Category Archives: Republicans

Release of House January 6 report expected to pile more pressure on Trump – as it happened

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Publication of report after 18-month investigation follows vote to publicly release Trump’s tax returns

Worrying news for Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority leader trying to secure the speaker’s gavel but having a hard time satisfying the far right of the party: according to Politico, a plan is forming to have Steve Scalise, currently McCarthy’s righthand man, step in if the Californian cannot seal the deal.

According to the website, “a group of lawmakers has quietly approached” Scalise “about running should McCarthy falter, according to multiple GOP members and aides.

Their message? ‘Steve, just be ready,’ according to one member currently backing McCarthy who spoke to us late last night on condition of anonymity. Scalise was uncontested in his bid for majority leader in the new Congress, the lawmaker noted, and ‘could be a good consensus leader if things don’t go well for Kevin’.

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From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearings

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As the House January 6 committee is set to publish its report, here are some of the key standouts

The House January 6 committee is set to publish its report on the attack on the Capitol that shocked both America and the world . After a year of dramatic hearings and bombshell testimony, here are some of the key winners and losers to emerge from its work.

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House committee votes to release Donald Trump’s tax returns – as it happened

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It’s lunchtime, and an opportunity to look at where we stand on a busy Tuesday in US politics. The House ways and means committee will meet shortly to discuss and vote on releasing Donald Trump’s tax returns to the public.

Here’s what else we’ve been looking at:

The fallout continues from Monday’s bombshell criminal referral by the House January 6 panel of former President Trump on charges including insurrection. Some Republicans don’t seem to be happy.

Long-serving Democratic senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont delivered an emotional farewell speech to the chamber, condemning the January 6 Capitol riot as an assault on democracy, and calling on colleagues to return to a more civil age of bipartisanship.

Details have emerged of the $1.7tn omnibus government spending package agreed by congressional leaders in Tuesday’s early hours. The bill includes more financial aid for Ukraine, more visas for Afghans who helped the US, and banning the TikTok app on government devices.

When I arrived here, bipartisan cooperation was the norm, not the exception.

Make no mistake, the Senate of yesterday was far from perfect. [But] the Senate I entered had one remarkable, redeeming quality. The overwhelming majority of senators of both parties believed they were here to do a job.

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Jan 6 committee refers Donald Trump for criminal prosecution on four counts – as it happened

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Four Republicans referred to House ethics committee for refusing to comply with panel’s subpoenas, including Kevin McCarthy

Joe Biden is condemning growing antisemitism, in remarks for a Hanukah reception at the White House that will include a menorah lighting and blessing.

The US president will tell guests at tonight’s event that silence is complicity, according to White House officials, and will add that it’s imperative that hate, violence and antisemitism are condemned, the Associated Press reports.

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Republican congressman George Santos reportedly fabricated parts of résumé

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The incoming congressman’s biography is now being re-examined as opponent claims Santos was ‘running a scam against the voters’

A news report on Monday questioned whether the career résumé of the incoming Republican congressman George Santos – who was elected last month to serve a typically Democrat suburban district north-east of New York City – may be largely fictional.

According to an analysis by the New York Times, the biographical sketch offered by the 34-year-old, first-generation Brazilian-American, who ran as a member of a “new generation of Republican leadership” as the “full embodiment of the American dream”, may not have worked at Citigroup or Goldman Sachs, graduated from a New York college, or run a pet rescue charity, as he has claimed.

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Federal investigators focus on emails between Trump lawyers and congressman – as it happened

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Revelation casts light on direction of the criminal inquiry into the former president’s insurrection efforts

Joe Biden is at a town hall for veterans in New Castle, Delaware, choking with emotion when talking about his late son Beau, a former National Guard major for whom the center he was speaking at is named.

The president kept his comments tightly focused on the expansion of benefits and services for veterans resulting from the Pact Act, introducing a second world war pilot, and talking of the need to support and improve the physical and mental health of retired military members.

The Pact Act was the first step of being sure that we leave no-one behind.

We also need to pass the bipartisan government funding bill so we can deliver on the act’s promise.

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Nancy Pelosi tells of ‘proud’ record as speaker in likely final press conference – live

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Nancy Pelosi has given what she suggests will be her final press conference as House speaker, telling reporters this is “maybe the last time I see you in this way”.

She’s been reflecting on some of the successes of her tenure, and paying tribute to Joe Biden and Barack Obama for most of them, from the passing of the Affordable Care Act to this week’s signing of the same-sex Respect for Marriage Act.

He has been a remarkable president. He has a record that is so outstanding, and for such a short period of time as well.

People compare him to Lyndon Johnson, to Franklin Roosevelt, but I’d remind you all that Roosevelt had 319 Democrats in the House, President Biden 222, whatever it is, and even fewer now.

Passing the American rescue plan, getting vaccines at arms, money in pockets, children back to school and people safely back to work, the bipartisan infrastructure law, building roads, bridges, ports and water systems…

Bringing people together, not projects that divide communities but bringing people together, and this such a source of pride, putting justice and equity front and center.

We won’t relent until the job is done, until we can have background checks, and have banned assault weapons.

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Biden says he’s ‘all in’ on Africa’s future at leadership summit – as it happened

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President commits to strengthening Africa’s food supplies, tackling climate and partnering to take on rising global power

Back at the House oversight hearing into anti-LGBTQ+ violence, Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) says her group has recorded an alarming surge in hate-related killings:

Over the last 10 years, the campaign has tracked over 300 incidents of fatal violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people. In 2022 so far, we’ve recorded the murder of 35 people.

It’s fueled by nearly unfettered access to guns, political extremism and rhetoric that is deliberately devised to make our community less safe, less equal, and less free. Violence has become a lived reality for so many in our community.

We should have societal guilt for taking too long to deal with this problem. We have a moral obligation to pass and enforce laws that can prevent these things from happening again. We owe it to the courageous, young survivors and to the families who lost part of their soul 10 years ago to turn their pain into purpose.

A few months ago, I signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law. We’ve reined in so-called ghost guns which have no serial numbers and are harder to trace. We’ve cracked down on gun trafficking and increased resources for violence prevention.

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Republican who urged Trump to declare ‘Marshall’ law only regrets misspelling

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Text from Ralph Norman to Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, urged president to declare martial law

A Republican who urged the Trump White House to declare martial law to stop Joe Biden taking office has only one regret: that he misspelled “martial”.

The text from Ralph Norman of South Carolina to Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, was given to the January 6 committee by Meadows and revealed by Talking Points Memo.

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Ron DeSantis leads Donald Trump by 23 points in Republican poll

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Florida governor takes enormous lead over embattled ex-president for 2024 race as Mike Pence nears a run of his own

In a new poll regarding potential Republican nominees for president in 2024, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, led Donald Trump by a whopping 23 points.

Republican and Republican-leaning voters dealt the significant blow to the former president’s ego in a survey carried out by USA Today and Suffolk University and released on Tuesday.

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US announces fusion energy success ‘that could revolutionize the world’ – live

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Breakthrough came after experiment with 192 high-energy lasers, say US energy officials

The energy department’s press conference on the breakthrough in its fusion experiment has wrapped up, but before it concluded, a top official said it could be a long time before the technology becomes commonly used.

“There are very significant hurdles, not just in the science but in technology,” said Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where the experiment was conducted. “This is one igniting capsule one time, and to realize commercial fusion energy, you have to do many things. You have to be able to produce many, many fusion ignition events per minute, and you have to have a robust system of drivers to enable that.”

Inside that was a small, spherical capsule about half the diameter of a BB. One hundred and ninety two laser beams entered from the two ends of the cylinder and struck the inner wall. They didn’t strike the capsule, they struck the inner wall of this cylinder and deposited energy, and that happened in less time than it takes light to move 10 feet, so it’s kind of fast.

X-rays from the wall impinged on the spherical capsule. Fusion fuel in the capsule got squeezed. Fusion reaction started.

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Special counsel investigating Trump subpoenas Georgia secretary of state – as it happened

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Prosecutor Jack Smith is seeking ‘any and all communications in any form … to, from or involving’ the former president

The January 6 committee’s mandate expires at the end of the year, and it still needs to release its report into the insurrection and decide whether to make formal criminal referrals to the justice department.

The committee’s chair Bennie Thompson has said to expect the report’s release on 21 December, while NBC News today has details of where lawmakers are in their deliberations of who to refer to prosecutors for potential charges:

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Arizona governor builds border wall of shipping crates in final days of office

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Critics say Republican Doug Ducey’s scheme is illegal because makeshift barrier is being erected on tribal and federal land

A makeshift new barrier built with shipping containers is being illegally erected along part of the US-Mexico border by Arizona’s Republican governor – before he has to hand over the keys of his office to his Democratic successor in January.

Doug Ducey is driving a project that is placing double-stacked old shipping containers through several miles of national forest, attempting to fill gaps in Donald Trump’s intermittent border fencing.

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Nephew calls Republican who tearfully opposed gay marriage bill a homophobe

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Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler voted against bill protecting same-sex marriage but Andrew Hartzler, who is gay, was unimpressed

The backlash to the Republican member of Congress who broke down in tears in her opposition to the same-sex marriage bill has included a familiar face – her nephew, who has called the lawmaker a “homophobe”.

On Thursday, Vicky Hartzler, a Republican representative from Missouri, shed tears as she urged colleagues in the US House of Representatives to vote against the Respect for Marriage Act, which forces states without marriage equality laws to recognize LGBTQ+ marriages from other states.

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Kari Lake: defeated governor candidate challenges Arizona election result

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Trump-backed Republican files lawsuit asking court to throw out certified results of her loss to Democrat Katie Hobbs


Kari Lake, the Republican defeated in Arizona governor’s race, is formally challenging her loss to Democrat Katie Hobbs, asking a court to throw out certified election results from the state’s most populous county and either declare her the winner or rerun the governor’s election in that county.

The lawsuit filed late on Friday by Lake centers on long lines and other difficulties that people experienced while voting on election day in Maricopa county. The challenge filed in Maricopa county superior court also alleges hundreds of thousands of ballots were illegally cast, but there is no evidence that is true.

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White House says Sinema defection ‘does not change Democratic Senate control’ – as it happened

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As we’ve mentioned Republican criticism of Joe Biden for trading basketball star Brittney Griner for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout, here’s Florida senator Marco Rubio’s considered opinion:

“We have to recognize, even as we’re happy an American’s coming home, it does incentivize the taking of more Americans,” he told reporters on Friday morning.

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Herschel Walker’s son revels in father’s Georgia Senate runoff defeat

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Christian Walker sent a series of celebratory tweets that recalled the candidate’s alleged history of mistreatment of his family

Among the many detractors celebrating Herschel Walker’s defeat in the Georgia Senate runoff was one closer to home: son Christian, who expressed his delight on Twitter that the state had rejected his controversial father.

“Don’t beat women, hold guns to peoples [sic] heads, fund abortions then pretend your [sic] pro-life, stalk cheerleaders, leave your multiple minor children alone to chase more fame, lie, lie, lie, say stupid crap, and make a fool of your family,” the younger Walker said in the first of a flurry of tweets posted on Tuesday night as the Democrat Raphael Warnock was projected to be the winner.

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Trump Organization found guilty of tax fraud – live

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More on the Jan 6 committee’s announcement about upcoming criminal referrals.

Committee chairman Bennie G Thompson told reporters today that the committee has decided to make at least one criminal referral.

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January 6 officers and relatives snub top Republicans at gold medal ceremony

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Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy denounced as ‘two-faced’ by Brian Sicknick’s mother at Congressional Gold Medal event

Senior Republicans Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy were snubbed by law enforcement leaders and a fallen officer’s family at Tuesday’s Congressional Gold Medal award ceremony for Capitol police who defended against the 6 January attacks.

The pair were denounced as “two-faced” by the mother of Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after a mob of Donald Trump supporters ransacked the Capitol building and forced politicians to flee for their lives.

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Democrat Raphael Warnock holds narrow poll lead in crucial Georgia Senate runoff – live

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Two years ago, Georgia was the state that decided control of the Senate in Democrats’ favor. This year, its importance will be slightly diminished – but that doesn’t mean the results of Tuesday’s run-off election between Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker won’t be closely watched.

Democrats won enough seats in last month’s midterm elections to control Congress’s upper chamber for another two years, but only by a margin so slim they’ll need vice-president Kamala Harris to cast tie-breaking votes on legislation Republicans don’t support. But if Warnock wins, the Democrats will control the chamber outright, and the influence of senators like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who repeatedly acted as spoilers for some of Joe Biden’s policy proposals over the past two years, will be lessened.

The supreme court at 10am eastern time will hear arguments in a case over whether Colorado’s anti-discrimination law violates the free speech rights of a web designer because she only wants to create wedding pages for heterosexual couples.

Joe Biden, fresh off welcoming French president Emmanuel Macron to Washington, hosts the congressional ball at 6.30pm.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters at 2.30pm.

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