Conservatives have ceded far too much ground to the forces of the sexual revolution. Yet on marriage, society’s most foundational institution, some Republicans are ready to give away more. Though history, scripture, the common law and scientific data tell us that traditional marriage is best for children and society as a whole, a bill pushed by congressional Democrats could soon have enough GOP support in the Senate to pass.
Let’s be clear: Many on the left seem determined to destroy every institution upon which America is built — and their sights are aimed squarely at the family. While radical groups such as Black Lives Matter pledge to “disrupt” the nuclear family, even mainstream journalists such as New York Times columnist David Brooks say “the nuclear family was a mistake.” Motherhood has been reduced to a single androgynous event (“birthing people”); one father was even arrested for protesting the sexual assault of his daughter.
And that’s what’s behind the ironically named “Respect for Marriage Act.” Its text contains so many infringements and encroachments on religious freedoms and on conscience that Republicans should unite solidly against it.
For example, during oral arguments in the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision (which discovered a constitutional right to same-sex marriage), then-U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli conceded that if the court created a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, then “the tax exemptions of some religious institutions would be in question.”
The bill would also require federal recognition of any one state’s definition of marriage without any parameters whatsoever. This would include plural marriages, temporary marriages, open marriages, marriages involving a minor or relative, platonic marriages, arranged marriages or any other novel marriage definition that a state legislature or state supreme court chooses to adopt.
And it would effectively deputize activist groups to sue religious individuals and organizations that operate according to their sincerely held religious beliefs when licensed by the government, or partnering with government in grant programs or service contracts.
The prophetic Justice Clarence Thomas predicted this in his dissent to Obergefell: “In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution; it is a religious institution as well,” he wrote. “Today’s decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter. It appears all but inevitable that the two will come into conflict, particularly as individuals and churches are confronted with demands to participate in and endorse civil marriages between same-sex couples.”
That came about when gay activists targeted small businesses such as bakers who declined to bake custom wedding cakes and web designers who didn’t want to make websites and registries celebrating same-sex couples — based on their sincerely held religious beliefs.
At what seemed to exceed the speed of light, we went from “live and let live” to a clear demand that we must not only accept but actively participate in and endorse whatever new practice or self-identification we are presented with no matter how bizarre.
Under New York’s Human Rights Law, for example, the government tells us “the best practice is to refer to people with the term(s) they use to self-identify.”
What’s more, the Obergefell decision invented a constitutional right to same-sex marriage out of thin air, when the U.S. Constitution allows states, not nine unelected judges, to be the primary drivers of policy.
Republican senators who would rather duck the marriage fight may take misplaced comfort in polls that show an increased acceptance of same-sex marriage. But those polls, rather than showing a desperate need to codify same-sex or novel forms of marriage at the federal level, instead show no appreciable threat to the same-sex marriage status quo. So why the unseemly rush to pass a national same-sex marriage law now?
Instead of addressing real problems, the bill creates new ones. Through its sweeping language and establishment of broad new enforcement and litigation mechanisms, the bill multiplies the threats against tens of millions of Americans who cannot in good faith endorse anything other than man-woman marriage.
Yet marriage deserves our full-throated support, based on the simple facts alone. As Ryan Anderson has written, “Marriage is based on the truth that men and women are complementary, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the reality that children need a mother and a father. Redefining marriage does not simply expand the existing understanding of marriage; it rejects these truths.”
We’ve surrendered enough ground in the culture wars. This new bill has little to do with protecting rights; it’s an attack that sets the stage to take rights away, principally from people of faith, who honor the enduring truth about marriage. Our efforts now must be focused on rebuilding our indispensable institutions — and there is none more vital than marriage and the family.
Kevin Roberts, Ph.D., is president of The Heritage Foundation.
People like to believe their side is the underdog. And many people see themselves as underdogs, believing the top dogs in politics are the elites. That is, the people who matter to policy are those who went to top colleges, who manage important institutions, who write the columns of major publications, who get jobs in presidential administrations.
But elitist views don’t dictate policy. Or at least, not that many of them do.
Take the federal Jones Act, which puts “Made in America” requirements on ships that move goods between domestic ports. This isn’t policy because of elite opinion. In fact, I would bet that many elites hate it. And the “regular Joe” who pays the price ought to hate it as well. But this law remains on the books because domestic shipping companies don’t want competition and receive a concentrated benefit from the preference. Both populists and elites should hate this law.
They also ought to hate liquor control policies that guarantee monopoly profits to just a few wholesalers and distributors without protecting public health. These laws mean less competition and higher prices, yet the advantages remain because of entrenched special interests.
Both elites and regular people ought to hate that occupational licensing rules are designed to protect the few people working in an occupation from competition, rather than to protect public health and safety. These laws stifle market competition while limiting consumer choices and hindering people who want to get a shot at work.
These and many other issues are not elites versus the public. They are cases where entrenched special interests use policy to collect benefits at the public’s expense.
It’s special interests that often have the biggest say in Washington and state capitals. Sometimes they are run by elites. Still, they get their way not because of elitism, but out of sheer self-interest. They’ve already captured public policy for their own benefit, and this concentrated benefit allows them to dedicate time and money into making sure public policy doesn’t shift against them.
Policy can get used and abused to deliver money and favors to special interests. Those who care about a fair public policy playing field should agree that special interests control too much policy, which is bad for the country.
Ordinary Americans can have a big influence in politics when they can unite around a policy solution. Politicians want to be popular. Get enough people to care about something and the people’s elected representatives will follow. There is plenty for them to unite over.
Unfortunately, voters tend to be distracted by partisan agitations focused on winning elections and overcoming opposition. Attention gets redirected away from the issues where people can be united and toward partisan differences.
There are issues and ideas where people on the right and the left are not going to get along. But there is way too much in public policy that is determined by crass self-interest more than by partisan ideology.
Many laws and regulations are designed to deliver benefits to special interests at the public’s expense. It shouldn’t be this way. There ought to be more support for getting rid of the advantages a narrow subset of people has pushed into law. Regular Joes and elites should team up against these special interests who are defending laws that can harm the public to benefit the few.
Local health authorities and lawmakers have repeatedly called on the Biden administration to take more action in response to the monkeypox outbreak. Now, the White House appears to be pushing back by attempting to spread the blame to include state and local governments.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra said during a Thursday press briefing on monkeypox that state and local governments “ultimately are the ones that determine how healthcare is administered in their jurisdictions.”
“We believe that we’ve done what helps our state and local health care partners stay ahead of this and we’ll continue to monitor because we cannot let this get out of control,” Becerra said on Thursday. “And we will do everything on our part to be a good partner to our state and local governments, who ultimately are the ones that determine how healthcare is administered in their jurisdictions.”
He further stated that the federal government does not control public health in “territories and in the tribal jurisdiction.”
“They need to work with us,” said Becerra.
These remarks come amid ongoing criticisms that vaccines, tests and treatments for monkeypox are still out of reach for many people as cases have spiked to over 5,000 nationwide. Since the start of the monkeypox outbreak, local and state leaders have called on the White House to provide further assistance.
In New York, where the epicenter of the U.S. monkeypox outbreak is located, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) and New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) have both called on the Biden administration to provide more vaccines and treatments.
When reached for comment, an HHS spokesperson said Becerra’s remarks were meant to convey that “in a public health crisis, all levels of government—federal, state, local, tribal—have important roles to play.”
“HHS and the federal government is doing all it can to provide response tools and support to the state and local officials and the health care workers who deliver care on the front lines, because without them, we won’t be able to stay ahead of the virus and end this outbreak,” the spokesperson said.
Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), said he and his organization were “a little surprised” by what Becerra said.
“I guess we were a little surprised just because this has been very collaborative and … it’s never seamless but it’s as close as it can get to seamless as far as interface between the feds and the states,” Plescia said.
Adriane Casalotti, chief of public and government affairs for the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), reiterated the need for a strong collaborative effort against monkeypox and noted that local health departments are still reliant on other parts of the U.S. public health system to properly act against monkeypox.
“For example, other than about five cities, no local health departments are getting direct — most of our partners are not getting direct allocation of vaccines,” Casalotti said.
Noting the lack of supplemental funding for monkeypox, Casalotti said local health departments are “doing all of this work within the confines of the resources that they have and a local health department can’t individually petition Congress for resources.”
Becerra said Thursday that the administration has done what it can to help state and local partners stay ahead of the monkeypox outbreak, but Casalotti said the allocation of resources is currently “really uneven” and many local health departments lack the tools that they would ideally have during an outbreak like this one.
“So in all communities, there’s work that needs to be done. And that work has to be done with the same people who are still fighting the pandemic,” sai Casalotti. “The same people who are trying to pick up the pieces from the pandemic, including increased opioid rates and STI rates and lower vaccines in the childhood population.”
When asked about Biden potentially declaring a public health emergency over the outbreak, as many congressional Democrats have recently called on him to do, both Plescia and Casalotti said it would help in improving communication between state and local governments and the White House.
“Generally when there’s a national emergency, there are a lot of benefits to that for states. I mean, it tends to make resources more readily available. It tends to sort of speed up the processes you have to go through in order to get things done,” Plescia said.
Plescia said declaring a public health emergency would also help to resolve issues with states sharing data with the federal government, which Becerra also noted could be improved. Casalotti said her organization was generally supportive of a public health emergency declaration in order to free up resources.
Some local governments like those of San Francisco and New York state have already made their own declarations recognizing monkeypox as either an “imminent threat” or a public emergency within their own jurisdictions.
Despite the challenges that have been encountered in the monkeypox strategy, Plescia opined that the U.S. is still in “a much better situation than I would normally expect us to be with an outbreak like this.”
“In political circles and policy circles, we’re often talking about jurisdictional boundaries. A virus like this doesn’t care about those. And so wherever you live, you’re only as safe as the community next to yours. So we really all need to be working together in order to end this outbreak,” Casalotti said.
President Biden is signaling a new willingness to exchange a top prisoner with Russia to get WNBA star Brittney Griner and American citizen Paul Whelan back from Moscow.
The administration’s offer risks giving Russia leverage and could undercut U.S. efforts to hold together an international campaign to isolate Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
But Griner’s high profile — an extraordinary athlete breaking ground for the LGBT community — has elicited outrage from the sports world and lawmakers pressuring Biden to secure her release.
Time Magazine’s cover story this week was a profile on Griner, and personal appeals to the president from her wife, WNBA teammates and her coach are credited with sparking Biden to act.
The president has also come under fire for not securing Whelan’s release as part of a prisoner exchange that freed Marine veteran Trevor Reed in April. Whelan has been behind Russian bars for four years on charges of spying, which he denies.
The U.S. classified all three cases as wrongful detentions.
The situation is a tricky political and national security balance for Biden, who would likely receive a political boost from bringing home Americans. But experts say the president also needs to weigh the risks and potential blowback from making a deal with the Russians at a high-stakes moment amid the war in Ukraine.
“Biden is expending a tremendous amount of political capital to bring them home,” said Basil Smikle, Democratic strategist and director of the public policy program at Hunter College.
“It’s important that he has the ability and can bring Americans home so they’re not languishing in foreign jails particularly in Russia, but it’s also important that Americans get the sense that he would do this for everyone, not just the rich and famous.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to offer the “proposal,” which was reported earlier to be an offer exchanging Griner and Whelan for convicted Russian arms-dealer Viktor Bout, the so-called “merchant of death,” who has served 11 years of his 25-year sentence at a prison in Marion, Ill.
The White House said the offer to the Russians was made several weeks ago, but Blinken made the highly unusual decision this week to publicly disclose that an offer was on the table.
The decision seemed to be an effort to pressure the Russians, while also making clear to the American public that Biden had put a deal on the table for both citizens.
“It wasn’t a decision we took lightly,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday. “We felt that in the context of what was happening in both Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan’s cases, as well as what was not happening, that it was important to lay out publicly that there was in fact a serious offer made by the American side that has not been acted on.”
Blinken said that the conversation with Lavrov was “frank” and “direct,” but could not report a breakthrough, telling reporters, “I can’t give you an assessment of whether I think things are any more or less likely, but it was important that he hear directly from me on that.”
The prisoner exchanges are reminiscent of the spy swaps and tense communication between Washington and the Kremlin at the height of the Cold War, said Daniel Fried, former U.S. ambassador to Poland and a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council.
“It’s even almost a pre-detente Cold War relationship. The problem we have is that we’re dealing with an aggressive power that has nuclear weapons, and is more virulent, more aggressive than the Soviets,” he said.
“We have the upper hand by a lot — if we keep our nerve and discipline. The Russians have a lot of problems, economically, I suspect politically, they’re more vulnerable,” Fried said, but added that the Russians have “the tactical advantage of not caring about their own citizens.”
While Biden runs the risk of criticism that he’s encouraging adversaries to take Americans hostage, experts say the president is deeply emotive, and is likely more moved by his conversations with families of those wrongfully detained abroad to do everything to bring them home.
Biden secured Reed’s release in April by delivering Konstantin Yaroshenko to Russia. Yaroshenko was serving jail time in the U.S. for a conviction on drug smuggling charges.
“My view is, if there’s an opportunity to bring Americans home, you capitalize on it and you do it, and I think that’s, in the end, what’s motivating the president,” said Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and veteran senior State Department official.
Miller said that while every hostage situation is unique, there’s always a debate over the risks versus reward of giving into adversary demands to free detained Americans.
“It seems to me they’re always thinking about ways to embarrass the United States and to essentially look for opportunities.”
There’s also the added complication of Russia’s bloody war in Ukraine. The call between Blinken and Lavrov was the first between the two since the Russian attack began.
However, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday that there were no plans for Biden to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the matter, and she insisted that the outreach would not legitimize Moscow.
“I don’t see how they are legitimized at all,” Jean-Pierre said. “If anything, they are now a pariah [on] the global stage because of what they’re doing.”
Jean-Pierre said that the administration is “doing everything that we can” to bring home Americans detained overseas.
Biden signed an executive order earlier this month that authorized financial sanctions and visa restrictions on individuals directly or indirectly responsible for wrongful detentions of Americans abroad, whether they are state actors or terror organizations.
For some of the families of Americans detained abroad, Blinken’s public offer to Lavrov, and Reed’s earlier release, are positive signals that the U.S. government is working more seriously to free those detained as political pawns.
“The events of the past few days have been quite encouraging,” said Neda Sharghi, whose brother Emad has been detained in Iran since 2018 on charges criticized as politically motivated. “We were encouraged that they’re using all tools available to them, in this case, an exchange to bring home … Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner.”
Sharghi is part of a collective of about 18 families who have loved ones who are held hostage abroad, called the “Bring Our Families Home” campaign, which seeks to more publicly demand action from the government.
“We have learned from certain cases, the Trevor Reed case being one of them, that sometimes families have to put themselves in a very uncomfortable position to get the kinds of reactions they need to get from the White House,” Sharghi said, referring to an intense public campaign by the Reed family that ultimately secured the family face-to-face time with Biden.
Sharghi is still waiting for a meeting with the president to personally advocate her brother’s case.
“It is clear, given President Biden’s own personal history and his desire to provide security for American citizens, that he is touched by the efforts to which we’re all going to get his attention and to get the attention of his administration,” Sharghi said.
Commerce Department data this week found the U.S. economy shrank for a second quarter in a row, sparking a new debate about whether the nation is in a recession.
Negative growth in two consecutive quarters fulfills a common definition for a recession — and it’s the official way of making such a call in some countries.
But it’s not in the U.S., where a relatively under-the-radar group — the National Bureau of Economic Research’s (NBER) Business Cycle Dating Committee — is in charge of making an official call on whether the country is in a recession.
So what is this group, and how does it make its proclamations?
The group within the NBER that actually makes the call on the recession is the Business Cycle Dating Committee.
It has eight members, who are among the foremost economists in the nation, and who all who work at top academic institutions across the country: Robert Hall of Stanford, Robert Gordon of Northwestern, James Poterba of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Valerie Ramey of the University of California-San Diego, Christina Romer of UC-Berkeley, David Romer of UC-Berkeley, James Stock of Harvard and Mark Watson of Princeton.
Christina Romer served as chairwoman of the council of economic advisers under President Obama, and Poterba is the president of the NBER.
The NBER’s formal definition of a recession is broad. According to its frequently asked questions page, the NBER’s traditional definition is “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.”
It considers the depth, diffusion and duration of the decline in economic activity. While the committee’s view is that each “needs to be met individually to some degree, extreme conditions revealed by one criterion may partially offset weaker indications from another.”
Economists say that the NBER looks at many different indicators to make a call on whether the economy is in a recession.
“It actually looks at a wide variety of economic indicators to make that designation,” said Alex Durante, an economist with the Tax Foundation think tank. “They look at employment, personal income, durable goods, housing permits — so the GDP is certainly part of it, but they’re looking at other indicators, as well.”
Employment is one factor that is crucial in looking at today’s economy. The job market in the U.S. is red hot, even as the Commerce Department has found the economy to have shrunk the last two quarters.
The White House, which has been pushing back on the idea that there is a recession, has pointed out that unemployment is at a historically low rate of 3.6 percent.
The panel did find that a recession occurred in April 2020, after much of the U.S. economy shut down at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. It concluded in July 2021 that the recession had lasted two months — the shortest on record in the nation’s history.
Durante said a pronouncement on the current recession — if indeed it exists — likely won’t come until 2023.
“This is obviously difficult for policymakers who want to stay on top of these conversations, but usually, NBER doesn’t make the designation until after a year,” he said. “That’s because they want to make sure they have enough data, but also because the data tends to be revised.”
Indeed, it is possible the Commerce Department data that found a 0.9 percent contraction of the economy in the second quarter could be revised. It’s a small enough decrease to fit into the typical margin of error by which the department can correct its first-draft predictions.
The origins of the NBER lie in the oil industry.
According to a short history of the NBER written in 1984 by former Vice President of Research Solomon Fabricant, the organization traces its history in part to initiatives made in the early part of the 20th century by the newly formed Rockefeller Foundation, the philanthropic organ built off the vast oil fortune made by John D. Rockefeller.
In 1914, Harvard Business School Dean Edwin Gay “had taken a leading part, at the request of the executive secretary of the newly established Rockefeller Foundation, in preparing a memorandum outlining the organization and functions of an institute for economic research analogous to the already established Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. The proposed institute would engage in scientific and impartial investigations ‘of such scope as to be beyond the power of our existing university research facilities,’” Fabricant wrote.
Half a century later, the Commerce Department began citing the NBER’s work on the business cycle, which lent it a kind of governmental legitimacy, according to The Washington Post.
But NBER research hasn’t been immune from controversy.
A recent investigation by The Guardian found that Alan Krueger, a former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, had been paid $100,000 by Uber while writing a paper published under the NBER about Uber that argued it had been a creator of good jobs. Published in 2016 as part of an NBER working paper series, the revelation of the payment attracted academic criticism.
An NBER spokesperson said Krueger’s work as a consultant for Uber was clearly disclosed.
“The cover page of the NBER working paper disclosed the fact that Alan Krueger was working as a consultant for Uber when the paper was written, and that his co-author was an employee and stockholder of Uber. The same acknowledgements were included in the version of the paper that was published, after peer review, by the Industrial and Labor Relations Review,” the statement emailed to The Hill said.
The NBER is a research institution that receives money from the government but also makes money from investments, according to its website.
“NBER research is supported by grants from government agencies or private foundations, by corporation and individual contributions, and by income from the NBER’s investment portfolio,” the website says.
It says the groups that contribute the most to its research projects are the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Social Security Administration and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
“The NBER conducts research but does not make policy recommendations or carry out advocacy on the basis of research findings,” the group says of itself.
The damaging revelations of the Jan. 6 committee hearings are fueling skepticism among Senate Republicans that Donald Trump can win the GOP nomination in 2024 or even run for another term in the White House.
One Republican senator, who requested anonymity to comment on the former president, said the “cascade” of embarrassing details about Trump’s conduct in the weeks before Jan. 6, 2021, and during the attack on the U.S. Capitol will seriously damage his political viability ahead of the 2024 election.
“I don’t think he’ll run again and that’s a good thing, because of the whole cascade of events,” the senator said, referring to testimony by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson that Trump lunged at a Secret Service agent when he refused to drive him to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, is now cooperating with a Justice Department investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, according to media reports.
A second GOP senator, who requested anonymity, said the overwhelming majority of Republican senators don’t want him to be the party’s nominee for president again.
“I could count on one hand the number of Republican senators who want Donald Trump to be our nominee,” said the lawmaker, adding: “I could count it on one finger.”
The senator said “the cumulative effect” of the Jan. 6 hearings is weighing on Trump’s viability in 2024.
Publicly, Senate Republican leaders predict Trump will face stiff competition in the 2024 GOP primary. They believe Trump’s grip on the party is slipping amid polling showing surging voter interest in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters recently that Trump will face a “crowded field” for president.
Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) on Wednesday predicted the former president will have to contend with “robust” competition from fellow Republicans in the next election cycle.
Thune emphasized the importance of the party’s nominee appealing to independent and swing voters if Republicans are to win back control of the White House.
He also said the Jan. 6 hearings are “filling in some blanks” and while the revelations won’t hurt Trump with Republican voters who already support him, voters in the middle are more likely be swayed by new details.
Several more major details emerged in the House select Jan. 6 committee’s last hearing, which aired outtakes from Trump’s taped message to the nation in which he refused to say the election was over, even though Congress has just certified the results.
GOP senators themselves are weighing how much damage to Trump has been done, even as they also look at a weakened President Biden, who has seen his approval rating drop below 40 percent.
“That’s what an election process would sort out,” Thune said. “There are different polls and surveys and focus groups that are all trying to assess what the impact of all this and how it affects 2024. I think it’s too early to tell.
“I also think people are going to be looking at taking into consideration the strongest and best candidate in a general election setting and trying to get the White House back,” Thune predicted.
“There are folks who aren’t in one camp or the other that are probably susceptible to new information and there’s been some new information that’s come out,” he said.
“Elections get decided — national elections at least — by the people in the middle. That’s who everybody in the end is going to have to win. The two sides will go to their respective corners, their respective camps and there’s probably nothing that changes their minds about any of this but those independent voters that decide late … or maybe aren’t paying all that much attention right now are probably going to decide it,” Thune said.
“Some of these things, cumulative effect, probably gets people looking at other possibilities,” he added.
A growing number of Republican senators and voters are shifting to a more negative view of Trump.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last week showed that 40 percent of Republicans now think Trump deserves some blame for the attack on the Capitol. The poll also found that one third of Republicans don’t think Trump should run again for president, up from 25 percent who said so at the beginning of last month.
Even Trump’s media allies are taking a closer look at potential rivals who could beat Trump in a Republican primary or dissuade him from even running.
The hosts of “Fox & Friends,” Fox News flagship morning news program, on Monday highlighted DeSantis leading Trump in several age demographics in a new Turning Point USA poll as well as the governor’s “tremendous strength” in New Hampshire, Michigan and Florida.
That prompted an angry rebuke from Trump.
“@foxandfriends just really botched my poll numbers, no doubt on purpose,” Trump fumed on Truth Social, his new social media platform. “That show has been terrible — gone to the ‘dark side.’”
The editorial board of The New York Post, which has a conservative-leaning voice, on July 22 pronounced Trump’s silence on Jan. 6 “damning’ and declared “Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again.”
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board on that same day, the day after the House select committee’s hearing, opined: “No matter your views of the Jan. 6 special committee, the facts it is laying out in hearings are sobering.”
“Character is revealed in a crisis, and Mr. Pence passed his Jan. 6 trial. Mr. Trump utterly failed his,” The Journal wrote of Vice President Mike Pence’s decision to uphold his constitutional duty and certify the election results.
The first GOP senator who spoke to The Hill confidentially predicted that Fox News’s other main anchors, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson, will give other potential Republican White House candidates more airtime and attention over the next year.
The senator said GOP voters “like” Trump “but they’re looking for other people to run,” describing what the lawmaker sees as growing Trump fatigue in the party.
Despite all this, Republican senators and strategists said Trump is still a formidable political force.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is widely viewed as a potential presidential candidate, said Republican White House hopefuls will be watching closely to see what Trump does.
“On the Republican side, the obvious question is what does Donald Trump choose to do. I don’t know what he’s going to do. Everybody who is looking at the race is waiting to see what Trump decides,” he said.
Asked if he thought Trump has been hurt politically by the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation, Cruz said, “I think the Jan. 6 hearings have been a political circus and a transparent campaign aide by the Democrats.”
“I don’t think they move public opinion, I think they’re preaching to the choir,” he said.
Asked about the scorching criticisms of Trump’s conduct by conservative publications Cruz only replied: “He’s going to have to make the decision whether he wants to run again or not.”
A 38-year-old man from Massachusetts has been arrested and charged after allegedly making a bomb threat against an Arizona state election official.
James Clark has been charged with one count of making a bomb threat, for which he faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. He has also been charged with one count of communicating an interstate threat and one count of perpetuating a bomb hoax, for each of which he could face up to five years in prison.
Clark allegedly looked up online “how to kill” an election official from the Arizona secretary of state’s office, as well as searching the address of the official, on Feb. 14, 2021, according to the indictment against him. It also claimed that he searched “fema boston marathon bombing” and “fema boston marathon bombing plan digital army” online around Feb. 18, 2021.
The indictment further alleges that he sent a message through a web form addressed to the person, saying, “Your attorney general needs to resign by Tuesday February 16th by 9 am or the explosive device impacted in her personal space will be detonated.”
The indictment asserts he sent that message to the official around Feb. 14, 2021.
The Hill could not immediately reach Clark’s lawyer for comment.
“Election officials across the country are being threatened regularly for doing their jobs. It’s unconscionable and undermines our democracy. This harassment won’t be tolerated and can’t be normalized. We thank the FBI for their persistence on further investigating this incident,” Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) said in a statement.
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The House narrowly passed a bill to ban assault weapons on Friday, with five Democrats and two Republicans bucking their respective parties in their votes on the measure.
The legislation, dubbed the Assault Weapons Ban of 2022, passed in a 217-213 vote. One Republican did not vote.
Five Democrats opposed the bill, despite the fact that an assault weapons ban was a top priority for the party as the year inches closer to the midterm elections.
Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) and Ron Kind (D-Wis.) all voted “no.”
On the Republican side, leadership recommended that members of the conference vote no on the bill, according to a GOP congressional aide. That urging, however, did not stop Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Chris Jacobs (R-N.Y.) from supporting the legislation.
Cuellar and Golden’s votes against the measure did not come as a surprise.
Golden voted against the rule for the bill on Friday, a signal that he opposed the legislation. He has also objected to a number of firearm-related bills in the past, including a measure to nationalize red flag laws, a bipartisan gun safety bill that passed through the Senate and was signed into law and a firearm package that, among other measures, would have raised the minimum age to buy a semi-automatic weapon from 18 to 21.
Cuellar last month signaled he would not vote for the bill, saying, “I don’t believe in bans on weapons.”
“Do I believe in certain restrictions? Yes. But a ban on guns? No,” he added.
Gonzalez also voted against the rule for the assault weapons ban on Friday, a signal that he would likely object to the measure when it came to the floor for a final vote.
But even before then, the Texas Democrat expressed concerns regarding the measure.
Last month, Gonzalez said a ban on assault weapons was “definitely something that we need to be careful with.”
“I’m for responsible gun ownership, and there needs to be a balance between responsible gun ownership and just a straight-up ban,” he added.
Schrader was the third Democrat who voted against the rule on Friday, and he voiced reservations about assault weapons bans before then.
He suggested to Politico last week that the bill was on a “death wish list” for Democrats, pointing to the Republican victory in the 1994 midterm elections, after then-President Clinton signed an assault weapons ban.
“This is a bill that destroyed the Democrats in ‘94. I guess, do we really have a death wish list as Democrats?” Schrader said.
The Oregon Democrat also said he was concerned about the assault weapons ban because he felt it would undermine the bipartisan package Congress cleared and Biden signed into law last month.
“It undermines what we already did and reemphasizes to all the people in America that are not hardcore urban Democrats that our party’s out of touch,” he told the outlet.
It was not clear how Kind would vote on the assault weapons ban prior to it being brought to the floor. The congressman previously voted against two provisions in the sweeping gun package the House passed last month — one that would ban civilians from using high capacity magazines, and one that would bolster safe storage of guns in homes where minors can access the weapons.
The Hill reached out to the five Democrats for comment on their votes.
In a statement following Friday’s vote, Jacobs said that while he supports the Second Amendment and the right to self-defense, he is not in favor of “easy access to high-powered semiautomatic weapons and large capacity magazines that have time and time again resulted in mass casualty shootings.”
He referenced the mass shooting that took place in Buffalo, N.Y., in May, in which 10 Black individuals were killed at a grocery store, writing that the weapons banned in the bill “have been proven to cause an immense amount of damage quickly.”
“We have a duty to provide for the safety of all Americans. These weapons do not belong in our communities. While this bill is not perfect, I believe it will save innocent lives,” he said.
During the vote on Friday, Jacobs said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) approached him in the speaker’s lobby to point out how close the final tally would be. Asked by The Hill if leadership was trying to convince him to change his vote, Jacobs said “it wasn’t like, heavy, heavy duty, they were just pointing out how close it was.”
Fitzpatrick told The Hill Friday night that he ultimately decided to vote for the assault weapons ban after thinking about a family from Parkland, Fla., that experienced a loss following the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
If the two Republicans had voted with their party in the final vote, they may have tied the vote 215-215, preventing Democrats from getting to the 216-vote threshold they needed to pass the bill. One Republican did not vote.
Fitzpatrick told The Hill that McCarthy and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) did not approach him during the vote.
“They know I do my own thing,” he said. “I’ve developed that reputation.”
Former President Trump announced on Friday evening he was endorsing conservative commentator Tudor Dixon in Michigan’s Republican gubernatorial primary, which is scheduled for next Tuesday.
“Tudor Dixon is a Conservative Warrior who built an impressive career in the steel industry while working with her fabulous father, who is now watching her proudly from above. She raised a beautiful family, and is ready to save Michigan. She’s pro-God, pro-Gun, and pro-Freedom, and she won’t be stopped!” Trump said in a statement issued through his Save America PAC.
He claimed Dixon was not well-known when he met her and asserted that her campaign “took off like a rocket ship” after he recognized her during a speech he gave earlier this year.
The former president also took aim at Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), calling her the “Queen of lockdowns” while adding “except for her husband” — a jab at Whitmer’s husband, who was found to have pressed a business to get his boat out on the water during a phase of COVID-19 when the governor had cautioned people against congregating in the area.
Trump had earlier on Friday teased the possibility of endorsing Dixon, saying in a post on his Truth Social platform, “Giving Tudor Dixon a good, hard look.”
The Republican primary for the Michigan governor’s race has attracted a number of candidates, some of whom were disqualified after officials found several campaigns allegedly had fraudulent signatures collected.
Real estate broker Ryan Kelley is among the candidates still set to appear on the ballot, despite being arrested by the FBI and charged in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
A Detroit News/WDIV (Channel 4) poll released earlier this month and conducted by Glengariff Group showed Dixon in the lead among likely Republican primary voters at 19 percent, followed by businessman Kevin Rinke at 15 percent, Kelley at 13 percent and chiropractor Garrett Soldano at 12 percent.
The margin of error for that poll is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, meaning Dixon and Rinke are essentially tied.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said on Friday that at least 16 people, including at least six children, had died amid what he described as “devastating” flooding in the state and warned officials still could not reach certain areas.
“There are people out there all across Kentucky and America that are scared because they can’t reach their relatives with cell phone service down, thousands without power, water systems overwhelmed. So we are still in search and rescue for what is an ongoing disaster,” Beshear told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer during an interview.
The Kentucky Democrat warned that officials were anticipating the death toll would double, saying that while it was at 16, they understood the number would ultimately be higher.
He said it would take years for the affected communities to rebuild again, with this disaster coming less than a year after the state was impacted by tornadoes and storms. He noted he had also been in contact with President Biden, who offered the administration’s help over the flooding.
“I don’t want to lose another Kentucky. We have lost far too many,” Beshear said. “Right not, I want to make sure that the conversation that I focus on is of the loss that our families have suffered, but that they also know that we’re going to be there to help them rebuild and as we rebuild, we rebuild stronger.”
Biden earlier on Friday approved a disaster declaration for Kentucky to allow federal assistance to be channeled to the state.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the magnitude of flooding seen in the state, which comes as Kentucky has seen a much as eight to 10 inches of rainfall, is considered to have a one in 1,000 chance of happening.
