continue to work on the impeachment inquiry even during a government shutdown.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesAt a news conference, Mr. McCarthy said the records showed that Mr. Biden “lied” when he claimed his family had not received money from China.Hunter Biden’s legal team said there was nothing nefarious in the transaction. The payment described by Mr. Comer was from a business partner for legitimate purposes, and Hunter Biden listed his father’s address because that was his primary residence at the time, his lawyer said.“We expect more occasions where the Republican chairs twist the truth to mislead people to promote their fantasy political agenda,” said Abbe Lowell, the younger Biden’s lawyer.Democrats have been planning a counteroffensive to the inquiry. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, met privately with Democratic lawmakers who led the two impeachments of Mr. Trump to discuss their strategy of how to defend Mr. Biden. One point of debate at the meeting: whether Democrats should attempt to defend Hunter Biden’s conduct or essentially cast him aside and make the case that while the son may have engaged in wrongdoing, his father had nothing to do with it.The Justice Department has investigated Hunter Biden’s taxes and international business dealings for five years and indicted him on felony gun charges stemming from his purchase of a firearm while being a drug user.Republicans have been investigating the unproven allegations against Mr. Biden with little success for years. Functionally, the House inquiry gives them no new investigative powers. But, they argue, it strengthens their argument in case the Bidens should fight them in court. Mr. Comer said he plans to issue subpoenas for the personal bank records of Hunter Biden, the president’s brother James Biden, and, eventually, the president himself. More

    • 150 Shares36 Views

      in US Politics

      Republican says GOP ‘stuck on stupid’ pushing for government shutdown – video

      by

      Moderate New York Republican Mike Lawler said members of the GOP blocking efforts to keep the federal government from going into shutdown before a Saturday deadline are ‘stuck on stupid’ in an interview with CNN.
      Criticising members of his party, Lawler said: ‘Some of my colleagues have, frankly, been stuck on stupid and refused to do what we were elected to do, against the vast majority of the conference, who have been working to avoid a shutdown’ More

    • 138 Shares30 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans pushing for government shutdown ‘stuck on stupid’, says party moderate

      by

      Republicans pushing for a federal government shutdown are “stuck on stupid”, a party moderate said shortly before one rightwinger reported that the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, would not hold a vote on a bipartisan Senate plan advanced as a way to keep the government open.“The American people elected a House Republican majority to serve as a check and balance and be able to govern,” Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York, a heavily Democratic state, told CNN.“Some of my colleagues have, frankly, been stuck on stupid and refused to do what we were elected to do, against the vast majority of the conference, who have been working to avoid a shutdown.”If no agreement to continue funding the government is reached by midnight on Saturday, many federal functions will cease. Employees can expect to be furloughed and the public left without key services.Past shutdowns – most recently in 2013, 2018 and 2019 – have been stoked by Republican hardliners in Congress but have not paid off politically. The most recent closure was prompted by Donald Trump, then president, over immigration policy. The Congressional Budget Office put the cost of the 35-day shutdown at about $18bn and said $3bn was wiped off US GDP.Nonetheless, Trump is now backing a shutdown again and on Wednesday Bob Good of Virginia, a hard-right holdout, told reporters McCarthy had said he would not allow a vote on the stopgap measure reached by senators the day before.McCarthy is widely seen to be in a political vice, running the House with a five-seat majority, beholden to hardliners who in January forced him through 15 votes to become speaker and are now threatening to start proceedings to have him removed.Moderates like Lawler, who was elected in 2022 in an unusually strong Republican showing in New York, are at most risk of losing their seats next year, when Democrats will seek to take back the House.Lawler told CNN: “Two weeks ago, the speaker came forth with a proposal that would reduce spending by 8% in the 30-day continuing resolution, as well as enact most of the provisions of HR2 [a House bill] to deal with our border crisis,” Lawler said. “Unfortunately, folks like Matt Gaetz chose to oppose that for some ridiculous reason.”Gaetz, from Florida and a vocal Trump supporter, has led the charge against McCarthy. On the House floor on Tuesday night, he said the US would soon see if the “failed” speaker would turn to Democrats to keep the government open.“The one thing I agree with my Democrat colleagues on is that for the last eight months, this House has been poorly led,” Gaetz said. “And we own that, and we have to do something about it, and you know what? My Democratic colleagues will have an opportunity to do something about that too, and we will see if they bail out our failed speaker.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDemocratic and moderate Republican support could help McCarthy keep the government open – but it would almost certainly spell the end of his time as speaker.On Tuesday, a source familiar with the thinking of moderate Republicans predicted the shutdown would “last about five days”, because a House rules committee block on a bipartisan deal meant it could only reach the floor on the first day of the closure, five days then being needed to get the deal to a point where “it will sail through both chambers”.The same source said hard-right Republicans simply wanted “to burn the place down”, adding: “These are not serious people. They believe anything that [Joe] Biden wants is bad, but the margins are so thin that their votes count.”Lawler said: “I’ve been very clear from the start, that I will not support a government shutdown, that we need to do everything we can to avoid one. Nobody wins in a shutdown. And in fact, the American people are going to be the ones that get hurt.” More

    • 188 Shares34 Views

      in Elections

      ‘Trump Is Scaring the Hell Out of Me’: Three Writers Preview the Second G.O.P. Debate

      by

      Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Josh Barro, who writes the newsletter Very Serious, and Sarah Isgur, a senior editor at The Dispatch, to discuss their expectations for the second Republican debate on Wednesday night. They also dig into and try to sort out a barrage of politics around President Biden’s sagging approval numbers, an impeachment inquiry, a potential government shutdown and shocking political rhetoric from former President Trump.Frank Bruni: For starters, Josh and Sarah, Donald Trump is scaring the hell out of me. It’s not just his mooning over a Glock. It’s his musing that in what he clearly sees as better days, Gen. Mark Milley could have been executed for treason. Is this a whole new altitude of unhinged — and a louder, shriller warning of what a second term of Trump would be like (including the suspension of the Constitution)?Josh Barro: I don’t think people find Trump’s provocations very interesting these days. I personally struggle to find them interesting, even though they are important. I’m not sure this constitutes an escalation relative to the end of Trump’s service — the last thing he did as president was try to steal the election. So I’m not sure this reads as new — Trump is and has been unhinged, and that’s priced in.Bruni: Sarah, what do you make of how little has been made of it? Is Trump indemnified against his own indecency, or can we dream that he may finally estrange a consequential percentage of voters?Sarah Isgur: Here’s what’s wild. In one poll, the G.O.P. is now more or less tied with Democrats for “which party cares about people like me,” closing in on Democrats’ 13-point advantage in 2016 … and in another poll, the G.O.P. is leading Democrats by over 20 points on “dealing with the economy.” So how is Joe Biden even still in this race? And the answer, as you allude to, is Trump.Barro: Trump’s behavior has already estranged a consequential percentage of voters. If Republicans found a candidate who was both normal and law-abiding and a popularist, they’d win big, instead of trying to patch together a narrow Electoral College victory, like Trump managed in 2016 and nearly did again in 2020.Bruni: Sarah, you’re suggesting that Trump is a huge general election gift to Biden. To pivot to tonight’s debate, is there any chance Biden doesn’t get that gift — that he winds up facing Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis or someone else?Isgur: Possible? Sure. Every year for Christmas, I thought it was possible there was a puppy in one of the boxes under the tree. There never was. I still think Ron DeSantis is probably the only viable alternative to Trump. But he’s looking far less viable than he was in June. And the more voters and donors flirt with Tim Scott or Nikki Haley, it becomes a race for No. 2 (see this debate) — and the better it is for Trump. That helps Trump in two ways: First, it burns time on the clock and he’s the front-runner. Second, the strongest argument for these other candidates was that Trump couldn’t beat Biden. But that’s becoming a harder and harder case to make — more because of Biden than Trump. And as that slides off the table, Republican primary voters don’t see much need to shop for an alternative.Barro: These other G.O.P. candidates wouldn’t have Trump’s legal baggage and off-putting lawlessness, but most of them have been running to Trump’s right on abortion and entitlements. And if Trump isn’t the nominee, he’ll quite possibly be acting to undermine whoever is the G.O.P. nominee. So it’s possible that Republicans are actually more likely to win the election if they nominate him than if they don’t.Isgur: You talk to these campaigns, and they will readily admit that if Trump wins Iowa, this thing is over. And right now he’s consistently up more than 30 points in Iowa. Most of the movement in the polls is between the other candidates. That ain’t gonna work.Barro: I agree with Sarah that the primary is approaching being over. DeSantis has sunk in the polls and he’s not making a clear argument about why Trump shouldn’t be nominated.Bruni: Do any of tonight’s debaters increase their criticism of him? Sharpen their attacks? Go beyond Haley’s “Gee, you spent a lot of money” and Mike Pence’s “You were not nice to me on Jan. 6”? And if you could script those attacks, what would they be? Give the candidates a push and some advice.Barro: DeSantis has been making some comments lately about how Trump kept getting beat in negotiations by Democrats when he was in office. He’s also been criticizing Trump for throwing pro-lifers under the bus. The unsaid thing here that could tie together these issues and Trump’s legal issues is that he is selfish — that this project is about benefiting him, not about benefiting Republican voters. It’s about doing what’s good for him.That said, this is a very tough pitch for a party full of people who love Trump and who think he constantly faces unfair attacks. But it’s true, and you can say it without ever actually attacking Trump from the left.Isgur: Here’s the problem for most of them: It’s not their last rodeo. Sure, they’d like to win this time around. And for some there’s a thought of the vice presidency or a cabinet pick. But more than that, they want to be viable in 2028 or beyond. Trump has already been an electoral loser for the G.O.P. in 2018, 2020 and 2022, and it hasn’t mattered. They aren’t going to bet their futures on Trump’s power over G.O.P. primary voters diminishing if he loses in 2024, and if he wins, he’ll be limited to one term, so all the more reason to tread lightly with Trump’s core voters. Chris Christie is a great example of the alternative strategy because it is probably his last race — and so he’s going straight at Trump. But it hasn’t fundamentally altered the dynamics of the race.Barro: I think DeSantis’s star certainly looks dimmer than it did when he got into the race.Isgur: DeSantis is worse off. But this was always going to happen. Better to happen in 2024 than 2028. But Josh is right. Political operatives will often pitch their candidate on there being “no real downside” to running because you grow your national donor lists and expand your name recognition with voters outside your state. But a lot of these guys are learning what Scott Walker, Jeb Bush and Tim Pawlenty have learned: There is a downside to running when expectations are high — you don’t meet them.Bruni: Give me a rough estimate — how much time have Haley and her advisers spent forging and honing put-downs of Vivek Ramaswamy? And would you like to suggest any for their arsenal? Josh, I’m betting you do, as you have written acidly about your college days with Ramaswamy.Barro: So I said in a column (“Section Guy Runs for President”) that I didn’t know Ramaswamy in college, but I have subsequently learned that, when I was a senior, I participated in a debate about Social Security privatization that he moderated. That I was able to forget him, I think, is a reflection of how common the overbearing type was at Harvard.Bruni: Ramaswamy as a carbon copy of countless others? Now you’ve really put me off my avocado toast, Josh. Is he in this race deep into the primaries, or is he the Herman Cain of this cycle (he asked wishfully)?Barro: I think the Ramaswamy bubble has already popped.Bruni: Popped? You make him sound like a pimple.Isgur: Your words, Frank.Barro: He makes himself sound like a pimple. He’s down to 5.1 percent in the RealClearPolitics polling average, below where he was just before the August debate. One poll showed his unfavorables going up more than his favorables after the debate — he is very annoying, and that was obvious to a lot of people, whether or not they share my politics.Isgur: Agree. He’s not Trump. Trump can weather the “take me seriously, not literally” nonsense. Ramaswamy doesn’t have it.Bruni: Let’s talk about some broader dynamics. We’re on the precipice of a federal shutdown. If it comes, will that hurt Republicans and boost Biden, or will it seem to voters like so much usual insider garbage that it’s essentially white noise, to mix my metaphors wildly?Barro: I’m not convinced that government shutdowns have durable political effects.Isgur: It seems to keep happening every couple years, and the sky doesn’t fall. It is important, though, when it comes to what the G.O.P. is and what it will be moving forward. Kevin McCarthy battling for his job may not be anything new. But Chip Roy is the fiscal heart and soul of this wing of the party, and even he is saying they are going to pay a political penalty.Barro: I find it interesting that Kevin McCarthy seems extremely motivated to avoid one, or at least contain its duration. He thinks the politics are important.Isgur: I’d argue the reason it’s important is because it shows you what happens when voters elect people based on small donor popularity and social media memes. Nobody is rewarded for accomplishments, which require compromise — legislative or otherwise. These guys do better politically when they are in the minority. They actually win by losing — at least when their colleagues lose, that is. That’s not a sustainable model for a political party: Elect us and we’ll complain about the other guys the best!Bruni: What about the impeachment inquiry? The first hearing is on Thursday. Is it and should it be an enormous concern for Biden?Isgur: I’m confused why everyone else is shrugging this thing off. I keep hearing that this doesn’t give the G.O.P. any additional subpoena powers. Yes, it does. We just did this when House Democrats tried to subpoena Trump’s financial records. The Supreme Court was very clear that the House has broad legislative subpoena power when what they are seeking is related to potential legislation, but that it is subject to a balancing test between the two branches. But even the dissenters in that case said that Congress could have sought those records pursuant to their impeachment subpoena power. So, yes, the tool — a congressional subpoena — is the same. But the impeachment inquiry broadens their reach here. So they’ve opened the inquiry, they can get his financial records. Now it matters what they find.Barro: I agree with Sarah that the risk to Biden here depends on the underlying facts.Isgur: And I’m not sure why Democrats are so confident there won’t be anything there. The president has gotten so many of the facts wrong around Hunter Biden’s business dealings, I have no idea what his financial records will show. I am no closer to knowing whether Joe Biden was involved or not. But I’m not betting against it, either.Barro: I think the Hunter saga is extremely sad, and as I’ve written, it looks to me like the president is one of Hunter’s victims rather than a co-conspirator. I also think while there are aspects of this that are not relatable (it’s not relatable to have your son trading on your famous name to do a lot of shady business), there are other aspects that are very relatable — it is relatable to have a no-good family member with substance abuse and psychological issues who causes you a lot of trouble.Obviously, if they find some big financial scheme to transfer money to Joe Biden, the politics of this will be very different. But I don’t think they’re going to find it.Bruni: But let’s look beyond Hunter, beyond any shutdown, beyond impeachment. Sarah, Josh, if you were broadly to advise Joe Biden about how to win what is surely going to be a very, very, very close race, what would be your top three recommendations?Barro: The president’s No. 1 political liability is inflation, and food and fuel prices are the most salient aspect of inflation. He should be doing everything he can to bring price levels down. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a ton of direct control over this — if presidents did, they wouldn’t get tripped up by this issue. But he should be approving more domestic energy production and transmission, and he should be bragging more about doing so.U.S. oil production is nearing record levels, but Biden is reluctant to talk about that because it makes climate activists mad. If he gets attacked from the left for making gasoline too cheap and plentiful, great.Isgur: Make it a referendum on Trump. It’s what Hillary Clinton failed to do in 2016. When it’s about Trump, voters get squeamish. When it’s about Biden, they think of all of his flaws instead.Bruni: Squeamish doesn’t begin to capture how Trump makes this voter feel. Additional recommendations?Barro: Biden generally needs to be willing to pick more fights with the left. Trump has shown how this kind of politics works — by picking a fight with pro-life activists, he’s moderating his own image and increasing his odds of winning the general election. There’s a new poll out this week that says that voters see the Democratic Party as more extreme than the Republican Party by a margin of nine points. Biden needs to address that gap by finding his own opportunities to break with the extremes of his party — energy and fossil fuels provide one big opportunity, as I discussed earlier, but he can also break with his party in other areas where its agenda has unpopular elements, like crime and immigration.Isgur: The Republican National Committee handed Biden’s team a gift when they pulled out of the bipartisan debate commission. Biden doesn’t have to debate now. And he shouldn’t. The Trump team should want a zillion debates with Biden. I have no idea why they gave him this out.Bruni: I hear you, Sarah, on how Biden might bear up for two hours under bright lights, but let’s be realistic: Debates don’t exactly flatter Trump, who comes across as one part feral, two parts deranged. But let’s address the Kamala Harris factor. Josh, you’ve recommended replacing Harris, though it won’t happen. Maybe that’s your third? But you have to tell me whom you’d replace her with.Barro: Harris isn’t just a 2024 problem but also a 2028 problem. She is materially less popular than Biden is, and because of Biden’s age, he even more than most presidents needs a vice president who Americans feel comfortable seeing take the presidency, and the polls show that’s not her. I’ve written about why he should put Gretchen Whitmer on the ticket instead. What Biden needs to hold 270 electoral votes is to keep the Upper Midwest swing states where his poll numbers are actually holding up pretty well — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The popular governor of Michigan can do a lot more for him there than Harris can.Isgur: It is a big problem that voters don’t think Biden will make it through another term, so that the V.P. question isn’t will she make a good vice president but will she make a good president. Democrats are quick to point out that V.P. attacks haven’t worked in the past. True! But nobody was really thinking about Dan Quayle sitting behind the Resolute Desk, either. But I don’t think they can replace Harris. The cost would be too high with the base. I also don’t think Harris can get better. So my advice here is to hide her. Don’t remind voters that they don’t like her. Quit setting her up for failure and word salads.Bruni: I want to end with a lightning round and maybe find some fugitive levity — God knows we need it. In honor of Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, I wonder: How many gold bars does each of you have in your basement or closet? Mine are in my pantry, behind the cashews, and I haven’t counted them lately.Barro: I understand Bob Menendez keeps tons of cash in his house because his family had to flee a Communist revolution. This is completely understandable. The only reason I don’t keep all that gold on hand is that I do not have a similar familial history.Isgur: Mine are made of chocolate, and they are delicious. (Dark chocolate. Milk chocolate is for wusses, and white chocolate is a lie.)Bruni: Are we measuring Kevin McCarthy’s remaining time as House speaker in hours, weeks or months, and what’s your best guess for when he subsequently appears in — and how he fares on — “Dancing With the Stars”?Isgur: Why do people keep going on that show?! The money can’t possibly be that good. I’ll take the over on McCarthy, though. The Matt Gaetz caucus doesn’t have a viable replacement or McCarthy wouldn’t have won in the first place … or 15th place.Barro: I also take the over on McCarthy — most of his caucus likes him, and unlike the John Boehner era, he hasn’t had to resort to moving spending bills that lack majority support in the conference. Gaetz and his ilk are a huge headache, but he won’t be going anywhere.Bruni: Does the confirmed November debate between Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom — moderated by Sean Hannity! — represent reason to live or reason to emigrate?Barro: Ugh. I find Newsom so grating and slimy. All you really need to know about him is he had an affair with his campaign manager’s wife. He’s also been putting his interests ahead of the party’s, with this cockamamie proposal for a constitutional amendment to restrict gun rights. It will never happen, will raise the salience of gun issues in a way that hurts Democratic candidates in a general election and will help Newsom build a grass roots email fund-raising list.Isgur: Oh, I actually think this is pretty important. Newsom and DeSantis more than anyone else in their parties actually represent the policy zeitgeist of their teams right now. This is the debate we should be having in 2024. As governors, they’ve been mirror images of each other. The problem for a Burkean like me is that both of them want to use and expand state power to “win” for their team. There’s no party making the argument for limited government or fiscal restraint anymore. And there’s no concern about what happens when you empower government and the other side wins an election and uses that power the way they want to.Bruni: You’ve no choice: You must dine, one-on-one, with either Matt Gaetz or Marjorie Taylor Greene. Whom do you choose, and how do you dull the pain?Barro: Marjorie Taylor Greene, but we’d spend the whole time talking about Lauren Boebert.Isgur: Damn. That was a good answer. Can I pick George Santos? At least he’s got great stories.Bruni: Last question — we’ve been plenty gloomy. Name something or a few things that have happened over recent weeks that should give us hope about the country’s future.Barro: The Ibram Kendi bubble popped! So, that was good.More seriously, while inflation remains a major problem (and a totally valid voter complaint), the economy has continued to show resiliency on output and job growth. People still want to spend and invest, despite 7 percent mortgage rates. It points to underlying health in the economy and a reason to feel good about American business and living standards in the medium and long term.Isgur: I had a baby this month — and in fact, September is one of the most popular birth month in the United States — so for all of us who are newly unburdened, we’re enjoying that second (third?) glass of wine, deli meat, sushi, unpasteurized cheese and guilt-free Coke Zero. And the only trade-off is that a little potato screams at me for about two hours each night!But you look at these new studies showing that the overall birthrate in the United States is staying low as teen pregnancies drop and birth control becomes more available but that highly educated woman are having more kids than they did 40 years ago … clearly some people are feeling quite hopeful. Or randy. Or both!Bruni: Sarah, that’s wonderful about your little potato — and your sushi!Barro: Congratulations!Bruni: Pop not only goes the weasel but also the Ramaswamy and the Kendi — and the Barro, ever popping off! Thank you both. Happy Republican debate! If that’s not the oxymoron of the century.Frank Bruni is a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, the author of the book “The Beauty of Dusk” and a contributing Opinion writer. He writes a weekly email newsletter.Josh Barro writes the newsletter Very Serious and is the host of the podcast “Serious Trouble.”Sarah Isgur is a senior editor at The Dispatch and the host of the podcast “Advisory Opinions.”Source photograph by ZargonDesign, via Getty Images.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 138 Shares30 Views

      in US Politics

      Congress returns with only days left to avert federal government shutdown

      by

      With just five days left to avert a federal shutdown, the House and the Senate return on Tuesday to resume their tense budget negotiations in the hope of cobbling together a last-minute agreement to keep the government open.The House will take action on four appropriations bills, which would address longer-term government funding needs but would not specifically help avoid a shutdown on 1 October.The four bills include further funding cuts demanded by the hard-right House members who have refused to back a stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, that would prevent a shutdown. Because of House Republicans’ narrow majority, McCarthy can only afford to lose a handful of votes within the conference, and hard-right members have capitalized on that dynamic to push for policy concessions in the spending negotiations.The House is expected to take a procedural vote on those four bills on Tuesday. If that vote is successful, the House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, will likely attempt to use the victory as leverage with the hard-right members of his conference to convince them to back a continuing resolution.But it remains unclear whether those four appropriations bills can win enough support to clear the procedural vote, given that one of the holdout Republicans, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, has said she will not back the spending package because it includes funding for Ukraine.Speaking to reporters on Tuesday on Capitol Hill, McCarthy was asked whether it would be possible to take up a continuing resolution if the appropriations bills fail to advance.“I never give up,” McCarthy said. “I’ve got a lot of things I can try.”Even if House Republicans can pass their spending package, the proposal will be dead on arrival in the Senate, where the Democrats who hold the majority have roundly rejected additional funding cuts.While the House remains at odds, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, is taking matters into his own hands by attempting to advance a shell bill that could serve as a legislative vehicle for a continuing resolution. The Senate plans to hold an initial vote on that bill on Tuesday evening.“As I have said for months, we must work in a bipartisan fashion to keep our government open, avoid a shutdown and avoid inflicting unnecessary pain on the American people,” Schumer said last week. “This action will give the Senate the option to do just that.”As the House standoff stretches on, the White House has accused Republicans of playing politics at the expense of the American people. In a video shared to X, formerly known as Twitter, Joe Biden warned on Tuesday that a shutdown could force US service members to go without pay as they remain on duty.“I’m prepared to do my part, but the Republicans in the House of Representatives refuse. They refuse to stand up to the extremists in their party. So now everyone in America could be forced to pay the price,” Biden said. “Funding the government is one of the most basic responsibilities of the Congress. It’s time for these Republicans in the House to start doing their job – doing the job America elected them to do. So let’s get it done.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut Republicans simultaneously face pressure from the leader of their party, Donald Trump, to hold the line in the budget talks – even if that means risking a shutdown.Trump wrote in a post shared on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Sunday: “UNLESS YOU GET EVERYTHING, SHUT IT DOWN!”McCarthy could attempt to pass a continuing resolution with Democratic support, but such a choice would face immediate backlash from hard-right Republicans, who have threatened to oust the speaker if he opts for that bipartisan strategy.One source familiar with the thinking of more moderate House Republicans argued that only a bipartisan proposal can ultimately pass both chambers of Congress, criticizing hard-right members for seeking “to burn the place down”.“These are not serious people,” the source said. “They believe anything that Biden wants is bad, but the margins are so thin that their votes count.”Martin Pengelly contributed reporting More