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      Far right criticises Mike Johnson over US funding bill – but so far his job looks safe

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      A leading member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus indicated trouble ahead for Mike Johnson, the new speaker, after the House on Tuesday passed a bill to avert a government shutdown.Chip Roy, of Texas, told reporters the bill was “precisely what was put down on [Saturday 1 October], that then resulted in the motion to vacate against Kevin that following Tuesday, and here we are. We’re doing the same thing”.In October, Kevin McCarthy, of California, relied on Democratic support to pass a continuing resolution (CR) and stave off the threat of a shutdown, which would leave federal workers without pay and cripple many functions of government.Thus angering Roy and other rightwingers, McCarthy swiftly became the first House speaker ever ejected by his own party.After a chaotic interregnum in which candidates for speaker fell in swift succession, Johnson, from Louisiana, succeeded McCarthy as a speaker acceptable to the hard right and Donald Trump, the presidential frontrunner who Johnson supported as he attempted to overturn the 2020 election.Nonetheless, on Tuesday Johnson was forced to rely on Democratic support to get his “laddered” or staggered funding measure through. In the end, no fewer than 93 Republicans voted against the bill.Johnson enjoys one key advantage over McCarthy. There is no sense – yet – that his days as speaker are numbered.“Mike’s a friend,” Roy said. “You know, I wanted to give a little time to get all this going. I get it. It’s difficult.“But, you know, for the same reasons that I opposed the CR on 1 October, I oppose the CR that Speaker Johnson is putting forward because it continues to perpetuate the very system my constituents sent me here to oppose.“They don’t want me to continue spending money we don’t have at $1.6tn spending level, at the Pelosi spending level, to Pelosi spending, policies and priorities. And that’s what this is doing.”Nancy Pelosi, the California congresswoman who was the Democratic speaker until the last midterm elections, has long been a potent bugbear for the Republican right.Roy also aimed fire at his own ranks: “We have Republicans who violently opposed that bill a year ago and the omnibus bill last December, who are now trying to say that we need to continue that.”Lamenting unchallenged funding for the Department of Homeland Security – another Republican bugbear, given its responsibility for controlling immigration and in particular the southern border – Roy stressed: “I oppose it. I oppose” the funding bill.But Democrats did not oppose it, even if the “laddered” measure was not their preferred choice.“The main principle is keeping the government open,” Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey congressman, told the Washington Post. “We’re not talking about even saving face. This is the 11th hour. We don’t have many alternatives here.”Johnson’s bill must pass the Senate. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic majority leader, indicated that it would, while of similar mind to Pascrell.Though he called Johnson’s bill “goofy”, Schumer said on the chamber floor: “I am heartened – cautiously so – that Speaker Johnson is moving forward with a CR that omits precisely the sort of hard-right cuts that would have been nonstarters for Democrats.“I certainly don’t agree with everything the speaker is proposing, and I can’t imagine too many senators would have taken the speaker’s approach in drafting this bill. But the proposal … does two things Democrats have pushed for: it will avert a shutdown, and it will do so without making any terrible hard-right cuts that the Maga [Trump-supporting] rightwing demands.”Such demands will likely be made of Johnson some time soon.“Mike is an extraordinary man of integrity and honor,” Roy told reporters. “I take him at his word. But what I think you’ve got to remember [is] this is a job where it’s very difficult to honor our commitments like that. You’re going to get up to another deadline.”For now, though, the pressure is off – regarding funding bills, at least.On a day when McCarthy denied shoving Tim Burchett of Tennessee, a rightwinger who voted to remove him as speaker last month, and when the Oklahoma Republican Markwayne Mullin physically threatened a union boss at a Senate hearing, Johnson told reporters his CR would “allow everybody to go home for a couple of days for Thanksgiving”.“Everybody cool off,” the speaker said. “Members have been here for 10 weeks. This place is a pressure cooker.”As the next funding deadline nears, such pressure will inevitably rise again. More

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      Israeli Troops Enter Gaza Hospital, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes.Dsplaced Palestinians taking shelter at Al Shifa hospital, amid the ongoing conflict last week.Doaa Rouqa/ReutersOn Today’s Episode:Israel Says Troops Have Entered Hospital in Gaza City, by James C. McKinley Jr. and Victoria KimU.S. Manages Expectations of a Breakthrough Before Biden and Xi Meet, by Katie Rogers and David E. Sanger, with Ed WongHouse Passes Johnson’s Plan to Avert Shutdown in Bipartisan Vote, by Catie EdmondsonEmily Lang More

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      Nancy Dahlstrom, Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor, Is Running for Its Sole House Seat

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      Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom is challenging Mary Peltola, who scored upset wins last year against Sarah Palin to flip Alaska’s sole seat in the House to the Democrats for the first time in 50 years.A second Republican has joined the race in Alaska to challenge Representative Mary S. Peltola, a popular Democrat who holds the state’s sole House seat.Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who was elected last year, is taking on Ms. Peltola, who became the first Alaska Native woman ever elected to Congress after she defeated former Gov. Sarah Palin in two 2022 elections. Ms. Peltola’s first victory against Ms. Palin, in a special election after the death of Alaska’s longtime congressman, Don Young, flipped the seat to the Democrats for the first time in 50 years.Her second victory, in the November midterms, dealt a political blow for Ms. Palin, once considered a standard-bearer in the national Republican Party.Ms. Dahlstrom, a former state representative and the former commissioner of the state’s Department of Corrections, is the second Republican to enter the House race, following Nick Begich III. A scion of a prominent liberal political family in Alaska, Mr. Begich finished in third place in previous races against Ms. Peltola.“Alaska needs a proven tough fighter,” Ms. Dahlstrom said in a statement announcing her candidacy and criticizing President Biden. She vowed that if elected to the House she would “stop Biden and the extreme liberals ruining our future.”The House Republican campaign arm has made this seat a priority target in 2024. Will Reinert, a spokesman for the group, said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Ms. Dahlstrom “is a top-tier recruit who will win this Trump won state.”Ms. Peltola’s election to a full term with 55 percent of the vote last November — after playing up her bipartisan credentials and local issues on the campaign trail — demonstrated her ability to hold on to the seat despite political headwinds. Alaska has long been a red state, and former President Donald J. Trump handily won Alaska in the 2020 election. Mr. Young, a Republican who was one of the longest-serving members in the House, won re-election that year with 54 percent of the vote.But Ms. Peltola’s popularity will still pose a significant obstacle for Republicans, despite their advantages. The race was competitive but leaning toward Ms. Peltola, according to an analysis by the Cook Political Report earlier this year.Activists and former Republican candidates in the state, including Ms. Palin, are also trying to repeal the state’s recently adopted ranked-choice voting system. They argue that the system can allow a Democrat to win even when a majority of voters pick a Republican on the first ballot. Ms. Peltola was the most popular choice on the first ballot in both of her previous races, but she did not secure outright majorities until the second round.Proponents of the system say that when voters have more choices, they’re less likely to follow strict party lines, and that it reduces polarization and gives more moderate candidates a better shot. More

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      George Santos’s Campaign Aide Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud

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      Samuel Miele is the second person who worked on Representative George Santos’s House election campaigns to plead guilty to federal charges.A second person connected to the campaign of Representative George Santos of New York has pleaded guilty to federal charges, an ominous sign as the embattled congressman’s own case moves closer to trial.Appearing before a federal judge in Central Islip, N.Y., on Tuesday, Samuel Miele pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in connection with a fund-raising scheme in which he impersonated a House staffer for his and Mr. Santos’s benefit.But the most intriguing details to emerge from court were related to incidents that Mr. Miele was not charged with, but admitted to as part of his guilty plea.Between November 2020 and January 2023, Mr. Miele used his position with the Santos campaign to charge donors’ credit cards without their permission and to apply contributions to things they had not been intended for.Prosecutors have accused Mr. Santos, 35, of similar schemes. They said he repeatedly debited donors’ credit cards without their authorization and raised money for a fictitious super PAC, distributing the money to his and other candidates’ campaigns as well as his own bank account.Mr. Miele admitted in one instance to having solicited $470,000 from an older man that was used in ways that the donor had not intended. Judge Joanna Seybert, who is also overseeing Mr. Santos’s case, said that Mr. Miele was being required to return the money to the man.It is not clear if Mr. Santos was aware of or involved in Mr. Miele’s fraudulent use of donors’ credit cards, or the $470,000 solicitation. No explanation was given for why Mr. Miele was not charged in the matter; his lawyer declined to say whether his plea included an agreement with federal prosecutors to testify against Mr. Santos.In court on Tuesday, Mr. Miele did not name Mr. Santos, nor did he implicate him in his actions. Nonetheless, his guilty plea, which comes just over a month after that of Mr. Santos’s campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, is an inauspicious sign for the congressman.Like Ms. Marks, Mr. Miele was a member of Mr. Santos’s inner circle, involved not only in his congressional campaign but also his personal business ventures.Prosecutors accused Mr. Miele, 27, of carrying out the fund-raising scheme in the fall of 2021 to aid Mr. Santos’s ultimately successful election campaign for the House, charging him with four counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Of those, he pleaded guilty to a single count, for which he could nonetheless serve more than two years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for April 30.The indictment, filed this August, did not identify the staffer that Mr. Miele was said to have impersonated, though The New York Times and others have reported that it was Dan Meyer, who was then chief of staff to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.Dressed in a too-large navy suit coat, with black hair slicked back, Mr. Miele stood to read from a prepared statement.“Between August and December 2021, I pretended I was chief of staff to the then leader of the House of Representatives,” he said. “I did that to help raise funds for the campaign I was working on.”Mr. Santos, a Republican representing parts of Long Island and Queens, has not been charged in connection with Mr. Miele’s impersonation. The congressman has said that he was unaware of the ruse, and fired Mr. Miele shortly after learning of it from Republican leadership. Joseph Murray, a lawyer for Mr. Santos who attended Tuesday’s hearing, declined to comment.Mr. Santos faces a 23-count indictment that includes wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors have said that Mr. Santos used multiple methods to steal tens of thousands of dollars from campaign donors.They have charged him with falsifying campaign filings, including listing a $500,000 loan that had not been made when it was reported. And they have accused him of collecting unemployment funds when he was, in fact, employed. Mr. Santos has pleaded not guilty to all counts.Earlier this month, he survived a second effort to expel him from Congress, this one led by members of his own party. That resolution, introduced by Representative Anthony D’Esposito, a first-term Republican representing a neighboring district on Long Island, cited Mr. Santos’s now well-known history of duplicity as well as the ongoing criminal case against him. It was resoundingly defeated, with both Republicans and Democrats agreeing that such an action would be premature without a conviction.Mr. Santos has insisted that such a conviction will never come, calling the proceedings a “witch hunt” and rebuffing calls for his resignation.The congressman is also facing scrutiny from the House Ethics Committee, which signaled that it was drawing close to the conclusion of its monthslong investigation. That panel, which is made up of both Democrats and Republicans, is expected to issue a report and recommendations later this week. More

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      US House speaker expresses confidence his proposal will avert shutdown

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      The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, expressed confidence on Tuesday that his unconventional proposal to avert a federal government shutdown at the end of the week would pass with bipartisan support despite strong objections from the far-right flank of his caucus.The House was prepared to vote on the stopgap funding package on Tuesday afternoon, after Johnson moved to bring the bill to the floor under an expedited process that requires a two-thirds majority for passage. The “laddered” approach would extend funding for federal agencies into the new year, with two different deadlines that give lawmakers more time to finish drafting their appropriations bills. If approved by the House, the Senate would need to act swiftly before Friday’s midnight deadline to avoid a closure.The plan is Johnson’s attempt to circumvent a bitter showdown over government spending that led hardline Republicans to depose his predecessor, the former speaker Kevin McCarthy.Johnson, a self-described “arch-conservative” who was the Republicans’ third choice to replace McCarthy, argued that his “innovation” put conservatives in the “best position to fight” for deep spending cuts next year without the specter of a shutdown.“What we need to do is avoid the government shutdown,” Johnson said, arguing that not doing so would “unduly harm the American people” and leave troops without paychecks. “We have to avoid that and we have a responsibility to do it.”Under his plan, Johnson would extend funding for federal agencies in two parts, with some agencies slated to function through 19 January and others through 2 February while lawmakers draft longer-term spending bills. Despite its rebrand as a “laddered” resolution, the plan would temporarily maintain spending at levels set at the end of last year, when Democrats controlled the chamber, with none of the deep cuts conservatives want. It also does not address the White House’s request for wartime aid to Ukraine and Israel.In a sign leaders expect to draw support from a coalition of Democrats and relatively mainstream Republicans, Johnson will bring the bill to the floor under a shortcut known as a suspension of rules, which requires a supermajority, or 290 votes, to pass.Several of the conservatives who revolted against the last Republican-led stopgap measure, triggering McCarthy’s ouster, again disapproved of the plan as it did not include any spending cuts or policy changes.“It contains no spending reductions, no border security and not a single meaningful win for the American people,” the House Freedom Caucus, a hard-right coalition of conservatives, said in a statement announcing their opposition. “Republicans must stop negotiating against ourselves over fears of what the Senate may do with the promise ‘roll over today and we’ll fight tomorrow’.”Despite their objections, the group signaled that its members were unlikely to push to depose Johnson for working with Democrats to pass spending legislation, as they did with McCarthy: “While we remain committed to working with Speaker Johnson, we need bold change.”Johnson insisted he shared their conservative policy goals but said there was not enough agreement among House Republicans, with their whisker-thin majority, to advance a plan that made deeper spending cuts.“We’re not surrendering,” Johnson said. “We’re fighting, but you have to be wise about choosing the fights. You got to fight fights that you can win.”Just three weeks after Republicans finally elected a new speaker after weeks of chaos and dysfunction that halted business in the House, there is little appetite for risking a federal government shutdown – or another speakership fight.Asked if he was concerned that bringing this proposal would mean the end of his nascent speakership, Johnson said he was not.“This is a very different situation,” he said. “We’re taking this into the new year to finish the process.”Top Democrats were not happy with what the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, called the “goofy laddered” approach, but saw it as the only path to prevent a shutdown in the fast-closing window before Friday’s midnight deadline.Leaving their caucus meeting on Tuesday morning, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said Democrats were still evaluating the proposal but appeared open to voting for it. The proposal did not contain the sort of “poisonous, political partisan policy provisions” that Jeffries said would be a nonstarter.The White House was initially critical of the plan when it was unveiled over the weekend. But speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Schumer said he was “heartened” by the progress being made in the House.“It has to be bipartisan and right now that’s the path we seem to be on,” Schumer told reporters. To win the support of Senate Democrats, Schumer said he made two requests of Johnson’s plan: that it omit the “hard-right cuts” conservatives were demanding, and that if there were going to be two deadlines, defense funding would expire in the “second part of the ladder”. Both of his conditions were met.If it passes the House, Schumer said he would work with the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to find the fastest way to pass it in the upper chamber.He also appeared confident the president would sign the legislation if it passed both chambers, noting that the White House agreed that if Johnson’s stopgap spending package could “avoid a shutdown it will be a good thing”. More

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      ‘A bully’: McCarthy accused of shoving Republican who helped oust him

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      A US radio reporter witnessed a remarkable altercation on Tuesday at the US Capitol between Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican speaker eight rightwingers including Burchett ejected from the role last month.Claudia Grisales, of NPR, said: “Have NEVER seen this on Capitol Hill: while talking to Tim Burchett after the GOP conference meeting, former speaker McCarthy walked by with his detail and McCarthy shoved Burchett. Burchett lunged towards me. I thought it was a joke, it was not. And a chase ensued.”According to Grisales, Burchett yelled, “Why’d you elbow me in the back, Kevin?! Hey Kevin, you got any guts!?” and called McCarthy a “jerk”.Grisales said: “I chased behind with my mic.”McCarthy, she said, told Burchett: “I didn’t elbow you in the back.”Burchett said: “You got no guts, you did so … the reporter said it right there, what kind of chicken move is that? You’re pathetic, man.”Telling Grisales he was “stunned”, Burchett said the clash was his first communication with McCarthy since he helped make him the first speaker ever removed by his own party.Last week, McCarthy told CNN Burchett’s vote to remove him was “out of nature” and accused him and his fellow rebels of “car[ing] a lot about press, not about policy, and so they seem to just want the press and the personality”.Burchett said then McCarthy was “bitter”.McCarthy has flirted with or reportedly indulged in physical confrontations before. In January, as rightwingers forced him through 15 votes to become speaker, he confronted Matt Gaetz of Florida on the House floor. Mike Rogers of Alabama, a McCarthy ally, had to be restrained. Gaetz eventually became the ringleader of McCarthy’s removal.In a new memoir, meanwhile, the retired anti-Trump Republican Adam Kinzinger, from Illinois, details two times he says McCarthy shoved him.Kinzinger says McCarthy “tried to intimidate me physically. Once, I was standing in the aisle that runs from the floor to the back of the [House] chamber. As he passed, with his security man and some of his boys, he veered towards me, hit me with his shoulder and then kept going.“If we had been in high school, I would have dropped my books, papers would have been scattered and I would have had to endure the snickers of passersby. I was startled but took it as the kind of thing Kevin did when he liked you.“Another time, I was standing at the rail that curves around the back of the last row of seats in the chamber. As he shoulder-checked me again, I thought to myself, ‘What a child.’”On Tuesday, McCarthy did not immediately comment. At the Capitol, Burchett spoke to CNN.“I was doing an interview with Claudia from NPR, a lovely lady,” he said. “And … at that time I got elbowed in the back. And it kind of caught me off guard because it was a clean shot to the kidneys. And I turned back and there was there was Kevin, and … it just happened and then I chased after him.“Of course, as I’ve stated many times, he’s a bully with $17m in a security detail, and he’s the type of guy that when you’re a kid would throw a rock over the fence and run home and hide behind his Mama’s skirt.“He hit me from behind … that’s not the way we handle things in East Tennessee. We have a problem, somebody’s gonna look him in the eye.”Being hit in the kidneys, Burchett said, was “a little different. You don’t have to hit very hard to cause a little bit of pain, a lot of pain. And so he … just denies it or blames somebody else or something. But I just backed off because … I wasn’t gaining anything from it, if everybody saw it.”Burchett said the incident was “symptomatic of the problems that [McCarthy’s] had in his short tenure as speaker … he wouldn’t turn around and face me. He kept scurrying and trying to keep people between me [to] handle it.” More

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      Republican praises January 6 attacker’s ‘good faith and core principles’

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      Seeking leniency for a January 6 rioter charged with assaulting police, the Louisiana Republican congressman Clay Higgins – a former law enforcement officer himself – saluted the man’s “good character, faith and core principles”.In video taken during the attack on Congress on 6 January 2021, the rioter was seen to say: “It’s going to be violent and yes, if you are asking, ‘Is Ryan Nichols going to bring violence? Yes, Ryan Nichols is going to bring violence.’”Nichols, in an affidavit, admitted posting the video, attacking officers with pepper spray and urging rioters on with shouts including, “This is not a peaceful protest”.In court in Washington last week, Nichols, of Longview, Texas, pleaded guilty to two charges: obstruction and assaulting, resisting or impeding police and obstruction of an official proceeding.More than 1,000 arrests have been made over the attack and hundreds of convictions secured, some for seditious conspiracy. Donald Trump, who incited the riot as he attempted to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat by Joe Biden, faces 17 charges related to his election subversion, four federal and 13 at state level in Georgia.Nine deaths have been linked to the attack staged by the former president’s supporters, including law enforcement suicides.Higgins’ own website describes him as having “spent much of his career dedicated to uniformed service [as] an army veteran and law enforcement officer”. It also says he is “widely regarded as one of the most conservative members of Congress”.Nonetheless, in a letter dated 7 November, he asked the US district judge in Nichols’s case, Royce C Lamberth, to show leniency when passing down sentence.“Sir,” Higgins wrote. “I submit to you this letter in support of Ryan Taylor Nichols. He is a man of good character, faith, and core principles.“I humbly ask that he receive fair consideration of the whole of circumstances regarding his case, condition, and background. He has already served nearly two years in the District of Columbia jail in pretrial confinement, which has been destructive to his physical (liver issues) and mental health (PTSD).”Nichols had been under house arrest since 22 November 2022 and had “not sought to flee nor shown any indication of dangerous activity”, Higgins said.He added: “Prior to his arrest, Mr Nichols had no criminal background and served honorably in the United States Marine Corps. He continued to serve domestically in a search and rescue capacity, even being publicly recognised for his heroic actions on national television.”That referred to Nichols’s commendation by the Louisiana-raised TV host Ellen DeGeneres – in 2018 – and in relation to his work to rescue people and animals stranded by Hurricane Florence.Nichols, Higgins said, “has already paid a tremendous price in time and treasure” for his actions on January 6.“His case must be considered fairly and thoroughly in line with his fundamental constitutional rights.”No date has been set for sentencing. More

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      US House votes to pause impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas

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      The US House of Representatives voted on Monday to pause the effort to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, halting a Republican campaign that alleges he has been derelict in his duty in managing the US-Mexico border.The articles of impeachment, introduced by Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican representative, on Thursday, contend that Mayorkas, an appointee of Joe Biden, violated his oath of office by failing to constrain the record numbers of migrants arriving at the border.The House voted to refer the articles back to the House homeland security committee, which is carrying out its own investigation of Mayorkas’s alleged dereliction of duty.The move comes as Congress has less than five days to extend funding or send the US into its fourth partial government shutdown in a decade.The impeachment comes after months of threats from Republicans, who blame Biden’s administration for rolling back harsh restrictions on accepting migrants and asylum seekers put in place under Donald Trump, a Republican.If the Republican-controlled House impeaches Mayorkas, he will almost definitely be found innocent after a trial in the Senate, which Democrats control by a slim margin.In response to the initial impeachment motion, a US Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said lawmakers should stop “their reckless impeachment charades and attacks on law enforcement” and instead “deliver desperately needed reforms for our broken immigration system”.Since Biden took office in 2021, US border agents have made more than 5 million arrests of migrants making irregular crossings – that is, not through a controlled border station – over the US-Mexico border. Migrants have arrived from around the world; large numbers have fled economic and political turmoil in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBoth Biden and Trump are seeking another term in office in 2024, with Trump the leading candidate for the Republican nomination.House Republicans have also launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden. The probe is focused on the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and the White House has denied any wrongdoing. More