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      Republican senator will ‘burn the military down’ over abortion policy, says Democrat

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      The Alabama Republican senator Tommy Tuberville is “prepared to burn the military down” with his block on promotions in protest of Pentagon policy on abortion, the Connecticut Democratic senator Chris Murphy said.“I think everybody’s been hoping that Senator Tuberville would back down,” Murphy told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday.“And I think we have to come to the conclusion that that is not happening and that he is prepared to burn the military down.“Maybe Republicans were hopeful that leading up to the August break he would relent. He didn’t, and we now have to adjust our strategy.”Last year, the conservative-dominated US supreme court removed the federal right to abortion. Since February, Tuberville has been protesting Pentagon policy that allows service members to travel for abortion care if their state does not provide it.His method is to place a hold on all promotions to senior ranks that are subject to Senate confirmation, usually a pro forma process carried out with unanimous consent.Senior military leadership is increasingly severely affected, the US Marine Corps and US Army without permanent leaders and the joint chiefs of staff facing a similar predicament when the current chair, Gen Mark Milley, steps down next month.Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina now running for the Republican presidential nomination, also said Tuberville should back down.“We do not have a chief of staff of the army for a first time in 200 years,” Haley told the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “More than 300 vacancies. It’s a mess.”Haley said Hewitt should call Tuberville “and ask him to stop screwing up the military, because we’re on the brink of a conflict with China and we cannot have this”.Joe Biden has called for Tuberville to step down. So have hundreds of military spouses. Tuberville has refused. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, has said he does not support Tuberville’s protest but has not moved to stop it. Senate rules give individuals the ability to hold up proceedings. Furthermore, Tuberville retains support among his own party, in both chambers of Congress.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn Tuesday, Murphy said Republicans should support a temporary change to Senate rules, in order to process promotions that are now held up.“I just think we have to start thinking creatively about breaking this logjam,” he said. “There is no world in which we can use floor time for these nominations. It’s logistically impossible.”Murphy also said Tuberville, a former football coach and now a prominent Trump supporter, “is not going to back down” because “he thinks he’s become a celebrity folk hero in the fringe right.“He’s having the time of his life. If you want the military to function, you’re going to have to find a creative way to get around this guy.” More

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      Nikki Haley suggests Mitch McConnell should step aside amid health concerns

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      Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has suggested her fellow Republican Mitch McConnell – the longtime powerful US Senate leader – should step aside after an episode in which he physically froze and was unable to speak at the Capitol this week.Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Haley was asked by the host Margaret Brennan whether she still had confidence in McConnell’s ability to lead after the episode.“I think Mitch McConnell did an amazing job when it comes to our judiciary, when we look at the judges, when we look at the supreme court he’s been a great leader,” said Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ex-United Nations ambassador during the Donald Trump presidency. “But we’ve gotta stop electing people because they look good in a picture and they hold a baby well.”She also said the 90-year-old US senator Dianne Feinstein, the 80-year-old president Joe Biden, and 83-year-old congresswoman Nancy Pelosi – all of whom are prominent Democrats – should “know when to walk away”.Haley has called for congressional term limits and mental acuity tests for politicans aged 75 and above.A spokesperson for McConnell, 81, said last week that he intends to fulfill his term, which ends in 2026. He has led the US Senate’s Republican conference since 2007. McConnell’s office said that the senator felt lightheaded but has not released more details on what caused the episode in question.McConnell was hospitalized after he fell onstage earlier this year, leaving him with a concussion and a fractured rib. He also fell in Finland earlier this year while getting off an airplane at Reagan national airport in Washington DC.McConnell survived polio as a child, though the illness has long affected his gait.Publicly, Senate Republicans have backed McConnell. Yet anonymously, some have been more circumspect.One Republican senator told NBC News that McConnell has been relying more on his lieutenants and suggested he should step down.“I’d hate to see it forced on him,” that senator said, according to NBC. “You can do these things with dignity, or it becomes less dignified. And I hope he does it in a dignified way – for his own legacy and reputation.” More

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      Alito ‘stunningly wrong’ that Senate can’t impose supreme court ethics rules

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      Senator Chris Murphy has dismissed claims by the supreme court justice, Samuel Alito, that the Senate has “no authority” to create a code of conduct for the court as “stunningly wrong”.The Connecticut Democrat made those remarks in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, adding that Alito “should know that more than anyone else because his seat on the supreme court exists only because of an act passed by Congress”.“It is Congress that establishes the number of justices on the supreme court,” Murphy said. “It is Congress that has passed in the past requirements for justices to disclose certain information, and so it is just wrong on the facts to say that Congress doesn’t have anything to do with the rules guiding the supreme court.”He continued: “It is even more disturbing that Alito feels the need to insert himself into a congressional debate.”Murphy’s comments came after the Wall Street Journal published an interview with Alito on Friday in which he said: “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the constitution gives them the authority to regulate the supreme court – period.”During his interview with State of the Union, Murphy went on to criticize the nine-member supreme court’s conservative supermajority. He accused Alito and the court’s other conservatives of seeing “themselves as politicians” rather than impartial jurists.“They just see themselves as a second legislative body that has just as much power and right to impose their political will on the country as Congress does,” Murphy said. “They are going to bend the law in order to impose their rightwing view of how the country should work on the rest of us.”In recent months, several of the supreme court’s conservative justices have found themselves in ethical controversy after reports emerged of their involvement in real estate transactions with Republican billionaire donors, discreet payments from Republican activists, millions of dollars’ worth of luxury trips and thousands of dollars in private school tuition.As a result, many Democrats have called for tighter ethics rules for the supreme court’s justices, who they say lack conduct rules that are comparable to other federal authorities.Earlier this month, the Senate judiciary committee approved legislation to impose tighter ethics rules on the supreme court.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe legislation – which Republicans have adamantly opposed – has slim possibilities of passing in the Senate because it would require at least nine Republican votes. Nonetheless, Democrats say such a measure is a “crucial first step” in restoring public confidence in the nation’s highest court.Murphy said of the committee-approved measure: “It’s why we need to pass this commonsense ethics legislation to at least make sure we know that these guys aren’t in bed having their lifestyles paid for by conservative donors, as we have unfortunately seen in these latest revelations.” More

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      Filthy Rich Politicians review: Matt Lewis skewers both sides of the aisle

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      When Covid began to ravage the US, Donald Trump lied through his teeth but Nancy Pelosi flaunted her assets. Trump repeatedly claimed the virus “would go away”. More than a million deaths followed. Pelosi, then House speaker, treated us to watching her eat $13-a-pint ice cream out of fridges that cost $24,000. Let them eat artisanal desserts?Forbes pegs Trump’s wealth at $2.5bn. Based on public filings, according to Matt Lewis in his new book, Filthy Rich Politicians, Pelosi and her husband’s net holdings are estimated to be north of $46m. In 2014, Trump lied when he said his tax returns would be forthcoming if and when he ran for office. In 2022, Pelosi successfully fought an attempt to ban members of Congress from trading stock. She, it was widely noted, does not trade stocks. But her husband does. Practically speaking, that is tantamount to a distinction with little difference.Despite it all, when Trump tore into Washington corruption, promising to “drain the swamp”, his message resonated. A congenital grifter, he knew what he was talking about.“Right now, your average member of the House is something like 12 times richer than the average American household,” Matt Lewis says. “And that, I believe, is contributing to the sense that the game is rigged.” More than half the members of Congress are millionaires.Lewis is a senior columnist at the Daily Beast and a former contributor to the Guardian. With his new book, he performs a valued public service, shining a searing light on the gap between the elites of both parties and the citizenry in whose name they claim to govern. Subtitled “The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling-Class Elites Cashing in on America”, Lewis’s book is breezy and readable. Better yet, it strafes them all. The Bidens and Clintons, the Trumps and Kushners, right and left – all get savaged.Looking right, Lewis mocks Steve Bannon and Ted Cruz for their faux populism, which he views as self-serving and destructive.“The very elites who seek to rule us also rile up the public to hate their fellow elites,” Lewis bitingly observes. “Although he claims to be a ‘Leninist’, Bannon is also ‘an alumnus of Harvard Business School, Georgetown School of Foreign Service, Goldman Sachs, Hollywood.’”As for Cruz, he graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law. The husband of a Goldman Sachs managing director, he helped pave the way for making loans by a candidate to their own campaign a money-making proposition. In a 2022 decision, in a case between Cruz and the Federal Elections Commission, the US supreme court ruled that a $250,000 loan repayment limit violated the first amendment and Cruz’s free speech rights. In plain English: a deep-pocketed incumbent can now tack on a double-digit interest rate to a campaign loan, win re-election, then essentially collect a handsome side bet. As Lewis notes, Cruz was already no stranger to ethical flimflam.Lewis also graphically lays out how swank vacation sites are de rigueur destinations for campaign fundraisers and political retreats – being in Congress is now a portal to spas, tennis and haute cuisine – and how book writing has emerged as the vehicle of choice for members of Congress to evade honoraria restrictions.Lewis quotes Marco Rubio telling Fox News: “The day I got elected to the Senate I had over $100,000 still in student loans that I was able to pay off because I wrote a book.” In 2013, Rubio received an $800,000 advance. A decade later, he branded Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan “unfair”.This, remember, is the same Florida man who once exclaimed: “It’s amazing … I can call up a lobbyist at four in the morning and he’ll meet me anywhere with a bag of $40,000 in cash.” Like many in government, Rubio blurs the line between the personal and the public.Lewis also tags Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a member of the progressive “Squad” in the House, for cronyism amid the throes of Covid. At the time, she proposed legislation that would have canceled rent and mortgage payments while establishing a “fund to repay landlords for missed rent”. The bill went nowhere but as luck would have it, Squad members Ayana Pressley (Massachusetts) and Rashida Tlaib (Michigan) took in rental income as Covid blighted the land. In 2021, Pressley’s rental income surged by “up to $117,500”.As for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, perhaps the most visible Squad member, Lewis raps her for appearing at the 2021 Met gala wearing a backless gown emblazoned with the words “Tax the Rich”. AOC’s Devil Wears Prada moment, Lewis says, “underscores how far-removed today’s Democrats are from being the party of the working class”.It was not something Eleanor Roosevelt would have done.“Such stunts feed the sense that our public servants are indulging in hypocrisy and taking advantage of the system,” Lewis writes.Elsewhere, Lewis describes Greg Gianforte “allegedly body-slamming” Ben Jacobs, then of the Guardian, during a House campaign in Montana in 2018. Here, Lewis goes easy on Gianforte, who is now governor. Gianforte pleaded guilty, a fact Lewis acknowledges. With that plea, the Republican’s lack of self-control went beyond the realm of “alleged” and into established fact.Filthy Rich Politicians closes with a series of proposals to boost confidence in the system. Lewis calls for a ban on stock trading by members of Congress and their families, heightened transparency and increased congressional pay. The prospects for his proposals appear uncertain.Last week, Josh Hawley of Missouri – for whom, like Cruz and many other Republicans, Lewis’s wife has worked – and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York introduced the Ban Stock Trading for Government Officials Act. The public overwhelmingly supports the substance of the legislation. Whether Congress steps up remains to be seen.“Let me tell you about the very rich,” F Scott Fitzgerald once wrote. “They are different from you and me.”
      Filthy Rich Politicians is published in the US by Hachette More

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      Mitch McConnell should step down as Senate minority leader after freezing, GOP senator says

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      Mitch McConnell, the 81-year-old Republican leader in the US Senate who suffered a public health scare this week, should step down from the role he has filled since 2007, an unnamed GOP senator said.McConnell, from Kentucky, remains “intellectually sharp” on “a whole host of issues including baseball”, the anonymous senator told NBC News.But they added: “People think that he’s not hearing well. I think that he is just not processing.”At a news conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, McConnell stopped talking mid-sentence, standing mutely for 23 seconds until he was led away from reporters.He returned to say: “I’m fine.”The moment sparked worries about McConnell’s mental fitness, especially after he was hospitalised and treated for a concussion and a broken rib after a fall in March and amid reports of “multiple” falls this year, including a slip on a snowy day in Finland. McConnell had polio as a child, affecting his gait as an adult.On Thursday, NBC, which reported a fall at Reagan airport this month – described as a “face plant” by one witness – said Republicans were publicly backing McConnell to carry on.“I don’t know how much longer he will want to serve, but I support him as long as he wants the job,” said John Cornyn of Texas, a possible successor.But NBC also said other Republicans, speaking off the record, were not quite so sure.The anonymous senator told NBC “I kind of do” think McConnell should step down.“I’d hate to see it forced on him,” the senator said. “You can do these things with dignity, or it becomes less dignified. And I hope he does it in a dignified way – for his own legacy and reputation.”The senator also told NBC McConnell was relying more on his lieutenants, John Barrasso of Wyoming and John Thune of South Dakota.“Lately … he’s not the go-to guy for, ‘How are things going?’ … It’s been noticeable in the last few weeks.”On Friday, McConnell’s office said he planned to serve his full term, which would runs through 2026, when he would turn 84.McConnell’s freeze was just the latest reminder that the most US leaders are much older than many in other democracies.Joe Biden, 80, is the oldest ever president, nearly two decades older than the median age of world leaders, which Pew Research found to be 62. While Biden is younger than President Paul Biya of Cameroon, who at 89 is the oldest head of state, the US president could be a grandfather to Gabriel Boric, the president of Chile, or Sanna Marin, who stepped down as prime minister of Finland last month. Both are 37.Biden is, however, years younger than some members of Congress.McConnell is not the oldest senator. The Vermont independent Bernie Sanders is 81, the Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley is 89 and the California Democrat Dianne Feinstein is 90.At a Senate hearing on Thursday, Feinstein had to be prompted by a fellow senator and a staffer after appearing to misunderstand a point of procedure. Calls for Feinstein to retire have multiplied after she was absent from Washington for an extended period this year. She has said she will complete her term.Many lawmakers in Congress are in their 70s. The median age of the Senate is 65.3, the website FiveThirtyEight calculated, the oldest ever, versus a median age of 38.8 in the US as a whole. At 64, the Senate has the seventh-highest average age of any global parliamentary body, the Inter-Parliamentary Union calculates, ahead of countries with older populations including Japan, Italy and Greece.Biden’s age has raised questions about whether he should stand for a second term. The president recently fell on stage in Colorado, walks with a careful gait and is prone to verbal slips. He may face Donald Trump, 77, at the polls in 2024. Polling shows many Americans think neither should run.Asked about Biden’s age, the White House points to accomplishments including the 2020 election victory, helping Democrats stave off losses in 2022 and getting legislation through Congress.
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      Mitch McConnell fell earlier this month, before freezing mid-sentence this week

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      Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the US Senate, suffered an initially unreported fall earlier this month, before a very public health scare this week revived questions about his age and fitness.On Wednesday, while speaking to reporters at the US Capitol, the 81-year-old appeared to freeze for nearly 20 seconds. Another Republican senator, John Barrasso of Wyoming, a doctor, then escorted his leader away from the cameras.Only four months ago, McConnell, who suffered from polio as a child, affecting his gait, fell and sustained a concussion, leading to a prolonged absence from Capitol Hill.On Wednesday, he returned to work and told reporters he was “fine” shortly after his incident. An aide told reporters McConnell “felt lightheaded and stepped away for a moment. He came back to handle Q and A.”But NBC News then reported that McConnell also tripped and fell earlier this month, suffering a “face plant” while disembarking a plane at Reagan airport, according to an anonymous witness.Another source told NBC McConnell now uses a wheelchair as a precaution in crowded airports. McConnell did not comment on the NBC report.As Republicans relentlessly claim Joe Biden, 80, is too old to be president, McConnell’s freeze and news of another fall revived questions about his own age.After McConnell’s awkward moment in front of reporters, Helaine Olen, a Washington Post columnist, said: “I hope Mitch McConnell has a quick recovery, but both Democrats and Republicans need to hold honest discussions about how age is not just a number.”From the right, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth group, said: “The stamina and health of elected leaders has become a major problem in American politics.”Naming McConnell alongside Biden, the Democratic congresswoman and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (83), and two Senate Democrats, Dianne Feinstein of California (90) and the Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman (53 but having suffered a stroke and sought treatment for depression), Kirk added: “These politicians have been entrenched or installed by corrupt party structures, but they are too old or too feeble to run the country. Resign.”On the record, however, Republican senators expressed support for McConnell. One senator told NBC McConnell was “definitely slower with his gait” but said that in party meetings, the minority leader “doesn’t address” his age and his health.McConnell, a ruthless partisan warrior who has described himself as “stronger than mule piss”, entered the Senate in 1984, when he was 42. He has led Republicans since 2007, in the majority between 2015 and 2021, a spell which saw him oversee the rightwing capture of the supreme court among other successes.Returning to work on Wednesday, McConnell said Biden, a Senate colleague for 24 years, had called.“The president called to check on me,” McConnell said. “I told him I got sandbagged.”That was a reference to the fall Biden, 80, suffered last month at the US air force academy in Colorado, and the president’s subsequent joke to the press. More

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      Mitch McConnell abruptly stops mid-sentence during press conference

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      The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, briefly left his own press conference on Wednesday after stopping his remarks mid-sentence and staring off into space for several seconds.McConnell approached the podium for his weekly press conference and began speaking about the annual defense bill on the floor, which he said was proceeding with “good bipartisan cooperation”. But he then appeared to lose his train of thought, trailing off with a drawn-out “uh”.He then appeared to “freeze” and stared for about 20 seconds before his colleagues in the Republican leadership, who were standing behind him and could not see his face, took his elbows and asked if he wanted to go back to his office.He did not answer, but slowly walked back to his office with an aide and Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, a former orthopedic surgeon who is the No 3 Republican in the Senate. McConnell later returned to the press conference and answered questions from the press.Asked about what happened, McConnell said he was “fine”. He did not elaborate.A McConnell aide said he felt light-headed and stepped away for a moment. The aide requested anonymity to speak about the senator’s health.McConnell, 81, was out of the Senate for almost six weeks earlier this year after falling and hitting his head. His office later said he suffered a concussion and fractured a rib. His speech has recently sounded more halting, prompting questions among some of his colleagues about his health.After the press conference, Barrasso told reporters that he “wanted to make sure everything was fine” and walked McConnell down the hall.Barrasso said he has been concerned since McConnell was injured earlier this year, “and I continue to be concerned”.But when asked about his particular concerns, Barrasso said: “I said I was concerned when he fell and hit his head a number of months ago and was hospitalized. And I think he’s made a remarkable recovery, he’s doing a great job leading our conference and was able to answer every question the press asked him today.” More

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      Democrats call on GOP to end senator’s ‘reckless’ military promotions block

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      The Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville’s block on senior US military promotions in protest of Pentagon policy on abortion is “reckless and dangerous”, eight Democratic senators told Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, in a letter published on Monday.“It falls to you to act now, for the safety and security of our nation,” the Democrats wrote to McConnell, of Kentucky. “We urge you to exercise your leadership and prevail on senator Tuberville to end his reckless hold.”The protest by the former football coach and Donald Trump ally has stretched for months, leaving the US Marine Corps without a permanent leader for the first time since before the civil war and even threatening leadership of the joint chiefs of staff.Tuberville is seeking to bring down a Department of Defense policy that allows service members based in states which restrict abortion rights to travel to ones where such healthcare remains available.The secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, has defended the policy. He has also said nearly 650 senior posts requiring Senate confirmation could be unfilled by the end of the year.Tuberville wants a Senate vote on the policy. Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said last week Democrats “would not object to” a vote but added: “The bottom line is it’s up to the Republican leadership. They are risking our security, and it’s up to them to fix it.”In their Monday letter, the eight Democratic senators – led by Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and including Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Tammy Duckworth (Illinois) and Jacky Rosen (Nevada) – expressed “deep concern for the stability of our armed services and national security and call on [McConnell] to exercise your leadership to protect the readiness of our military”.Tuberville’s block was “threatening our national security”, the senators said, adding: “We know you share our concerns … and as the leader of your conference, we urge you to take stronger action to resolve this situation”.McConnell has said he does not support Tuberville’s protest but has not moved to end it.The senators added: “Although there are numerous ways to legislatively change this policy, senator Tuberville has failed to convince a majority of the Senate to agree with his position.“He continues to try to force his personal beliefs on the women and men who volunteer to serve our country, creating unnecessary havoc and punishing service members for a policy they had no part in writing.”Describing the effects on service members denied promotions, the senators said: “Families who were ordered to move are now living in temporary family housing, children aren’t able to ready themselves for new schools, and spouses are missing vital employment opportunities.”Also on Monday, Tuberville took delivery of a petition from the Secure Families Initiative, an advocacy group for military families.It said: “No matter your political beliefs, we must agree that service members and military families will not be used as political leverage. It’s time to end this political showmanship and recommit to respect the service and sacrifice of those who pledge to defend this nation.”The petition was also sent to Schumer and McConnell. In his own petition last week, Tuberville claimed support from more than 5,000 military veterans.The eight Democrats who wrote to McConnell also said the Kentuckian, as Republican leader, should hold “colleagues accountable when they recklessly cross boundaries and upend senatorial order.“Senator Tuberville’s continuation of this stalemate is reckless, dangerous, and must end.” More