GOP senators sympathetic to Romney’s call for Santos to resign
Senate Republicans, who are battling to win back the majority in 2024, worry the controversy surrounding Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) has become a liability for their party as a whole, and several are expressing quiet support for Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) call for Santos to step down. GOP senators are reluctant to tell their House Republican counterparts what to do, but they privately hope Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) won’t let the situation fester for much longer. Senate Republicans feel like they have a good chance of winning back control of the upper chamb
Read MoreHow outside groups are boosting DeSantis before a possible 2024 bid
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) may still be months away from announcing a 2024 presidential bid, but multiple outside groups are putting in the work in the meantime to make sure he can hit the ground running. Three different super PACs have emerged in recent months backing DeSantis as a 2024 candidate. The goal, according to the people behind the efforts, is to build up volunteers and infrastructure so an eventual DeSantis campaign isn’t at a disadvantage if and when he officially launches his campaign. That could prove especially critical for DeSantis, who as Florida gov
Read MoreGOP races from Medicare, Social Security third rail
The back-and-forth surrounding Social Security and Medicare this week shows that the entitlement programs remain the unquestioned third rails of American politics as Republicans back away from their decades of calls to slash the popular senior benefits. Democrats have used Social Security and Medicare to bludgeon the GOP all week, putting Republicans on defense, especially as the White House continues to stoke the fire with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) over his call to sunset all federal programs after five years. To most Republicans, the political impact of the two pr
Read MoreThe Memo: Trump and Biden find common enemy in DeSantis
President Biden and former President Trump have found at least one common foe: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Biden traveled to DeSantis’s home state of Florida on Thursday, just two days after his State of the Union address. There, the president criticized DeSantis for the governor’s failure to expand Medicaid under the terms of the Affordable Care Act. Biden asserted that more than 1.1 million lower-income Floridians would be eligible for Medicaid if DeSantis took that step, adding, “This isn’t calculus.” En route to Florida on Air Force One, White Hous
Read MoreSports betting has risen tenfold in three years. Addiction experts fear the next opioid crisis
The sports betting market has multiplied tenfold in three years and may have reached $7 billion in 2022. More than half of the nation can now legally gamble on sports. Fifty million Americans are expected to bet on the upcoming Super Bowl. Five years ago, betting on live games was illegal in most of the United States. A Supreme Court ruling in 2018 removed the ban and transformed th
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