Archive by Author

Murdoch: Hannity was 'privately disgusted' with Trump after 2020 election

Fox News host Sean Hannity was “privately disgusted” with former President Trump’s actions following his loss in the 2020 election, despite showing steadfast support on air, according to statements made by the network’s owner revealed in a new court filing this week.

The revelation came in the latest court filing made by Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox News and billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch for defamation, seeking $1.6 billion in damages for what it calls the network’s repeated airing of false information about voter fraud.

According to the filing, former Republican Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.), who sits on the board of Fox Corp., wrote to Murdoch after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Capitol by Trump supporters and said he believed that “some high percentage of Americans” thought the election had been rigged against Trump “because they got a diet of information telling them the election was stolen from what they believe were credible sources.”

“Thanks Paul,” Murdoch wrote back, according to the filing. “Wake-up call for Hannity, who has been privately disgusted by Trump for weeks, but was scared to lose viewers.”

Hannity’s statements around the time of the election and Jan. 6 attack have been a focus of lawmakers and the media for months. During the hearings of the House select committee on the attack, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), read into the congressional record a series of text messages the prime-time host sent sent to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, showing Hannity telling Meadows “this is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.” 

Hannity responded to the publication of his text messages on his show at the time, saying, “I said to Mark Meadows the exact same thing I was saying live on the radio at that time and on TV that night on Jan. 6 and well beyond Jan. 6.”

“I say the same thing in private that I say to all of you,” he continued. “Liz Cheney knows this. She doesn’t seem to care. She’s interested in one thing and one thing only: smearing Trump and purging him from the party.”

Fox has moved to have the case brought against it by Dominion dismissed on First Amendment grounds, arguing in a filing of its own this week it was only covering the claims being made by Trump and his associates.

“Dominion’s lawsuit has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny, as illustrated by them now being forced to slash their fanciful damages demand by more than half a billion dollars after their own expert debunked its implausible claims,” the network said in a statement on Monday evening. “Their summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting and their efforts to publicly smear Fox for covering and commenting on allegations by a sitting President of the United States should be recognized for what it is: a blatant violation of the First Amendment.”

Dominion’s filing also includes deposition testimony from Murdoch in which he acknowledged top hosts at the network “endorsed” Trump’s false claims “as commentators.”

The jury trial in the case is slated to begin in April.

Source: TEST FEED1

Manchin will vote against new DC crime law 

Centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) says he will vote for a Republican-sponsored resolution to block a D.C. crime law that would eliminate most mandatory minimum sentences, allow jury trials for misdemeanor offenses and reduce maximum sentences for crimes ranging from robberies to carjackings.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed the bill but was overridden by a 12-1 vote by the D.C. Council.

Now, Manchin says he will vote for a resolution of disapproval that will block the implementation of the law, which passed the House with 31 Democratic votes in early February.

“I don’t support it. I mean, I want to put people away, I don’t want to let them out,” Manchin told CNN on Monday. “I haven’t been briefed on it, but what I know about it, I would vote to rescind it.”

Manchin also told reporters: “None of that makes sense to me.”

“I would rescind letting people out” of prison early for committing serious crimes, he said, arguing that criminal offenders “know what they can get by with all over the country.”

Republicans, who are in the minority in the upper chamber, can advance the disapproval resolution, which is sponsored by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), because it is privileged under Senate rules.

The discharge motion for the resolution doesn’t ripen until March 6, according to a senior Democratic aide, which means it won’t come to the floor before next week.

With Manchin’s support, the resolution has a good chance of passing the Senate, raising the prospect of a possible veto from President Biden.

Biden opposes rescinding the new D.C. crime law but he hasn’t yet said whether he will veto a repeal. 

All 49 Senate Republicans support rescinding the law, which means the disapproval resolution would need the vote of Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) or another centrist Democrat to advance to Biden’s desk.

The measure got a wave of Democratic support in the House after Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) was attacked by a 26-year-old homeless man in the elevator of her apartment building.

“It turns out the congresswoman’s attacker had been arrested and convicted no fewer than 12 times before. Most recently for assaulting a Metropolitan Police officer! But there he was, this career criminal, just roaming the streets,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said in a recent floor speech.

“The good news is the Constitution actually gives the United States Congress final say over issues in our nation’s capital,” he said.

“And when the soft-on-crime local government has become this incompetent; when members of Congress can’t go about their daily lives without being attacked; when families cannot come to visit their own capital in safety; then it is high time the federal government provides some adult supervision,” he added.  

Source: TEST FEED1

The Hill's Morning Report — 2024 GOP hopefuls already jockeying for position

Editor’s note: The Hill’s Morning Report is our daily newsletter that dives deep into Washington’s agenda. To subscribe, click here or fill out the box below.

Rivalries among GOP presidential aspirants in 2024 will be war, or maybe at this point, more like high school.

Republican political donors attending an event this week in Florida at the invitation of Club for Growth will hear from potential presidential contenders and GOP celebrities including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But former President Trump, a declared presidential candidate, has not been invited (The Hill).

Also this week, the Conservative Political Action Conference plans a large gathering near Washington, D.C., where Trump will speak while DeSantis sits it out (The Hill).

Declared presidential candidate Nikki Haley is scheduled to appear at both events. Former Vice President Mike Pence is on both guest lists and will also speak Thursday at South Carolina’s Bob Jones University, where conservative Christians may be eyeing an alternative to Trump ahead of 2024 (The Washington Post).

The former president, taking an early measure of the field, bashed DeSantis as well as Fox News on Monday in a fit of social media pique about the Florida governor (The Hill). Trump renewed his attacks on the network, accusing it of underplaying a new poll showing him with a 15-point lead over DeSantis in a hypothetical match-up.

Trump complained that Fox is “promoting” DeSantis “so hard and so much that there’s not much time left for Real News.”

The Hill: Trump’s persistent polling strength defies GOP critics.

The Florida governor has largely chosen to ignore Trump’s public barbs while courting the former president’s base of support. DeSantis has attracted national attention, much of it sought by the ambitious governor ahead of an expected presidential campaign by late spring. With an expanding national fan base and favorable polls, DeSantis appears to believe GOP donors would follow.

On Monday, the governor was in the headlines as he took over a Walt Disney Co. tax district near Orlando, punishing the company over its opposition to Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which DeSantis signed into law (ABC News/AP).

“He’s using Disney to school other companies he’ll punch back if they criticize him,” said Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Republican operative in Florida who quit the party when Trump took over. “It’s all a performance and will only get louder if he runs for president”(Bloomberg News).

The self-professed anti-”woke” governor also attracted national news coverage this month while engineering what detractors call a “hostile takeover” of the left-leaning New College of Florida, a respected public liberal arts college in Sarasota, Fla., which the governor said he envisions as a conservative Christian institution to be led by a generously compensated former member of the Florida legislature, a friend (The New Yorker).

Today, the governor has a new memoir for sale in bookstores, accompanied by promotional book excerpts and interviews, including a lengthy Sunday discussion with Mark Levin on Fox’s “Life, Liberty & Levin.”

Across the partisan divide, President Biden hopes this week to reassure and strategize among House and Senate Democrats. He’ll speak on Wednesday in Baltimore at a House Democratic retreat and meet with Senate Democrats at a luncheon on Thursday as his party prepares for prominent legislative and oversight clashes with the GOP (The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post).  

In Chicago today, it’s primary day in the Windy City’s nine-candidate mayoral contest (ABC7Chicago). The Hill’s Caroline Vakil reports on five things to watch as incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot seeks reelection.

In Michigan on Monday, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D) jumped into the race to succeed Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D), who previously announced she will retire at the end of her term. The Senate contest is expected to be one of the most competitive in 2024 (CNN).

Related Articles

▪ The Washington Post: Former President Obama is launching “Change Collective,” to focus on improving communities. An initial group of 25 participants will be selected for pilot programs in Chicago, Detroit and Jackson, Miss.

▪ The Hill: Documents show that Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News Channel, acknowledged during a deposition in a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems that several top Fox hosts “endorsed” Trump’s election fraud claims in 2020.

▪ The Hill: Republicans retool their crime message for 2024.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ ADMINISTRATION

The White House on Monday gave government agencies 30 days to ensure they do not have Chinese-owned app TikTok on federal devices and systems. The ban, included in legislation last year, follows similar actions from Canada, the EU, Taiwan and more than half of U.S. states.

Federal government devices are a small portion of TikTok’s U.S. user base, but a ban adds fuel to calls for an outright prohibition of the video-sharing app with Chinese ownership (Reuters). A House panel, meanwhile, today is marking up a bill that would allow the president to ban TikTok nationally for private and commercial users (The Hill).

“My bill empowers the administration to ban TikTok or any software applications that threaten U.S. national security. And make no mistake — TikTok is a security threat,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who introduced the bill, said in a statement. “Anyone with TikTok downloaded on their device has given the CCP a backdoor to all their personal information. It’s a spy balloon into your phone.”

▪ Reuters: ACLU urges US lawmakers not to ban TikTok, citing free speech.

▪ BBC: China hits out at U.S. over TikTok ban on federal devices.

▪ The Guardian: Canada bans TikTok on government devices over security risks.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited Kyiv on Monday, the latest high-profile trip aimed at sending a message of American commitment to supporting Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion, including with financial aid. The rare trip to a war zone by a U.S. Treasury secretary came a week after Biden’s own surprise visit, and three days after Ukrainians commemorated the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale assault on their country (The Wall Street Journal).

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a Monday statement, pledged $444 million in assistance to Yemen as it faces what the secretary called “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” of conflict, economic instability, food insecurity and other issues (The Hill). 

The New York Times: Blinken is making the first trip by a Biden administration Cabinet official to the former Soviet republics this week, where he’ll urge senior Central Asian officials convening in Kazakhstan to maintain independence from Russia and China.

The administration plans to announce today that semiconductor manufacturers seeking a slice of nearly $40 billion in new federal subsidies will need to ensure affordable child care for their workers, limit stock buybacks and share certain excess profits with the government (The New York Times).

The administration on Monday announced a crackdown on the labor exploitation of migrant children around the United States, including more aggressive investigations of companies benefiting from their work (The New York Times). The action followed a Times investigation published on Saturday about the explosive growth of migrant child labor throughout the United States, as children are ending up in punishing jobs that violate child labor laws after crossing the southern border without their parents in record numbers.

The Department of Labor, which enforces child labor laws, will target federal investigations in geographical areas where it rarely receives tips, according to senior administration officials. Migrant children are among the least likely workers to reach out to labor inspectors for help with workplace issues. The department also will explore using a “hot goods” provision of law that allows it to stop the interstate transport of goods where child labor has been found in the supply chain. Major brands and retailers, including J. Crew, Walmart, Target, Ben & Jerry’s, Fruit of the Loom, Ford and General Motors, were found by the Times to have products made with child labor in the American supply chain.

▪ Politico: “We can’t find people to work.” Companies trying to advance a new generation of clean-energy technologies face a struggle: Finding enough people to hire.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic will hold a hearing today to examine the administration’s COVID-19 policy decisions. Republicans are returning to a probe they initiated last year into the virus’s origins. On Monday, they expanded the inquiry to include the Department of Energy, the Department of State and FBI. 

A U.S. intelligence assessment that a lab leak was the likely origin of COVID-19 is animating House Republicans, writes The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel, although the White House, scientists and the intelligence community say the conclusive origin of the virus in humans remains unresolved. 

“There’s not been a definitive conclusion, so it’s difficult for me to say, nor should I feel like I should have to defend press reporting about a possible preliminary indication here,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said during a Monday press briefing.

▪ The Hill: White House: No government consensus on COVID-19 lab leak theory.

▪ USA Today: The COVID-19 lab leak theory from the Energy Department, explained.

▪ The Guardian: How seriously should we take the lab leak theory?

In The Memo, The Hill’s Niall Stanage looks at five key takeaways from new “lab leak” COVID-19 reporting this week.  

West Wing moves: Biden on Monday appointed former Columbia, S.C., Mayor Stephen Benjamin (D) as a senior adviser and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, succeeding outgoing director Keisha Lance Bottoms, former Democratic mayor of Atlanta, who is returning to Georgia (The Hill).

The U.S. Marshals Service suffered a “major” security breach of sensitive information more than a week ago (NBC News).

➤ CONGRESS

Congressional leaders and top Intelligence Committee members will receive a briefing today about the classified documents found at the homes of Biden, Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, two sources familiar with the planned meeting told The Hill.

The group of lawmakers, also known as the “Gang of Eight,” will learn more about what was included in the various batches of documents. The discovery of the documents raised questions about the handling of classified papers within the executive branch. The briefing comes after months of sparring between the Justice Department and congressional leaders, including top intelligence panel members who have been clamoring for access to those documents (Bloomberg News).

For the first time, Congress’s powerful Appropriations Committees are led by four women. But one of them, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), has the toughest job of all, Politico reports. Once a storied prize on Capitol Hill, Granger’s appropriations panel gavel is lately as much a political burden as a gift thanks to endless partisan wars over government funding. She must not only lead House Republican appropriators in drafting a dozen annual spending bills, but also sell those proposals to the rest of a GOP conference that often can’t agree on far more basic fiscal issues.

▪ The Washington Post: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) remains hospitalized for depression, but is “on path to recovery,” his office says.

▪ The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Fetterman is getting briefings, but his staff has no updates to report on his condition.

▪ Roll Call: Rep. Joaquin Castro’s (D-Texas) prognosis is described as “good” after surgery to remove cancerous gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors. The 48-year-old lawmaker said he will recover in Texas for several weeks before returning to Washington.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ SUPREME COURT

Justices on Monday agreed to hear a case challenging the legality of the independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), once the brainchild of now-Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and enacted by Congress and former President Obama in response to the financial crisis of 2008-2009. The CFPB was created as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

The order taking the case came four months after a federal appeals court panel unanimously ruled that the CFPB’s funding mechanism was unconstitutional. The CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve, not Congress, a funding choice that was adopted by a Democratic-controlled Congress to help safeguard the bureau from political pressure. But Republicans have expressed opposition to the agency, which oversees consumer markets such as credit cards and home mortgages (CNBC).

The New York Times: A Supreme Court decision overturning century-old New York gun regulations has produced scores of new lawsuits as jurists and citizens sort out what’s legal.

👉 This judicial decision could change the lives of 26 million people who applied as of last year to erase their student loan debts under a Biden administration program. As the Supreme Court justices convene today to weigh the cases, The Hill’s Lexi Lonas and Zach Schonfeld have rounded up five key things to watch.

Although a ruling is likely months away, thousands of borrowers want to be heard, write The Hill’s Lexi Lonas and Zach Schonfeld. Groups are busing protesters to Washington, D.C., with some having planned to camp out outside overnight. And as oral arguments begin, organizers expect a crowd of 3,000 at a rally outside the courthouse with members of Congress, student loan borrowers and activists in the lineup. The demonstration, called the “People’s Rally,” was planned by more than 20 national organizations, including the NAACP, Debt Collective and New Georgia Project. 

▪ CNN: Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan goes before the Supreme Court today. Here’s what borrowers need to know.

▪ The New York Times: The student loan case before the Supreme Court poses a pressing question: Who can sue?

➤ INTERNATIONAL 

Britain and the European Union have reached an agreement on new trade rules in Northern Ireland in an attempt to resolve a thorny issue that has fueled post-Brexit tensions. The deal could potentially resolve the issue of imports and border checks in Northern Ireland, one of the most challenging and controversial aspects of the United Kingdom’s split from the EU. 

Speaking at a Monday press conference, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that the new deal will deliver “smooth flowing trade” within the U.K., “protects Northern Ireland’s place” in the U.K. and “safeguards” its sovereignty. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that in order for the two parties to “make the most of our partnership” amid a tense post-Brexit era, new solutions were needed (CNN and Reuters).

▪ BBC: The Northern Ireland Brexit deal, at a glance. 

▪ The Washington Post: Why are the U.K. and EU still fighting over Brexit and Northern Ireland?

▪ The Hill: Biden said the U.K., EU trade agreement over Northern Ireland is an “essential step” to maintaining the Good Friday Agreement.

For months, military analysts have been anticipating that the Russian military, under pressure from President Vladimir Putin, would seek to regain momentum in the war against Ukraine, and a recent series of attacks along the front lines in the eastern Donbas region were at first regarded as exploratory thrusts. But increasingly, they are seen as the best the exhausted Russian forces can manage (The New York Times).

“Russia’s big new offensive is underway,” Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said in an interview last week with the Ukrainian edition of Forbes magazine. “But going in a way that not everyone can even notice it.”

Still, Moscow on Monday threw cold water on China’s peace plan for the Ukraine war, after the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday thanked Beijing for the new proposal but underscored that any peace deal would need to recognize “new territorial realities” in Ukraine. “We paid a lot of attention to our Chinese friends’ plan,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Monday, according to the Moscow Times. “For now, we don’t see any of the conditions that are needed to bring this whole story towards peace” (Business Insider). 

▪ The Hill: United Nations chief: Russia unleashed “widespread death, destruction and displacement” with Ukraine invasion.

▪ The Guardian: Belarus partisans say they blew up a Russian plane near Minsk.

Hours after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israelis, dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged through Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank on Sunday night, torching cars and homes and killing a man. Though isolated incidents of settler violence are still common, and have increased recently, residents said this was the worst attack they had experienced in years and blamed the Israeli military for not intervening (The Washington Post).

▪ Reuters: Far-right Israeli minister says “no” to West Bank settlement freeze.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Indonesia shows it’s possible to tame rainforest destruction.

OPINION

■ U.S. Treasury secretary in Kyiv: Economic aid to Ukraine is vital, by Janet Yellen, guest essayist, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3kuLio5

■ What to expect from the Supreme Court on Biden’s student loan cancellation, by Beth Akers, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3xVNJ5Y

WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask 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.

The House will convene at 10 a.m. 

The Senate meets at 10 a.m. before proceeding to executive session to consider the nomination of Jamar Walker to be a U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9 a.m. Biden will travel to Virginia Beach, Va., to deliver a speech at 3 p.m. about administration efforts to lower health care and related costs, including his warnings about GOP policies affecting health care. He’s expected back at the White House by 5:35 p.m.

The vice president will be in Washington and has no public events scheduled.

State’s Blinken is in Astana, Kazakhstan, where he will meet with officials and participate in a C5+1 ministerial gathering with representatives of each of the five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan). Blinken will meet separately with senior government officials from the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. 

Economic indicator: The Conference Board at 10 a.m. will release its report on consumer confidence in February. 

A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel holds public hearings today and Wednesday to weigh applications from Pfizer and rival drugmaker GSK as they seek approval of vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

ELSEWHERE

➤ HEALTH & PANDEMIC

Urszula Tanouye and concerned community members in Illinois banded together to shut down a local medical plant, calling their group “Stop Sterigenics” to take aim at a company operating a facility that emitted a carcinogenic chemical, ethylene oxide, into the air. Initially, Tayouye had no idea that she was breathing toxic air pollution until a friend sent her a link to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, The Hill’s Rachel Frazin reports. That link, to the EPA’s National Air Toxics Assessment, showed that her area around Willowbrook, Ill., was a hotspot for cancer risk. “It seemed like, within a couple of days, the whole village found out pretty much that way,” she said. Ethylene oxide is linked to brain cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The doctors who championed ivermectin as a COVID-19 cure — despite no evidence that it works — are now promoting the anti-parasitic to prevent and treat the flu and RSV. The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, formed in 2020 to “prevent and treat covid,” is touting ivermectin for common respiratory infections. There is no clinical data in humans to support using ivermectin for flu or RSV, according to the CDC and other medical experts. And yet, the alliance publishes “treatment protocols” promoting the use of ivermectin that it says have been downloaded more than a million times (The Washington Post).

“Profiting from bunk and nonsense has no place in ethical medicine,” said Arthur Caplan, head of the division of medical ethics at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine who called the alliance’s promotion of ivermectin for COVID-19, flu and RSV “fraud during a pandemic on a significant scale.”

▪ The New York Times: Rural hospitals are shuttering their maternity units.

▪ The Washington Post: Is swapping pasta for a plant-based, grain-free version healthier?

▪ Time magazine: Patient burnout is a simmering public health crisis.

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

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,119,550. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 2,407 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 … 🌸 It’s time to obsess about cherry blossoms that create a fragile pink canopy around the nation’s capital in spring, especially surrounding the Tidal Basin. Too hot and early buds risk brief blooming. Too cold and the trees can suffer the whims of inhospitable weather. 

The National Park Service will make a peak bloom prediction on Wednesday. All signs currently point to the word “early.”

“We’ve seen a much-warmer-than-normal January and February,” the official forecasters noted (CherryBlossomWatch).

▪ The Washington Post: Spring is awakening weeks early in the D.C. area. This could be a problem.

▪ Axios: D.C. cherry blossom trees face climate change threats.

▪ WUSA9: A guide to D.C.’s 2023 cherry blossoms.

▪ ABC News: D.C.’s cherry blossoms might make an early appearance.

Stay Engaged

We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch. Follow us on Twitter (@asimendinger and @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends!

Trump’s polling strength causes heartburn for Senate GOP

A Fox News survey showing former President Trump leading Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by 15 points among Republican presidential primary voters is the latest cause for heartburn among Senate Republicans who don’t think Trump can win a general election match-up against President Biden.  

Predictions by key Senate Republicans that Trump would fade as the 2024 election approached are being upended, putting pressure on party leaders in Washington to consider embracing the former president once again.  

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Republicans blamed the “chaos” surrounding Trump for the party’s disappointing performance in the 2022 midterm election. Some thought it would be the final straw to keep Trump off the presidential ticket next year.

And McConnell had privately told several Senate GOP colleagues that Trump’s political strength would fade the more time he spent outside the Oval Office, according to two Republican senators who spoke to The Hill.  

Yet a Fox News poll of 1,006 registered voters nationwide found Trump leading DeSantis 43 percent to 28 percent among GOP primary voters in a hypothetical match-up.  

Republican strategists say the poll shows Trump is more resilient than many party insiders expected. And they warn that Republican senators and other party establishment figures who have ramped up their criticism of Trump since he lost the 2020 election would be wise to carefully reconsider his chances of winning the presidential nomination next year.     

“I think Trump’s position is stronger than I thought it was,” said Vin Weber, a GOP strategist and former member of the House GOP leadership.  

He cited reports Trump has put together a more professional campaign operation than what he had previously.  

“If those articles are true, then Trump is running a very different campaign than he ran in 2016 or 2020. A formidable campaign with a disciplined candidate and 15-point lead in the polls today is more important than just a 15-point lead in the polls,” he said.  

Weber said “whatever doubts people may have about Trump’s inevitability … that should not be confused with a presumption that he’s not going to win.”  

“I think the Republicans that proceed on the assumption that Donald Trump will not be our candidate are taking a huge risk,” he added.  

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), who has criticized Trump from time to time and faced the former president’s wrath as a result, acknowledged Monday Trump still has a good chance of winning the party’s presidential nomination.  

“I think it’s possible he could be the nominee but I also think there are other people who could be the nominee. It’s very early on. The field isn’t even close to being set,” he said. 

Asked if he is surprised by Trump’s political resilience, Thune responded, “he’s got a very loyal, hardcore base of support and the other candidates aren’t that well known yet.” 

Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), a member of the Senate GOP leadership team, said national polls don’t necessarily reflect how Trump will do in individual state contests — but the polling shows he could do well if GOP votes are split among many candidates.

“National polls don’t mean to much,” he said. “I just don’t think we know who’s going to be in contention. If there are a lot of people running, that probably will benefit President Trump.”  

One Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss the GOP presidential primary pointed out that Trump has maintained a solid lead among white working-class conservative voters who don’t have college degrees.  

“DeSantis’s problem is this: Trump still has self-identified very conservative primary voters and working-class voters, folks who don’t have a four-year college degree. He has really substantial leads among those folks,” the senator said.  

“When you break down DeSantis’s support, it’s almost from self-identified moderates and then Never-Trumpers, which is fine but you’re not going to win a primary with that. So he’s got to make some inroads,” the senator added.  

The Fox poll found Trump beating DeSantis by double digits among white Republican voters without a college degree, primary voters earning less than $50,000, white rural voters and white evangelical voters.

DeSantis led Trump 37 percent to 30 percent among white GOP voters with college degrees and they were virtually tied among suburban GOP voters, according to the survey. 

NBC News reported Monday that DeSantis will skip the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland this week, a large annual gathering of conservative activists.  

“It’s clear that Trump is the front-runner and Republicans in Washington need to get used to that idea,” Brian Darling, a GOP strategist and former Senate aide, said. 

“The Fox News poll does indicate that Ron DeSantis is a very strong candidate but that’s it. None of the other candidates are showing the strength to challenge Trump,” he said. “Right now, the race is Donald Trump’s to lose. 

“If you’re [New Hampshire Gov.] Chris Sununu or [former Maryland Gov.] Larry Hogan or [former South Carolina Gov.] Nikki Haley, these polls are not good news for you,” he added. 

Darling said Trump’s critics in the party establishment are feeling heartburn over the former president’s popularity with GOP voters. 

“He is showing more strength as he gets more active which should give the congressional delegation of Never Trumpers some pause,” he added. “He’s always going to have that very strong base of support.”

But Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who was one of seven Senate Republicans to vote to convict Trump on an impeachment charge related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, said he still doesn’t think the former president can win a general election.  

“The issue is, ‘Can he win?’ and I don’t think he can,” he said. “Under President Trump, we lost the House, we lost the presidency and then we lost the Senate.” 

Cassidy attributed Trump’s lead in the polls to name recognition but emphasized “ultimately it comes down to, ‘Can you win?’ and over six years we’ve learned no.” 

Still, the Fox poll is the latest of a long string of national polls showing Trump with a comfortable lead over DeSantis, despite an unceasing flood of unflattering media reports about Trump’s legal problems and jabs from former members of his inner circle, such as former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.  

Trump has a comfortable 13-point lead over DeSantis in the national polling average calculated by RealClearPolitics.com.  

A Harvard Center for American Political Studies—Harris Poll survey of 1,838 registered voters last month showed Trump ahead of DeSantis by 23 points while a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Trump with a 12-point lead over DeSantis in early February. 

Jim McLaughlin, Trump’s pollster, said polls are “consistent” in showing that Trump is the clear front-runner for the nomination.  

“President Trump’s unique selling point is he has the ability to say, ‘You know all these problems you have right now, whether it’s the economy, it’s inflation, it’s immigration, it’s war and peace? I solved all this stuff, we didn’t have those problems.’ Every day he looks better and better versus Joe Biden,” he said.  

McLaughlin said “one of the reasons DeSantis has the popularity that he has is because he’s viewed as Donald Trump,” pointing to the tough-guy approach DeSantis has taken with the media and other liberal causes as well as Trump’s pivotal endorsement of DeSantis in the 2018 Florida governor’s race.  

Explaining Trump’s greater popularity among Republican base voters including non-college educated White, evangelical and rural voters, McLaughlin said “it’s like why would want to go to Trump-lite, which is what they view DeSantis as, when I can get the real thing in Donald Trump.” 

“It’s the old Coke versus New Coke, people want their old Coke,” he added. “They look at Trump and said he did this stuff, he solved these problems.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Five takeaways from the big COVID-19 'lab leak' story

The tangled story of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a new twist.

On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal revealed that the Department of Energy had shifted its position, now holding that the most likely source of the virus was a laboratory mishap, presumably in Wuhan, China — the so-called “lab leak theory.”

The department reportedly only has “low confidence” in the finding.

But the new position is still a major development, especially on a topic so politically loaded as the origins of the pandemic.

Here are the major takeaways from the new revelation.

Republicans take vindication from shift

Responses to COVID have cleaved along partisan lines since the early days of the pandemic.

Many liberals and left-of-center commentators were initially dismissive of the lab leak theory.

As the ground has shifted, some have sought to explain that earlier position.

MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan tweeted Tuesday that the original resistance to the theory was “because it was originally conflated by the right with ‘Chinese bio weapon’ conspiracies and continues to be conflated by the right with anti-Fauci conspiracies.”

No U.S. intelligence agency believes that COVID was designed as a weapon by the Chinese.

But a number of Republicans have claimed vindication from the new reports.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) tweeted that the U.S. government had only belatedly “caught up to what Real America knew all along.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), one of the first prominent proponents of the lab leak theory, sought to take the high ground, tweeting “being proven right doesn’t matter. What matters is holding the Chinese Community Party accountable so this doesn’t’ happen again.”

An email to reporters from the Republican National Committee asserted that the new position from the Department of Energy “represents a significant about-face for Democrats, who routinely characterized any blame of China as ‘racist’ and ‘xenophobic.’”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has repeatedly clashed with Dr. Anthony Fauci during the pandemic, called on the Biden administration to declassify the documents that led the Energy Department to its latest conclusion.

A lot of uncertainty remains

The Energy Department was not the first government agency to favor the lab leak theory. It now joins the FBI, which has backed that thesis, with moderate confidence, since 2021.

But there is considerable division within the U.S. intelligence community — which officially comprises almost 20 different agencies— over the matter.

Four other agencies, according to the Journal’s reporting, continue to assert that the most likely genesis of COVID-19 was natural — that is, that the virus first arose in animals and later made the jump to humans.

The position of other intelligence agencies on the matter remains either unknown or undecided. According to the Journal’s Sunday report, the CIA is among those that are undecided.

Highly doubtful that the truth will ever be known

It is very possible that no definitive truth of how COVID began will ever be established.

It is now over three years since the first reports of sickness began to emerge from Wuhan.

More pertinently, the Chinese authorities have proven highly resistant to outside inquiries.

That has led to some intriguing threads that are left hanging.

For example, were three laboratory workers who had to be hospitalized in Wuhan in late 2019 suffering from some of the first cases of COVID infection — or from a seasonal flu?

Is there any credibility left for a World Health Organization report issued in March 2021 — under significant Chinese influence and pressure — that asserted the lab leak theory was “highly unlikely.”

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that there was “not a definitive answer” as yet on the origins of the virus.

Sullivan said that President Biden had “directed repeatedly every element of our intelligence community to put effort and resources behind getting to the bottom of this question.”

But that goal seems almost as elusive as ever.

More tension in U.S.-China relations

Relations between Washington and Beijing have been at a low ebb in the wake of the discovery — and subsequent shooting down — of a Chinese spy balloon earlier this month.

Everything from the plight of Taiwan to privacy concerns around TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app, have further strained that relationship.

The new COVID development has introduced a new wrinkle.

A spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry has accused the United States of “defaming” China with the new shift. 

The spokesperson, Mao Ning, also insisted that COVID’s origins were “a scientific issue [that] should not be politicized.”

In Washington, however, the latest turn in the COVID story will add to suspicion of Beijing.

House Republicans created a new committee on the threat from China when they officially took the majority in January. The COVID news will give that panel fresh impetus.

A fueling of distrust

Skepticism of official accounts around COVID and outright conspiracy theories have been intermingled almost since the pandemic began.

The skeptics will emphasize how the lab leak theory was once marginalized and derided — only to gain credence over time. They will also note, as TV host Jon Stewart did in 2021, that the conventional wisdom once seemed to overrun common sense. 

During an appearance on CBS’s “Late Show” with Stephen Colbert in June 2021, Stewart drew a comparison between the situation in Wuhan — which has several key labs, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology — to an American city synonymous with chocolate.

“‘Oh, my God, there’s been an outbreak of chocolaty goodness near Hershey, Pa. What do you think happened?’” Stewart said. “Like, ‘Oh I don’t know, maybe a steam shovel mated with a cocoa bean?’ Or it’s the [expletive] chocolate factory! Maybe that’s it?”

Still, the new twist is also sure to fuel theories that are, indeed, unsupported.

Many of those theories are unhinged, but still draw levels of support that are far from negligible.

As early as October 2020, a poll from an anti-extremism group found that almost 20 percent of American adults believed — falsely — that “COVID-19 has been intentionally released as part of a ‘depopulation’ plan orchestrated by the UN or New World Order.”

Source: TEST FEED1

McCarthy woos one-time critic Tucker Carlson with Jan. 6 tapes

Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) move to give Fox News host Tucker Carlson access to tens of thousands of hours of Capitol security footage from the Jan. 6 attack has the potential to warm his relationship with cable television’s most powerful conservative commentator. 

Over the last few years, Carlson has taken high-profile jabs at McCarthy, knocking the GOP leader as a “puppet” Democrat better suited for MSNBC than the Speakership. In granting Carlson exclusive access to the footage, McCarthy fulfilled an explicit request from Carlson during last month’s Speaker’s fight.

The move has sparked a firestorm of controversy on Capitol Hill, where Democrats are hammering the decision to give sensitive security footage to a media figure whose 2021 “Patriot Purge” documentary series suggested the riot was a “false flag” operation designed to persecute Trump supporters.

Yet Carlson has become the most-watched cable news pundit not despite such controversies, but largely because of them. And Carlson’s influence is unmatched by any other commentator in the conservative ecosystem — a dynamic, sources say, that likely influenced McCarthy’s decision to grant him exclusive access to the Jan. 6 footage.

“If you’re a Republican politician and Tucker mentions you in a negative way, you’re immediately making phone calls trying to figure out how to make it stop. I don’t think there’s anyone else who really has that type of influence,” said one GOP operative. “Tucker’s influence on the right, we have not seen anything like it since the days of Rush Limbaugh.”

McCarthy moves to win over GOP allies

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speaks with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) during the fourth ballot for Speaker on the second day of the 118th session of Congress on Wednesday, January 4, 2023. (Greg Nash)

McCarthy has taken long strides in recent months to build the trust of conservatives on and off Capitol Hill who’ve been wary of his right-wing credentials, and his move to grant Carlson access to the tapes is widely seen as an extension of that. 

“He’s done a masterful job of building bridges inside the conference — [Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)] has become a major ally, for example — and now with the most influential conservative media figure in the country, Tucker,” said a source who has spoken to both Carlson and McCarthy. “Kevin has actually given them a seat at the table and put wins on the scoreboard on issues they care about.”

Tapes a ‘goodwill gesture’

Tucker Carlson. (AP/Richard Drew)

When asked for comment for this story and the relationship between McCarthy and Carlson, the Speaker’s office pointed to a previous McCarthy statement on granting Carlson’s team access to the tapes.

“I was asked in the press about these tapes, and I said they do belong to the American public. I think sunshine lets everybody make their own judgment,” McCarthy told The New York Times last week.

The list of McCarthy’s conservative doubters has included Carlson, and some observers familiar with the touchy history between the two power brokers say McCarthy has granted Carlson access to footage in order to gain favor with the popular pundit and his millions of viewers.  

“This is clearly a goodwill gesture from Kevin to show Tucker that he’ll make sure to listen to the conservative wing of the Republican Party. And Tucker obviously appreciates that,” said another Republican operative familiar with the relationship between Carlson and McCarthy. “But look, I’m sure eventually Kevin will make some sort of vote or comment, and then Tucker will criticize him. But that’s his job, to call balls and strikes.”

McCarthy’s working with Carlson on the Jan. 6 footage marks a notable evolution in their sometimes icy public relationship.

McCarthy and Carlson’s history

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) arrives to speak with reporters following a meeting with President Biden at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, February 1, 2023. (Greg Nash)

After the revelation of a taped conversation between McCarthy and GOP leaders in the aftermath of Jan. 6, when McCarthy wondered whether Twitter could take away the accounts of some House Republicans, Carlson said that McCarthy was “a puppet of the Democratic Party” and “in private sounds like an MSNBC contributor.” 

In 2021, Carlson slammed McCarthy for renting a room from pollster Frank Luntz, who Carlson charged had lobbied on behalf of “some of the most left-leaning” causes. And Carlson separately criticized McCarthy’s stance on Big Tech antitrust issues.

Some sources thought that while McCarthy and Carlson are not necessarily best friends, the animosity between them has been overblown. The Fox News host is a frequent critic of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), but those critiques do not often get as much attention as the handful of times that Carlson has directly gone after McCarthy. 

As McCarthy faced opposition to being elected Speaker from 20 House Republicans, forcing a days-long floor battle, Carlson described McCarthy as “ideologically agnostic.” 

But the Fox News host did not join the hard-line GOP members in staunchly opposing McCarthy or demanding an alternative. Carlson also called McCarthy “skilled in politics” and in some ways “perfectly suited” to lead a divided House.

Carlson also suggested some concessions from McCarthy to earn support. Chief among them: releasing security footage from Jan. 6.

The Speakership negotiations

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) as the House votes to adjourn following the fourteenth ballot for Speaker on Friday, January 6, 2023. (Greg Nash)

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has said that, as part of the Speakership negotiations, McCarthy had promised to release the full library of Jan. 6 surveillance video from around the Capitol complex.

Carlson had suggested releasing the tapes online. Instead, McCarthy is granting Carlson and his team exclusive access to the footage.

The moves have won McCarthy praise from the right, but have also led to charges that he’s using the powers of the Speakership for his own personal political advantage, not that of the party or the country. 

“It’s part of a pattern of pandering to the fringe elements of his own party. And I say pattern because we’ve just seen that unfold since he, after 15 rounds of voting, finally won the Speaker’s race — narrowly — and promptly rewarded those who led the fight against his election with plum assignments,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a senior member of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. 

“It’s pure pandering to the biggest audience of the right that he can find, to keep them happy and complacent, and win some brownie points with Tucker Carlson and his viewing audience,” he added. “And the consequences be damned.”

Carlson said on his show last week that his team was working on looking through the roughly 44,000 hours of footage, saying that his team has been granted “unfettered access” — but did not specifically mention McCarthy.

His team is working to figure out how the footage “contradicts — or not — the story we’ve been told for two years,” Carlson said. “We think, already, that in some ways it does contradict that story.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Top 5 questions surrounding Biden student debt relief fight at Supreme Court

President Biden’s student loan plan will get its final shot at victory Tuesday at the Supreme Court when the majority-conservative court prepares to hear arguments that will determine the fate of up to $20,000 in debt relief for millions of Americans.

The showdown between the Biden administration and the two groups of challengers to the president’s plan has been building for months, with many protesters having camped outside the court ahead of today’s session, which begins at 10 a.m. 

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar in back-to-back oral arguments will attempt to fend off a group of six GOP-led states, represented by Nebraska Solicitor General James Campbell, followed by a separate challenge from two individuals.

Here are five top questions heading into oral arguments.

Did Congress speak clearly enough to give authority to forgive the debts?

Challengers will argue that Congress did not speak clearly enough in the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students, or HEROES Act to authorize the debt forgiveness.

The law gives the education secretary the authority to “waive or modify” federal student financial assistance programs when deemed necessary in connection with a national emergency. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has tied the relief to the emergency established during the pandemic.

But the challengers say the plan invokes the “major questions” doctrine, which requires Congress to speak clearly when authorizing agency actions of great economic and political significance. The justices have cemented the doctrine by using it to strike down three agency actions in recent years.

“The Biden administration student loan bailout is a textbook case for the major questions doctrine,” said Karen Harned, chief legal officer for Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative advocacy organization backing the individual challengers.

Will Nancy Pelosi’s previous doubts on Biden’s authority haunt Democrats?

Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in July 2021 that Biden could not forgive the debts without new legislation. 

“He can postpone, he can delay, but he does not have that power,” Pelosi said at the time. “That would best be an act of Congress.”

Republicans have pounced on her comments in lambasting the debt relief plan, which could come up in oral arguments. She has since reversed her stance.

“Well, we’re excited about the President, because we didn’t know what – what authority the President had to do this,” she said in August. “And now clearly, it seems he has the authority to do this: $10,000 for those with the debt, those making under $125,000 a year.”

Are justices sympathetic to the challengers’ standing arguments?

Legal experts suggest the closer question in the cases is whether the challengers could bring their lawsuits in the first place, a concept known as standing.

A party must show actual injury and that it had a causal connection to the defendants and that a court order would redress it.

The Biden administration contends the court cannot redress the injuries of the two individual challengers, who did not qualify for the maximum amount of forgiveness, because stopping the plan wouldn’t give them more relief.

In the states’ challenge, three cited economic impacts from how some borrowers are now consolidating their loans and four suggested their tax revenues will take a hit.

Court watchers largely agree that Missouri’s argument is perhaps the most compelling, however.

The states’ lawyers assert that the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, a state-created student loan servicer known as MOHELA, would lose out on fees it earns if the loans are forgiven and miss payments owed to Missouri.

The administration argues those harms are too speculative and that MOHELA, which has said it was not involved in filing the suit, is a separate legal entity from the state.

How do the justices factor in the resumption of monthly loan payments?

Student loan repayments are set to resume once the case is decided, ending a three-year pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A decision will likely be handed down in May or June, but the exact timing could impact exactly when the transition to payment starting up again might occur. 

The Biden administration has said borrowers must begin paying back their student loans 60 days after the Supreme Court makes a final decision or, at the latest, 60 days after June 30.

The government has highlighted potential consequences of restarting payments without debt relief in its argument, contending that the lingering economic effects of the pandemic would cause many borrowers to default.

“This is the best possible time to have debt cancellation, is before borrowers are returning to repayment,” said Jared Bass, senior director of higher education at the Center for American Progress. “The return to repayment, regardless, is going to be an administrative and a huge challenge for borrowers and for the student loan system writ large.”

What decisions will the justices release at the start of the argument?

Moments before oral arguments begin, the justices could make another splash.

The court has designated Tuesday as an opinion day, meaning the justices are expected to hand down at least one decision in a separate case at the start of the session. 

The court tends to leave its most controversial decisions until May or June but does not indicate in advance which opinions will be announced. This year’s docket includes high-profile cases involving affirmative action, wetland regulations and redistricting.

By tradition, the author of each majority opinion will announce the decision by reading a summary from the bench in the courtroom.

Only a few feet away, attorneys will be waiting to take the lectern to debate a major Biden campaign promise.

Source: TEST FEED1

Tensions rise as Supreme Court prepares for high-stakes student debt clash

As the Supreme Court convenes on Tuesday to weigh whether the Biden administration can forgive billions of dollars in student debt, thousands of borrowers don’t plan to go quietly.

Upwards of 100 people were already outside the courthouse on a cold and rainy Monday evening, and groups will bus in many more as President Biden’s student loan relief plan, a major campaign promise, goes before the justices.

With sleeping bags and emergency blankets ready, Temple University sophomore Kayla  McMonagle, a first-generation college student already $20,000 in debt, was set to be among the first in line for Tuesday’s oral arguments in two challenges to Biden’s plan.

“A lot of people think about our generation that we are not motivated to do things, we are always on our phones, always in our heads,” said McMonagle, a political science major. “But this issue impacts our generation the most so far, and it will impact our children’s generation and generations to come.”

As the arguments begin, organizers expect a crowd of 3,000 at a rally that will include members of Congress, borrowers and activists.

Decisions in the case are likely still a few months away, but the demonstrations come as borrowers are already bracing to hear the fate of Biden’s plan.

Coming from a low-income family, McMonagle said traveling to Washington, D.C., and missing midterms was well worth the trouble.

“I want to go to grad school. I want to possibly get a PhD. I love learning. I love being at school. I want to make sure that I have the chance to further my education. It will be amazing for me, life-changing almost,” she said of Biden’s plan.

She and several others plan to camp outside in the rain in the lead up to tomorrow morning’s “People’s Rally,” which was planned by more than 20 national organizations, including the NAACP, Debt Collective and New Georgia Project. 

“The People’s Rally for Student Debt Cancellation is a powerful expression of our collective will to create a more just and equitable future. By coming together we can ensure that the voices of those most affected by student debt are heard and that policymakers are able to take action,” said Natalia Abrams, president and founder of the Student Debt Crisis Center. 

The rally will kick off two hours before oral arguments begin at 10 a.m., when the federal government will attempt to fend off two groups of challengers to the debt relief plan: six Republican-led states and two individual borrowers who did not qualify for the full $20,000 in relief.

Both groups contend the Biden administration overstepped its authority, but the case could also hinge on whether the justices believe the challengers have legal standing.

Kicking off the campout as the sun set on Monday, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), the first Generation Z member of Congress, told the largely young crowd that they were who the country needed.

“I’m optimistic because I need to be, but I mean, we’ve seen the court come up with some disastrous decisions over the, obviously, the past year,” Frost said in an interview after his speech. “And so I hold optimism because we have to in this moment, and I’m hoping they won’t let us down. But I mean, we’ll see.”

Frost was one of a handful of Democratic lawmakers to join the demonstrators in front of the court building.

“Education is a key to racial and economic justice for so many Americans, yet it remains locked in an ivory tower,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) later told the crowd.

Those protesting say they represent the 44 million student loan borrowers who will be impacted by these oral arguments and the court’s decision in these cases. 

Mykeisha Wells, a University of Michigan graduate student more than $60,000 in debt who attended Monday night’s rally, said it marked the first time she had taken part in a political demonstration. 

“Relieving up to $20,000 in debt is really significant for me, thinking about the future that I want to have: buying a house, creating generational wealth for my children,” Wells said.

The support for the student debt relief has largely been divided along partisan lines, with Democrats energetic for the cause and Republicans deeming the relief as unfair. 

In a poll last August after Biden announced his plan, 80 percent of Democrats said they supported it, while 71 percent of Republicans were opposed.

“Tens of millions of Americans are counting on President Biden to swiftly deliver the financial relief they were promised and already approved for,” said Braxton Brewington, spokesperson for the Debt Collective. 

“There’s no sound legal reasoning for the Supreme Court to knock down relief, but should they overstep, Biden needs to use other legal tools at his disposal to deliver relief,” he continued. “Trillions of dollars in student debt is a massive weight dragging borrowers down — that’s why we’re showing up to the court in droves.”

Republicans have gone on the attack, arguing it’s not right to use taxpayer money from individuals who never went to school or already paid off their debts to relieve others’ debts. The GOP also argues the plan does not help the root cause of high college debt: college tuition prices. 

Democrats say the relief would be a great help to millions of middle- and lower-class Americans who struggle to pay their student loan debt every month. Its success would also fulfill one of Biden’s major campaign promises. 

“We are going to keep pushing and applying pressure after oral arguments are over and once we get a decision. One does not stop here,” said Maggie Bell, lead organizer for the New Georgia Project, one of the groups organizing Tuesday’s demonstrations. “Ten-thousand dollars or $20,000 of cancellation and relief is helpful but it does not fulfill our demand, right. And so we see this as the first step. But we are definitely going to keep applying pressure on leaders.”

Source: TEST FEED1

COVID origin report reignites firestorm over ‘lab leak’ theory

A new federal assessment saying a lab leak was the likely origin of COVID-19 is feeding new oxygen into Republican calls for further investigations, even as scientists and the intelligence community say the issue is still far from resolved. 

In the wake of a Wall Street Journal report published over the weekend on an Energy Department conclusion that COVID-19 most likely came from a lab leak in China, Republicans claimed vindication.

“Senator Tom Cotton deserves an apology,” the Republican National Committee tweeted Monday. 

In February 2020, Cotton (R-Ark.) raised the possibility, without evidence, that the virus had originated in a Chinese biochemical lab, though he later walked back his assertion that the virus was a weapon.    

“Being proven right doesn’t matter. What matters is holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable so this doesn’t happen again,” Cotton tweeted. 

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said on Sunday that he will introduce legislation to declassify intelligence findings about the likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, a call that was echoed by other Senate Republicans.

The White House spent Monday downplaying the report, emphasizing that intelligence agencies have not yet found any conclusive evidence whether the virus came from a lab or nature.

“There’s not been a definitive conclusion, so it’s difficult for me to say, nor should I feel like I should have to defend press reporting about a possible preliminary indication here,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said during a press briefing. 

“What the president wants is facts. He wants the whole government designed to go get those facts. And, that’s what we’re doing, and we’re just not there yet,” Kirby said.

Yet House Republicans are revving up a probe into the virus’s origins that began while they were in the minority last year. 

They retooled the focus of the panel investigating the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, and have fired off letters demanding information and testimony from current and former Biden health officials, including Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

On Monday, House Republicans expanded the probe to include the Department of Energy, the Department of State, and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), which has also assessed that a lab leak likely sparked the pandemic. 

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic already has a hearing scheduled for Tuesday to examine the administration’s COVID policy decisions, and the new report is likely to become a focus. 

But the U.S. intelligence community is split on the conclusion that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab, and the new report from DOE was reportedly made with “low confidence.”

In addition, politics and conspiracy theories have led to the origins of the pandemic becoming a third rail, with some conflating the possibility of a lab leak with theories of a Chinese biological weapon, which intelligence agencies have collectively debunked. 

While many scientists contend there are legitimate questions to be asked about the origins of the virus and the U.S. response, much of the effort has been framed around political point-scoring.  

“The left spent the past 2yrs trying to censor the truth & cover up for Communist China, but the facts are undeniable,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) tweeted Sunday. “The CCP is evil. Its virus killed millions & Xi will stop at nothing to destroy the U.S. It’s time to hold this evil regime accountable.”

Experts fear the continued politicization of the issue combined with China’s unwillingness to cooperate diminishes the likelihood of finding out what really happened. 

A bipartisan pandemic response bill was included in last year’s omnibus funding bill, but it did not contain a provision that would have established an independent commission to investigate the government’s pandemic response and the virus’s origins.

And the latest DOE assessment only adds to the divided views within government about where COVID came from. 

“When somebody puts something forward with low confidence, that tells you right there that you know, the level of evidence is extremely limited, if anything at all,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. 

Osterholm said he’s not surprised at the politicization, though he contends it’s more useful to look ahead to the next pandemic than to look backwards.

“If a government agency said we now have low confidence conclusions that this was a spillover event, do you think that that would change anyone’s mind?” Osterholm said. “Is it a surprise that what may be a scientific data point is twisted and turned to whatever direction someone wants it to fit their political persuasion? This is no longer about science. It’s about political science.”

During an interview with The Boston Globe on Monday, Fauci said he still thinks there’s more evidence supporting a natural origin, but neither possibility should be ruled out.

“I’m not sure exactly of the data upon which the Department of Energy statement was made. It would be nice to see those data in order to make an evaluation of the validity of that but again, the bottom line is we need to keep an open mind until one definitively nails down what the origin is,” Fauci said. 

Source: TEST FEED1