Biden Taunts House Republicans With 3 Mocking Words On Impeachment Effort
The president was all smiles when asked about House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's impeachment inquiry.
Month: September 2023
Biden Taunts House Republicans With 3 Mocking Words On Impeachment Effort
House Republicans hold conference call to avert government shutdown, pass defense spending bill
House Republicans held a members-only conference call with Freedom Caucus members on Sunday night in an attempt to avert a government shutdown, Fox News has learned.
The goal of the call, which took place at 8 p.m., was to agree on a continuing resolution to fund the government for another month. The Freedom Caucus and House Republican leadership have been disputing over what a funding package could look like.
Before the call took place, sources told Fox News Digital that there has been "good progress" between Freedom Caucus members and other Republicans.
The interim spending bill, which is good for 31 days, is expected to renew current funding while incorporating more border and immigration-related spending. The House aims to vote on it on Thursday.
HOUSE SPEAKER KEVIN MCCARTHY ANNOUNCES FORMAL IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY AGAINST PRESIDENT BIDEN
The continuing resolution would also fund veteran and military spending at current levels, while marking a 1% cut from FY 2023 discretionary spending levels. House Republicans are hoping to pass their defense spending bill this week.
The defense spending bill will also be coupled with House Resolution 2 (HR 2), which is intended to limit asylum provisions and tighten up border security.
Notably, the defense bill does not include additional disaster relief money for Ukraine, which has been requested by the White House.
MCCARTHY TO GREEN LIGHT BIDEN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY THIS WEEK
Main Street Caucus Chairman Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), Vice Chair Stephanie Bice (R-OK), and Executive Board Representative Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) told Fox News that they are working with Freedom Caucus members to build support for the continuing resolution.
"Congress must keep government open and secure the border," the statement read. "That’s why we’ve worked with leaders of the House Freedom Caucus to introduce a 31-day continuing resolution laser-focused on fixing the crisis at our southern border.
"We want to thank members of both the Republican Main Street Caucus and House Freedom Caucus, as well as a broad cross-section of other members from across the Republican conference for their contributions to this effort," the statement added.
Sunday Four-Play: The elephant in the room plops down on ‘Meet the Press’
I just realized I’m the unwitting victim of one of the most fiendish long cons in the history of grifting. Here’s my story.
Several weeks ago, Jessica Sutherland, my wonderful editor here at Daily Kos, told me one of the muckety-mucks in the organization had suggested I write a fun and breezy weekly review of the Sunday morning political shows. What?! Hey, that sounds great. I love that idea, my wonderful editor! What an honor! I’m truly humbled.
And so I put together a formal proposal, the scheme plotters at Daily Kos accepted it with a scarcely audible cackle, and Sunday Four-Play debuted on July 30, just in time for a fresh wave of Donald Trump indictments.
Needless to say, I don’t have a crystal ball and didn’t know what was coming, but because I so eagerly accepted this plum assignment, I’m now essentially compelled to watch this unholy hippo fuck of a Trump interview on “Meet the Press” today instead of languidly pouring molten pig iron into my freshly voided eye sockets with a Hello Kitty glitter spoon like I’d originally planned on doing.
Thanks, guys! This column has been the opportunity of a lifetime. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to don my hastily jerry-rigged inside-the-shell Ronco Egg Scrambler helmet and beer-bong a pony keg full of Hibernol.
Delete my fucking memory, Kos!
Ironically, here was the second paragraph of my very first Sunday Four-Play column, in which I betrayed a naïveté and callowness of youth normally associated with 5-year-old kids who are wheedled into eating earthworm pasta on their first day of kindergarten:
But while [Chuck] Todd is being replaced in September by the far more palatable Kristen Welker, this column will soldier on indefinitely, assuming it doesn’t get pulled immediately after its first installment, like whatever this thing is.
And here I was just last week, Pollyanna that I am, welcoming the new regime with open arms:
The supremely capable Kristen Welker will replace Todd, and he graciously passed the baton to her on Sunday.
Good luck, Kristen. You’ve got some big, squishy shower sandals to fill. Something tells me you’re more than up to the challenge.
RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: It's Chuck Todd's last day! And we're ridin' with Biden
Of course, y’all know what happened next. After taking over the reins of the longest-running show in television history, Welker announced that her debut episode would feature an interview with … that guy. Him. The semi-ambulant tub of walrus butter who has never—not for one moment in the past 77 years—had anything interesting, coherent, or remotely truthful to say.
At first I thought, well, maybe she’ll utterly savage him. But even then her decision would be irresponsible, because it’s literally impossible to responsibly interview Trump. You’d have to fact-check him in real time, and if you did that, there’d be 10 times more fact-check than interview. Didn’t we learn that earlier this year from CNN’s ill-advised Trump town hall?
My hopes for a thorough dressing-down quickly faded, however, when the teaser clips started trickling in. For instance, there was this preview clip from NBCNews.com, which shows Trump bending Welker’s ear during a leisurely summer stroll as Welker demurely smiles and generally behaves as if she’s not standing next to a feral criminal who violently attempted to end American democracy. Yup, I pretty much knew this interview would suck from the drop when I didn’t see her wheeling him across the golf course on a dolly as Walt Nauta fed him Reese’s Pieces through the breathing hole in his ranch sauce-festooned Hannibal Lecter mask.
Then she asked him a question about the ringing endorsement he recently got from Vladimir Putin and—surprise, surprise—he lied through his teeth Kari Lake-esque filter of billowing brown meat sweats. For instance, Welker let him get away with saying nobody was tougher on Russia than he was. It’s a lie Trump repeats continually, even though Putin moved mountains to try to get him reelected and Trump planned to pull us out of NATO in his second term—which would have been the biggest gift Putin ever received. And Welker just sat there nodding her head.
Sigh.
I get it. Trump is running for president. He’s also an (alleged!) criminal who’s been indicted on 91 felony counts. Not that interviewing criminals is necessarily a journalistic no-no, but let’s face it, Charles Manson was a lot more interesting—and likely had no serious plans for invading Mexico.
So, yeah, I pretty much have to cover this, but I’m not happy about it. For those media leading lights who are still wondering how to effectively interview Trump, the correct answer is … don’t. It’s not worth it. After all, what can you really learn that we don’t already know? Do you think he has a fresh perspective on Kristen Stewart’s love life that he hasn’t yet shared? Because he sure as shit doesn’t have anything useful to say about domestic or foreign policy.
Seriously, why do we still have to pretend that Donald Trump is a real boy? Get a grip, media.
Okay, on to the barmy bullshit ...
1.
So, yeah, confirmed rapist and traitor to democracy Donald Trump was on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Let’s see how that went, shall we? One effing clip and then we’ll move on.
And it’s a doozy. Here Trump appears to acknowledge he lost the election before saying he won the election. Who knows? Maybe he has early-onset brain death. As it is, roughly 98% of his brain is devoted to digesting trans fats and screaming racial slurs at the brown people on “Sesame Street.” It wouldn’t take much to nudge it into oblivion.
WELKER: “When you say you needed one-tenth of a point, you needed one-tenth of a point to win?”
TRUMP: “I needed a very small—I think somebody said 22,000 votes.”
WELKER: “To win?”
TRUMP: “Yeah. If you divide it among the states, it was 22,000 votes, something to that effect ...”
WELKER: “To win the election?”
TRUMP: “Yeah. If I would’ve had another 22,000 votes over the whole—but, look. They rigged the election. If you look at Pennsylvania ...”
WELKER: “But Mr. President, you’re saying you needed more votes to win the election, are you acknowledging you didn’t win?”
TRUMP: “Excuse me. If you look at all of the statistics, all of the votes, they say 22,000 votes. Over millions and millions of votes, 22,000 votes. So when they do Twitter Files, or when they have 51 intelligence agents come out and lie that the laptop from hell was Russia disinformation, and now they find out it’s not, but they knew that at the time. They cheated on the election in that way, too.”
WELKER: “I just want to be clear, though. Are you saying you needed those votes in order to win? Are you acknowledging you didn’t win?”
TRUMP: “I’m not acknowledging. No. I say I won the election.”
Ooh, Welker really thought she had him trapped. But no. It’s likely Trump’s left brain lobe doesn’t know what his right lobe is doing. Like, ever. Also, the so-called “laptop from hell” likely was Russian disinfo.
Consider this December piece from Lindsay Beyerstein at The Editorial Board:
A largely genuine trove of stolen data is also the perfect place to hide forged or stolen elements, which enjoy unearned credibility because they’re packaged with real stuff. That’s why the victims of hack and leaks are advised never to confirm the authenticity of anything.
The attackers are counting on the public to draw the erroneous conclusion that, because some things are genuine, the whole package is real, and—most importantly—that it came from where the cover story says it came from, be that an imaginary collective of good-hearted “hacktivists” or a computer repair shop in Delaware. Anywhere but the GRU.
The GRU is notorious for hacking and leaking.
In other words, just because portions of Hunter’s laptop were real doesn’t mean all of them were.
But never mind that. Is Trump really trying to say an election win isn’t legitimate if one of the candidates or his surrogates lied prior to that election? Because that’s an extraordinary claim. The courts might have a real pickle of a time dealing with that one.
But hey, glad to see that the first president ever to know the difference between a lion and camel is still at the top of his game.
Unlike, say, on Friday night:
The rest of the interview was similar. He lied with every exhale; she didn’t push back nearly forcefully enough. He told “sir” stories. He talked over her while claiming she was talking over him. He claimed Democrats want to abort babies after they’re born. (She should have challenged him hard on that. She didn’t.) Of course, later, after saying Democrats want to abort born babies, he said they don’t want abortions in the seventh month and don’t want to be radical. He also confirmed he’d give Ukraine to murderous war criminal Vladimir Putin.
She kept calling him “Mr. President” instead of using the far more appropriate “traitor says what?” Halfway through she may have replaced him with a glazed ham. Still doing research on that one. I promise to release my findings in two weeks. You’ll know as soon as I do.
RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: Kos was on 'Meet the Press'! Also, debate fallout and mug shot mania
By the way, NBC News did a perfunctory fact-check of the interview. Online. Where you know simply everyone will see it.
Moving on! Whew!
2.
Let’s see if we can ratchet that rage down to 11, shall we? Here’s a nice palate cleanser. Nancy the Great joined Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC’s “The Saturday/Sunday Show” and made clear that Democrats stand behind the striking autoworkers—whereas Trump’s plan to help them is likely to cut their bosses’ taxes even more. It’s time for those proles, plebs, and peons to really feel that warm trickle down their necks, right?
But Rep. Pelosi sees it differently.
PELOSI: “Let me just say that as we are here we have workers on strike in a number of industries in our country, but right now you said you’re going to have a show on ...”
CAPEHART: “The UAW president ...”
PELOSI: “UAW president. This is really something so important to all of us in the country. These workers, just think of this. The CEOs of these companies make probably, in one month, what these workers make in a lifetime. That’s just unjust. Years ago it was 20 times, now it’s 10 times that—over 200 times as much for the CEO as it is for the worker. Those profits that they say they are rewarding would not happen without the workers. So let us pray that they will make some progress on this respectful of the workers. [Sen.] Sherrod Brown says it’s over 300 times as much. But whatever it is, one month pay for the CEO, a lifetime pay to the workers. It’s just not fair.”
Pelosi was riffing a bit, but her numbers are in the ballpark. And any way you slice it, the gap between worker and CEO pay has grown out of control since Ronald Reagan first put billionaires on the endangered species list.
The average CEO of an S&P 500–listed company earned $16.7 million from their role in 2022, the AFL-CIO said—the second highest amount ever recorded in the organization’s annual Executive Paywatch report.
That’s 272 times the average salary of just under $62,000 for someone employed by an S&P 500 firm, according to the report.
Assuming an average career of around 45 years before retirement, that means an ordinary employee would have to work six lifetimes to earn the same as their CEO did last year.
So there you go. Pelosi may have been a bit off on her comparison of monthly vs. lifetime wages, but the actual numbers are still eye-popping. And it’s about time workers started clawing back some of the wealth that’s consistently been funneled upward for the past four decades.
3.
Needless to say, Casper the Friendly Milquetoast (aka Mike Pence) had a somewhat different take on the UAW strike. He insists he stands with the working men and women of this country, and you can tell he’s sincere because he’s standing in front of two barns and isn’t wearing a tie.
The former vice president and one-time Trump colon polyp appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper. When asked about the autoworkers’ strike, he launched into his prepared talking points about Biden’s economy.
TAPPER: “On this issue of general fairness, in 1965, during this era of the great middle-class expansion in the United States, CEOs made about 20 times what their typical workers made, but as I noted to you, the CEO of GM makes 362 times what her typical employees make. I just want to make sure I get an answer from you. Is that okay? Do you think that’s fair?”
PENCE: “Well, I think that ought to be left to the shareholders of that company. I’m somebody that believes in free enterprise. I think those are decisions that can be made by shareholders and creating pressure, and I’ll fully support how these publicly traded companies operate. I’m not interested in government mandates or government bullying when it comes to those kinds of issues. And I don’t think it's about the usual fault lines of the difference in salaries between white collar and blue collar. I think it’s that everyday Americans out there working hard are living in the midst of the failed policies of Bidenomics.”
TAPPER: “Inflation’s been horrible, no question, but their wages haven't gone up since the auto bailout in 2008. Meanwhile, the CEOs, their wages have gone up 40% in the last five years. That’s what the union workers say as to why they’re striking. I guess, just a question here. Do you side with the CEOs or do you side with the union here?”
PENCE: “I side with American workers, I side with all American families, I side with the people of this country, Jake, that are living under the failed policies of the Biden administration.”
In other words, Pence wants a laissez-faire economic system that punishes American workers—the real wealth creators—decade after decade while continuing to create opportunities for hardworking CEOs and majority shareholders who, under Biden’s economy, struggle every day to locate private islands for sale. But hey, get a load of those two barns. And that open collar. Mother is so turned on right now she wants to join her husband in a three-way—which, for the Pences, simply means eating lunch at Olive Garden with a woman they just met in the lobby.
RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: Actual Black people react to Trump's 'gangsta' street cred, and Tim Kaine returns
4.
Oh, yeah, Republicans want to impeach President Biden for—hmm, let’s see here—no reason at all!
GOP Rep. Michael McCaul appeared on Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” where he discussed impeaching the president while acknowledging there’s exactly zero reason to do so.
MCCAUL: “Well first of all, I’ve been tasked by the speaker to assist the Oversight and Government Reform. With respect to foreign policy decisions the president made—or vice president, at that time—with respect to money coming in to try to tie the two. We don’t have the evidence now, but we may find it later.”
Okay, have fun with that, Mike. Sounds like a case for Columbo. Or Scooby-Doo. Or maybe Son of Sam. His neighbor’s dog has some really tantalizing new details about Hunter Biden’s work with Burisma.
If they keep digging, maybe they’ll find out Corn Pop wasn’t such a bad dude after all. And can we really trust a man who brutally defames Corn Pop? I say no.
But wait! There’s more!
- Rep. Nancy Mace insists the nonexistent evidence to support a Biden impeachment is “everywhere.” (ABC’s “This Week”)
- Rep. Elise Stefanik on the current technicolor shit show in Congress: “We’re in a very good place.” (“Fox News Sunday”)
- Sen. Mark Warner discusses the dimming prospects for avoiding a government shutdown. (“Face the Nation”)
- House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries notes that the indictment of Hunter Biden shows that President Biden’s Department of Justice really is independent. (ABC’s “This Week”)
Have a great one! See you next fall.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
Nancy Mace defends Biden impeachment inquiry: ‘Facts are everywhere’
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., defended the impeachment inquiry into President Biden during an interview Sunday, arguing that the "facts are everywhere."
During an appearance on ABC's "This Week," host Jonathan Karl asked Mace if she believed it was premature for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to launch an impeachment inquiry without a vote. Karl cited an op-ed published in the Washington Post by Mace's Republican colleague, Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo, who wrote, "Trump's impeachment in 2019 was a disgrace to the Constitution and is a disservice to Americans. The GOP’s reprise in 2023 is no better."
"I don't believe so," said Mace, a member of the House Oversight Committee. "The facts are everywhere. There are text messages, there are emails, there are witnesses, there are whistleblowers, there are meetings, there are phone calls, there are dinners. And you can’t say, ‘Hey, there’s a little bit of smoke, we’re not going to follow the fire.’ And the inquiry, my understanding is, as you said earlier, gives us expanded subpoena powers. I want the bank records of Joe Biden. All of that should be on the table to prove out the allegations in the SARS reports. We're talking about a significant sum of money. We are talking about bribery. And in the Constitution, Article 2, Section 4, that is the basis for impeachment."
Karl interjected, saying there is no evidence connected to Biden, but Mace rejected the notion.
HOUSE SPEAKER KEVIN MCCARTHY ANNOUNCES FORMAL IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY AGAINST PRESIDENT BIDEN
"There is evidence. You can’t say that there’s no evidence there when there is evidence," Mace said.
"It was the fourth estate. It was the media and journalists when Nixon was going down that helped do that investigation, helped bring down the president when they – when he broke the law," she said. "And, you know, you guys want to deny that there's evidence. It's everywhere."
In announcing the impeachment inquiry, McCarthy listed allegations of "abuse of power, obstruction and corruption," which have made against Biden by several Republican-led committees that have been investigating the president, and said the investigations found that Biden "did lie to the American people about his own knowledge of his family's foreign business dealings."
"Eyewitnesses have testified that the president joined on multiple phone calls and had multiple interactions, dinners resulted in cars and millions of dollars into his [son] and his son's business partners," McCarthy told reporters.
BIDEN BREAKS SILENCE ON POSSIBLE IMPEACHMENT, BLAMES GOP DESIRE TO 'SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT'
Earlier in the interview, Mace also refused to say whether or not she'd support a motion to remove McCarthy as speaker.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., threatened to bring a motion to oust McCarthy if he does not follow through on a series of demands from the House Freedom Caucus on spending and legislation. McCarthy told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on "Sunday Morning Futures" that a motion to vacate his speakership would only give Biden what he wants and shut down the House, and effectively, the impeachment inquiry into the president.
"It hasn't happened yet, and I'm not going to … comment on conjecture here. Either he’s going to file it or he’s not. If he’s going to do it, put his money where his mouth is. I do hear that some votes might be up for grabs because people were made promises that have not been kept," Mace said Sunday of the possible motion.
"Quite frankly, a lot of promises were made. It’s not just to the Freedom Caucus but to other members of the House. And those promises ought to be fulfilled," she said. "Everything's on the table at this point for me because I want to do the right thing for the American people, I want to do the right thing for women. I'm trying to show: Here’s a path forward for women post-Roe for birth control, for women who are rape survivors, etc. My district is no stranger to gun violence, to mass shootings."
"We ought to be able to work hard for the American people and show them that. And here we are facing a government shutdown and … really, what have we accomplished this year?"
CNN.com – RSS Channel – Politics 1970-01-01 00:00:00
On CNN's State of the Union, CNN Senior Political Commentator Adam Kinzinger, CNN Political Commentators Karen Finney and Kate Bedingfield, and Republican strategist Brad Todd break down the shutdown fight in the House, Republicans' Biden impeachment inquiry, and some top Democrats' lukewarm support for Harris as Biden's running mate.
Trump calls out Biden on 9/11 claim, other falsehoods over past few weeks: ‘Everything he says is like a lie’
Former President Donald Trump has lashed out against President Biden's repeated false claims over the past few weeks, including the Democrat's latest gaffe about 9/11.
"Look at all the lies he’d told," Trump told NBC’s "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker in his first network news interview since leaving office aired Sunday.
"Look at all the lies he’s told over the past couple of weeks. He said he was at the World Trade Center, and he wasn’t," Trump said. "He said he flew airplanes. He didn’t. He said he drove trucks, and he didn’t. Everything he says is like a lie. It’s terrible."
Trump added that Biden claimed to have a golf handicap of six, which means he shoots six over par on average – an impressive score for a non-professional.
"He’s not a six," Trump added over Welker’s interjection.
Welker, who newly took over the program from former host Chuck Todd, said she wanted to focus on Trump, not Biden, during the interview because "it’s important that we hear from you."
TRUMP OPPOSES AGE LIMITS FOR POLITICIANS, SAYS COMPETENCY TESTS WOULD BE ‘A GOOD THING’
"Well, I’d like you to, but you keep interrupting me," Trump said.
At a 9/11 remembrance event at a military base in Alaska last week, Biden falsely claimed that he visited Ground Zero the day after the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City. By contrast, Trump did visit Ground Zero days after the 2001 attacks, as evidenced in archived photos taken in Manhattan.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby avoided a question about 80-year-old Biden’s 9/11 gaffe last week.
"In the past couple of weeks, the president has lied about being at Ground Zero the day after the Sept. 11 attacks, falsely claimed he saw the Pittsburgh bridge collapse, claimed his grandfather died in the hospital days before his birth," The Washington Times reporter Jeff Mordock posed during a White House press briefing. "What is going on with the president? Is he just believing things that didn’t happen, did happen? Or is he just randomly making stuff up?"
FLORIDA GOP GIVES A VICTORY TO TRUMP OVER DESANTIS BY SCRAPPING A PROPOSED PRIMARY BALLOT RULE
"The president was deeply touched and honored to be able to spend 9/11 with military members there in Alaska and some families," Kirby said in response. "And he spoke about a visit to Ground Zero, which he did participate in about a week or so after the event. And what that looked and what that smelled and what that felt like. And it has visceral impact on him as it did so many other Americans on that terrible day. And he’s focused on making sure that an attack like that never happens again."
Last week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden’s conduct.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was seen walking off during her daily briefing when a member of the press pool asked her to respond to a recent poll suggesting 61% of Americans believe Biden lied about his alleged involvement in the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden.
In the interview Sunday, Welker also asked Trump, "Mr. President, tell me what you see when you look at your mugshot."
"I see somebody that loves this country in me. That loves this country," Trump began. "I see tremendous unfairness. I think very few people would have been able to handle what I handled."
In the case related to Mar-a-Lago, Welker asked Trump about a new charge alleging the former president asked a staffer to delete security camera footage so it wouldn’t get into the hands of investigators. Trump's response criticized the Justice Department's Special Counsel Jack Smith.
"False," Trump said, agreeing he would testify to that under oath. "It’s a fake charge by this deranged lunatic prosecutor who lost in the Supreme Court 9 to nothing, and he tried to destroy lots of lives. He’s a lunatic, so it’s a fake charge, but, more importantly, the tapes weren’t deleted. In other words, there was nothing done to them. And, they were my tapes."
Cartoon: Biden’s impeachment isn’t exactly going to plan
A cartoon by Clay Bennett.
Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial escalates Texas Republican civil war
By Robert Downen The Texas Tribune
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Hours after his acquittal in the Texas Senate, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s far-right supporters doubled down on their promises for swift retribution against fellow Republicans who supported his removal from office.
In particular, they vowed a scorched-earth campaign against House Speaker Dade Phelan, casting him as the ringleader responsible for the impeachment process and calling for him to resign immediately.
“You and your band of RINOs are now on notice,” Defend Texas Liberty PAC leader Jonathan Stickland tweeted at Phelan on Saturday, as voting continued in the Texas Senate. “You will be held accountable for this entire sham. We will never stop. Retire now.”
Paxton’s impeachment trial was the latest — and among the most consequential — battle in an ongoing civil war between the Texas GOP’s establishment members and a well-funded right wing that has for years claimed the party is insufficiently conservative.
Though the two factions generally agree on policy issues — and the Texas Legislature routinely leads the nation in passing socially conservative bills — the party’s far right has often accused members, specifically those in the Texas House, of partnering with Democrats to undermine conservative priorities.
Paxton has played a key role in that fight, and has used his office to back the issues favored by the state’s most conservative flank. In turn, he has received millions of dollars from ultraconservative donors such as oil tycoons Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, who have buoyed his campaigns as his legal woes mounted, approval ratings dropped and other, more establishment donors invested elsewhere.
After House Republicans took the lead to impeach Paxton in May, the state’s far right again rushed to his defense: They accused Phelan of being drunk while presiding over House business and promised high-price primary challenges to House Republicans who voted to suspend Paxton from office. They erected billboards, made documentaries and paid social media influencers to parrot pro-Paxton talking points. They compared him to twice-impeached former President Donald Trump, and argued the attorney general was the victim of a “witch hunt” orchestrated by, among others, the Bush family, Democrats and the deep state.
Paxton echoed that sentiment after the vote, saying in a statement that he was the victim of a “sham impeachment coordinated by the Biden Administration with liberal House Speaker Dade Phelan and his kangaroo court.”
And, within seconds of his acquittal, Paxton’s supporters began to attack the cast of characters that they believed were responsible.
“The Texas House owes all of Texas a big apology,” said Rep. Steve Toth, a Republican from the Woodlands and a member of the House’s Freedom Caucus, which threw its support behind Paxton. “This was a sham … This is terribly destructive to the Republican Party of Texas.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — who presided over the trial but had largely avoided discussing its merits — gave a blistering speech in which he condemned the House impeachment managers and Phelan, with whom Patrick has long been at odds over school-choice legislation and other conservative bills that did not make it out of the Texas House during this year’s legislative session.
Meanwhile, prominent conservatives — including Trump — excoriated “RINOs” in the House and called for Phelan’s resignation. Paxton’s acquittal, some argued, was proof that the far right was the Texas GOP’s true standard bearer. And they promised that dramatic changes would consequently follow.
“Speaker Dade Phelan and his leadership team should be embarrassed for putting Texas through the time and expense of this political sham of an impeachment,” Matt Rinaldi, the chair of the Republican Party of Texas, said in a statement. “We invite the House Republican Caucus to choose leadership moving forward who will unify a Republican coalition behind our common goals, instead of sharing power with Democrats.”
House Republicans responded in kind, framing Paxton as corrupt and blaming his acquittal on partisan politics in the other chamber.
At a press conference following the vote, Rep. Andrew Murr, a Junction Republican and chair of the House impeachment team, excoriated Republican senators and the “millions of dollars that Mr. Paxton’s apologists have spent to influence and intimidate Texas senators and Texas constituents.”
In a statement that echoed some of Murr’s disappointment and concerns, Phelan also blasted Patrick for his post-vote “tirade.”
“I find it deeply concerning that after weeks of claiming he would preside over this trial in an impartial and honest manner, Lt. Governor Patrick would conclude by confessing his bias and placing his contempt for the people’s house on full display,” Phelan said. “The inescapable conclusion is that today’s outcome appears to have been orchestrated from the start, cheating the people of Texas of justice.”
The animosity comes ahead of a special session — likely in October — over school choice legislation that has already turned into a lightning rod for conflict between Senate and House Republicans. For the past several legislative sessions, rural House Republicans have blocked voucher legislation favored by the Senate, and Phelan and Patrick also spent much of the summer warring over the details of their chambers’ respective property tax bills.
The possibility of an even deeper rift has already prompted some in the party to call for reconciliation, fearing a Pyrrhic victory for the winner of the escalating civil war.
“The radical and divisive nature of the situation in Texas now is going to cost us terribly,” former Amarillo Sen. Kel Seliger said in an interview. “And who is going to bring the party back together once we have really torn ourselves apart, once we’re done?”
Standing outside the Senate chamber on Saturday, Toth said he expects there to be “retribution” by voters for his fellow Republicans who supported Paxton’s impeachment. And he agreed that the party’s internecine conflict has no end in sight.
“It’s a mess,” he said.
Kate McGee contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
House GOP in ‘civil war’ over Biden impeachment, looming shutdown: Jeffries
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries argued Sunday that House Republicans are in "civil war" amid the Biden impeachment probe and a looming government shutdown