Tag: Congressional GOP

GOP ramps up attacks on Biden’s border wall freeze

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Republicans in Congress are increasingly lashing out at President Biden’s decision to freeze funding for the wall along the southern border.

GOP lawmakers are zeroing in on Biden’s proclamation from January, immediately upon taking office, in which he followed through on a campaign promise to halt construction of the wall, which had become the centerpiece of former President Trump’s hard-line immigration policies.

The White House on Jan. 20 said it would take 60 days to review the use of border wall funds. Continue reading.

CNN Poll: GOP Efforts To Discredit Biden Are Failing

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Republicans have been adamant that President Joe Biden’s popularity will fall as they vilify his policy proposals, including the coronavirus relief package Congress passed in March and the infrastructure bill congressional Democrats are currently trying to pass.

Yet a new CNN poll released Wednesday found that their strategy has not worked, as Biden — and his policies — remain popular nearly 100 days into his tenure, despite the GOP’s best efforts.

According to the CNN poll, 53 percent of Americans approve of the job Biden has done in his first 100 days in office. That approval rating tracks with Biden’s approval rating average from FiveThirtyEight, which has hovered around 53percent since he was sworn in on January 20 — a level he has maintained despite GOP criticism. Continue reading.

How the G.O.P. Lost Its Clear Voice on Foreign Policy

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After four years of Donald J. Trump’s America-first mantra, Republican views on foreign intervention, long a signature part of the party’s brand, have splintered.

For decades, Senator Lindsey Graham traveled the world with his friend John McCain, visiting war zones and meeting with foreign allies and adversaries, before returning home to promote the Republican gospel of an internationalist, hawkish foreign policy.

But this week, after President Biden announced that troops would leave Afghanistan no later than Sept. 11, Mr. Graham took the podium in the Senate press gallery and hinted that spreading the party’s message had become a bit lonely.

“I miss John McCain a lot but probably no more than today,” Mr. Graham said. “If John were with us, I’d be speaking second.”

Mr. McCain, the onetime prisoner of war in Vietnam, in many ways embodied a distinctive Republican worldview: a commitment to internationalism — and confrontation when necessary — that stemmed from the Cold War and endured through the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush before evolving after the Sept. 11 attacks to account for the threat of global terrorism. Continue reading.

Biden Shreds Republican Deficit ‘Concern’ At Press Conference

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After Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, liberal economist and New York Timescolumnist Paul Krugman predicted that the GOP “budget hawks” who had been silent during the Trump years would suddenly rediscover fiscal conservatism. And sure enough, now that Biden is president, Republicans are attacking him for increasing the United States’ federal deficit. 

Biden addressed GOP grandstanding about the deficit during a news conference on Thursday, pointing out that Republicans in Congress weren’t worried about the deficit when they passed the costly Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017.

Biden said of Republicans, “Did you hear them complain when they passed the close-to-$2-trillion Trump tax cut, with 83 percent going to the top one percent? Did you hear them talk about that at all?” Continue reading.

The overwhelming lesson of the Trump era: Republicans often rebuke Trump — when they have latitude

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The Senate played host to a historic vote on Saturday, with seven members of former president Donald Trump’s party voting to convict him in his second impeachment trial.

One thing that won’t surprise anyone who has paid attention to Trump’s tenure: A disproportionate number of the votes came from retiring Republicans.

Two of the seven who voted to convict Trump — Sens. Richard Burr (N.C.) and Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) — had already said they won’t seek reelection. That means two of the four Republicans who have said they will retire voted against Trump. Another of the four, Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio), issued one of the strongest denunciations of Trump among those who cited the alleged unconstitutionality of the proceedings in voting to acquit. He said Trump’s conduct vis-a-vis the Jan. 6 Capitol riot “was inexcusable, because in his speech he encouraged the mob, and that he bears some responsibility for the tragic violence that occurred.” Continue reading.

The GOP’s answer to its post-Trump blues: More Trump

For a moment, it looked like the Republican Party was getting some distance from the former president. Not anymore.

For a moment, it looked like Donald Trump might be losing his iron grip on the GOP. In the wake of the deadly Capitol riot, 10 House Republicans joined Democrats in their vote to impeach him. Several other Republicans openlysuggested at least censuring the president. 

Not anymore.

Local and state Republican parties are censuring Republicans for disloyalty in states across the country. The lawmakers who broke with him are weathering a storm of criticism from Trump-adoring constituents at home, with punitive primary challenges already taking shape. In Washington, party leaders who once suggested Trump bore some responsibility for the Jan. 6 violence are backtracking. Continue reading.

GOP in bind over Trump as corporate donations freeze

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Republicans are in a bind as they consider how to move on from President Trump, who has passionate support from a large chunk of the party but has become completely toxic in the eyes of more traditional Republicans.

Washington Republicans are urging the party to cut ties completely with Trump over his role in the deadly riot that consumed Capitol Hill last week as corporations halt donations.

Some say Trump and his brand can have no future in GOP politics if the party is to survive given his increasingly toxic image with women, suburban voters, moderates and independents. Continue reading.

Republicans start turning the page on Trump era

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Top Republicans are starting to acknowledge publicly that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States, turning the page on the Trump era.

Congressional Republicans and even a high-ranking White House official have, in recent days, referred to the upcoming change in administration.

National security adviser Robert O’Brien promised a “professional transition” of power, saying it looks like Biden has won the election. Continue reading.

Millions of Americans are about to find out how badly Trump and the GOP have screwed them over

AlterNet logoRobert Reich, writing for The Guardian, weighs in on the fairy tale that our country is somehow “roaring back,” as Donald Trump characterized it when he hawked a report last week based on misleading unemployment statistics, numbers which were already woefully out of date at the time they were released:

The US economy isn’t roaring back. Just over half of Americans have jobs now, the lowest figure in more than 70 years. What’s roaring back is Covid-19. Until it’s tamed, the American economy doesn’t stand a chance.

As former Labor Secretary Reich notes, “The uptick in jobs in June was due almost entirely to the hasty reopening, which is now being reversed.” Continue reading.