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Same-sex marriage bill pits Biden against Catholic bishops — again

President Biden is butting heads with Catholic bishops again, this time over same-sex marriage protections expected to reach his desk this week.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) opposes the Respect for Marriage Act, arguing it doesn’t include enough leeway for religious organizations.

“I disagree,” Biden, only the second Catholic president in U.S. history, told reporters on Tuesday about the bishops’ objections.

The fight between Biden and the bishops is all too familiar after the they spent much of his first year in the White House trying to deny him communion over his stance on abortion rights.

Conservative Catholic bishops had called for the church not to offer communion to Biden or other pro-abortion rights politicians, but, in November of last year, the USCCB signaled an end to the debate by issuing a document on communion without mentioning the president or other politicians.

Before the document was finalized, Biden received support from Pope Francis, who the president said told him he should keep receiving communion.

Throughout his time as president, Biden has consistently called for protections for abortion access, and he has often been found attending Catholic mass either in Wilmington, Del., or in Washington.

Biden also regularly calls for defending the rights of LGBTQ Americans.

He has urged Congress to send him the Senate-passed bill that would repeal of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which recognized marriage as “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.”

The White House describes the Respect for Marriage Act as “personal” to the president, presenting another balancing act for Biden between his faith and his support for a social issue that is in opposition to the church’s teaching.

The House is posed to pass the bill this week after the Senate cleared the measure last week in a 61-38 vote. Twelve Republicans joined on to the bill once it included an amendment outlining some protections for religious beliefs.

That amendment was also crucial for gaining support from religious institutions because it shields them from having to provide services supporting same-sex marriage. Faiths and groups including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities all support the bill.

But the changes haven’t been enough for the Catholic bishops.

“This bill fails to include clear, comprehensive, and affirmative conscience protections for religious organizations and individuals who uphold the sanctity of traditional marriage that are needed,” said Bishop Robert E. Barron, chairman of the USCCB’s committee on laity, marriage, family life and youth.

Barron added that “decades of social and legal developments” have led to society losing sight of the “purpose of marriage.”

Same-sex marriage has been legal nationwide since the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, while the Catholic Church is one of several that only recognizes marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The debate over same-sex marriage was resurrected this summer when the Supreme Court ended the decades-long right to abortion access by overturning Roe v. Wade. In Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion for that ruling, he called on the court to also reconsider the precedent for Obergefell v. Hodges.

Since then, Biden and other Democrats have sought to move quickly to protect marriage equality, and the White House celebrated the Senate passing the bill as a historic step.

“This is a huge step forward,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the first openly LGBTQ person to serve as White House press secretary, said last week. “And it is historic that we saw this movement from Congress in a bipartisan way to protect same-sex marriage.”

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Live results: Georgia Senate Runoff

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Lawmakers agree to repeal military vaccine mandate in defense bill over Pentagon objections

Congress is poised to use the annual defense policy bill to eliminate the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.  

In a compromise with Republicans, House Democrats are allowing language into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that repeals the coronavirus vaccine mandate for U.S. service members a year after it was enacted, House Armed Services committee ranking member Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) confirmed to The Hill Tuesday.  

The bill, which lays out how a $847 billion Defense Department topline will be allocated in fiscal year 2023, is tentatively set to be released late Tuesday or early Wednesday and voted on by the House Thursday, Rogers said.  

Asked if he believes the language will stick amid all the last minute jostling over the bill, Rogers replied: “Yes.” 

Republican lawmakers for months have pushed back on the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin first instated in August 2021.  

Since then, thousands of active-duty service members have been discharged for refusing the shots, according to the latest Pentagon numbers.  

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is vying for the Speaker’s gavel in the next Congress, said on Sunday that the NDAA “will not move” unless the mandate for the military is lifted through the bill. 

The compromise is effectively a loss for the White House and Pentagon, which have both opposed using the NDAA to repeal the vaccine mandate.  

“We lost a million people to this virus,” Austin told reporters traveling with him Saturday, as reported by The Associated Press. “A million people died in the United States of America. We lost hundreds in DOD. So this mandate has kept people healthy.” 

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday strongly supported the Pentagon’s mandate, but also emphasized that the art of compromise means that no side gets everything it wants. For Democrats, he said, that might mean they have to give up the mandate to pass the bigger package. 

“It’s a question of how can you get something done,” he told reporter in the Capitol. “We have a very close vote in the Senate [and] a very close vote in the House. And you don’t just get everything you want.”

One thing not expected in the bill, however, is language to reinstate troops, sailors and airmen who were discharged or received penalties for declining the vaccine, a provision GOP lawmakers hoped to insert in the legislation.  

Instead, lawmakers on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees are planning report language for the bill that allows DOD to evaluate service members affected by the mandate, Rogers said.  

“There’s no statutory language but there’s report language that tells the [Defense Department] to ascertain everybody that’s been adversely affected by the vaccine mandate and what it would take to make them whole and get that to us next year and then we can decide if we want to try to do that or not,” he said.  

“Some people aren’t going to want to come back to the military but if they do, what would that look like? How many people are we talking about?” 

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Trump complicates GOP position as party of the Constitution

Former President Trump’s suggestion that the country do away with parts of the Constitution to redo the 2020 election has put Republicans — many of whom want to wrap themselves in the founding document — in a complicated position.

Several House Republicans and some in the Senate often champion the GOP as a party that ties itself closely to the law of the land, and a subset of the party even refers to themselves as “constitutional conservatives.”

But Trump’s latest controversy has put some lawmakers in an awkward spot as they have to square being the party of the Constitution with being the party of Trump.

“It shouldn’t be hard for anybody who bills themselves as a constitutional conservative to speak very firmly against this and do so in specific terms, not generalizations,” said Doug Heye, a former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. “Especially if you’ve just come off a victorious election.”

Trump has caused a furor with comments in response to internal Twitter communications released last week that showed company officials deciding in the closing weeks of the 2020 campaign to limit the spread of posts about news coverage regarding allegations against Hunter Biden, the now-president’s son.

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social.

The former president on Monday said he was not advocating to “terminate” the Constitution, but reiterated his belief that the 2020 election should be redone or that he should be declared the winner. There has been no proof of widespread fraud in the 2020 election and multiple legal battles by the Trump campaign contesting the results were shot down all the way up to the Supreme Court.

While GOP lawmakers are no strangers to responding to inflammatory comments from Trump, the latest instance has been a thorny one. 

A number of lawmakers speak often about adhering to the Constitution and criticize Democrats for what they see as trampling over the document in favor of government overreach. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) made headlines in October when he pulled out a pocket Constitution at a debate with Evan McMullin. The House recently boasted of a Constitution Caucus made up of GOP representatives.

But Trump remains a dominant figure in the party, and many on Capitol Hill are reluctant to explicitly criticize him.

“I appreciate the acknowledgment that the Republican Party is the Constitution party. And certainly I think it’s critically important. I’m very concerned, generally, that we’re so far afield from the constitutional limits of our actions here in Washington,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) said Tuesday.

Good added that he thinks Trump respects the Constitution before acknowledging he didn’t understand the basis for his calls to set it aside in favor of redoing the 2020 election.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) have said they support the Constitution, but like so many Republicans, including those in congressional leadership, they largely avoided addressing Trump specifically.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) on Monday issued a lengthy statement saying, in part, “anyone who desires to lead our country must commit to protecting the Constitution. They should not threaten to terminate it.” But Rounds’s statement did not mention Trump by name.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a self-proclaimed supporter of the nation’s formative document, told reporters Monday that the Constitution “is enduring and it will be for millennia to come.” He declined to respond when asked if the 45th president’s recent comments were wrong.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday suggested Trump would have a hard time being sworn in for another term if he was not willing to take an oath to uphold the Constitution, but he did not use the former president’s name.

Trump’s comments about the Constitution are not the first time he has forced the party to tie itself in knots rhetorically. The GOP has for years portrayed itself as the party of law and order that backs law enforcement in ways Democrats do not. 

But Trump has in recent months sympathized with the Jan. 6 rioters who violently clashed with police that day, and he has attacked the FBI over a search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in August that authorities said yielded classified documents, including some labeled top secret. 

In both instances, the White House has been happy to highlight the disconnect. President Biden in August called the attacks from Trump and other Republicans on the FBI “sickening,” and suggested the party could not be for law and order if they would not condemn the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

The White House this week has called on Republican lawmakers to reject Trump’s latest rhetoric about the Constitution and reaffirm their oath of office to uphold the document.

“Congressional Republicans need to do that immediately, instead of repeatedly refusing to answer the most basic question,” deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.

Mike Lillis contributed.

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Trump Organization found guilty of tax fraud

A New York jury on Tuesday found the Trump Organization guilty of tax fraud following a more than monthlong trial.

Jurors began deliberating on Monday and returned the guilty verdict on Tuesday afternoon, according to The Associated Press.

DEVELOPING…

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Trump special counsel subpoenas officials in three states for communications

The Justice Department has issued a series of subpoenas to officials in three states, nodding to an expansion of its inquiry into the false elector scheme pursued by the 2020 Trump campaign. 

A trio of subpoenas, first reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday, were sent in late November to county officials in Michigan, Arizona, and Wisconsin. 

The subpoenas were among the first signed by newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith and a signal the Justice Department is pushing ahead in two probes centered on former President Trump: the Jan. 6 investigation and the case tied to the mishandling of White House records at Mar-a-Lago. 

The subpoenas ask the county clerks — those for Dane County, Wisc., Maricopa County, Ariz., and Wayne County, Mich. — to detail any communications with “Donald J. Trump, or any employee or agent of, or attorney for, the Trump Campaign.”

The documents then lists 19 key allies of the campaign, a group that includes Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien and attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and John Eastman, as well as official campaign attorneys and advisers such as Boris Epshteyn.

The subpoena seeks any communications through Inauguration Day in January, 2021.

The three counties that received subpoenas are all in states where the Trump campaign suffered key losses to the Biden campaign.

That ignited an effort by Trump campaign officials to, in the case of Arizona, pressure local and state officials not to certify the election results, or in others, to send false electors as Congress geared up for a Jan. 6 certification of the vote.

Former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) testified over the summer before the House committee investigating the attack that he received calls from both Trump and Giuliani as they sought to challenge now-President Biden’s win in the state.

While they relayed claims of voter fraud, Bowers said they were never able to offer any evidence to back those claims.

“[Giuliani] said, ‘We’ve got lots of theories. We just don’t have the evidence,’” Bowers said during his testimony. 

“And I don’t know if that was a gaffe or maybe he didn’t think through what he said.”

The White House counsel’s office, aware of the effort, relayed that they had determined it was “not legally sound.”

Smith has issued a number of subpoenas since taking the special counsel assignment, likewise reaching out to British filmmaker Alex Holder, previously subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee, asking that he turn over raw footage from the riot that day.

While the subpoenas are the latest sign of the escalating probe, a number of former Trump officials have spent hours before various grand juries in recent days, including former White House Counsel Pat Cippolone and his deputy Patrick Philbin. Adviser Stephen Miller was also spotted leaving the courthouse where several grand juries have been convened.

—Zach Schonfeld contributed.

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McConnell floats short-term spending bill amid ‘significant impasse’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said a stopgap funding deal that would fund the government until January might be necessary as talks on a long-term spending package drag on.

“We’re at a pretty significant impasse,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. “Time is ticking. We have not been able to agree on a topline yet and I think it’s becoming increasingly likely that we might need to do a short-term CR into early next year,” McConnell continued, using the shorthand for continuing resolution.  

“We are running out of time, and that might be the only option left that we could agree to pursue,” McConnell said. 

The comments came a day after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called on McConnell and Republicans to avoid striking a deal on an omnibus spending package during the lame duck session and to wait until House Republicans retake the majority in January. McCarthy’s remarks also suggest that leaders should expect few House GOP members to jump on board to support an omnibus spending bill this month. 

McConnell added that the immediate priority should be passing the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). A final NDAA bill was expected to be rolled out in recent days, but that release has been delayed as lawmakers haggle over remaining sticking points. 

“We’re running out of time and we don’t have agreements to do virtually anything,” McConnell said about the stalled talks on the omnibus and NDAA. “I’m dealing with the practical situation. … We’re running out of time. There’s only so much you can do with the time that’s left.” 

Government funding is set to expire on Dec. 16. Negotiators have kicked around the idea of passing one-week continuing resolution until Dec. 23 to give them more time to get an omnibus package and the NDAA wrapped up before the holidays. 

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the incoming House Democratic leader, argued shortly after that there’s still time to get an overall deal done that would avoid pushing the spending fight until next month. 

“There’s still several weeks remaining in the calendar year, which is an eternity in Washington, D.C. It’s certainly a preliminary, premature observation that we have to move to a continuing resolution,” Jeffries told reporters. “That would undermine our ability to fully fund our domestic priorities, as well as make sure that we have the strongest possible robust defense infrastructure.”  

Leaders on both sides have struggled to reach a topline figure for an omnibus spending bill, with Republicans pushing back against the Democratic effort to increase domestic social spending. GOP leaders argue Democrats achieved many of their goals $1.9 trillion COVID-19 bill, some Republicans appear willing to back an omnibus because it would bring increases in defense spending and funds for Ukraine’s war against Russia. 

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the GOP’s ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, told reporters he was still hopeful the two sides could reach an accord. Shelby and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), both of whom are retiring, had lunch with President Biden on Tuesday to discuss how to proceed. 

“A lot of us want to get to ‘yes,’” Shelby told reporters on Tuesday, indicating there has not been a lot of movement on the topline figure in recent days. “I’d think we’ve got a good chance to work this out before we leave here later this month, but we’ve got to do it. We haven’t gotten there yet.”

“There will be more of a sense of urgency as the days tick away,” Shelby said.

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Lingering Jan. 6 divisions on full display during ceremony honoring law enforcement

Lingering divisions from the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot were on full display Tuesday when legislative leaders presented the Congressional Gold Medal to law enforcement personnel who protected the Capitol during last year’s attack.

In a moment that drew widespread attention, family members of former Capitol Police Office Brian Sicknick — who died one day after the Capitol attack from natural causes following multiple strokes — snubbed House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) during the ceremony, declining to shake their hands after the medals were presented.

The family members were captured on camera shaking hands with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), but when they got to McConnell and McCarthy, they continued walking. McConnell’s hand was extended during the interaction.

“It’s self-explanatory,” Ken Sicknick, the officer’s brother, told reporters following the ceremony. “They came out right away and condemned what happened on Jan. 6. And whatever hold that Trump has on them, they’ve backstepped, they’ve danced, they won’t admit to wrongdoing.”

Shortly after the Capitol riot, McCarthy delivered a speech on the House floor in which he said Trump bore responsibility for the attack. Days later, however, the Republican leader traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to meet with the ex-president.

Asked if they deserved a handshake, Sicknick responded “no.”

“Unlike Liz Cheney they have no idea what integrity is,” he said. “They can’t stand up for what’s right and wrong. With them it’s party first.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Schumer, McCarthy and McConnell gathered in the Capitol Rotunda on Tuesday to present the highest honor Congress can award to law enforcement officers who responded on Jan. 6.

Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger and Washington and D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert J. Contee III accepted the medal on behalf of the officers. They were joined by the families of Sicknick, former Capitol Police Officers Howard Liebengood and William Evans and former Metropolitan Police Department Officer Jeffrey Smith, all of whom died following the riot.

All four congressional leaders delivered remarks. Pelosi said the Congressional Gold Medal should “serve as a token of our nation’s deepest gratitude and respect” to the law enforcement officers who responded to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“January 6th was a day of horror and heartbreak, yet is also a moment of extraordinary heroism. Staring down deadly violence and despicable bigotry, our law enforcement officers bravely stood in the breach, ensuring that democracy survived on that dark day,” she said.

McCarthy said the ceremony was meant to “pay tribute” to the services and sacrifice of law enforcement on Jan. 6, and McConnell thanked the officers “for being not just our friends, but our heroes.”

The snub by Sicknick’s family during Tuesday’s ceremony was a microcosm of the larger divisions that still exist nearly two years after the Jan. 6 attack.

A number of Republicans have repeatedly criticized the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot, and some GOP members of the lower chamber have ignored subpoenas issued to them by the panel.

Just last week, McCarthy wrote a letter to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the committee, indicating his plan to investigate the panel.

The committee is set to dissolve at the end of the year after Republicans won control of the chamber for the next Congress.

Tuesday’s ceremony came after both the House and Senate passed a bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the law enforcement personnel. President Biden signed the measure in August 2021.

Manger, the head of the Capitol Police, called Jan. 6 “a day unlike any other in our nation’s history,” noting that it was “defined by chaos, courage, tragic loss, and resolve.” Contee, who leads the Metropolitan Police Department, said Tuesday marked “a significant moment” in the history of the department.

“Our profession is rooted in a culture of guardianship. And there has been no better representation of this than what the world witnessed from our police officers on January the sixth,” he added.

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McConnell: Trump would have hard time becoming president given Constitution comments

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said anyone who suggests the Constitution could be suspended “would have a very hard time being sworn in as president of the United States.”

McConnell’s comments appeared directed squarely at former President Trump, who recently called for the termination of parts of the Constitution in light of reports that executives at Twitter discussed how to handle reporting about Hunter Biden’s stolen laptop before the 2020 presidential election.

“What I’m saying is that it would be pretty hard to be sworn in to the presidency if you’re not willing to uphold the Constitution,” McConnell added when asked if he would support Trump if he were the Republican nominee for president in 2024.

McConnell’s comments came a day after many Senate Republicans condemned Trump for suggesting the Constitution should be suspended to either rerun the 2020 presidential race or declare him the winner over President Biden.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters Monday that he “couldn’t disagree more” with Trump’s statement and said it presented “a golden opportunity” for Trump’s rivals for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.  

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), a member of the Senate GOP leadership team, called Trump’s comments “ridiculous talk,” and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a close Trump ally, said they were “very inappropriate.”

Trump tried to downplay his earlier comments in two posts, asserting the media had twisted what he wrote.  

“The Fake News is actually trying to convince the American People that I said I wanted to ‘terminate’ the Constitution. This is simply more DISINFORMATION & LIES, just like RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, and all of their other HOAXES & SCAMS,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.

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