Tag: Congressional Republicans

Republicans increasingly seek distance from Trump

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More and more Republicans are running for the lifeboats.

With President Trump sinking in the polls less than three weeks before the November elections, a growing number of GOP lawmakers are scrambling to distance themselves from their party’s embattled standard-bearer — a shift that’s both illuminated Trump’s tumultuous tenure in the White House and driven cracks in the GOP’s united front at a particularly inconvenient moment for the unpopular president.

For vulnerable Republicans at risk of losing seats, the detachment appears designed to attract independent and moderate GOP voters who have soured on Trump after four years in office. Others seem to have written the president off and are now burnishing images of political independence in preparation for a Trump-less Washington. Continue reading.

Republicans, Religious Leaders and Reporters Testing Positive of COVID-19 in October White House Outbreak

List updated October 14, 2020 at 4:45 PM

  1. President Donald Trump
  2. First Lady Melania Trump
  3. Barron Trump
  4. former Senior Presidential Advisor Kellyanne Conway
  5. Claudia Conway, Kellyanne Conway’s daughter
  6. Senior Presidential Advisor Hope Hicks
  7. Senior Presidential Advisor Stephen Miller
  8. Trump Campaign Manager Bill Stepien
  9. Trump Personal Assistant Nicholas Luna
  10. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
  11. White House Assistant Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt
  12. White House Assistant Press Secretary Chad Gilmartin
  13. White House Assistant Press Secretary Harrison W. Fields
  14. White House Assistant Press Secretary Jalen Drummond
  15. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia’s wife, Trish Scalia
  16. RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel
  17. Sen. Mike Lee, R-North Carolina
  18. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin
  19. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina
  20. Coast Guard Vice Commandant Vice Admiral Charles Ray
  21. former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
  22. Presidential Military Aide Jayna McCarron
  23. an unnamed military aide
  24. an unnamed presidential valet
  25. The Rev. John Jenkins, President of Notre Dame University
  26. Paster Greg Laurie
  27. New York Times correspondent Michael D. Shear
  28. Michael Shear’s wife
  29. Photojournalist Al Drago
  30. a unidentified correspondent

Had to Quarantine

  1. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Millie
  2. Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman General John Hyten
  3. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday
  4. Army Chief of Staff General James McConville
  5. Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Brown
  6. General Gary Thomas
  7. Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps
  8. Chief of Space Operations General John Raymond
  9. National Guard Bureau Chief General Daniel Hokanson
  10. Commander of U.S. Cyber Command and Director of the National Security Agency John Nakasone
  11. Attorney General Bill Barr
  12. Jason Lewis, GOP U.S. Senate candidate for a second time
  13. Republican Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka
  14. House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt

Russian bounties revive Trump-GOP foreign policy divide

The Hill logoThe controversy over reports that Russia targeted U.S. troops in Afghanistan is shining a spotlight back on long-running foreign policy divisions between President Trump and GOP lawmakers.

The Trump administration provided a round of briefings and closed-door documents in the wake of a flurry of news reports that Moscow offered bounties to Taliban-linked fighters to target U.S. and coalition forces. That move by administration officials was meant to quell the bipartisan outcry on Capitol Hill, particularly after reports that Trump was previously briefed on the matter.

While several GOP senators defended Trump, the debacle revived broader concerns among Republicans about the administration’s relationship with Russia. Continue reading.

Ex-Republican Bill Kristol explains how the GOP can abandon Trump and ‘force him from the race’

AlterNet logoWhat Republicans say about President Donald Trump publicly and what they say about him behind closed doors can be two very different things. Many prominent GOP senators and governors are reluctant to criticize him publicly, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t privately worried when they see his collapsing poll numbers — and conservative journalist Bill Kristol, in an article for The Bulwark, has a plea for such Republicans: have the courage to openly reject Trumpism.

“My appeal is simple,” Kristol writes. “It’s directed to those who have not been opponents of Donald Trump. It’s directed to those who, for whatever mixtures of reasons and motives, have until now reluctantly supported or tolerated him…. It is to become former Trump supporters.”

The Never Trump conservative elaborates, “Donald Trump is not up to the job of president. He is particularly unsuited to lead the nation in a context of twin public health and economic crises. He can’t be trusted not to throw the country into a crisis of democracy and legitimacy during the forthcoming election campaign, and he shouldn’t be entrusted with the powers of the presidency for another four years. Many Trump Administration officials know this. Many Republican elected officials and donors know this. Many conservative leaders know this.” Continue reading.

Panicked Republicans now want to blame impeachment for bungling the coronavirus response: report

AlterNet logoCongress was slow to understand the threat from coronavirus, and now Republicans want to blame impeachment.

Back in January, as Democrats presented their evidence in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, only a few lawmakers from both parties were urging action against the highly contagious virus that had shut down parts of China and recently arrived in the United States, reported Politico.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) became alarmed over Martin Luther King Day weekend reading reports about the coronavirus in China, which he noticed a disconnect between China’s rosy statements about the outbreak and the drastic steps it was taking to contain it. Continue reading.

Here’s what congressional Republicans said about holding the attorney general in contempt in 2012

When Eric Holder was running the Justice Department, they were singing a different tune.

The House Judiciary Committee will markup and likely advance a motion to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress on Wednesday, after he failed to comply with a subpoena for an unredacted copy of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

House Republicans are already denouncing the decision as an “illogical and disingenuous” move aimed at “smearing the attorney general.” But just a few years ago, when Eric Holder was in charge of the Justice Department, 238 House Republicans voted to hold him in contempt when he did not turn over requested documents related to a failed gunwalking sting called “Operation Fast and Furious.”

The 2012 contempt effort was spearheaded by then-House oversight chair Darrell Issa (R-CA). “I always believed that in time we would reach an accommodation sufficient to get the information needed for the American people while at the same time preserving the ongoing criminal investigations,” he lamented. But without the administration turning over the subpoenaed documents about the ATF program, he said, a contempt vote was necessary.

View the complete May 7 article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.

Dems ready aggressive response to Trump emergency order, as GOP splinters

House Democrats are vowing an aggressive response to President Trump‘s emergency declaration at the southern border, mulling ways to block his go-it-alone approach with legislation, legal action, or both.

Yet party leaders are in no immediate rush to show their hand, instead hoping to keep the focus on growing GOP divisions while pressuring more Republicans to oppose the president’s unilateral power play.

Heading into the weeklong Presidents Day recess, the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is distributing a spreadsheet to members logging a host of wide-ranging local projects potentially threatened by Trump’s effort to shift funds from military construction coffers to the border wall.

The list — nearly 400 projects long — features a number of ventures in GOP districts. It includes maintenance facilities for F-35 stealth fighters at Eielson Air Force Base outside Fairbanks, Alaska; the operation of a middle school at Fort Campbell, Ky.; and funds to replace a training maze at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Health Care Overhaul Appears Unlikely Before Midterm Elections

The following article by Joe Williams was posted on the Roll Call website January 10, 2018:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Whip John Cornyn arrive for a news conference following the Republicans’ policy lunch on Tuesday. McConnell has been pessimistic about the chances for a health care overhaul this year. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Republicans are at risk of facing voters this year with no cohesive strategy to fulfill their seven-year campaign promise to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law or address the rising cost of health care.

Following a meeting at Camp David over the weekend between President Donald Trump and top congressional leaders, members said a major overhaul of the law is unlikely this year.

Such a move could anger members of the GOP base, who have heard Republicans pledge for years to gut the law, as well as a broader set of voters whom Democratic political operatives say are opposed to the failed Republican health care proposals from last year. Continue reading “Health Care Overhaul Appears Unlikely Before Midterm Elections”

Can this marriage be saved? Relationship between Trump, Senate GOP hits new skids.

The following article by Sean Sullivan was posted on the Washington Post website August 1, 2017:

The relationship between President Trump and Senate Republicans has deteriorated so sharply in recent days that some are openly defying his directives, bringing long-simmering tensions to a boil as the GOP labors to reorient its stalled legislative agenda.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), head of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, announced Tuesday that he would work with his Democratic colleagues to “stabilize and strengthen” the individual insurance market under the Affordable Care Act, which the president has badgered the Senate to keep trying to repeal. Alexander also urged the White House to keep up payments to insurers that help low-income consumers afford plans, which Trump has threatened to cut off.

Several Republican senators have sought to distance themselves from the president, who has belittled them as looking like “fools” and tried to strong-arm their agenda and browbeat them into changing a venerated rule to make it easier to ram through legislation along party lines. Continue reading “Can this marriage be saved? Relationship between Trump, Senate GOP hits new skids.”

In Secret, The GOP Is Also Planning To Gut Medicaid And Medicare

The following article by @LOLGOP was posted on the National Memo website March 6, 2017:

House Republicans are now busily working to repeal the Affordable Care Act in secret.

Even when the GOP plan is done and made public, the secrecy will continue. The potential impact will still be hidden from the public, as it’s likely to not have any score from the Congressional Budget Office before the House votes on it. This means members of the House will not have any real idea of how many people they’re voting to uninsure, how much this plan will increase the deficit, and just how big a giveaway it will be to the rich.

Why is Paul Ryan is hiding his plan?

He knows that Republicans cannot afford an honest debate about the GOP’s repeal plans, especially their true intentions for Medicaid and Medicare. Continue reading “In Secret, The GOP Is Also Planning To Gut Medicaid And Medicare”