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5 dead in shooting at gay nightclub in Colorado

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub early Sunday, killing five people and wounding 18 in the latest mass shooting to befall the country in a year in which anti-gay rhetoric has been amped up among extremists.

Lt. Pamela Castro of the Colorado Springs Police Department said police received a report of a shooting at Club Q at 11:57 p.m.

Castro said there was one suspect who was injured and was being treated. She said it was not immediately clear whether he had been shot by officers. She said the FBI was on the scene and assisting in the case.

The police department tweeted that it planned an 8 a.m. news conference at its operations center.

Club Q is a gay and lesbian nightclub that features a “Drag Diva Drag Show” on Saturdays, according to its website.

“Club Q is devastated by the senseless attack on our community,” the club posted on its Facebook page. It said its prayers were with victims and families, and “We thank the quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack.”

The motive behind the shooting was not immediately known but it brought back memories of the 2016 massacre at the the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people. And it occurred in a state that has experienced several notorious mass killings, including at Columbine High School, a movie theater in a Denver suburb in 2012 and a Boulder supermarket last year.

In June, 31 members of the neo-Nazi group Patriot Front were arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and charged with conspiracy to riot at a Pride event. Experts warned that extremist groups could see anti-gay rhetoric as a call to action.

The previous month, a fundamentalist Idaho pastor told his small Boise congregation that gay, lesbian and transgender people should be executed by the government, which lined up with similar sermons from a Texas fundamentalist pastor.

Source: TEST FEED1

Elon Musk reinstates Trump's Twitter

Twitter CEO Elon Musk reinstated former President Donald Trump’s Twitter Saturday evening, shortly after Musk announced he would restore the account.

The move ended a ban that started nearly two years ago in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Musk made the decision following a Twitter poll on Friday, in which a narrow majority voted in favor of reinstating the former president’s account.

“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk said in a tweet, quoting the Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”

“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said at the time.

It remains to be seen whether the former president will return to the social media platform. After Trump was banned from Twitter, he created his own platform, Truth Social.

While Trump welcomed Musk’s takeover of Twitter three weeks ago, he initially said he plans to stay on Truth Social.

“I am staying on Truth,” the former president said. “I like it better. I like the way it works. I like Elon, but I’m staying on Truth.”

Ending the ban is only the latest news to come from Musk’s chaotic transition at Twitter, following his $44 billion acquisition of the company in late October. 

Hundreds of employees quit on Thursday, after the billionaire issued an ultimatum — either commit to a “hardcore” work environment or leave. The New York Times reported on Friday that internal estimates showed at least 1,200 employees had resigned. This comes after Musk laid off about half of the company’s 7,500-person workforce in his first week.

Musk has also warned recently that the company was facing “dire” economic conditions and potentially bankruptcy. 

He attempted to implement changes to Twitter’s verification process, turning it into a paid subscription service. However, this was quickly rolled back after several users impersonated major public figures and brands.

Updated at 9:04 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden turns 80 as election talk swirls

Questions about Joe Biden’s age have loomed over his presidency ever since he entered the White House.

On Sunday, Biden will reach a major milestone when he is expected to spend his 80th birthday quietly with his family, many of whom will be at the White House to mark another occasion: His granddaughter Naomi’s wedding. 

Biden allies say they know the day will be used by his rivals, who want to cast the president as lacking the energy and mental acuity needed for the job.

The question is increasingly relevant, critics say, as Biden considers reelection, though the president’s supports say the age-based attacks are markedly unfair. 

“I’m sure Republicans will use the day to remind everyone that he’s some out-of-it octogenarian, which couldn’t be farther from the truth,” one Biden ally said. 

Michael Eric Dyson, the renowned scholar who met with Biden last year as part of a small group of historians, said this of the GOP criticism: “Joe Biden has proven time and again that it’s, as he would call it, malarky.”

“When we see LeBron James and Tom Brady performing 20 years into their careers, that’s the indication that 80 may be the new 60, and I’m all for it,” Dyson said. 

“The reason he can fall off his bicycle is because he was on it in the first damn place,” he added.

During a news conference last week, when he was asked about whether he had it in him to run for reelection, Biden replied “Watch me.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Friday that the Biden family typically celebrates the president’s birthday on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. This year, however, the family will celebrate it on Biden’s real birthday, since his family already will be together in Washington.

 “The first lady is going to be having a brunch on Sunday for the president, to celebrate the president’s birthday … with his family,” Jean-Pierre said.

Both the birthday brunch and wedding will be closed to the media, so any images or information from either event will come from the White House after the fact.

Biden had a very busy lead-up to the big family weekend.

He saw Democrats glide to a stronger-than-expected finish to the midterm elections, as the party held the Senate and kept the GOP to a slim majority in the House.

The Senate victory in particular is important to Biden, as it ensures Democrats will have control of the chamber for his nominees. They hope to add a 51st vote in Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) if he can win a runoff election next month.

There is also change coming for the party with the departure of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), who announced on Thursday that she will not seek another term as a Democratic leader, even though she will remain in Congress. It means Biden is likely to work with a younger generation of party leaders in the House.

Biden also just returned from a foreign trip that included stops for the Group of 20 meetings in Indonesia, as well as stops in Cambodia and Egypt.

Some say Biden should celebrate the birthday and a successful November.

“On the heels of holding the Senate, a White House wedding and success at the G-20, no particular media strategy matters for the Big 8-0,” said Bruce Mehlman, a former assistant secretary at the Commerce Department under former President George W. Bush.

“For crying out loud, the President’s age is no secret. Go ahead and celebrate!” said former Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.), a Biden ally. “Does being 80 make a person unable to govern? I don’t know, let’s ask Chuck Grassley.”

The remark is a nod by the Democrat to other aging politicians who continue to exert power.

While Biden takes flack for his age from the GOP, former President Trump is only four years younger and has announced a bid for reelection. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), mentioned by Carney, is 89.

Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, said former President Reagan also dealt with criticism about his age during his reelection campaign against his rival, Democrat Walter Mondale. 

But Reagan, who was 69 years old when he was sworn into his first term, “used it to his advantage, didn’t hide from it but embraced it.” 

During one of the presidential debates with Mondale, Reagan said “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” 

While Zelizer said Biden has tried to handle it by “ignoring frenzies over gaffes, focusing on governing and output and sticking it to his political opponents … there might be room for a Reagan moment” to use the question of age to his advantage. 

“But overall, his age is what it is,” Zelizer said. “He can’t change that. So the best strategy is not to double down and define himself through that.” 

When Biden met with the group of historians at the White House last year, he “engaged in extensive questioning, reflection and curiosity,” for nearly three hours, Dyson said. 

“His energy, his insight, his capacity and his mental acuity were all unquestioned,” he said. 

Biden said he will formally announce if he plans to run for another term in the new year, after months of insisting that he intends to run. He has characterized it as a family decision, largely between one he’ll make with his spouse.

Allies though say that if he is up for the job, even at 80, he will do it.

“I have every confidence that if President Biden deemed his age is an impediment to serving, he would not seek reelection,” said Carney.

Source: TEST FEED1

Why DeSantis is shrugging off Trump — for now

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is facing a conundrum as he weighs a potential bid for the White House: how to deal with former President Trump.

The recently reelected Florida governor and rising conservative star has long maintained a friendly alliance with Trump, who helped DeSantis across the finish line during his long shot 2018 primary campaign. 

But Trump’s announcement on Tuesday that he will once again seek the presidency in 2024 threatens to further complicate a relationship that is already showing signs of strain. If DeSantis ultimately moves forward with a White House campaign, it would put him in direct conflict with Trump like never before and challenge him to navigate a primary with the best-known Republican in the country.

DeSantis’s 2024 campaign announcement may be increasingly likely, but it is far from imminent. Two Florida Republicans said that he hasn’t yet made a final decision on a presidential run, and others said that they don’t expect him to launch a campaign until after Florida’s 2023 legislative session at the earliest. That session is expected to run through early May.

Still, there are reasons for Trump to see DeSantis as a threat. A growing number of high-profile Republicans have begun to float DeSantis as a top-tier 2024 nominee, and he’s already begun to make inroads among the party’s biggest donors. 

Earlier this month, hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin, a GOP megadonor, told Politico that he’s prepared to back DeSantis should the Florida governor mount a bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Another top Republican donor, Stephen Schwarzman, said that he would support someone other than Trump in the primary.

Recent polling from the conservative Club for Growth showed DeSantis leading Trump by double-digit margins in head-to-head matchups in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to vote in presidential nominating contests. 

Another poll from the group out of Florida, where voters know DeSantis best, found the governor with a 26-point advantage over Trump. One Florida Republican operative said Trump’s best hope of dinging DeSantis is between now and the governor’s potential campaign announcement.

“In Florida, everyone kind of knows and has a sense of what Ron DeSantis has done,” one Florida Republican operative said. “The MAGA donors know what Ron DeSantis has done, the activists know what he’s done. But a lot of voters don’t. And Trump recognizes he has a chance to define DeSantis before DeSantis has a chance to get out and tell his story.”

“Do I think DeSanctimonious is going to last? No,” the operative added, referring to the nickname Trump recently gave DeSantis. “But it allows him to frame up for his supporters his opponents and grind them down.” 

Trump fired a warning shot at DeSantis last week, even before formally announcing his 2024 campaign, issuing a lengthy statement in which he took credit for the DeSantis’s 2018 victory, disparaged him as nothing more than an “average” governor and accused him of “playing games” by not being forthcoming about his presidential ambitions.

“The Fake News asks him if he’s going to run if President Trump runs, and he says, ‘I’m only focused on the Governor’s race, I’m not looking into the future,’” Trump said. “Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer.”

The former president also recently bestowed DeSantis with a new nickname: “Ron DeSanctimonious.”

So far, Trump’s attack has been met by DeSantis and his allies with little more than a shrug. DeSantis himself said the criticism was “just noise,” though he still managed to get in a not-so-subtle dig at the former president, comparing his own landslide victory in the Nov. 8 midterm elections to the many losses of high-profile Trump-backed candidates elsewhere in the country.

“At the end of the day, I would just tell people to go check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night,” he said at a news conference in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., on Tuesday.

For now, at least, Republicans say that DeSantis’s strategy of simply brushing off the budding rivalry with Trump is working. For one, there are still lingering questions about Trump’s influence over the GOP and whether his bombastic political brand is more of an asset or a liability.

Some said that Trump may only end up hurting himself by picking a fight with someone as popular among the GOP’s conservative base as DeSantis.

“Trump’s extremism has passed its expiration date. With each passing day, he’s becoming more and more irrelevant,” Alice Stewart, a Republican strategist, said. “Gov. DeSantis is rising in approval ratings, so why punch down?” 

“DeSantis just needs to ignore the childish name calling and focus on continuing to deliver for the people of Florida. Trump is making a mistake by attacking popular governors like DeSantis.” 

Keith Naughton, a veteran Republican strategist, said that what makes DeSantis so difficult for Trump to attack is the fact that the two occupy similar political lanes.

“So far, not doing anything has worked. The more Trump attacks DeSantis, the worse he looks,” Keith Naughton, a veteran Republican strategist, said. “If he criticizes DeSantis, because DeSantis has a similar issue profile, he can only attack him on personal grounds and loyalty.” 

Still, some Republicans said it’s unclear just how long DeSantis can take the high ground when it comes to dealing with Trump, especially if the former president continues to put the Florida governor in his sights.

“I think you can choose not to respond to it, but eventually if you don’t respond to something, it’s only going to build,” one Republican consultant who has worked in Florida politics said. “This is politics. This is not fair, rational or anything else. Eventually he’s going to have to go on the offense.” 

For the time being, DeSantis may have the privilege of laying low, at least when it comes to a potential 2024 campaign. He’ll be sworn in for his second term in the governor’s mansion in January before laying out his legislative priorities to the state House and Senate in February.

“I expect he’s going to take some time,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who served as a senior adviser to Sen. Mitt Romney’s (Utah) 2012 presidential campaign. “He’s earned the right to bask in the glow of his own victory and sit on the capital he’s earned.” 

“But these things seem to move very quickly, and people will start to want to hear more from him and will look for signals that he wants to get in in 2024.” 

But Madden also said that DeSantis — or anyone else looking to jump into the next presidential race — should also look to 2016, when Trump first won the Republican nomination, as a cautionary tale. Back then, Trump’s competitors looked at him more as a burden than a genuine threat. Consequently, Madden said, they found themselves pummeled relentlessly by Trump.

“At some point you have to take your opponent head on,” he said. “The work is not going to be done for you.”

Source: TEST FEED1

How a Taylor Swift tour thrust antitrust concerns into the spotlight

Taylor Swift fans have bad blood with Ticketmaster after the platform canceled the general sale for the pop star’s upcoming tour following a chaotic presale this week, bringing new light to an issue that supporters of antitrust reform already knew all too well. 

Critics have been warning against the company’s dominance since merging with Live Nation in 2010, and the latest fiasco with Swift’s upcoming tour, which sparked outrage among her massive fan base, gave ammunition to lawmakers trying to revamp antitrust laws to pile on the pressure. 

The building momentum from Swift’s fans comes as the Biden administration has pledged to take a tough stance on competition. The New York Times reported Friday that Ticketmaster is facing a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation over whether it has abused its market power.

The probe reportedly predates the sale of Swift’s “The Eras” tour, but the high-profile nature of the tour thrust the issue into the spotlight. 

“The enormous interest in this performer and in this episode, concerning the availability of tickets to see her perform, is a big example of what we see so often in American public life — that policy change, action, often is catalyzed by a single event,” said William Kovacic, a former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chairman and a George Washington University law professor. 

“There are all sorts of issues and matters that don’t immediately filter down to the country on a broad scale, but this does. And suddenly you have an uproar and legislators listen to that. Government agency officials listen to that,” he added. 

In addition to the reported DOJ probe and pressure from Congress, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R), said Wednesday that he would launch an investigation into Ticketmaster after complaints that the ticket sale process for Swift’s tour “did not go smoothly.” 

Ticketmaster said issues arose due to unprecedented demand for tickets for Swift’s tour, her first in five years, which follows the release of four new studio albums and two re-recordings of her earlier works. 

More than 2 million tickets were sold for the tour in the first presale day on Tuesday, breaking Ticketmaster’s record for the most sold in one day, Tickemaster said in an announcement. 

On that day, the website crashed. Ticketmaster said it had sent codes to 1.5 million fans to participate in the presale, directing 2 million others to a waitlist. The company said it decided on the amount of people in each group based on its historic data on fans participating and buying tickets. 

Despite the company using a system aimed at organizing the amount of customers buying tickets in the presale, fans lamented online Tuesday that the website kept crashing and wait times to exit the “queue” and have a turn to buy tickets were hours long for those who were let in. 

On Thursday, Ticketmaster said it would cancel the general sale slated for Friday “due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.”

Although Ticketmaster said the issues were due to the high demand, however, advocates for antitrust reform say that the company is the problem.

“Because they have very little competition, [Ticketmaster] doesn’t feel pressured to invest in their product at all,” said Krista Brown, a senior policy analyst at the anti-monopoly nonprofit American Economic Liberties Project. 

That purported lack of competition leads to website crashes and higher prices and fees for customers, Brown said. 

“They really are not afraid of losing the fan base, because the fan base doesn’t have somewhere else to turn,” Brown added. 

Swift joined the chorus of pushback herself, posting an Instagram story Friday saying it’s difficult for her to “trust an outside entity” with her relationships with fans and “excruciating” to “just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.” 

“I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could,” Swift said, adding that it “pisses [her] off” that even the 2.4 million people who got tickets “feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.” 

Ticketmaster issued a statement Saturday defending its behavior, without specifically mentioning the Swift tickets or the reported DOJ investigation.

“As we have stated many times in the past, Live Nation takes its responsibilities under the antitrust laws seriously and does not engage in behaviors that could justify antitrust litigation, let alone orders that would require it to alter fundamental business practices,” the company said in a statement. 

This is not the first time users have reported issues with Ticketmaster. Brown said “most people have a Ticketmaster horror story,” either over technical issues of tickets “disappearing” when in the checkout cart, or prices jumping due to “dynamic pricing” or “unapparent fees” attached to tickets at the end of the purchasing process. 

In 2019, the DOJ found that Ticketmaster had violated provisions in the consent decree crafted at the time of the approved merger. The department entered into a new agreement with the company, extending the decree to 2025 and adjusting some of the agreement’s language. 

The DOJ is now probing whether the company is complying with the new agreement as part of its inquiry, the Times reported. 

“It’s unquestionable that the Ticketmaster-LiveNation merger created a monopoly, and I applaud the [Jonathan] Kanter-led Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice for their investigation,” Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Omidyar-funded Tech Oversight Project, said in a statement. 

Lawmakers that have been critical of the consolidation of power among a few companies used the chaotic sale for Swift’s tour to elevate their concerns. 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted a “daily reminder” on Tuesday that “Ticketmaster is a monopoly, it’s merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in.”

“Break them up,” she added. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), on Wednesday shared a statement on Twitter that he made back in 2009 while serving as Connecticut attorney general, about investigating Ticketmaster. On Friday, he tweeted that “it’s time for DOJ to hold this bully accountable” and to either enforce the terms of the merger agreement to protect consumers or “break up this malign monopoly.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, sent a letter to Michael Rapino, the company’s president and CEO, on Wednesday pressing him over concerns of anticompetitive behavior.

Klobuchar has been pushing for antitrust reform, mainly for a vote on a duo of bills aimed at reining in the power of tech giants. The proposals have advanced out of the Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support, but they are not out of the woods yet, with no floor vote date confirmed.

More broadly, Klobuchar and other proponents of reforming antitrust laws argue that the DOJ and FTC do not have the resources they need to challenge behemoth companies amassing dominance in their sectors. 

The swell of pushback from Swift’s fans, though, could help ramp up pressure, Brown said. 

“It has kind of been an antitrust crash course for all the Taylor Swift Fans, which obviously there are many,” she said. 

“Public pressure actually matters, and that’s something that often times gets overlooked.”

Source: TEST FEED1

And the bride wore White (House) — Naomi Biden joins rare tradition

Wedding bells are set to ring at the White House, as Washington readies for one of its highest-profile — yet hush-hush — marriage ceremonies. 

Naomi Biden, the eldest granddaughter of President Biden and Jill Biden, is poised to take the plunge with fiance Peter Neal on Saturday.

The wedding — the first ever held on the South Lawn — marks a rare occasion at the White House. 

“They’re not the most common event,” White House Historical Association historian Lina Mann told ITK. “I mean, only 18 in our 200 plus years of history.”

But beyond the date and South Lawn location, nearly every other “I do” detail of Naomi Biden’s big day has been shrouded in secrecy. Keeping nuptials under wraps has historically been how the White House has handled couples tying the knot there.

“Most of the weddings, at least in the early part of the 19th century, those are much more private, smaller family affairs. So typically, you see presidents’ family members getting married,” said Mann. “It’s not really until the latter half of the 19th century and in the 20th century that you see a lot of buzz and national attention being brought to these White House weddings.”

The shift truly took hold in 1906, when then-President Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter Alice Roosevelt exchanged vows with a congressman named Nicholas Longworth.

The match made in political heaven was already “pretty high-profile,” according to Mann.

“Teddy Roosevelt is a larger-than-life historical figure. So of course, people are very interested in him and his family — and her particular wedding.”

The shindig was considered a “really big deal,” Mann said.

“She was a celebrity in her own right, and so it was very highly covered. And everybody wanted all the details for that one.”

While Naomi Biden — the daughter of Hunter Biden and his ex-wife, Kathleen — briefly gushed on social media about her wedding, writing in a Twitter post in July that she “couldn’t be more excited” to get married on the South Lawn, there has been decidedly minimal buzz about the event. 

That makes sense to Mann, who noted that Biden’s grandchildren “aren’t as much in the public attention as … say, the Johnson family.”

“Lynda and Luci Johnson lived at the White House at various points, and were very present in life, so when they got married that was a big deal. And everybody knew them,” Mann said. Former President Lyndon Johnson’s younger daughter, Luci, held her reception at the White House in 1966, while her older sister, Lynda Bird Johnson, married Capt. Charles Robb in the East Room in 1967.

A wedding reception at the White House for a first family member hasn’t been held in more than a decade — in 2008, Jenna Bush, daughter of then-President George W. Bush, hosted her bash with Henry Hager at the executive mansion following a Texas ceremony.

The last wedding to take place at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. was in 2013, when then-official White House photographer Pete Souza got married in the Rose Garden as President Obama looked on. 

During the Trump administration in 2017, then-White House official Omarosa Manigault Newman made headlines for hosting a photo shoot for her wedding at the White House along with nearly 40 of her bridal party guests.

The ins and outs of Naomi Biden’s ceremony and reception will reportedly be handled by Bryan Rafanelli, who runs a New York and Boston-based events firm and designed Chelsea Clinton’s 2010 wedding to Marc Mezvinsky.

Posting on Instagram in September to her more than 160,000 followers, Naomi Biden — who along with Neal are both law school graduates — shared a short clip of what her first dance with her soon-to-be spouse might look like.

Attempting to perform a twirl with Neal outside the White House, the 28-year-old captioned the video, “Practice makes (perfect?)”

The wedding is set to take place a day before President Biden’s 80th birthday, a milestone that highlights his position as the oldest president in U.S. history.

While there will be no access for the media at the Saturday wedding, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday that photos and a statement from the president would be released following the ceremony. After the late morning vows, the wedding party will head to a luncheon and then guests will join an evening reception.

Jean-Pierre stressed the emphasis on privacy at the exclusive affair, saying of the engaged couple, “It is their decision.”

“The president and the first lady are going to be able to participate in their first grandchild’s wedding,” she said.

“But here’s the thing and here’s the reality,” she added, “the wedding of Naomi Biden and Peter is a private one. It’s a family event and Naomi and Peter have asked that their wedding be closed to the media, and we are respecting their wishes.”

In an interview last month, first lady Jill Biden opened up — ever so slightly — about the family’s plans for Saturday.

“I think that’s one of the most special relationships that I have in my life, is to be a nana,” the first lady said in an interview on Kelly Clarkson’s daytime talk show. “It’s just so special to watch — her name is Naomi — to see her really planning her wedding, making her choices, just coming into her own.”

“And she’s just so beautiful,” the first lady said. “So I can’t wait until all of you see her as a bride.”

Alex Gangitano contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1

Democrats' first leadership shakeup in decades takes shape with no drama — almost

The new portrait of House Democratic leadership came into much sharper focus on Friday, as a rush of up-and-coming lawmakers launched bids to assume the top spots less than 24 hours after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) announced her intent to step down.

Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Katherine Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.) all declared their candidacies for the top three Democratic seats in the next Congress, respectively — a widely anticipated development that was delayed only by the long, slow counting of ballots from the Nov. 8. All three are expected to glide to power. 

The well-orchestrated shakeup proceeded largely without the drama that frequently accompanies leadership transitions — a remarkable dynamic considering that Pelosi and her top two deputies, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Democratic Whip James Clyburn (S.C.), have been leading the party for almost two decades. The pent up energy from younger lawmakers itching to climb into the leadership ranks has been simmering for years, and had a high potential for boiling over. 

Yet Jeffries, who’s seeking to replace Pelosi, is running unchallenged after Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) decided against a bid for the top spot. And Clark is also without competition, despite speculation that Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, might take her on. Instead, Jayapal announced Friday that she’ll seek another term leading the progressives.

Clearing the way for a smooth changeover, Pelosi’s announcement to step down had a domino effect: Within hours, Hoyer had followed suit (although both he and Pelosi will remain in Congress in more everyday roles), and Clyburn had endorsed Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar for the top three spots. Hoyer in a statement on Friday gave his “resounding endorsement” to Jeffries.

On Thursday, asked how it felt to be stepping out of leadership after so long, Hoyer told reporters “Not good.” But on Friday morning, he seemed more resigned to the change.

“Why is it time? Well, I think for one thing when you’re in the minority, it really is time to train people to be in the majority,” the Maryland Democrat told MSNBC in an interview Friday morning. “I thought it was a good time.”

Yet the transition hasn’t been entirely conflict-free. 

While Clyburn has ceded his No. 3 position, he’s now seeking to remain in leadership next year in the No. 4 assistant leader slot. That move caught many of his colleagues by surprise, and it prompted Aguilar, who was eyeing the assistant leader spot, to vie for caucus chair instead. 

That eleventh-hour shift carries heavy significance for Rep. Joe Neguse, a rising Colorado Democrat who had announced his bid to replace Jeffries as caucus chair just last week. 

It’s unclear if Neguse will continue to seek that spot, but the signs for him are ominous. 

Pelosi and Clyburn both endorsed Aguilar this week. And in a Democratic Party that touts its diversity, there will be plenty of pressure to keep Aguilar, a member of the influential Congressional Hispanic Caucus, among the top leaders. The Congressional Black Caucus, of which Neguse is a member, is already on its way to being well represented with Jeffries and Clyburn. 

Further down the leadership line, the races get more competitive. 

Two popular California Democrats, Reps. Ami Bera and Tony Cárdenas, are vying to lead the party’s campaign arm in the next Congress — a high-stakes cycle when Democrats will be fighting to keep the White House and win back control of the lower chamber. That seat was vacated with the midterm defeat of the current chairman, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.).

And at least four Democrats are seeking to replace Aguilar as caucus vice chair: Reps. Debbie Dingell (Mich.), Madeleine Dean (Pa.), Ted Lieu (Calif.) and Joyce Beatty (Ohio). 

All of the Democrats’ leadership elections are scheduled for Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.

The changing of the guard is a transformational development for House Democrats, who have been led by the same triumvirate for nearly two decades.

Pelosi, who came to Congress in 1987, became the party leader in 2003, the same year Hoyer became the No. 2 Democrat. Clyburn joined them as No. 3 in 2006. They’ve been there together ever since. 

The monopoly the “big three” has had on the top tier of the caucus for the past 20 years prevented a younger and ambitious crowd of Democrats from rising in the ranks.

In the final stretch to this year’s midterm elections that eager crop of liberals became more and more outspoken, publicly calling for new blood in the highest echelons of the party.

“I have been very vocal, including with my own leadership in the House, that we need a new generation, we need new blood, period, across the Democratic Party in the House, the Senate and the White House,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) told NBC News in an interview last month.

In the House next year, she’ll get her wish.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump faces potential fundraising problem as megadonors jump ship

Former President Trump could face a surprising problem as he mounts his 2024 campaign: a cash crunch as wealthy megadonors gravitate toward Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and other potential contenders. 

A loyal army of small-dollar donors will power Trump’s presidential bid, potentially making up for the exodus of billionaire backers, but they’ve shown signs of scaling back their giving. 

And while Trump’s political machine is starting off with a war chest of more than $110 million, federal law prevents him from using most of that money to advance his White House campaign.

Meanwhile, Trump’s political committees are shelling out huge sums on his legal defense, totals that only seem likely to rise after the Department of Justice on Friday appointed a special counsel to oversee probes into him.

GOP megadonors abandon Trump

Billionaire Republican donors are splitting from Trump after the far-below-expectations of last week’s midterm elections, dealing a serious blow to his fundraising prospects. 

Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, the second-most prolific GOP donor of the midterms, said Tuesday that he would support DeSantis over Trump, pointing to the Florida governor’s dominant reelection victory in a state that was considered competitive until recently.  

“I’d like to think that the Republican Party is ready to move on from somebody who has been for this party a three-time loser,” Griffin said at Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Singapore, referring to the last three election cycles.

Griffin, who bankrolled a pro-Trump super PAC in previous cycles, gave $5 million to a political committee aligned with DeSantis last year.

Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of private equity giant Blackstone and a top Republican donor, announced Wednesday that he would support a challenger to Trump in 2024. 

“America does better when its leaders are rooted in today and tomorrow, not today and yesterday,” Schwarzman said in a statement. “It is time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries.” 

Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the top donors to Trump’s 2016 campaign, are also done backing the former president, CNBC reported on Friday.

Several prominent Republicans who supported Trump’s 2020 reelection bid — including South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, former Vice President Mike Pence and other possible 2024 challengers — have made similar statements calling for new leadership after a disastrous midterm election for Trump-endorsed candidates.

“We were told we’d get tired of winning. But I’m tired of losing,” former Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, another potential 2024 hopeful, tweeted on Friday. “And so are most Republicans.”

Trump will at least be able to tap his enormous list of online, small-dollar donors who powered his near-record $774 million fundraising haul in 2020. 

But after bringing in big money in 2021, the Trump operation’s fundraising slowed in the first half of this year, forcing it to spend more on texts, emails, online ads and other appeals to donors. Trump-affiliated committees spent more than they raised in the third quarter of 2022. 

Trump, who is a billionaire himself, spent $66 million of his own money on his 2016 presidential campaign. But he opted not to self-fund his 2020 reelection run. 

The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

Following his official 2024 announcement, the Trump campaign will also now be on the hook for millions of dollars in legal fees that were being paid by the Republican National Committee. 

“We cannot pay legal bills for any candidate that’s announced,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told CNN’s Dana Bash, noting that the committee can’t make in-kind contributions to a declared candidate. 

Trump restricted from using war chest  

Political committees controlled by or closely affiliated with Trump have a total of nearly $112 million in the bank, according to an analysis of the most recent Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings by nonpartisan research group OpenSecrets.

That would appear to give Trump a substantial headstart over his GOP primary opponents. But only $13.5 million of that total can legally be used to bolster Trump’s 2024 aspirations.

That’s because most of the money was raised by a leadership PAC and other committees that are not officially part of Trump’s presidential campaign. Federal law prohibits candidates from double-dipping into donor funds this way, thus bypassing candidate contribution limits and transparency rules. 

In an effort to dodge those restrictions, Trump’s leadership PAC last month transferred $20 million to a super PAC called MAGA, Inc. The group is run by Trump aides, even though super PACs are supposed to be independent of candidates. 

The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint before the FEC this week alleging that the transfer violated federal law prohibiting candidates and their committees from transferring funds to “soft money” entities such as super PACs that can raise and spend unlimited funds. 

Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, said that the Trump campaign strategy is a “very clear violation” of federal law, but it’s still unclear whether the FEC will act in a timely manner, or at all, to prevent wrongdoing.

The commission, which is divided equally along partisan lines, has rarely slapped penalties on campaign committees in recent years. Republican commissioners have dismissed every complaint against Trump, despite two-dozen instances of the FEC’s nonpartisan lawyers recommending an investigation. 

“The FEC’s track record of enforcing soft money violations is pretty poor,” Ghosh said. “And you pair that with the fact that they have an equally bad, if not worse, track record of enforcing really any campaign finance laws against Donald Trump.”

If Trump is successful in evading campaign finance laws, he could encourage DeSantis to do the same.

The Florida governor hasn’t said that he will run for president, but he broke state-level fundraising records in his 2022 gubernatorial contest and spent only a fraction of the total. DeSantis ended the race with around $90 million in the bank between his campaign committee and affiliated PAC. 

“If he were to try a similar maneuver as Trump and simply transfer all of that money over to a super PAC that’s geared towards supporting his candidacy, there’s no question that that would be another, even more clear-cut soft money violation,” Ghosh said. 

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Murkowski trolls Alaska Senate challenger as she takes lead in first-place votes

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) trolled her Republican opponent Kelly Tshibaka after she took a lead in the first-place votes for the state’s Senate race. 

Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system means voters ranked the candidates from first place to last. A candidate must win a majority of first-place votes to win outright without additional rounds being needed.

No candidate is projected to win a majority of first-place votes in the first round. Tshibaka had led Murkowski narrowly since Election Day, but Murkowski took a lead and noted it in a tweet on her campaign account Friday. 

Murkowski posted a GIF from the movie “The Usual Suspects,” including the start of one line from the movie. 

“And just like that …” the GIF states, with text overlaying it continuing, “Kelly’s claim that she only lost because of Ranked Choice was gone.” 

Murkowski led Tshibaka by about 0.4 points in the first-place votes with 98 percent reporting as of Friday night. 

Under ranked choice, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated if no one wins a majority in the first round, and their votes are then redistributed to the remaining candidates according to their voters’ second preferences. 

Republican Buzz Kelley received less than 3 percent of the vote, so he will be eliminated first, and Democrat Pat Chesbro, who won about 10 percent of the vote, will be eliminated in the second round. 

Whichever candidate receives more of Chesbro’s votes will likely win the race. Analysts view Murkowski as more likely to prevail, as she is more moderate and less supportive of former President Trump than Tshibaka is. 

All absentee votes will be counted by Wednesday, and the additional vote tallies from the additional rounds will be published then. 

Conservatives previously slammed ranked-choice voting after Rep. Mary Sattler Peltola (D) won the special election for Alaska’s House seat in August over Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich through receiving enough first- and second-place votes to prevail.

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The Memo: Trump and Garland go to war on special counsel

The full impact of former President Trump’s decision to again seek the presidency became clear for the first time on Friday — but not in the way Trump wanted.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of a special counsel to helm two big investigations surrounding Trump — one pertaining to attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the other into the handling of sensitive documents that ended up at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Garland has appointed career prosecutor Jack Smith to the role. The attorney general insisted the decision “will not slow the completion of these investigations.”

More importantly from a political standpoint, Garland made clear that Trump’s entry into the 2024 presidential race was the key catalyst for his decision.

“It is in the public interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage an investigation and prosecution based on some developments,” Garland said during an afternoon news conference, at which he took no questions.

Those developments, he added, included, “the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well.”

Garland, whose 2016 nomination to the Supreme Court was halted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), is realistic enough to know there is no possibility of his decision quietening the claims from Trump loyalists that the investigations are partisan witch hunts.

But he is at least hoping to preserve respect for the Department of Justice with the broader public at a time when it is under fire from a new Republican majority soon to take control of the House of Representatives.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have said they will use their new power in January to launch probes into a number of areas, including what they contend is the politicization of the Justice Department. 

Democrats roll their eyes at the charge given Trump’s actions while in office, including firing James Comey as FBI director and pressuring then-Attorney General Bill Barr to find non-existent evidence of widespread election fraud in 2020.

Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, said he believed Garland had made a “nuanced legal call” on the special counsel.

“I do think there is a classic conflict of interest once Trump became a candidate, because prosecuting him can aid the president — and indirectly aid Garland,” Litman said.

While Litman noted that there was no chance of the move winning over ardent supporters of the former president, he added, “Hopefully it convinces whoever is left in the middle that [the DOJ] have done whatever they can to make it without fear or favor.”

The White House is adamant in asserting its non-involvement in the attorney general’s decision.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Friday’s media briefing that Biden “was not aware” that Garland was going to appoint a special counsel.

“We were not given advance notice,” she added.

Trump, naturally, has come out with all guns blazing.

In an interview with Fox Digital, the former president branded the appointment “a disgrace” and said that it was “only happening because I am leading in every poll in both parties.”

His first assertion is a matter of opinion but his second is untrue. 

Trump has fallen behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in some polls of a hypothetical 2024 GOP primary battle. 

DeSantis had perhaps the best midterm election of any. Republican, storming to a resounding reelection victory over Democratic opponent Charlie Crist. Trump, meanwhile, saw some of his most high-profile endorsees lose, renewing questions about whether he is an electoral liability to the GOP.

The timing of Trump’s 2024 campaign launch, beneath that political cloud, was widely interpreted as being an attempt to get out in front of the legal perils he faces. 

A declaration of candidacy makes it easier to do what Trump is now doing — casting any moves by prosecutors as a sinister effort to hobble his candidacy.

Many of his allies push a similar line.

“If this is anything like the [Robert] Mueller investigation, the American people are in for a two-act comedy,” long-time Trump associate Michael Caputo told this column.

“Every time someone says the noose is getting tighter around Donald Trump, we find out there is nothing to it at all. This will not be the first time that an investigation came up empty-handed,” Caputo predicted.

Trump also promised in a Truth Social post that he would make a further statement on “the never ending Witch Hunt” at Mar-a-Lago later on Friday evening.

Still, beyond the president’s bluster, his troubles appear to be deepening. Smith, a prosecutor since 1994, has a stellar resumé that includes spearheading the pursuit of possible war criminals at the special court in The Hague.

He is unlikely to be unnerved by Trump.

And that could be bad news, legally and politically, for the former president.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage. Brett Samuels contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1