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Republicans navigate tricky relations with a damaged Trump

Republicans are struggling to navigate an increasingly complicated relationship with former President Trump, who has emerged from the midterms in arguably the weakest position he has been in but who remains deeply influential among the GOP’s conservative base.

After a midterm election that many Republicans saw as a rejection of Trump and his slate of chosen candidates, some party officials and operatives have begun to wonder how the GOP can move past the former president, whose dominance in Republican politics has yielded lackluster results for the party over three consecutive election cycles.

Things became even more difficult for the former president on Monday after the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol voted to refer Trump to the Justice Department for allegedly inciting an insurrection, among other potential crimes.

Doing so, however, won’t be easy. Not only does the former president still command the devotion of a loyal faction of conservative voters, but he is once again running for the White House, ensuring him a place in the national spotlight — at least for the time being.

“There are three types of people: pro-Trump people, anti-Trump people and those who just want to move on,” one Republican strategist and former GOP official said. “The difficult part, I think, is that we all have to exist in the same party. There’s gotta be some deference for President Trump, even if you’re in the camp that wants to move on.”

That doesn’t, however, make Trump untouchable. Since last month’s midterm elections, a growing chorus of prominent Republicans has placed blame on the former president for isolating moderate and independent voters, elevating untested candidates in GOP primaries and putting Republicans on the defensive in a year when they should have had the political wind at their backs.

“Our ability to control the primary outcome was quite limited in ’22 because the support of the former president proved to be very decisive in these primaries,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters last week. “So my view was do the best you can with the cards you’re dealt. Now, hopefully, in the next cycle we’ll have quality candidates everywhere and a better outcome.”

At the same time, there are signs that other prospective Republican presidential contenders — most notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — are gaining traction among the party’s voters, despite Trump’s best efforts to maintain his vise-like grip on the GOP. 

A survey from The Wall Street Journal released last week showed DeSantis scoring 52 percent support to Trump’s 38 percent, while a USA Today-Suffolk University poll released around the same time found DeSantis leading Trump 56 percent to 33 percent in a hypothetical primary match-up.

But even if Trump fails to capture the GOP’s presidential nod, he’s not likely to disappear. Democrats still managed to effectively weaponize Trump’s controversial political brand during the 2022 midterm elections, despite the fact that he wasn’t on the ballot.

There’s also some concern among Republicans that too forcefully breaking with Trump could cause backlash, not only from his most loyal supporters, but also from the former president himself, who has a penchant to attack anyone he perceives as an enemy or rival — including those in his own party.

“Whoever gets close to him he just attacks,” said Keith Naughton, a veteran Republican strategist. “That’s been Trump’s playbook from the beginning and I don’t see that changing at all.”

Trump’s various controversies and legal problems could also make it harder for other Republicans to ignore him. 

He’s facing a special counsel investigation into whether he illegally kept sensitive government documents upon leaving the White House, as well as a grand jury probe in Georgia focusing on whether he and his allies sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 

The former president is also facing a civil suit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James accusing Trump, his children and his company of fraud. 

Then there’s the Jan. 6 committee’s decision on Monday to refer Trump to the Justice Department for potential prosecution for four alleged crimes, including inciting an insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress.

The criminal referrals don’t carry any legal weight; the Justice Department, which is conducting its own investigation into the Jan. 6 riot, will ultimately decide how to handle the matter. Indeed, Trump’s allies have simply cast the referrals as an act of vengeance by Democrats.

Meanwhile, the former president himself responded to the development with a warning to those who cross him.

“These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me,” Trump said in a statement posted on his social media platform Truth Social. “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

Source: TEST FEED1

These 9 House Republicans broke from the party to vote for the $1.7T funding package

Nine House Republicans broke from the GOP to support a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill on Friday, ignoring leadership’s recommendation to vote against the measure.

The legislation passed in a 225-201-1 vote and now heads to President Biden’s desk for his final signature. The Senate approved the measure in a bipartisan 68-29 vote on Thursday.

The nine Republicans broke from the GOP and voted for the bill were Reps. John Katko (N.Y.), Chris Jacobs (N.Y.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Liz Cheney (Wyo.), Fred Upton (Mich.), Rodney Davis (Ill.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Steve Womack (Ark.).

Only two — Fitzpatrick and Womack — are returning to Congress next year. The others either opted against running for another term or lost their reelection races.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) was the only Democrat to vote “no,” and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) was the lone “present” vote.

The spending bill — which funds the government until Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2023 — includes $772.5 billion in nondefense discretionary spending and $858 billion in defense funding. Other legislative measures were also written into the bill, such as funding for Ukraine and the Electoral Count Reform Act.

The nine Republicans voted for the omnibus despite House GOP leadership whipping against the measure. In a notice sent on Tuesday, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) urged members of the conference to vote “no” on the omnibus, arguing that the incoming House GOP majority should have more say in funding for the rest of the fiscal year.

“This deal is designed to sideline the incoming Republican House Majority by extending many programs for multiple years and providing large funding increases for Democrat priorities on top of the exorbitant spending that has already been appropriated this year,” the notice reads.

Some Republicans had instead called for passing a continuing resolution into the next year, which would give the House GOP majority an increased role in crafting funding. That push, however, ultimately failed.

In a roughly 25-minute floor speech ahead of Friday’s vote, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called the spending bill “a monstrosity,” adding “that is one of the most shameful acts I’ve ever seen in his body.”

Katko, who is retiring, lauded the passage of the spending bill in a statement following the vote, highlighting funding for projects that impact central New York, as well as other measures included in the legislation.

“These projects will have a transformational effect on our community by improving public transportation, bolstering our local healthcare system, protecting Lake Ontario’s southern shoreline, combating food insecurity, expanding access to clean drinking water, and supporting victims of child abuse,” he said. ”Additionally, I am pleased to have passed bipartisan measures I authored to bolster the new 9-8-8 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and expand mental health treatment for seniors.”

“Throughout my eight years in Congress, I have focused on delivering results for Central New York. As I close out my term, I am proud to once again deliver meaningful results for our community,” he added.

Cheney and Kinzinger — the two Republicans serving on the Jan. 6 select committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, — did not immediately release statements regarding their votes in favor of the spending bill. The legislation does, however, include a measure to reform the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which came about following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The legislation, titled the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, clarifies that the vice president’s role in the certification of presidential elections is ministerial and increases the threshold for lawmakers to object to a state’s slate of elections, among other tenets.

The House passed its own version of the bill — crafted by two members of the select committee — which was largely similar to the Senate measure, with a few differences. But the Senate went ahead with considering its own version, which ultimately cleared both chambers in the omnibus.

Source: TEST FEED1

Ocasio-Cortez only Democrat to vote 'no' on spending package

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was the only House Democrat to vote against a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package on Friday, voting “no” on the measure because of increased funding for defense and federal agencies that oversee immigration.

The House passed the sprawling measure in a 225-201-1 vote, sending the bill to President Biden’s desk. The Senate passed the bill in a bipartisan 68-29 vote on Thursday.

In a statement Friday afternoon, Ocasio-Cortez said she was concerned about funding in the bill for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in addition to the $858 billion in defense spending.

“I campaigned on a promise to my constituents: to oppose additional expansion and funding for ICE and DHS — particularly in the absence of long-overdue immigration reform. For that reason, as well as the dramatic increase in defense spending which exceeds even President Biden’s request, I voted no on today’s omnibus bill,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

The appropriations bill passed by Congress includes $8.42 billion for ICE, which is $161.1 million more than what was enacted in 2022 and $319.4 million more than what the president requested.

DHS received $86.5 billion in discretionary resources.

Ocasio-Cortez said the “dramatic increase” in spending for those two agencies “cut[s] against the promises our party has made to immigrant communities across the country,” adding that it is the case “especially in light of the lack of progress on DACA, TPS, and expanding paths to citizenship.”

The New York Democrat was not the only member of the caucus to not vote for the omnibus package: Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) voted present. The Hill reached out to the congresswoman for comment on her vote.

Ocasio-Cortez also took issue with the process by which Congress funded the government for the rest of the fiscal year. Typically, the chambers will vote on appropriations bills for each agency. This year, however, appropriators opted for a single omnibus package to fund all corners of the government.

“From the beginning of this negotiation, we made clear to Democratic leadership that we must keep the practice of voting on funding bills by agency — particularly controversial agencies like DHS — so that Members would not be forced to betray one part of their district in service of expediency,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We were successful in this approach last year, and looked forward to supporting such a package this year.”

The congresswoman touted provisions included in the omnibus that she helped craft — including an increase in the National Labor Relations Board and funding for community projects in her district — but said she could not vote for them because of her overarching concerns with the bill.

“These victories and many more – such as the inclusion of PUMP and PWFA Acts – are hard-fought wins that we proudly support and would proudly vote for. But tying these provisions to dramatic increases in  surveillance, border patrol forces, and militarized spending after years of deeply disturbing misconduct and lack of any meaningful accountability is decision we find deeply objectionable,” she said.

“Our constituents have made clear that they would like to see objections to these measures represented in Congress, and that is what I will do,” she added.

Source: TEST FEED1

Five highlights from the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill Congress just passed

Congress this week unveiled and swiftly passed a sprawling $1.7 trillion omnibus package to fund the government through September 2023.

The Senate passed the measure on Thursday in a 68-29 vote and the House on Friday passed it 225-201-1.

It now heads to the White House, where President Biden is expected to approve the funding measure. 

Below are five highlights from the 4,000-page bill:

Defense and nondefense spending

The omnibus put roughly $773 billion toward non-defense discretionary spending, compared to $858 billion for defense funding. 

Negotiators say defense funding baseline saw about a 10 percent increase, while the nondefense baseline saw roughly half that jump, when not factoring in the veterans funding, which Democrats had previously pressed be categorized in its own section in spending talks.

Republicans backing the package say the bill have touted that gap as a check on domestic spending by Democrats, while shoring up defense operations at an increase higher than the pace of inflation, which hit an annual rate of 7.1 percent last month.

“The world’s greatest military will get the funding increase that it needs, outpacing inflation. Meanwhile, nondefense, non-veterans spending will come in below the rate of inflation, for a real-dollar cut,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said.

Ukraine

Congress greenlit about $45 billion in emergency funding to support Ukraine, nearly a year after Russia invaded the country.

That includes about $19.8 billion to arm and equip Ukraine and European allies, $12.9 billion for economic assistance and $6.2 billion for the Department of Defense.

The White House asked Congress for $37.7 billion in additional aid for Ukraine last month. The jump in funding comes as some conservatives have become critical of the aid, raising concerns about how such funding would fare in a divided Congress next year.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed Congress in a historic speech earlier this week, becoming the first foreign leader to address Congress during wartime since 1941, when Winston Churchill came to the nation’s capital.

During the speech, Zelensky thanked the U.S. for the assistance allocated so far, but also pleaded for further aid to fend off Russia’s ongoing attacks. 

“Your money is not charity,” Zelensky said. “It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.”

Electoral Count Act

The Electoral Count Reform Act also makes an appearance in the bill.

The measure reforms the 1887 Electoral Count Act to clarify the vice president cannot overturn election results when Congress counts Electoral College votes and raises the number of members necessary to raise objections to a state’s electors.

The legislation was drafted in response to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when then-President Trump urged then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory by Congress.

Eighteen GOP senators voted with Democrats to pass the bill as part of the larger funding package in what has been seen as a notable rebuke of the former president, who has argued for the 1887 act to remain untouched. 

Other GOP senators who voted against the overall package have also thrown support behind the electoral count reforms, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who endorsed the bill in an op-ed ahead of the vote.

“In 2021, the theater act went too far and culminated in a mob disrupting the joint session of Congress to certify the presidential election,” Paul wrote in The Louisville Courier-Journal, framing it as a necessary piece of legislation to protect the Electoral College.

Health care and government programs

Democrats have repeatedly acknowledged the bill doesn’t include nearly as much funding for domestic programs as they wanted in their last best chance at molding government funding while they still hold control of both chambers.

But the party has also celebrated some wins.

A list of investments in health care and research includes $47.5 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $9.2 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and $950 million for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

Democrats have also pointed to a $13.4 billion increase for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a boost of $28.5 billion for child nutrition programs, new Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers they say would support over 11,000 additional low-income households, as well as a boost to maximum Pell Grant award.

“While we make critical investments in these bills, they are not perfect. There is much more I wish we could have done—including increase funding for Title X and other family planning programs in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade,” House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said in a statement late Thursday.

 “This bill is, however, a bipartisan compromise,” she added. “We have proven that we can and must continue working together for hardworking people everywhere. I am proud of this bill and urge all my colleagues to support it.”

Add-ons

The Senate adopted several last-minute tweaks to the bill on Thursday, as they considered a series of amendments during a marathon voting session before final passage.

The eight amendments adopted include proposals aimed at allowing proceeds from assets seized from sanctioned Russian oligarchs to be put toward Ukraine aid, a measure aimed at strengthening protections for breastfeeding workers and another dealing with compensation for 9/11 victims.

Congress also approved an amendment to provide for the continuation of pay and benefits of Navy Lt. Ridge Alkonis. According to Deseret News, his pay was cut while serving a three-year sentence in a prison in Japan after a car accident that killed two citizens.

The omnibus also included legislation introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) that seeks to prohibit the use of TikTok on government phones and devices. However, the bill had already made it into the package prior to the vote on Thursday afternoon. 

The TikTok bill was added after the Senate unanimously approved the bill earlier this month, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) recently expressed support for passing the legislation. 

Mike Lillis contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1

House ends Congress by passing $1.7 trillion funding package

The House passed a mammoth $1.7 trillion omnibus package on Friday, capping off weeks of drama to lock down government funding for the next fiscal year.

The bill passed largely along party lines, 225-201-1, a day after the Senate approved the bill in a bipartisan vote. The legislation now heads to President Biden’s desk for signature.

The bill includes $772.5 billion in nondefense discretionary spending and $858 billion in defense funding.

It also includes more than $40 billion in funding to support Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion, higher than what the White House requested in assistance last month, as well as $38 billion in emergency disaster assistance.

The passage comes days after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s dramatic visit to Washington, where he met with President Biden and addressed Congress amid questions over whether a GOP House will remain committed to providing assistance to Ukraine.

The legislation includes a ban on TikTok on federal government phones reflecting worries in both parties about how China’s government might access data about U.S. citizens through the social media platform.

And it includes legislation known as the Electoral Count Act, which clarifies that the vice president’s role in certifying a presidential election as ceremonial. That measure is intended to help prevent a repeat of the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when a pro-Trump mob invaded the Capitol and forced the evacuation of Congress.

While the bill drew broad Democratic support, almost all Republicans in the House voted against the measure.

GOP leaders whipped their members to oppose it, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) joined other Republicans in urging Senate GOP lawmakers to oppose it. Some House Republicans vowed retribution on Senate Republicans who backed the omnibus, arguing it should not have been passed with the GOP set to take over the House in weeks.

House Republicans joined by some Senate conservatives had argued the GOP would have significantly more sway in spending decisions upon attaining the House majority in January.

While Democrats have acknowledged they wanted more for nondefense spending, the party has also touted a list of investments secured for its priorities in arguing in favor of the omnibus package.

The measure includes billions in funding for health care and research, such as $47.5 billion for the National Institutes of Health, as well $9.2 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Democrats have also pointed to a $13.4 billion increase for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a boost of $28.5 billion for child nutrition programs as well as $6 billion for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.

Senate Republicans pushing for the bill have championed the increase in defense spending, and had argued a failure to approve an omnibus would have hurt defense programs. Without an omnibus, Congress would likely have passed a stopgap spending measure to prevent a shutdown, which would have kept funding at current levels.

The defense spending is up about 10 percent in the new bill, while the increase to nondefense baseline saw roughly half that. The annual inflation rate hit 7.1 percent last month, above the increase to nondefense spending but below the bump up for defense.

On top of the defense spending, GOP appropriators also highlight the 4.6 percent pay raise for military members.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) touted the defense spending in defending the bill, saying that “the world’s greatest military will get the funding increase that it needs, outpacing inflation.” 

“Meanwhile, nondefense, non-veterans spending will come in below the rate of inflation, for a real-dollar cut,” he said.

But that doesn’t mean other Republicans are fuming.

In a video posted online on Thursday, President Trump called the package a “disaster,” while urging all Republicans to oppose what he called a “ludicrous, unacceptable $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill” and knocking McConnell as “more of a Democrat than a Republican.”

Congress has until a Friday midnight deadline to pass funding legislation to stave off a shutdown. 

House leaders had previously hoped to pass the omnibus as early as Thursday night, but the timing was put off to the next day due to the hours-long process to ready the bill, which spans thousands of pages, for a vote in the lower chamber. 

The Senate also made changes to the bill during a marathon voting session before final passage on Thursday, adopting eight amendments.

The measures include amendments that senators say would allow proceeds from assets seized from sanctioned Russian oligarchs to be put toward Ukrainian aid, a measure aimed at strengthening breastfeeding protections for workers and another dealing with compensation for 9/11 victims.

Lawmakers also passed a short-term stopgap funding bill to prevent a lapse in government funding while the omnibus gets enrolled. 

Source: TEST FEED1

McConnell calls Trump 'diminished,' vows to find 'quality' Senate candidates in 2024

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said former President Trump’s political power is “diminished” following his endorsed candidates’ lackluster performance in the midterm elections and vowed to find “quality” candidates for Senate races in 2024.

“Here’s what I think has changed: I think the former president’s political clout has diminished,” McConnell said in a interview with NBC News released on Friday.

Despite predictions of a “red wave” in this November’s midterm elections, Republicans lost ground in the Senate and only managed to secure a slim majority in the House. Many in the GOP have since placed the blame on Trump and the far-right candidates he supported.

“We lost support that we needed among Independents and moderate Republicans, primarily related to the view they had of us as a party — largely made by the former president — that we were sort of nasty and tended toward chaos,” McConnell told NBC. 

“And oddly enough, even though that subset of voters did not approve of President Biden, they didn’t have enough confidence in us in several instances to give us the majority we needed,” he continued.

McConnell initially voiced concerns in August about Republicans’ chances in the Senate, pointing to a “candidate quality” issue in an apparent reference to the extreme candidates endorsed by Trump.

“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” McConnell cautioned at an event in his home state of Kentucky in mid-August. “Senate races are just different — they’re statewide. Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”

Looking back at the midterms, McConnell said that he and the Republican super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, made the conclusion that “we had to play with the cards that were dealt.”

In some states, McConnell said, “Trump’s support was so significant — we could have spent a lot of money, maybe trying to come up with a different candidate and maybe not succeeding.”

However, the Senate minority leader said that the former president’s waning political power has made Republicans “less inclined to accept cards that may be dealt to us” in 2024.

“We can do a better job with less potential interference,” he added. “The former president may have other things to do.”

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The Hill's Morning Report — Senate pushes through massive funding bill; Jan. 6 panel releases report

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.

Congress notched a productive day Thursday after the Senate passed a $1.7 trillion omnibus funding package and the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, released its much-anticipated final report.

The massive government funding package passed Thursday with a large bipartisan majority, 68-29, and marks the end of the Senate’s legislative business for this Congress just days before Christmas (The Hill).

“This is one of the most significant appropriations packages we have done in a long time,” said Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) just before votes were cast on what he called “aggressive investments in American families, workers and national defense” (The Washington Post).

The bill sets aside $45 billion in aid to Ukraine, with its Senate passage coming just a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with President Biden at the White House and gave a historic address to a joint session of Congress.

The sweeping 4,155-page package also includes $38 billion for emergency disaster assistance and $2.6 billion to help U.S. Attorneys prosecute cases related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol (CNN).

There are also provisions geared toward protecting against a repeat of Jan. 6, like the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act — which revises older legislation on the vote certification process for the Electoral College and clarifies the role of the vice president in the process.

Ahead of the bill’s Senate passage, some Republicans threatened to block the priorities of GOP senators who helped it clear the upper chamber, The Hill’s Emily Brooks reports.  

The omnibus now heads to the House, which is expected to vote on the legislation before government funding runs out at the end of the day. The Senate is now in recess and will reconvene in January when the new Congress is sworn in.

▪ The Hill: These are the last-minute changes the Senate made to the $1.7 trillion omnibus.

 ▪ The Hill: Former President Trump calls spending bill a “disaster” and argues that “every single Republican should vote no.”

Meanwhile, in the House, the Jan. 6 panel on Thursday released its 845-page final report — a sweeping document that represents the culmination of the committee’s 18-month probe of the riots and the role Trump played in efforts to block the 2020 presidential election results, The Hill’s Mychael Schnell reports.

Earlier this week, the Jan. 6 committee voted to criminally refer Trump to the Department of Justice for inciting an insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the country, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to make a false statement (The Hill).

The committee has also made public dozens of transcripts of interviews and depositions with witnesses over the course of the investigation, including former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Trump lawyer John Eastman and far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones (Axios).

“This report will provide greater detail about the multistep effort devised and driven by Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election and block the transfer of power,” Jan. 6 committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) wrote in a foreword in the report.

“Building on the information presented in our hearings earlier this year, we will present new findings about Trump’s pressure campaign on officials from the local level all the way up to his Vice President, orchestrated and designed solely to throw out the will of the voters and keep him in office past the end of his elected term,” Thompson wrote.

Related Articles

▪ The Washington Post: In rural Georgia, an unlikely rebel against Trumpism.

▪ Politico: A secret report about a CEO’s sexual misconduct was just made public by Congress.

▪ Roll Call: Biden expands immigration tool that doesn’t require Congress

LEADING THE DAY

 ➤ POLITICS

Democrats are releasing Trump’s tax returns after years of fighting to make them public — though they’re emphasizing that the decision targets Internal Revenue Service (IRS) oversight and the U.S. tax system overall, rather than the former president specifically.

“After years of stonewalling and litigation ending at the Supreme Court, the committee found that, for all practical purposes, the mandatory audit program was dormant. It wasn’t just functioning poorly — it was not functioning at all,” said House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.).

The Hill’s Tobias Burns breaks down why Democrats are releasing Trump’s taxes.

Trump was the first president since Watergate not to release his tax returns before taking control of the White House, and a report from the House Ways and Means Committee revealed the IRS didn’t audit Trump during the first two years of his time in office.

Following that revelation from the committee, the House on Wednesday passed a bill to codify the agency’s policy requiring annual audits of a president’s tax returns into federal law, The Hill’s Mychael Schnell reports.

▪ Bloomberg: What Trump’s tax returns say about his finances and the IRS.

▪ The Hill: How Trump paid $0 in income tax in 2020.

▪ Roll Call: Democrats nominate state Sen. Jennifer McClellan (Va.) to fill the late Rep. Donald McEachin’s (Va.) seat in Virginia.

▪ The Hill: Incoming GOP lawmaker George Santos says he will tell his “story” next week.

➤ MORE CONGRESS

Over a dozen Senate Republicans shrugged off recent threats and tirades from Trump and voted for the Electoral Count Reform Act, writes The Hill’s Alexander Bolton.

The legislation would raise the threshold for objections to Electoral College votes and clarify the role of the vice president in the vote certification process — two years after Trump and his allies tried to use the Electoral Count Act to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election results with the help of then-Vice President Mike Pence.

“We’re one election past 2020 and he still seems to be obsessed with that election. Obviously, I don’t think that’s good for him. It’s certainly not good for anybody else, which is why most of us have decided to move on,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said of Trump.

Even some of Trump’s closest allies, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), backed the package (Insider).

But other Republicans angling to ingratiate themselves with Trump’s base voted against the bill, such as Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), who pledged back in 2020 to object to the Electoral College certification of that year’s results.

The New York Times: How a bipartisan Senate group addressed a flaw exposed by Jan. 6.

The Hill’s Mychael Schnell breaks down which five House Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the presidential tax audit bill following the Trump revelation.

Congressional attempts to reform antitrust laws appear to have been stymied by tech giants and other groups devoting millions to counter the efforts, write The Hill’s Rebecca Klar and Karl Evers-Hillstrom, as two proposals to try and curb the power of some of the nation’s largest tech firms didn’t make it into the year-end bills.

“When we began this work, we knew we were taking on the largest economic powers in this country. These are gigantic monopolies. And one of the great challenges with monopolies is with tremendous concentrated economic power comes political power,” said chair of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.).

▪ The Hill: Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.) wins top Democratic seat on powerful Oversight Committee

▪ Washington Post: Congress wants to overhaul retirement plans. Here’s what might be coming.

▪ The Hill: Schumer breaks Title 42 spending bill logjam with help from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.).

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Ukrainian morale was lifted by Zelensky’s historic visit to D.C. on Wednesday, the New York Times reports — the president’s first time out of Ukraine since Russia invaded back in February.

“We are returning from Washington – we are coming with good results. With something that will really help,” Zelensky said in an address to Ukrainians on Thursday as he headed back to his country.

“I thank President Biden for his help, his international leadership, and his determination to win. I am grateful to the Congress of the United States – both houses, both parties, all those who support Ukraine, all those who want victory as much as we all do. There will be victory!”

▪ The New York Times: Caught on camera, traced by phone: The Russian military unit that killed dozens in Bucha.

▪ The Washington Post: Deep secrecy, high risk: How Zelensky’s improbable D.C. visit came together.

China sent dozens of aircraft on military drills toward Taiwan on Thursday, with many crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait into the air defense zone of the self-governing democratic island nation that China claims as part of its territory, The Hill’s Brad Dress reports.

China has ramped up its show of force in recent months as it pressures Taiwan to bow to Beijing’s rule, stoking concerns of a possible invasion (Reuters).

OPINION

■ The last lesson of the Jan. 6 committee, by the New York Times Editorial Board, the New York Times. bit.ly/3G93YRd

■  Anthony Fauci’s legacy might be impossible to replicate, by the Washington Post Editorial Board, the Washington Post. bit.ly/3vef2aC

■ Gods don’t bleed. Trump is bleeding, by Charles M. Blow, columnist, The New York Times. bit.ly/3WkQJDM

WHERE AND WHEN

🎄 A note to readers: Kristina Karisch will return to Morning Report on Tuesday, Dec. 27; Alexis Simendinger will be back in January.

👉 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 9 a.m. Friday.

The Senate stands in recess as of Friday.

The president and first lady Jill Biden are set to depart the White House at 4 p.m. to make a 5:05 p.m. holiday visit to Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. They’ll return to the White House at 6 p.m. after the visit.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has no public appointments Friday.

There’s no White House daily press briefing on the schedule for Friday.

ELSEWHERE

➤ TECH

The founder and former CEO of the bankrupt cryptocurrency platform Sam Bankman-Fried appeared in a U.S. court on Wednesday and was released on a $250 million bond after being arrested in the Bahamas earlier this month (The Hill).

Bankman-Fried, 30, spent time in Bahamian jail before he was extradited to the U.S. Wednesday night. He now faces several charges, including campaign finance violations, money laundering and wire fraud.

A judge allowed Bankman-Fried to live at his parents’ home in California, wearing an ankle monitor, while he awaits trial.

FTX filed for bankruptcy last month, and its collapse has spurred congressional scrutiny and legal action from former investors over billions of dollars lost in the cryptocurrency exchange (Reuters).

▪ Wall Street Journal: New FTX charges against Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang show U.S. is going after deputies, too.

▪ Bloomberg: All the ways that crypto broke in 2022.

▪ Axios: U.S. securities regulator alleges price manipulation by FTX

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH

U.S. life expectancy continued to decline steadily in 2021, as COVID-19 and illegal drugs took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. While some comparable countries have started to bounce back from the pandemic, U.S. life expectancy dropped to 76.4 years at birth, down from 77 in 2020. The decline is felt across the board, among all population groups, from children to seniors, and across genders and ethnicities. Americans now can expect to live as long as they did in 1996 — a worrying benchmark for a developed nation where life expectancy is supposed to rise, not fall (The Washington Post).

“This one, it’s sort of across-the-board bad news,” Eileen Crimmins, a professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California who studies life expectancy around the world, told the Post. “We’ve gone since 1996 without improving. That’s incredible, given how much we’ve learned about medicine, how much we’ve spent.”

▪ The New York Times: The “tripledemic” rages on. Respiratory syncytial virus has probably peaked, but the flu is still surging and COVID-19 cases are rising. Scientists are hopeful next winter will be better.

▪ CNN: Tracking hospitalizations this brutal virus season.

▪ Bloomberg: China is likely seeing 1 million COVID-19 cases and 5,000 deaths a day.

Information about COVID-19 vaccine and booster shot availability 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): 1,090,014. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 2,952 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… ❄️ Biden on Thursday said he hopes this holiday season will usher in a “fresh start” for the nation and called for Americans to come together across the aisle.

“I sincerely hope this Christmas season will drain the poison that has infected our politics and set us against one another. I hope this Christmas season marks a fresh start for our nation, because there’s so much that unites us as Americans, so much more that unites us than divides us,” Biden said in remarks ahead of the Christmas holiday this weekend.

The president encouraged people take time this holiday for “quiet reflection” and look at their fellow Americans “not as Democrats or Republicans, not as members of ‘Team Red’ or ‘Team Blue,’ but as who we really are, fellow Americans, fellow human beings worthy of being treated with dignity and respect.”

Biden’s holiday remarks come as the country braces for a major winter storm that’s set to impact most of the nation over the next few days.

More than a thousand U.S.-based flights have been canceled as travelers head home for the holidays amid what’s expected to be the coldest Christmas weekend in decades in most states (The Hill).

And for loyal readers: Our Friday quiz is taking a break and will return after the holidays!

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!

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Christmas shoppers putting fewer gifts under the tree as recession looms

If the Christmas tree looks larger this year, the reason may be the smaller pile of gifts beneath it. 

Retail analysts expect Americans to spend roughly the same amount on holiday gifts this year as last. Yet, because of inflation, the money will buy fewer gifts. Seven fewer gifts, to be exact. 

The average consumer plans to purchase nine presents in the 2022 holiday season, down from 16 in 2021, according to a closely watched holiday retail survey from accounting giant Deloitte. 

Those gifts will cost $507 on average and make up about a third of the $1,455 the typical consumer plans to spend in the year-end holiday season, a tabulation that also considers decorations, furnishings, dinner outings and movies. 

Other forecasts and polls on holiday spending reached less Grinch-like conclusions, but no one in the consumer industry expects a Christmas for the ages.  

A November survey from Gallup found the average holiday shopper preparing to spend $867 on gifts this year, compared to $886 last year. Holiday budgets have tightened as Christmas draws closer, Gallup found, a reflection of lingering inflation and dwindling consumer savings.  

An October survey from the Conference Board think tank put average gift-spending at $613 this year, down from $648 last year.  

All told, Santa will be toting a lighter bag down the chimney this year. 

“You’ve got this huge proportion of people who say they’re in a worse financial situation, but they’re still going to make this happen for their families,” said Lupine Skelly, a manager at Deloitte Services LP’s Consumer Industry Center. 

Holiday shopping forecasters start early in the season, to keep pace with holiday shoppers. A September survey by Bankrate, the consumer finance company, found that half of holiday consumers planned to start shopping before Halloween. Online giant Amazon responded to the expected demand with a special “Prime Day” in October. Other retailers followed suit.  

“If your heating costs are more and you’re paying more for gas, why not start getting gifts in October and spread it out more?” Skelly said. 

The traditional Christmas shopping season begins after Thanksgiving. People are starting earlier to spread purchases over more paychecks and to patrol for discounts. They’re also worried about the supply chain, the consumer pipeline that broke down for long stretches of the COVID-19 pandemic, even though warehouses have largely refilled.  

Mostly, though, consumers are worried about inflation. Rising consumer prices “is the elephant in the room,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate. Inflation reached 9 percent last summer, a generational high. It has since retreated to 7 percent, but consumer prices are still rising faster than wages. 

“People are spending more,” Rossman said. “They aren’t necessarily getting more.” 

Wells Fargo projects a 6-percent increase in holiday sales in November and December, a figure that “says more about prices than it does about increased holiday spending,” the financial services company said in a report titled 2022 Holiday Sales: The Last Hurrah.  

The title reflects the firm’s gloomy forecast for 2023. 

“Essentially, this is the last pretty big holiday season before our ultimate expectation for the economy to fall into recession next year,” said Shannon Seery, a Wells Fargo economist.  

The last two years saw large surges in holiday spending, according to the Wells Fargo report, a boost driven by federal stimulus payments and a healthy economy.  

Consumer confidence has been sinking this year, however, in a reflection of inflation, rising interest rates and a resulting squeeze on the housing market, among other effects.   

On the upside, “people still feel pretty decent job security,” Seery said. “I think the fact that they’re not worried about their job situation yet is why they’re continuing to spend.” 

The key word in her analysis is “yet.” Wells Fargo predicts a recession in the second half of 2023. 

“Everybody in my field is talking about recession, talking about recession, and the actual consumer and household are not yet concerned,” Seery said.  

“You’ll eventually start to see some layoffs. And that’s when it starts to bite the consumer.” 

Most Christmas shoppers are factoring inflation, if not recession, into their budgets. Surveys by Deloitte, Forbes and others found consumers planning to hunt for lower-priced gifts, to exchange them with fewer people and even to shop at resale stores.  

Holiday planners are also buying fewer decorations.  

“If you remember, during the pandemic, people were sick at home,” Skelly said. “They were decorating like mad and buying furnishings. So that’s an easy area to cut back on.” 

But if the holiday spirit seems a bit muted this year, inflation may not be entirely to blame. The annual Christmas spending binge has faded in recent years as a retail phenomenon.  

Bloomberg columnist Justin Fox analyzed Census numbers and found that Americans spend less of their annual retail budget at Christmastime now than 20 or 30 years ago. December’s share of all retail spending fell to 11.4 percent in 2021, the lowest rate in at least 30 years. 

“The theory seems to be that people are buying more throughout the year,” Rossman said. “They’re not doing it as much during the holidays.” 

Economists fret about the fundamental inefficiency of the Christmas gift: In most cases, the giver can only guess if a gift is something the recipient wants or will ever use. 

This year, with money tight, shoppers aren’t messing around. The Deloitte survey found consumers expecting to spend an average of $252 on gift cards this year, up from $235 last year. With a gift card, the recipient chooses the gift. In every other major retail category, shoppers expect to spend less. 

A Miami couple told The Wall Street Journal they had instructed their children to choose “one really good gift” apiece, rather than purchase several gifts from a list, or on a hunch. Parents are leading children into malls and asking them to point out exactly what they want. 

Many families will go into debt to finance Christmas gifts. The Bankrate holiday survey found that roughly half of shoppers plan to charge at least some purchases to credit cards, and some respondents admitted that they will need more than a month to pay them off.  

“The silver lining is that a lot of people have saved more in the last couple of years,” Rossman said. 

The national savings stockpile peaked at more than $2 trillion in 2021. Inflation has diminished it to around $1.5 trillion, however, and economists predict even that massive sum won’t last through 2023.  

People are saving less now than a year or two ago, a product of rising inflation. The national savings rate dwindled to 2.3 percent in October, down from 14 percent in October 2020. 

Meanwhile credit card debt is rising, and the annual holiday binge will undoubtedly push the tab higher. 

“Unfortunately,” Rossman said, “I feel like the January debt hangover could be a big one.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Why Democrats released Trump's tax returns

After years of fighting for Donald Trump’s tax returns, Democrats finally got a hold of them and released them to the public through two congressional reports published this week. But Democrats stress their decision was not about Trump himself but rather about oversight of the IRS and about the U.S. tax system more broadly — even though Trump was the first president since Watergate not to release his returns before assuming the presidency.

The report from the Democratic-led Ways and Means Committee found Trump wasn’t audited during his first two years in office. His first audit as president came only right when the IRS was asked directly by Congress to produce Trump’s tax returns. 

That could be a violation of IRS policy, which states that “individual income tax returns for the President and Vice President will be subject to mandatory audit examination” and that they’ll receive “normal pipeline processing” and be subject to “regular filing and retention procedures.”

“The IRS has failed to administer its own mandatory audit program policies,” Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said Thursday in the House, introducing legislation that bumps the presidential audit program up from the level of IRS policy to the level of federal law.

Democrats are mad the presidential audit program was ‘dormant’

“After years of stonewalling and litigation ending at the Supreme Court, the Committee found that, for all practical purposes, the mandatory audit program was dormant. It wasn’t just functioning poorly — it was not functioning at all,” Neal said.

Neal’s legislation, which passed the House on Thursday, would give the Treasury three months to produce a report on a sitting president’s tax returns, which are required by law to be filed every year.

The bill also makes a president’s tax returns public along with those of any businesses they own.

“This has never been about one person, this has been about the office of the presidency,” Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) said Tuesday after the vote to release Trump’s returns.

Democrats are also calling out the ‘two-tiered tax system’

Trump’s returns display sophisticated accounting whereby income from investments was offset by large, distributed business losses that reduced his tax liability. In 2020, the last year Trump was president, he didn’t pay any income tax at all.

Tax experts say his techniques are not atypical and are just some of many methods that are widely used by people with a lot of money to pay less in tax. These maneuvers can range from using bank loans backed by stock portfolios to obtain cash to combining trusts with annuities to keep money away from the government over the course of generations.

This sophistication is another source of anger for Democrats and is something they want to call attention to through the release of Trump’s returns.

“Trump’s returns likely look similar to those of many other wealthy tax cheats — hundreds of partnership interests, highly-questionable deductions, and debts that can be shifted around to wipe out tax liabilities,” Senate Finance chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement on Wednesday.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has sounded similar notes about how taxes work in the U.S.

“At the core of the problem is a discrepancy in the ways types of income are reported to the IRS: opaque income sources frequently avoid scrutiny while wages and federal benefits are typically subject to nearly full compliance. This two-tiered tax system is unfair and deprives the country of resources to fund core priorities,” she said in a statement on congressional tax compliance proposals in 2021.

But the release of the returns is also about beating Donald Trump

While Democrats have couched the release of the returns in a broader policy discussion, it’s just as much about politics and defeating a political rival.

Trump incensed Democrats during his presidency for the ways he broke presidential norms that extended beyond his refusal to release his tax returns. His prolific use of social media and his public castigation of judges and other public officials whom presidents usually don’t criticize changed the tone of political discourse in the country, much to the anger of the opposition party.

“When we win this election, and we have a new president of the United States in January, and we have a new secretary of the Treasury, and Richie Neal asks for the president’s returns, then the world will see what the president has been hiding all of this time,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in 2020.

The revelation of Trump’s huge business losses, which were presaged by years of investigative reporting, undermine the image of Trump as a successful, self-made businessman projected by TV shows like “The Apprentice” and that he ultimately capitalized on to win the presidency.

“Donald Trump had big deductions, big credits, and big losses — but seldom a big tax bill,” Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said in a statement on Tuesday. “This inquiry has unearthed many questions about how someone who claimed to be so rich can avoid so many taxes.”

Republicans are taking it personally

Republicans have been looking past the policy discussion raised by the committee reports and are laying the groundwork for some political reprisals.

Outgoing Republican leader of the Ways and Means Committee Kevin Brady (Texas) talked about actions relating to personal tax returns in the context of the upcoming Congress, in which Republicans will take control of the House.

“I won’t speculate on what the next Congress and this committee will focus on related to tax returns,” he said on Tuesday.

“Democrats’ claim about the need to reform the presidential audit program is merely cover for weaponizing the tax code against political rivals,” Ways and Means Republicans said in statement on Thursday.

Tax experts say that Hunter Biden, who’s under investigation by the Justice Department about whether he paid enough taxes on payments he received while working on the board of a Ukrainian company, may be in Republican crosshairs.

“Ways and Means Republicans could come out and say, ‘You guys started it. This is both-sides-ism.’ And so they’re going to ask for the tax return information on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and whoever else they want to embarrass,” Steve Rosenthal, a policy analyst with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said in an interview.

Hunter Biden hired a new defense attorney this week, perhaps in anticipation of committee actions involving him during the next Congress, NBC News reported this week.

Source: TEST FEED1

Senate GOP rebukes Trump with Electoral Count Act

Eighteen Senate Republican rebuked former President Trump this week by voting to clarify that the vice president does not have the power to overturn a presidential election as Trump pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to do on Jan. 6, 2021.  

And several other Republicans, who didn’t vote for the spending package, which included the electoral count reforms, such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), previously expressed support for changes to the law to make it tougher to object to the Electoral College’s vote. 

GOP senators ignored Trump’s argument posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, that the 1887 Electoral Count Act should be left the way it is “in case of Fraud.”  

Republican senators across the political spectrum said they want to slam the door on the notation that Pence had the authority to throw out a state’s slate of electors, which could open the door for future vice presidents to attempt to interfere with the Electoral College’s vote. 

“The Electoral Count Act, that statute needed to be fixed and clarified,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said, referring to the 1887 law that Trump tried to exploit by arguing its ambiguity gave Pence an opening to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.  

“A couple years ago there were a lot of questions raised about it. There wasn’t any question in my mind about what it said but since there are [questions], I think it’s important to nail that down,” he added.  

Thune and other Senate Republicans have called on Trump to drop his unceasing efforts to contest the results of the last presidential election, something they see as futile, divisive and harmful with independent voters.  

“We’re one election past 2020 and he still seems to be obsessed with that election. Obviously, I don’t think that’s good for him. It’s certainly not good for anybody else, which is why most of us have decided to move on,” Thune said.  

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted twice to convict Trump on impeachment charges and helped lead the negotiations to reform the Electoral Count Act, said Trump “certainly wouldn’t want [Vice President] Kamala Harris to pick the next president, right?” 

Trump in a post on Truth Social Tuesday argued it is “probably better to leave” the Electoral Count Act “the way it is so that it can be adjusted in case of fraud.”  

And he also lashed out at Republican critics who argue that Pence never had the authority to halt the certification of Biden’s victory.  

“What I don’t like are the lies and ‘disinformation’ put out by the Democrats and RINOs. They said the vice president has ‘absolutely no choice,’ it was carved in ‘steel,’ but if he has no choice, why are they changing the law saying he has no choice?” Trump posted.  

Romney countered Trump by pointing out that argument would give Democrats, who now control the White House, the right to block a Republican from becoming president.  

“Let’s do something which he’s not fond of doing, which is taking that to the next logical conclusion. On that basis, that means that Kamala Harris would be able to choose the next president. Does he really think that’s the right way to go?” he said.  

The legislation states the vice president has solely a ministerial role in presiding over the joint session of Congress when lawmakers certify the results of the Electoral College. 

And it raises the threshold to lodge an objection to a slate of electors to one-fifth of the House and one fifth of the Senate — limiting the ability of one or a few disgruntled lawmakers from drawing the chambers into extended debate over the results.  

It would also provide for expedited judicial review of legal challenges to slates of electors, putting the matter before a three-judge panel and allow direct appeal to the Supreme Court.  

Trump urged Senate Republicans to vote against the omnibus package, which included the Electoral Count Act reforms, in a scathing video posted on his Truth Social social-media platform. 

“Every single Republican should vote no on the ludicrous, unacceptable $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill. It’s a disaster for our country and it also happens to be a disaster for the Republican Party, because they could stop it,” he said.  

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to the Senate Republican leadership team applauded raising the threshold to raising an objection during a joint congressional session to a state’s electors. 

“The idea that one senator or one House members can create a process and some confusion when it comes to counting the electoral votes doesn’t make much sense,” he said. “Raising that threshold so that it just can’t be one off in each makes sense to me and it’s long overdue.”

Cornyn argued there was never any real doubt that Pence didn’t have the authority to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 

“We all knew that and we still know that but I think this maybe restores a little bit of confidence and stability to the process and eliminate some of the uncertainty we saw on Jan. 6,” he said.  

The reforms to the Electoral Count Act are paired with the Presidential Transition Improvement Act, which is intended to ensure an orderly transfer of power after a presidential election — a reform aimed at Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Biden as the victor of the 2020 election.  

Trump’s appointed administrator of the General Services Administration initially refused to sign a letter allowing Biden’s transition team to receive millions of dollars to begin the transfer of power.  

The legislation would allow eligible candidates to receive transition resources during the limited time period during which the outcome of an election is in dispute and remove the General Services Administration’s administrator from having to determine the winner before releasing funds. 

If neither candidate concedes a race five days after an election, then both could access federal transition money.  

Trump lashed out at Democratic and Republican critics after Paul submitted an op-ed to the Louisville Courier-Journal expressing support for the reforms.  

Trump linked to Paul’s essay in which the senator argued that “recent elections uncovered defects in Congress’s interaction with the Electoral College” and that federal law “currently leaves ambiguous the role of the vice president.”  

Paul said the “political theater” of objecting to the Electoral College’s vote “went too far and culminated in a mob disrupting the joint session of Congress” on Jan. 6.  

One Republican senator familiar with the negotiations on the Electoral Count Act reforms said GOP lawmakers knew Trump was opposed to the changes but ignored him.  

“He’s against it but we’ve consistently voted for things he’s against,” said the lawmaker who noted that Trump opposed the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure, bipartisan legislation to address gun violence, a compromise to raise the debt limit, and postal reform. 

Trump blasted the bipartisan gun bill as something that would “go down in history as the first step in the movement to TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY.”  

But the GOP senator said Trump’s criticisms and threats are becoming background noise to many Republican senators who routinely ignore him.  

“We’re going to do what we think is best and not be intimidated,” the lawmaker said.  

Not all GOP senators, however, think the Electoral Count Act needs to be reformed. 

A few of Trump’s strongest allies or lawmakers, who are trying to appeal to his populist base of support, argued the law has worked fine for more than 100 years.  

“I’m against fiddling with that law. It’s been on the books now for a century and a half, it has governed all of the presidential elections in that timespan and I think it’s worked fine,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). “It looks like the first time Republicans use its provisions, the Democrat majority immediately changes it.” 

Thirty-one House Democrats and then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) objected in January 2005 to then-President George W. Bush’s victory in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election. And House Democrats objected to Trump’s victory in the 2016 election but failed to win any Senate support for the objection.  

Source: TEST FEED1