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The Hill's Morning Report — Georgia Senate runoff runs into 2024 jockeying

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Tuesday’s Senate runoff contest in Georgia, occurring nearly a month after Election Day, may tell Republicans more about who will struggle as a presidential candidate in 2024 than predict the future for Democrats under a divided government in January.

The oddsmakers believe the contest this week between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and GOP challenger Herschel Walker is Warnock’s to lose.

Turnout has been high. The campaign ads from each candidate have been intensely negative. And former President Trump, who endorsed Walker early in the GOP primary, is fading as his party’s untouchable kingmaker.

Some Republicans on Sunday rushed to distance themselves from Trump, who called for the “termination” of the Constitution’s rules regarding elections. In a Truth Social post, the current presidential candidate called for Biden’s election victory in 2020 to be overturned based on his interpretation of newly detailed information about the president’s son Hunter Biden and Twitter’s role at the time (The Hill and The New York Times). 

House and Senate Republicans, who privately say they are eager to talk about their future plans and policies, not Trump’s, will continue to be asked this week about the former president’s terminate-the-Constitution advocacy, his associates and a pileup of ongoing investigations, which include his tax returns, now in the hands of the House Ways and Means Committee.   

The Hill’s Niall Stanage notes that the former president’s 2024 White House campaign has stumbled out of the gate. “I just think that the act is worn out,” said Rick Tyler, a GOP strategist who has long been critical of Trump. “There is a reason that a circus moves from town to town. It’s because after a while everybody has seen the acts.”

A lot has happened in a month.  

▪ The Hill: Here’s where Trump’s GOP rivals stand on potential 2024 bids.

▪ The Hill: Next steps for the Justice Department’s documents investigation involving Trump.  

In Georgia, a win by incumbent Warnock would give Senate Democrats some breathing room as their 51st vote in 2023, reports The Hill’s Al Weaver. No longer could one Democrat — including centrists Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) — almost single-handedly derail a contentious nominee or long-sought legislative goal. A clear majority with less power in the hands of mercurial centrists could mean fewer headaches for Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) as he coordinates strategy with President Biden.  

NBC News reports that Georgia has set new records for early voting ahead of Tuesday. More than 1.85 million Georgians have voted early, breaking two single-day records in about a week. And the contest is drawing new voters. At least 76,000 Georgians who didn’t turn out in the Nov. 8 general election have voted early.

Experts say the key test in the Peach State will be how well each campaign turns out its core voters in the most reliably blue and red counties, The Hill’s Caroline Vakil reports. For Warnock, that means DeKalb, Fulton and Clayton counties. Predominantly GOP counties are Forsyth, Cherokee and Hall, but in those areas, Walker last month underperformed Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who was reelected on Nov. 8 and otherwise seen as a top-of-the-ticket draw for his party.

The Hill: Why Biden is keeping his distance ahead of Tuesday’s Senate runoff in Georgia.

As evidence that conservative populism in the Republican Party is attracting a variety of politicians eager to burnish national reputations, Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) are emerging as the latest interpreters. Many in the party believe Trump, who crafted a unique version of populism, does not have a corner on the market, opening doors to other aspirants, reports The Hill’s Alexander Bolton.

But recall that Trump, the wealthy New York real estate personality, defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 by campaigning as a Washington outsider and an everyman.

Hawley, Cruz and Rubio, each viewed as nurturing presidential ambitions, may eschew Trump and his brand of personality-driven politics while trying to borrow pages from the overall messages he championed.

The Hill’s Amie Parnes takes the measure of Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis’s deft sense of political addition as he touts his personal narrative, which blends elite achievements, a blunt leadership style and what he describes as a humble upbringing.  

“I think what we’ve done in Florida is we’ve shown that we’ve exercised leadership, we’ve not kowtowed, we’ve been willing to take on big interests … but producing results,” the governor said Thursday at a press conference in Miami. “And so that ends up attracting more people to want to be on your team.”

Meanwhile, in the House, Democrats who represent the Midwest worry their party’s evolving image, identified closely with liberals representing the West and East coasts, could haunt them politically in the heartland, The Hill’s Mike Lillis reports.  

“A current that we swim against every two years in middle America is the identity of our party,” said Wisconsin Rep. Ron Kind, a 26-year veteran Democrat who will retire at the end of this term. 

Related Articles

▪ CNN and The New York Times: The FBI is investigating a North Carolina power outage in Moore County caused by “intentional” attacks on substations, including evidence of gunfire and vandalism. At least 40,000 people were without electricity during the weekend and residents were under curfew until 5 a.m. today amid an officially declared state of emergency.

▪ The Hill: At least five conservative House Republicans have said they will oppose Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) bid to be elected Speaker on Jan. 3. Appearing Sunday on Fox News, McCarthy responded that GOP holdouts who do not vote for him would be “squandering this majority.” 

▪ The Washington Post: U.S. inflation has begun to ease its grip but consumers are hard-pressed to feel it. There’s a long way to go before consumers or the Federal Reserve are satisfied. “It will take substantially more evidence to give comfort that inflation is actually declining. By any standard, inflation remains much too high,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said last week. 

▪ The Hill: Advocates warily eye legal challenge to abortion pills.

▪ Reuters: Biden on Tuesday will travel to Arizona to visit Taiwanese chip manufacturer TSMC and to promote U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ CONGRESS

Republicans have a new argument this year at the end of partisan clashes over government funding: Domestic spending should be reduced because of the sweeping tax and climate legislation Democrats moved through Congress earlier this year in party-line votes, writes The Hill’s Aris Folley.

Republicans have been ramping up calls for spending reductions outside of defense while specifically pressing for talks over the domestic spending Democrats put forward without GOP support. One of those bills was this year’s $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats and experts estimate would lead to more than $200 billion in deficit reduction over the next decade. The other was the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package President Biden signed into law last year.

“The reconciliation bills spent a ton on domestic,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told The Hill. “So, that has to be factored in and in terms of more domestic spending.”

Year-end spending fights typically pit Republicans fighting for more money allocated to defense against Democrats fighting for more funds domestically. Lawmakers have until Dec. 16, when current funding is set to lapse, to pass legislation to keep the government running or risk shutdown. However, negotiators say Congress may end up passing a short-term funding bill — known as a continuing resolution (CR) — punting the deadline through around Dec. 23, if talks require more time.

“We want to be secure nationally, and that’s defense, but we want to be secure with regard to education with regard to health, transportation, etc.,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the House Appropriations Committee chairwoman, said Friday. “These are the pieces that strengthen the economy and the domestic economy.”

But in recent days, top Democrats have warned that Congress could be headed for a stopgap bill that continues current funding another year if lawmakers fail to agree on new policies and funding levels.

▪ Roll Call: Omnibus spending talks heat up.

▪ Reuters: Pentagon chief calls on Congress to pass spending bill on time.

▪ Politico: Ukraine aid and stealth bombers: Pentagon lays out consequences if Congress can’t pass a budget deal.

When it comes to defense spending, meanwhile, congressional Republicans are looking to play hardball with the annual defense authorization bill to combat what they are calling “woke” military policies, The Hill’s Ellen Mitchell reports.

The GOP lawmakers want to insert language into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to counter policies ranging from the military’s vaccine mandate to efforts to bring diversity and inclusion to the ranks — which they argue are weakening the military. But Democrats see the gambit as posturing meant to whip up support ahead of a new Congress and say it won’t disrupt their efforts to advance the NDAA in the days ahead. 

House leaders say the bill is moving ahead and soon, with a draft of negotiated legislation expected to be brought to the floor early this week.

“That’s been a bit overblown,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.), said of the NDAA drama when asked by The Hill. He added that he and the other leaders of the two defense committees have “all been working towards getting it done and we’re going to do it next week.”

▪ Breaking Defense: NDAA coming this week; Smith pledges it will pass.

▪ Politico: Defense bill could roll back COVID-19 vaccine policy, top Democrat says.

A narrowly divided Congress next year means many of both parties’ top policy priorities will have a tough time making it to Biden’s desk, writes The Hill’s Emily Brooks. House Republicans have placed a heavy emphasis on oversight and investigatory activities for the next Congress with the knowledge that many conservative priorities have little chance of making it through the Senate. But there are plenty of possibilities for deal-making and negotiation that may not take the form of sweeping policy bills but could nonetheless allow the House to act in key areas.

“It is very difficult to imagine constructive bipartisan immigration legislation at the moment,” Jason Grumet, founder and president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, told The Hill. “I don’t expect that you’ll see much legislative action on a proactive energy and climate agenda. I think there may be opportunities for some good, old-fashioned transactional legislating, where Republicans and Democrats put things together that they each want.”

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Iran has abolished its morality police, the attorney general said on state media, after months of protests set off by the brutal beating and death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a young woman who was being held by the force for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress laws. The decision, which was reported by state news outlets late Saturday, appears to be the government’s first major concession to the months-long protest movement — which amounted to one of the biggest challenges of Iran’s system of authoritarian rule in decades.

The morality police “was abolished by the same authorities who installed it,” Attorney General Mohammad Javad Montazeri said on Saturday, according to state media reports, but he also suggested that the judiciary would still enforce restrictions on “social behavior” (The New York Times).

Stores in several cities shut their doors on Monday, following calls for a three-day nationwide general strike from protesters seeking the fall of clerical rulers (Reuters).

▪ The Economist: Iran’s rattled government may be backing down.

▪ ABC News: Iran’s morality police may soon be gone, but wearing the hijab is still mandatory for Iranian women.

▪ Bloomberg News: U.S. focus on Iran is thwarting weapons aid to Russia, envoy says.

▪ The Guardian: Iran locked into “vicious cycle” over protests and arming Russia, says U.S.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said she sees a “reduced tempo” when it comes to the war in Ukraine and that both Russian and Ukrainian armies are settling in for the winter months to prepare for counteroffensives in the spring. She told NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell on Saturday that the fighting, primarily in the eastern Ukrainian region Donetsk, has already slowed down for the winter.

“Once you get past the winter, the sort of question is, what will the counteroffensive look like?” Haines said at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, Calif. “We expect that, frankly, both militaries are gonna be in a situation where they’re gonna be looking to try to refit, resupply, in a sense, reconstitute, so that they’re kind of prepared for that counteroffensive. But we actually have a fair amount of skepticism as to whether or not the Russians will be, in fact, prepared to do that, and I think most optimistically for the Ukrainians in that time frame.”

Ukraine recaptured the southern city of Kherson last month, but Russia still holds a swath of territory in the east, including the Crimean Peninsula and the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where fighting continues to break out (The Hill).

Ukraine appears eager to dispel any idea of a lull in the fighting or loss of momentum, however, with the Ministry of Defense posting videos of tanks plowing through muddy, water-logged fields and high morale among soldiers.

President Volodymr Zelensky on Sunday used his nightly address to urge citizens to unite and support one another through the winter, saying Russia “hopes to use winter against us: to make winter cold and hardship part of his terror. We have to do everything to endure this winter, no matter how hard it is. And we will endure. To endure this winter is to defend everything” (CNBC).

▪ The New York Times: Illia Karamalikov, at the time a member of Kherson’s city council, returned a dazed Russian pilot to Russian forces occupying the city at the time. Ukraine now calls it treason.

▪ BBC: Zelensky calls the West’s Russian oil cap “weak.”

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Russians systematically loot art, ancient relics from Ukraine’s cultural sites.

▪ ProPublica: Agents of influence: How Russia deploys an army of shadow diplomats.

Apple accelerated plans to shift some of its production outside China in recent weeks. The company plans assembly of more Apple products elsewhere in Asia, particularly India and Vietnam, in part because of worker protests and turmoil in Zhengzhou over wages and COVID-19 restrictions (The Wall Street Journal).

Protests last month swept cities across China, as residents spoke out against the country’s “zero COVID” policies. The widespread demonstrations, which are likely to lead to a loosening of pandemic restrictions, could trigger a wave of new hospitalizations and possible fatalities, Fortune reports.

Chinese residents have less exposure to the coronavirus, which means weaker immune responses. The government insists on relying on China’s own sub-par vaccines even as the elderly with higher health risks also have comparatively low vaccination rates. 

“Because of the continuing `zero tolerance’ policy, there is relatively little immunity from infection” in China, said Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of the infectious diseases division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

OPINION

■ Time is running out to protect the civil service, by Bill Scher, contributor, Washington Monthly. https://bit.ly/3h1Q7U3 

■ Warnock and Georgia’s long campaign, by Francis Wilkinson, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion. https://bloom.bg/3VNVVzo

WHERE AND WHEN

👉 The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

⭐ INVITATION to The Hill newsmaker event: Tuesday 1 p.m. ET, “Reimagining the Pharma Supply Chain,” with Reps. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), Darren Soto (D-Fla.) and other expert panelists. Information and registrationHERE. 

The House will convene at noon. 

The Senate will convene at 3 p.m. and resume consideration of the nomination of Frances Behm to be a U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of Michigan. 

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9 a.m. Bidenand first lady Jill Biden will host a White House Congressional Ball at 6:30 p.m.

Vice President Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will attend the Congressional Ball.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will participate in the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, which meets near Washington today (Politico). Talk of tax credits for EU electric vehicles is expected to dominate (Reuters).

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will deliver opening remarks at 10 a.m. at the first meeting of the Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 2 p.m.

ELSEWHERE

➤ NEWS MEDIA

News organizations hit by downturns in advertising revenues, evolving news consumption habits and changes by online and social media platforms, coupled with rocky economic projections, have plunged into headline-grabbing employee purges.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: CNN, Gannett and other media giants resort to layoffs ahead of a potential downturn. 

▪ CNN: News and entertainment media organizations, including CNN, are cutting costs as they work to restructure in a stormy economic climate.

▪ The New York Times: Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain, began a new round of layoffs, cutting roughly 6 percent of its 3,440-person U.S. media division.

▪ The Hill: Is long-form journalism dying? A five-minute read.

➤ SUPREME COURT

Justices today will hear arguments in a case that has sparked debate about the First Amendment, religious and other personal views as applied by business owners and the boundaries of state and federal anti-discrimination laws as applied to LGBTQ rights and beyond.

The Supreme Court will weigh a Colorado law that requires Denver-area graphic artist and website designer Lorie Smith to communicate messages on behalf of customers that are contrary to her personal beliefs, in her case, same-sex marriage. The case 303 Creative v. Elenis is described as a clash between free speech rights and LGBTQ rights.

If the debate sounds familiar, it should. In 2018, justices decided a similar case involving a Colorado baker who didn’t want to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples. The Supreme Court at the time punted. Today’s more conservative court is revisiting the issues. Opponents of Smith’s perspective say there is no constitutional right to discriminate and that a ruling in her favor would weaken anti-discrimination laws and allow businesses engaged in expression to refuse service to all sorts of customers, perhaps including racial minorities or Muslims based on personal convictions (The New York Times).

▪ SCOTUSblog’s podcast “SCOTUSTalk”: Can a web designer refuse to design websites for same-sex weddings?

▪ Vox: The big stakes for anti-discrimination in the Supreme Court’s new LGBTQ rights case.

▪ The Atlantic, David French: The most consequential First Amendment case this term is not about LGBTQ rights, as many people believe it to be, but about what constitutes speech.

▪ The New York Post: Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett faced calls a week ago to recuse herself from today’s case due to her Christian faith.

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH 

The U.S. is facing one of the earliest and most severe flu seasons on record, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The number of people hospitalized with influenza nearly doubled during Thanksgiving week — 19,593 compared to 11,378 people admitted to the hospital the week prior. Of those who were hospitalized, most were aged 65 or older (NBC News).

COVID-19 cases rose after the Thanksgiving weekend even as hospitals contended with waves of patients stricken with RSV and influenza infections. Coronavirus hospitalizations last week reached their highest level in three months, with more than 35,000 patients treated, according to Washington Post data tracking. 

Information about the availability of COVID-19 vaccine and booster shots can be found at Vaccines.gov.

▪ The New York Times: Who will care for “kinless” seniors?

▪ The Washington Post: Assisted living too often fails older, sicker residents, report says.

▪ The New York Times: A promising trial targets a genetic risk for Alzheimer’s.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,081,431. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 1,780 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🌋 As Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, continues to erupt on Hawaii’s Big Island, scientists are deploying seismometers, spectrometers, tiltmeters, GPS units and other state-of-the-art tools to take advantage of a rare opportunity to document the phenomenon. 

“Mauna Loa is one of the most well-instrumented volcanoes in the United States,” Wendy Stovall, a volcanologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, told The New York Times. Still so much about the inner workings of the mountain — which erupted for the first time in 38 years — is unknown, as its sheer size, mineral composition and heat all present logistical difficulties for scientists and public officials hoping to predict its movements. With the eruption underway, researchers on the Big Island have had to strike a careful balance between concern for public safety, given the many unknowns, and the desire to collect data.

“Our main mission is to mitigate these hazards scientifically,” said Jim Kauahikaua, a volcanologist with the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. “An eruption is always exciting, but we learn to temper our excitement and professionally work toward our main mission.”

Stay Engaged

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Heartland Democrats are feeling left out — again

Midwest Democrats are warning that the party’s coastal image — encapsulated by its new leadership roster — could haunt them politically as they seek to make inroads in America’s heartland.

House Democrats this week elected a new team of leaders to guide them through the next Congress and into the 2024 presidential election, with the top five — and a presumed No. 6 — all hailing from either the East Coast or California. 

Those optics are ringing alarms among the Democrats in the center of the country, who fear the party is only solidifying public perceptions that it’s run by urban “elites” out of touch with everyday Americans — perceptions that will hurt them in the same battleground districts that are crucial to winning back the majority. 

“It’s always a current that we swim against every two years in middle America is the identity of our party,” said Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), a 26-year veteran who’s retiring at the end of this term. 

“For so many folks back home it’s viewed as an East coast, West coast Democratic Party, and not enough middle-America representation, people that they can identify with,” he continued. “It’s something I think the caucus needs to work on.”

That debate flared brightly this week during the process to choose the Democrats’ leadership team in the next Congress. At its highest tiers, the new roster features a sweep of racial, gender and generational diversity in Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Katherine Clark (Mass.), Pete Aguilar (Calif.) and James Clyburn (S.C.). 

Clyburn, the current No. 3 Democrat, is adding a geographic dimension, saying he’s sticking around to lend a voice to the South.

Yet the same power has not extended to the middle of the country, where you have to jump to the seventh-ranking spot — the newly created chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC) — before you find representation in the form of Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse. 

“We do have a problem,” said Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.). “We need to have people from fly-over country.” 

Two heartland Democrats — Reps. Joyce Beatty (Ohio) and Debbie Dingell (Mich.) — had vied to become the vice chair of the caucus next year, along with Rep. Madeleine Dean (Pa.), who represents an area outside Philadelphia. They all lost to Rep. Ted Lieu (D), the highest ranking Asian American in Congress — who, like Aguilar, hails from California. 

Dingell, who was the last contender facing Lieu in Wednesday’s ranked-choice vote, had made her pitch using a U.S. map highlighting the districts represented by the current party leaders and committee chairs, the dots largely congregated at the coasts. 

When Dingell lost, she did not disguise the frustration that, in her eyes, the heartland was going ignored.

“I hope our caucus understands majorities and minorities are made in the Midwest, and that half this caucus is women,” she said. “But he won, and we’re all gonna pull together.”

Rep. Dan Kildee, another Michigan Democrat, said he expects the newly installed party leaders to take new steps to promote heartland lawmakers and lend them a greater voice in the next Congress. But Dingell’s criticism, he said, was spot on.

“She’s right. And if we’re going to win — especially in the areas that really determine our majorities — we’ve got to make sure that it’s not just about being at the table, but that what we experience on a regular basis is considered when we make our policy choices,” Kildee said. “I’m confident that that will be the case.” 

On Thursday, heartland Democrats had more success when the party voted to fill out its messaging arm. Neguse, from Colorado, won the DPCC chair, and two of the three co-chairs serving beneath him — Reps. Dean Phillips (Minn.) and Lauren Underwood (Ill.) — both hail from the Midwest. 

“It’s a beginning,” Phillips said Friday. 

“I say regularly that we Democrats appropriately focus on racial equity [and] economic equity, but must now include geographic equity if our intention is to succeed electorally,” he continued. “And that means people have to look at our caucus and see themselves; they have to look at our leadership team and see themselves; and they have to look at the geography that we represent and see themselves, too. And I think we’ve been a little deficient in that respect.”

The debate over regional diversity is hardly new to the caucus. 

For much of the last two decades, heartland Democrats have lamented that the top leaders — most notably Reps. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Clyburn — all came from the coasts. The frustrations exploded after the 2016 elections, when Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan challenged Pelosi — a frequent target of the GOP’s attacks on “elitist” Democrats — citing the need for Democrats to promote figures who could attract more support in the rural heartland. Pelosi won easily, but Ryan’s 63 votes sent a signal throughout the caucus. 

Jeffries, who will replace Pelosi next year, says he’s well aware of the regional tensions within the ranks, and that he, Clark and Aguilar will go to lengths to give every lawmaker a voice. 

“Everybody matters — progressives, New Dems, Blue Dogs, whether you’re from the North, the South, the East, the West, the heartland of America, whether you’re in the center, the center left, more progressive parts of our caucus,” he said on Wednesday, shortly after he was elected to be leader. “Everybody matters.”

Complicating the Democrats’ regional diversity message, Jeffries’s ascension means that the top Democrats in both chambers next year will be Brooklyn natives, as Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) is set to remain in that spot.

Phillips, who will soon have a hand in devising the Democrat’s messaging strategy, said the DPCC elections this week will help to rectify the party’s coastal image troubles. The Republicans will find a new foil to replace Pelosi, he acknowledged, but heartland Democrats can still win by carving out a local profile that insulates them from those broad-brush demonizations. 

“There’s a massive disconnect from who the party is, what it represents and the perception of it,” Phillips said. “I think better introducing who we are as individuals first, and then the collective second, is the opportunity.”

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These counties will decide who wins the Georgia Senate runoff

Georgia voters are heading to the polls one more time to weigh in on the consequential election between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and Republican Herschel Walker, and all eyes are on key counties in the Peach State to see how they perform.

Warnock outperformed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in predominately Democratic counties like DeKalb, Fulton and Clayton. Meanwhile, Walker underperformed Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in predominately GOP counties like Forsyth, Cherokee and Hall. Experts say the key test will be how well both campaigns turn out those reliably blue and red counties.

“If there is anything to look at, I would be paying attention to if we see anemic turnout in traditionally Republican areas versus anemic turnout in traditionally Democratic areas, because whichever group has the most anemic turnout is probably going to be the side that loses,” said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University.

Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, said that Democrats’ focus on the large metro counties will be especially important.

“For a Democrat, that’s absolutely essential. Can’t make up the votes anyplace else,” he said. 

Both candidates must contend with potential voter fatigue, the possibility that voters might view the race as less consequential given that Democrats have secured their Senate majority for the next session and a tighter time frame to rev up their bases. Campaigns now have only a month to mobilize voters after the state moved the runoff election from January to December.

Walker faces additional hurdles, like the fact that Kemp’s name will not be on the ballot.

“I think the question for Democrats or Republicans is how do you get back those people who voted for Brian Kemp but could not or would not vote for Herschel Walker? And I think the challenge for Republicans is you can’t make the argument that control of the Senate is up for grabs,” said Gillespie.

Given that voters cannot register by party in Georgia, it’s hard to say how many Republicans and Democrats have voted in some of these counties. Data from the Democratic data firm TargetSmart suggests that, as of Friday morning, 39 percent of the share of residents who had voted so far in the runoff were Republicans and 53 percent were Democrats. 

Here’s a look at the counties to watch for ahead of Tuesday’s Senate runoff.

For Democrats: DeKalb, Fulton, Clayton counties

Among some of the Democratic strongholds to watch for are DeKalb, Fulton and Clayton, all part of the Atlanta metro area. DeKalb County has a population of roughly 764,000 residents, according to the 2020 Census, and is a majority-Black county that sits to the east of Fulton. Warnock won DeKalb by 70 points in November, compared to Abrams, who won it by 63 points. 

Warnock outperformed not only the current president’s margin in 2020 — Joe Biden won the county by 67 points — but also his own margin in the 2021 runoff against former Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R), when he won by 68 points. 

Fulton, where Atlanta serves as the seat of the county, has more than 1 million residents and approximate numbers of Black and white residents. In another example of how Warnock overperformed compared to Abrams, the senator won the county by 49 points compared to her 38 points. Biden won the county by 46 points in 2020, and Warnock won it by 45 points during his last runoff.

Indeed, it’s no accident that former President Obama was stumping for Warnock on Thursday in Atlanta in an effort to energize the Democratic base. 

J. Miles Coleman, an associate editor for Sabato’s Crystal Ball, suggested that Warnock needed to aim to win the county by more than 72 points.

“South Fulton, you have a very big Black majority there, it’s a little like Clayton [County] … North Fulton, you have a lot of college educated whites there, used to like Mitt Romney, but don’t like Trump,” Coleman said.

“In a place like north Fulton, I would expect you would have a lot of Kemp to Warnock people,” he added.

Meanwhile, Clayton County, also majority-Black, lies to the south of Atlanta with a population of just less than 300,000 people. Warnock won Clayton by 76 points compared to Abrams’s 73 points. Back in 2020, Biden won the county by 71 points, while Warnock took it during his runoff by 77 points. 

For Republicans: Cherokee, Forsyth, Hall counties 

Among some of the key counties in which Republicans will need to rely on high voter turnout are Cherokee and Forsyth exurban counties, which sit next to each other and lie north of Atlanta. 

Cherokee County sits north of Cobb and Fulton counties while Forsyth sits east of Cherokee and north of parts of Fulton and Gwinnett counties. Both have a similar population size — Cherokee has about 266,000 people while Forsyth has about 250,000 — and both are majority white.

Cherokee went for Walker by 38 points in November and Kemp by 49 points. Trump performed similarly to Walker in 2020, winning the county by 39 points while Loeffler won it by 40 points. And like Cherokee, Forsyth was another GOP county where Walker underperformed Kemp with margins of 33 points and 46 points respectively. Trump and Loeffler took the county by 33 and 35 points respectively during the November 2020 election and January 2021 runoff.

Hall County, which includes Gainesville and is represented by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R), will also prove critical for Republicans. The county, also majority white, has just more than 200,000 people, located northwest of Athens. Kemp boasted a margin of 55 points while Walker took the county by 45 points. Trump won the county 43 points in 2020, while Loeffler won it by 44 during the 2021 runoff. 

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Hawley, Cruz, Rubio emerge as champions of GOP populism amid Trump's decline

Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) are emerging as the new champions of conservative populism at a time when many Republicans think former President Trump’s grip on the party is slipping.  

All three GOP senators voted with almost the entire Senate Democratic caucus to give seven days of paid sick leave to 115,000 rail workers who threatened to go on strike because of an impasse in labor negotiations.  

Trump touted a new brand of Republican populism that brought many first-time voters to the polls for the 2016 presidential election and helped him stun political experts and handicappers by defeating Hillary Clinton.

While Trump’s popularity among Republican voters may be slipping, this group of Senate conservatives, who are thought to harbor their own presidential ambitions, are embracing the populism that worked so well for him in 2016.  

Hawley has been at the front of the push to remake the GOP from the party of corporate executives to the party of the working man and woman.  

“GOP wants to be a working class party, or should want to. We’re about to have our first test vote — with the workers or with Biden,” Hawley tweeted shortly before the Senate voted on giving workers sick leave.  

It’s not the first time Hawley has called on his party to remake itself into one that appeals more directly to workers.  

He redoubled that effort by calling for a change in party leadership and voting against Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) serving another term as Senate Republican leader. 

“The old Republican Party is dead,” Hawley declared in a Washington Post op-ed published after Republicans fell short of expectations of recapturing control of the Senate in the Nov. 8 midterm election.  

He argued that it’s time for Republicans to “forge something new — a party that truly represents the cultural backbone of this nation: America’s working people.”  

Cruz walked over to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on the Senate floor Thursday and gave his liberal colleague a fist bump after voting for the sick leave measure, which Sanders had introduced.  

“I think one of the most consequential political shifts of the last decade is that Republicans have become a blue collar party. We are the party of working men and women. We are the party of truck drivers and steel workers. And we’re the party of the railroad union workers,” Cruz said on his podcast, “Verdict.”  

Rubio also announced his solidarity with rail workers early last week, taking a shot at the freight rail industry’s focus on profits instead of workers. 

“I will not vote for any deal that does not have the support of the rail workers,” he declared on Tuesday, adding, “Wall Street’s drive for efficiency has turned rail workers into little more than line items on a spreadsheet.”  

The proposal to give workers more paid sick days ended up falling eight votes short of passing — 52 to 43. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who plans to run for governor of Indiana, and Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a close Trump ally, also voted for it. 

Steven S. Smith, a professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis, said the vote gave potential White House hopefuls a perfect opportunity to grab the spotlight.  

“When the outcome is really fully known in advance, that’s when you get lots of posturing. And it’s more about the rhetoric than how you voted,” he said. “It basically was a free vote, at least for a handful of Republicans.”  

The Senate was largely expected to vote to impose a labor deal on railway workers to avoid a nationwide strike after the House voted overwhelmingly for the measure, 290 to 137, on Wednesday. And it did, passing the measure 80-15.  

The companion provision to give workers sick leave was expected to fail, as it gained only three Republican votes in the House and didn’t appear to have much traction in the Senate GOP conference before Thursday’s Senate vote.  

Rubio later criticized colleagues who voted overwhelming to force railway workers to accept a tentative labor deal brokered by the Biden administration that four unions had rejected.  

“This is hard work. So we’re going to make life even more unpleasant? We’re going to send a message that once again that hardworking people that work with their hands in difficult conditions are going to get screwed?” he said.  

This type of rhetoric would have been hard to imagine coming from a Republican senator before Trump stormed onto the national political scene seven years ago.  

But rising conservative stars see it as the future of the Republican Party at a time when more and more working-class voters are casting ballots for GOP candidates and more college-educated voters vote for Democrats. 

“The Democratic Party has become the party of the rich,” said one Senate GOP strategist who is pushing candidates he advises in a more populist direction.  

Exit polls from this month’s midterm election showed that 54 percent of college graduates voted for Democrats while 55 percent of voters without college degrees voted for Republicans.  

However, 58 percent of voters who reported more than $200,000 in family income said they voted for Republicans, compared to 41 percent who said they voted for Democrats.  

Even so, there appears to be growing conviction among ambitious Senate Republicans with an eye on higher office that appealing more broadly to working-class voters is a recipe for future success.  

“Donald Trump has made populism popular among Republicans. It worked for Trump and I suspect those conservative Republicans with presidential aspiration has come to conclusion that a populistic tint is politically useful,” said Ross K. Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University who has served several stints as a Senate fellow.  

Recent polls show Trump’s popularity waning among Republican voters, especially since the disappointing midterm election when candidates he embraced or endorsed failed to win races in key states.  

A Club for Growth Action poll of likely Republican voters conducted from Nov. 11-13 showed Trump losing ground to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in Iowa and New Hampshire, which traditionally hold the first two contests of the GOP presidential nominating calendar.  

A nationwide Pew Research Center poll of 5,098 adults conducted from Oct. 10-16 showed Trump’s popularity among Republicans significantly lower compared to April of 2020 and July of 2021.  

Support for the former president fell most dramatically among college-educated Republican or Republican-leaning voters, dropping from 63 percent who said they felt warmly about him in July of 2021 to 49 percent who said they felt that way last month.  

Trump’s decline in popularity among voters without college degrees was much smaller, dipping from 69 percent who felt warmly about him in July of 2021 to 65 percent who said they felt that way in October.  

Hawley, however, told The Hill that he has pushed working-class issues since coming to the Senate in 2019.    

“I’ve been at work on this since I came to the Senate. This is one of the reasons I proposed my blue-collar bonus,” he said, referring to the legislation he introduced last year to issue automatic, advanceable tax credits to workers who earn below the median wage.  

Hawley also joined Sanders last year in promoting a plan to tax big companies who don’t pay their workers at least $15 an hour.  

He and Sanders teamed up in December of 2020 to push for a second round of $1,200 federal stimulus checks.  

Rubio, meanwhile, introduced a pro-worker labor reform bill in February. It would provide authority for employers and employees to establish voluntary employee involvement organizations to discuss workplace issues.  

It would also authorize these employee involvement organization to elect representatives to serve as nonvoting board members in companies with more than $1 billion in annual gross revenues. 

So far, only Trump has formally announced his plan to run for the presidency in 2024, but senators on both sides of the aisle think there’s a good chance Cruz decides to jump in the race.  

Both Cruz and Rubio challenged Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary.  

Hawley has said he’s not interested in running for president, but he may decide to throw his hat in the ring if Trump stumbles or to boost his national name identification, even if Trump stays in and locks up the status of frontrunner.  

“The assumption was that populism was simply a Trump phenomenon but I think people who have looked into it more closely, those Republicans with presidential ambitions, realize that it’s very much at the heart of Trump’s appeal. If Trump is out of the picture, somebody has got to occupy that turf?” Baker said.  

Source: TEST FEED1

Juan Williams: Show me Trump's taxes

As we wait to see what Democrats will do with former President Trump’s tax returns, let’s have a good laugh.

Comedian Dave Chappelle recently told a story on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” about Trump being “an honest liar.”

Chappelle’s joke starts with Hillary Clinton’s serious charge at a 2016 debate that Trump doesn’t pay taxes. 

Trump responds, “That makes me smart.”

Cue the laughs. But wait.

The “SNL” monologue got better.

Chappelle recalled that Trump taunted Clinton. As a rich man, Trump said he knows the “system is rigged” and Democrats won’t change the rigged tax code because “your friends and your donors enjoy the same tax breaks that I do.”

Cue nasty snickering and laughter at Clinton’s expense.

Now here’s the real punchline.

After campaigning as the outsider who dared to say the tax system is unfair to the little guy, Trump won the presidency. 

And once in office, he cut taxes for the high-end investors and corporations. 

Yes, he made the rigged system even worse for the little guy.

The same guy who bragged that only suckers pay taxes used his power to hammer the suckers again.

To show more disdain for taxpaying Americans, Trump also hid his tax returns so his supporters couldn’t see if he paid a dime in taxes.

In 2016, a CNN poll found that 73 percent of registered voters wanted Trump to release his tax returns. That included about half of Republican voters.

But Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns went from being funny to a sad, running joke as he eroded trust in the fairness of our government and in the honesty of our fellow citizens.

While Trump was in power, the Treasury Department refused to release his tax returns to Congress. House Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee asserted they could request anyone’s tax documents. Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, shot back that the request served no “legitimate legislative purpose.”

In 1973, President Nixon became the first president to release his tax returns amid controversy over how much tax he had paid since first being elected in 1968.

“People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook,” he said in November 1973. Famously, he added: “Well, I am not a crook.”

We can all assume that Trump does not care if people think he is a crook.

This sad joke is on everyone whose tax dollars provide for spending on senior citizens, the troops, police, schools, hospitals, and stoplights. 

The joke is on IRS auditors.

The joke is on spineless federal court judges who delayed Congress’ access to Trump’s tax files until last week, only days before Trump loyalists take over the House. Even Trump-appointed judges now agree that Congress has a legitimate interest in seeing them. 

The joke is on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) which requires candidates to disclose accurate statements of their finances. Without seeing his tax returns, the FEC never knew if candidate Trump lied to them in violation of federal law.

The joke is on Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He had subpoena power to find out if Trump’s tax reports revealed possible financial ties to foreign governments. But by all indications he lacked the stomach or was unable to get the returns. He never mentioned them in his final report, and he certainly did not release them. 

Why did Trump hide his returns if they showed him to be so smart?

No one can say for sure. But The New York Times reported in 2020 that leaked tax documents showed he “paid no federal income taxes in 11 of 18 years that The Times examined and reduced his tax bill with questionable measures, including a $72 million tax refund that, as of 2020, was the subject of an audit by the Internal Revenue Service.”  

Did he see his campaign sinking if it came out that he used losses from so many failing business deals to get out of paying taxes?

Maybe he is not so rich? Maybe he is not so smart after all?

No one will be laughing if it turns out that Trump is one of history’s greatest tax cheats.

There will be tears if we learn that Trump lost so much money as a bad businessman that he only stayed afloat by robbing the U.S. Treasury.

The joke will be on everyone who laughed with Trump while he was making honest Americans look like chumps for paying taxes.

The truth is inching close to coming out.

After years of litigation and clashes between the executive, legislative and judicial branches over the separation of powers, the Supreme Court refused Trump’s request to block the Treasury from turning over his tax returns to Congress.

But House Democrats will only control the Ways and Means Committee for less than a month.

That means the clock is running out for panel chairman Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) to get the full committee vote to issue a report on whether Trump, as president, intimidated the Treasury Department into hiding his tax returns. Americans also want to know if Trump got special treatment from the IRS.

It will be best if Neal simply releases Trump’s tax returns for all to see. 

This act of transparency is not just about our past. It is about our present and future. It is about stopping a bad joke.

Remember Trump is an announced candidate for the next presidential election. 

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.

Source: TEST FEED1

Liz Cheney seizes on Trump's call to terminate Constitution

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Sunday condemned former President Trump as “an enemy of the Constitution” after he called for terminating the document over unfounded claims of mass electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

“Donald Trump believes we should terminate ‘all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution’ to overturn the 2020 election,” Cheney wrote on Twitter. “That was his view on 1/6 and remains his view today. No honest person can now deny that Trump is an enemy of the Constitution.”

Cheney, a leading Trump critic within the GOP who serves as vice chairwoman of the House Jan. 6 committee, was one of many figures to condemn Trump’s Truth Social post on Saturday arguing the Constitution should be terminated over his long-standing election grievances.

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!” Trump wrote.

The White House and some in the GOP joined Cheney’s condemnations, including Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), the other Republican on the Jan. 6 panel.

“With the former President calling to throw aside the constitution, not a single conservative can legitimately support him, and not a single supporter can be called a conservative. This is insane. Trump hates the constitution,” Kinzinger tweeted.

The former president’s post came one day after new Twitter CEO Elon Musk promoted the release of the “Twitter Files,” which contained emails showing the social media company’s employees discussing their response to the New York Post’s October 2020 story about files purportedly from Hunter Biden’s laptop.

The emails show some confusion and disagreement among the employees as the company suppressed the story, but Twitter’s decision to limit the story’s reach was previously known, and then-CEO Jack Dorsey has since publicly called it a “total mistake.”

There were widespread concerns about the authenticity of the laptop’s contents at the time, although major news organizations months later verified some of the emails, leading to criticism and allegations of partisan censorship from the GOP.

Source: TEST FEED1

Betting markets heavily favor Warnock over Walker in Georgia runoff  

Online betting markets are heavily favoring incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) over Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia’s Senate runoff with two days until the election.

The Democrat’s chances of winning the runoff were at 89.5 percent to Walker’s 10.5 percent as of Sunday afternoon, according to the tracker Election Betting Odds, which culls odds from other popular betting markets. 

The site, run by conservatives John Stossel and Maxim Lott, notes Warnock’s lead has climbed 1.4 percent in the last day.

PredictIt and Polymarket both show Warnock at 89 percent. Smarkets, another betting market used by Election Betting Odds, puts Warnock’s odds even higher — at 92.6 percent to Walker’s 8.3 percent. 

Recent polling has also put Warnock in the lead, though only slightly.

Results from Emerson College and The Hill released last week showed the Democrat up by 2 percentage points, and a CNN poll released Friday found Warnock leading by 4 points. 

Georgia’s Senate race went into a runoff after neither candidate earned the required majority to take the seat outright. Warnock came in ahead of Walker by just under 1 percentage point. 

Early voting in the runoff, which ended Friday, smashed records for turnout with over 300,000 Georgia voters casting their ballots in a single day last week. 

Strong early voting is typically good news for Democrats, who have encouraged their supporters to turn out well ahead of election day through initiatives like “souls to the polls,” encouraging people to vote after attending church on Sundays.

Warnock also held a massive advantage in fundraising, and has reportedly kept up an ad blitz in recent weeks on television, as well as Christian and conservative radio.

CNN’s survey noted that 47 percent of likely voters who support Walker said they were casting their ballots for the Republican out of opposition to Warnock, rather than support for their chosen candidate. 

On the other hand, 83 percent of likely voters who support Warnock said the main factor in their Senate vote was support for the Democrat — which tends to be a stronger indicator of motivation to vote.

Though popular Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) has campaigned for Walker for the first time ahead of the runoff, the governor won’t be on the ballot, which is seen as a handicap for Walker.

Neither former President Trump nor President Biden have campaigned in Georgia ahead of the high-stakes Senate election, though former President Obama did stump with Warnock earlier this week.

Though Democrats have already won enough races to keep control of the Senate, the Georgia contest could have significant repercussions on both sides of the political aisle.

A Warnock win could deliver yet another midterm loss to former President Trump, and it could reduce the leverage of moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.).

Source: TEST FEED1

GOP seeks to play hardball on annual defense bill

Republicans are looking to play hardball with the annual defense authorization bill to combat what they are calling “woke” military policies, threatening to throw a wrench into efforts to pass the bill by the end of the year.  

The GOP lawmakers want to insert language into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to counter policies ranging from the military’s vaccine mandate to efforts to bring diversity and inclusion to the ranks — which they argue are weakening the military.   

But Democrat lawmakers see the GOP gambit as posturing meant to whip up support ahead of a new Congress, in which Republicans will hold a slim majority in the House, and say it won’t disrupt their efforts to advance the NDAA in the days ahead.  

What’s more, House leaders say the bill is moving ahead and soon, with a draft of negotiated legislation expected to be brought to the House floor early next week. 

“That’s been a bit overblown,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.), said of the NDAA drama when asked by The Hill. 

He added that he and the other leaders of the two defense committees — including his ranking member Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman and ranking member Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I), and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), respectively — have “all been working towards getting it done and we’re going to do it next week.” 

Rogers separately told The Hill that a draft of the negotiated bill should be brought to the floor by the House by Tuesday.  

Asked Thursday about some of his GOP colleagues’ attempts to push the bill to next year, Rogers replied: “That’s not gonna happen.” 

The NDAA, a measure seen as a must-pass for Congress every year, lays down a wide array of spending priorities and policy for the Defense Department. The mammoth legislation includes everything from the military’s annual pay raise to the funding of tanks, planes and ships to new programs and personnel policies, and has passed every year for six decades.  

The House and Senate both passed its versions of the legislation earlier this year, and lawmakers from both chambers have since been reconciling the two different documents, this week striking a deal to set the budget top line of the fiscal 2023 NDAA at $847 billion. The figure jumps to $858 billion when including nuclear-related programs that fall under the Energy Department. 

The bill is now in the hands of party leaders, with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), earlier this week telling reporters he was “optimistic” the NDAA would be passed before Christmas. He added, however, there are issues in the bill that are “not necessarily national security related,” that may hold up the process.  

On Friday Hoyer said there were still some “outstanding issues” in the legislation which prevented it from being filed as of this week, Politico reported.  

Those issues may very well be tied to deciding which unrelated bills could be tacked onto the legislation. 

There’s also been several, last-minute Republican efforts to stall, including a group of 20 GOP senators who this week demanded a full chamber vote on their proposal to end the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. 

The senators on Wednesday threatened to withhold their votes to advance the NDAA if the chamber doesn’t vote on whether to end the shot order for service members, reinstate troops kicked out of the military for refusing the vaccine and awarding back pay to those dismissed. 

It’s unclear whether lawmakers opposing the mandate will have enough members to effectively block the NDAA in the Senate, as no senior GOP leaders in the chamber have signed onto the idea as of Friday.  

In the House, meanwhile, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), in late November urged his colleagues to delay the NDAA until next year when the GOP controls the House. The shift would give Republicans more leverage to address what they say is a “woke” culture within the Pentagon.  

“I’ve watched what the Democrats have done on many of these things, especially in the NDAA — the ‘wokeism’ that they want to bring in there,” McCarthy said at Nov. 22 press conference. “I actually believe the NDAA should hold up until the first of the year, and let’s get it right.” 

McCarthy didn’t specify which provisions in the bill he considers to be at issue, though Republicans on several occasions have promised to banish military policies decried as “woke” once their majority in Congress is regained.  

The areas under fire include diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the military services and recent policy changes to allow different uniforms to accommodate pregnant service members or allow more hair style options for female troops and those of color, among other changes.  

Also attacked are initiatives inaccurately labeled as pushing “critical race theory” and efforts to root out extremists in the ranks.  

Democrats have since accused McCarthy of stirring the pot only as a stunt meant to win him support for the Speaker’s gavel.  

McCarthy hopes to win the House speakership in the upcoming Jan. 3 vote on the position and needs all but three or four members of his conference to cast their ballot for him.  

“I think there’s a lot of gamesmanship happening right now that’s all depending on the race,” House Armed Services Committee member Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), told The Hill.  

“I think that the Republicans should really stop playing games as it’s going to potentially affect the pay raises for a lot of our members of the armed services,” Gallego said, adding that he believes it’s “a pretty bipartisan NDAA that came out” of negotiations. 

“Let’s just finish this off,” he added. 

Source: TEST FEED1