Romney reveals what he really thinks about Trump, GOP senators, but it’s too little, too late

McKay Coppins, a journalist and staff writer at The Atlantic, is the author of a forthcoming biography about Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney. That book, “Romney: A Reckoning,” appears to dovetail quite well with the senator’s plans to retire, announced Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, Coppins published a piece in The Atlantic featuring some excerpts from his book. They are eye-opening, to say the least, not so much for what they reveal about Romney himself, but for their frank and brutal assessment of Romney’s Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate, particularly their slavish fealty to Donald Trump.

According to Coppins, when he and Romney began to meet privately for the book in 2021, the senator had not advised any other senators that he’d begun working with a biographer, meeting most often at Romney’s Washington, D.C., residence. Coppins acknowledges that he didn’t expect the level of candor Romney exhibited towards him.

From acknowledging that a “very large” segment of the Republican party “really doesn’t believe in the Constitution,” to his frank accounts of other Republican senators’ true feelings about Donald Trump, Romney doesn’t appear to have held anything back from his biographer, often providing unedited texts, emails and documents for Coppins’ thorough perusal. Even though Romney had privately advised Coppins early on that he wasn’t going to seek reelection, Coppins came away with the impression that there was something “beyond his own political future” that accounted for his startling honesty.

That “something,” Coppins believes, was “not just about the decomposition of his own political party, but about the fate of the American project itself.”

RELATED STORY: Romney is rare Republican who bucks Trump, but he's no hero

It appears that the greatest catalyst for Romney’s pessimism was the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

Coppins notes that Romney became noticeably preoccupied with world history and the fall of global empires after he witnessed the insurrection of Jan. 6. Romney concluded, in large part, that it was history repeating itself, noting that the rise of particularly oppressive tyrants inevitably preceded the dissolution of empires. According to Coppins, Romney said, “Authoritarianism is like a gargoyle lurking over the cathedral, ready to pounce.”

It’s clear that Romney sees Trump as that gargoyle. In one incident Romney shared, he reached out via text message to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after a concerning phone call.

“In case you have not heard this, I just got a call from Angus King, who said that he had spoken with a senior official at the Pentagon who reports that they are seeing very disturbing social media traffic regarding the protests planned on the 6th. There are calls to burn down your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol. I hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned that the instigator—the President—is the one who commands the reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require.”

According to Romney, McConnell never responded.

A significant section of the book addresses the evolution of Romney’s own feelings toward Trump, which apparently rapidly descended into complete disgust, culminating in Romney writing a 2019 opinion piece in for The Washington Post excoriating Trump as unfit to lead the nation. He emphasizes to Coppins that this sentiment was and is shared by almost all of his Republican Senate colleagues.

Romney and Trump’s famous dinner after the 2016 election

From Coppins’ book:

“Almost without exception,” he told me, “they shared my view of the president.” In public, of course, they played their parts as Trump loyalists, often contorting themselves rhetorically to defend the president’s most indefensible behavior. But in private, they ridiculed his ignorance, rolled their eyes at his antics, and made incisive observations about his warped, toddler­ like psyche. Romney recalled one senior Republican senator frankly admitting, “He has none of the qualities you would want in a president, and all of the qualities you wouldn’t.”

According to Coppins’ account, when Romney would criticize Trump, his fellow GOP senators would “express solidarity” with him, sometimes saying they wish they had a constituency that would allow them to express their true feelings. As Coppins reports, Romney also described an incident where Trump attended a private meeting with Republican senators, who remained “respectful and attentive,” only to burst out laughing when Trump exited the room.

Campaign Action

Romney also quoted McConnell as calling Trump an “idiot,” and saying Romney was “lucky” he could say what he actually thought of Trump. According to Coppins, McConnell denied this conversation. Romney also confirmed what many of us have already assumed: His Republican colleagues were cynically dismissive of the (first) impeachment proceedings against Trump. 

“They didn’t want to hear from witnesses; they didn’t want to learn new facts; they didn’t want to hold a trial at all,” Romney told Coppins. Romney also claimed that McConnell warned that a “prolonged, polarizing Senate trial would force them to take tough votes that risked alienating their constituents,” something that McConnell felt would lead to a Democratic Senate majority. As Romney told it to Coppins, he was appalled that there was not even the slightest pretense of impartiality in Republicans’ strategy to handle Trump’s impeachment.

RELATED STORY: McCarthy is sealing the fate of both House and Senate Republicans

Coppins report, quite honestly, paints a picture of a Romney desperate to actually do the right thing and approach the Trump impeachment as an impartial juror would, and as he felt his constitutional duty demanded—an approach which led Romney to conclude that Trump was guilty. Even so, he spoke to his 2012 running mate and former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan on the phone, and Ryan apparently did his level best to convince Romney that he’d be killing his future political prospects by voting to convict Trump. According to Coppins, after Romney cast that vote—the lone “guilty” vote cast by a Republican senator in Trump’s first impeachment—he “would never feel comfortable at a Republican caucus lunch again.”

Coppins’ biography also examines Romney’s reaction to the Jan. 6 insurrection, describing in detail Romney’s reactions to the Capitol being attacked, even as he and his fellow senators were being evacuated.

At some point, Romney’s frustration and anger appears to boil over. As Coppins writes:

He turned to Josh Hawley, who was huddled with some of his right-wing colleagues, and started to yell. Later, Romney would struggle to recall the exact wording of his rebuke. Sometimes he’d remember shouting “You’re the reason this is happening!” Other times, it would be something more terse: “You did this.” At least one reporter in the chamber would recount seeing the senator throw up his hands in a fit of fury as he roared, “This is what you’ve gotten, guys!” Whatever the words, the sentiment was clear: This violence, this crisis, this assault on democracy—this is your fault.

Coppins confirms that Romney was aware of and disapproved of his GOP colleagues’ plan to reject electoral slates and thus perpetuate Trump’s hold on power. Late into the evening on Jan. 6, he had believed that the harrowing Trump-incited assault on his own colleagues’ safety would prompt them to abandon their plans. He was surprised when the unctuous Josh Hawley nevertheless stood up and delivered his speech supporting Trump’s position, a decision that Romney attributes to pure “political calculation.”

But one of the most telling passages excerpted by Coppins addresses not Trump’s first, but his second impeachment, and the refusal of Romney’s fellow Republicans to convict Trump for instigating the insurrection of Jan. 6.

According to Coppins’ account, Romney attributes this to his colleagues’ fear for their personal safety.

But after January 6, a new, more existential brand of cowardice had emerged. One Republican congressman confided to Romney that he wanted to vote for Trump’s second impeachment, but chose not to out of fear for his family’s safety. The congressman reasoned that Trump would be impeached by House Democrats with or without him—why put his wife and children at risk if it wouldn’t change the outcome? Later, during the Senate trial, Romney heard the same calculation while talking with a small group of Republican colleagues. When one senator, a member of leadership, said he was leaning toward voting to convict, the others urged him to reconsider. You can’t do that, Romney recalled someone saying. Think of your personal safety, said another. Think of your children. The senator eventually decided they were right.

Coppins emphasizes that Romney believes his colleagues’ fear was—and is—well-founded. Romney says he began to observe an increasingly “deranged” quality in Republican voters, even among his most loyal constituents back in Utah. As the 2022 election approached, Romney grew increasingly appalled by the MAGA fanaticism exhibited by his party’s senatorial candidates. He regarded J.D Vance of Ohio, whom, as Coppins writes, Romney felt “reinvented his whole persona overnight,” as particularly loathsome.

According to Coppins, “[w]hat Romney couldn’t stomach any longer was associating himself with people who cynically stoked distrust in democracy for selfish political reasons.”

By that point, according to Coppins, Romney had begun to gradually let his colleagues know that he wouldn’t be running again. He briefly toyed with the idea of making a third-party run for president in 2024, but abandoned it after concluding it would more than likely siphon votes from President Joe Biden and possibly lead to a Trump victory. Since then, he has had some discussions about forming a quasi-political party with like-minded “centrists” such as West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, with a view toward ultimately endorsing whichever party’s nominee—Democrat or Republican—aligns most closely with their own views.

Coppins suggests this idea is still in the “brainstorming” stage.

By taking himself out of the running, it appears Romney’s quest for political relevance may be quixotic. But Coppins’ piece in The Atlantic may be the closest thing to a fair assessment of what the modern Republican party actually thinks about Trump, and why it behaves in the sycophantic manner it does.

RELATED STORY: Cheney's jab at 'Putin wing' of the Republican Party is an electoral masterstroke … for Democrats

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Of strikes and impeachments

We begin today with the Texas Observer’s Justin Miller observations of the immediate aftermath of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s acquittal in the Texas state Senate impeachment trial yesterday.

After the final votes were taken, Dan Patrick–who presided over the trial as judge—didn’t waste a second letting his true feelings be known after being largely silent over the preceding three months.

He unleashed a tirade against the House and its Speaker Dade Phelan for the rushed and half-cocked process for impeaching Paxton in the first place. Patrick promised that he would push to pass constitutional amendments in the next session that would reform the state’s impeachment laws. Prior to the trial, Patrick’s campaign received $3 million from the pro-Paxton PAC Defend Texas Liberty.
“The speaker and his team rammed through the first impeachment of a statewide official in Texas in over 100 years while paying no attention to the precedent that the House set in every other impeachment before,” Patrick said. [...]
While Paxton is back in power, his troubles aren’t over. Next month, he’ll finally go to trial on the state securities fraud charges for which he was indicted nearly a decade ago. Then, there’s the federal investigation into him for the very same allegations that brought his impeachment.

Mark Jones writes for the Houston Chronicle that Paxton’s acquittal was all about political calculation.

Paxton’s acquittal underscores a truism in Texas politics today: political power flows through the Republican Party primary in March and May rather than through the November general election. As a result, Republican elected officials, such as these 18 Republican state senators, the governor and the lieutenant governor, are far more attuned to the preferences and priorities of the 1 to 3 million Texans who vote in Republican primary elections than to the preferences and priorities of the state’s 18 million registered voters, or to the evidence that was presented during the impeachment trial.

A Texas Politics Project poll in August showed that, even before the trial began, 47 percent of Texas registered voters believed Ken Paxton took actions that justified removing him from office, compared to 18 percent who believed they did not justify removal and 35 percent who were unsure.

However, Texans who identify as Republican were more mixed in regard to Paxton’s fate in the survey, with 24 percent in favor of removal, 32 percent against and 43 percent unsure. Furthermore, many of the most visible and dynamic activist groups and individuals within the Republican Party mounted a robust and effective campaign, with an assist from Donald Trump, to mobilize the GOP’s activist base to pressure the 18 senators and other Republican elected officials to support acquittal. And, while there was some modest counter-pressure from other Republican groups and elites to convict, or to at least not discard conviction out of hand, it was much more subdued and not nearly as passionate.

Molly Jong-Fast of Vanity Fair writes about the U.S. House caucus of the bullied.

Now, let’s pause and take a moment to remember the last time Republicans impeached a Democratic president. The year was 1998, and a certain House Speaker named Newt Gingrich had decided to impeach a certain president named Bill Clinton over a blow job. (Sure, officially, the charges were perjury and obstruction.) But later that year, during the midterm elections, the GOP’s “out-of-power momentum” was nowhere to be found, having lost the House five seats and gaining zero in the Senate. The impeachment blowback was swift; it was the first midterm since 1934 in which the president’s party actually gained seats in the lower chamber.

Fast-forward to today, and obviously, McCarthy doesn’t seem to have learned anything from that. Why, might you ask? Probably because his lord and savior, Donald J. Trump, wants Biden out of office. And if there’s anything we’ve learned about this cowardly Republican Party, it’s that Donald J. Trump always gets what he wants. “Why aren’t they impeaching Biden?” Trump asked during an Iowa town hall in July. “They impeach me, they indict me, and the Republicans just don’t fight the way,” he echoed during a late-July rally in Erie. “They’re supposed to fight.” In other words, it’s pretty clear that Trump wants his pound of flesh, and if some vulnerable Republicans have to lose their seats, well…sorry, not sorry. [...]

Even Republicans who used to have a modicum of common sense seem sick with the impeachment bug. Take Colorado’s Ken Buck, who was previously anti-impeachment, who told NBC’s Sahil Kapur that an impeachment inquiry was “a good idea.” Buck has recently been threatened by the possibility of a primary challenge—and has also been a frequent target of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s. “I really don’t see how we can have a member of the Judiciary that is flat out refusing to impeach,” she recently said of Buck. “It seems like, can he even be trusted to do his job at this point?” If Buck and McCarthy can be bullied into being pro impeachment by Republicans like Gaetz and Greene, could they also be bullied into allowing a government shutdown?

British political commentator Eliot Wilson writes for The Hill that the sheer pace of impeachments, threats of impeachments, and filing for impeachments indicates that impeachment, itself, has become a partisan weapon indicating instability in government.

Next month marks 25 years since the House of Representatives approved a resolution authorizing the Judiciary Committee to examine potential grounds for Clinton’s impeachment. Since then, however, impeachment has started to become a quotidian and partisan weapon. President Trump made history by being impeached twice, in 2019 and 2021, while the loose cannon that is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed articles of impeachment against President Biden the day after his inauguration. The notion was aired again after the fall of Kabul in August 2021, and Speaker Kevin McCarthy just launched an impeachment inquiry related to Biden’s relationship with his wayward son, Hunter.

This is symptomatic of a breakdown of faith in the political system. This breakdown has happened gradually, and some will point to Watergate and Nixon as the origin point, but the arrival of Donald Trump catalyzed the process. His banishment of truth and facts from any political importance was a transformation: it reduced the venerable institutions of the United States to mere context, the backdrop to an utterly transactional style of politics.

Under those circumstances — the declaration that no holds were barred, that winning was the only thing that mattered — impeachment becomes just another weapon. It is foolish, weak and frankly naïve to hold it in any special regard, an instrument for grave emergencies. Everything is an emergency, and yet everything is ephemeral. So if a party thinks it can gain advantage over its enemies by reaching for articles of impeachment, then it will do so, because that is what you do to win.

I agree with Mr. Wilson’s conclusion that impeachments have become simply another tool of political partisanship but I would place blame at the feet of Newt Gingrich or Gerald Ford.

It’s also why I was in favor of Speaker Nancy Pelosi taking “impeachment off the table” during the 110th Congress.

UAW Statement on Reports of Layoffs of Non-Striking Workers UAW President Shawn Fain released the following statement following reports of planned layoffs of non-striking workers at GM and Ford.#StandUpUAW pic.twitter.com/Fi8Np9Yjgx

— UAW (@UAW) September 16, 2023

Jeanne Whalen and Lauren Kaori Gurley of The Washington Post reports that UAW leaders have returned to the bargaining table but remain far apart from an agreement with the Big Three automakers.

The union and companies remain far apart on pay and benefits in their weeks-long contract negotiations, with the union demanding a 36 percent wage increase over four years. On Saturday, Stellantis, the parent company of Jeep and Chrysler, said it is offering a 21 percent cumulative wage increase over the course of a new contract, a proposal it made Thursday, before the strike started. Ford and GM have offered raises of 20 percent.

The UAW continues to keep its strike plans secret. When asked Friday night whether it might strike at more plants, UAW President Shawn Fain said that depended on the outcome of negotiations. [...]

The UAW president has called the companies’ wage offers inadequate after years of sharp inflation and fat corporate profits. He also points to the large pay increases the auto CEOs received during the course of the autoworkers’ just-expired contract, which was signed in 2019.

Sarah Kessler, Ephrat Livni, and Michael J. de la Merced of The New York Times write about the A.I. concerns that underlie many of the unions that have been or are on strike.

Unions aren’t just fighting for an inflation-beating wage boost. They also are campaigning for job security at a time when workers increasingly fear that shifts to new technologies, like electric vehicles and artificial intelligence, threaten their job, and tech bosses themselves say this gloomy outlook is inevitable. [...]

Concern over disruptive technologies are seen on the picket lines.The Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, fear studios are embracing A.I. tools to generate scripts or copy the performances of actors. “If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble,” Fran Drescher, president of SAG-AFTRA, warned in July. “We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines.”

The U.A.W., meanwhile, is concerned that the industry’s shift to electric vehicles will require fewer workers, and that many of the jobs needed will be in battery factories, most of which are not unionized.

Giving workers a voice in the use of technology has taken on new urgency, said Thomas Kochan, an emeritus professor at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, who has been studying the future of work since the 1980s: “Generative A.I. in particular has just exploded on the scene in a way that’s going to make this one of the most controversial and one of the most important workplace issues of our time.”

Finally today, Dominic Rushe of the Guardian thinks that it’s not simply political partisanship causing widespread pessimism about the American economy.

Americans are deeply divided on the economy. The Harris poll shows over half (53%) of Americans believe the economy is getting worse. Some 72% of Republicans share that view compared with 32% of Democrats. But the unhappiness runs deep on both sides. Only a third of Democrats believe that the economy is getting better.

Even when Americans say they are doing OK financially, they believe the economy is in trouble. According to the Federal Reserve’s annual survey of economic wellbeing, 73% of households said that they were “at least doing OK financially” at the end of 2022. In 2019, that figure was 75% of households. But back then, 50% said the national economy was good or excellent. By 2022, that number had fallen to just 18%. [...]

Partisanship explains much of the seeming disconnect between economic data and sentiment. But not all of it. Large forces are reshaping the US economy and may explain the nation’s vertigo.

Many low-wage workers, have been living with that fear of falling for a long time.

Have the best possible day everyone!

Texas AG Ken Paxton warns Biden administration after defeating ‘sham impeachment’: ‘Buckle up’

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a scathing letter directed towards the White House after he was acquitted of state impeachment charges Saturday.

Paxton, a Republican, was accused of corruption, bribery and unfitness for office by a bipartisan group of Texas state senators. All 12 Democrats in the jury voted for his impeachment, along with two Republicans: Sens. Robert Nichols and Kelly Hancock.

The attorney general was accused of misusing his political power to hire Nate Paul, a real state developer who employed Paxton's alleged mistress Laura Olson. Paul was indicted in June for allegedly making false statements to banks.

The jury needed 21 votes to confirm the impeachment, but a two-thirds majority was not reached. The vote finished just before 1 p.m. Saturday.

TEXAS AG KEN PAXTON PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO IMPEACHMENT CHARGES AFTER SENATE ADVANCES CASE TO TRIAL

"The sham impeachment coordinated by the Biden Administration with liberal House Speaker Dade Phelan and his kangaroo court has cost taxpayers millions of dollars, disrupted the work of the Office of Attorney General and left a dark and permanent stain on the Texas House," Paxton's letter read.

"The weaponization of the impeachment process to settle political differences is not only wrong, it is immoral and corrupt," the embattled attorney general added.

IMPEACHMENT TRIAL OF TEXAS REPUBLICAN ATTORNEY GENERAL KEN PAXTON SET TO BEGIN

Paxton then accused the White House of promoting "lawless policies" and promised that President Biden will be "held accountable."

"Finally, I can promise the Biden Administration the following: buckle up because your lawless policies will not go unchallenged," the statement read. "We will not allow you to shred the constitution and infringe on the rights of Texans. You will be held accountable."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for a statement, but has not heard back.

Fox News' Chris Pandolfo and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Speaker McCarthy faces triangle of troubles

"I always have a plan. That doesn't mean it happens," House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said early Thursday afternoon. "I had a plan for this week. It didn't turn out exactly as I had planned."

McCarthy’s "plan" was for the House to approve a defense spending bill stocked with all sorts of conservative priorities. The measure included the elimination of "woke" policies in the military focused on "inclusion" and "diversity." 

The bill also torpedoed a Pentagon decision to permit service members seeking abortions to travel across state lines. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., is holding up the promotions of about 300 senior officers across all branches in protest. 

But that wasn’t enough for House Republicans. McCarthy lacked the votes to even put the defense bill on the floor.

MASK CONFUSION ENTERS CONGRESS AGAIN AS COVID-19 CASES TICK UP

"I don’t have one complaint by any member about what’s wrong with this bill," McCarthy groused.

It’s always about the math on Capitol Hill. McCarthy’s margin is even tighter now thanks to the resignation of former Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah. There are just enough arch-conservatives to vote no who won’t support much of anything. That’s despite McCarthy stripping spending on various appropriations bills well below the level agreed to in the debt ceiling accord forged with President Biden.

McCarthy torched his opponents in a closed-door House Republican Conference meeting Thursday. The speaker is exasperated by right-wing intransigence to passing even GOP bills that articulate core conservative priorities. That’s to say nothing of intimations from right-wing members who are threatening to oust McCarthy from the speaker’s position, disappointed in his stewardship.

McCarthy brought the heat in the private meeting, dropping F-bombs on fellow Republicans he believes were obstinate.

"I showed frustration in here because I am frustrated with the committee or frustrated with some people in the conference," McCarthy said afterward. "I don’t walk away from a battle."

McCarthy promised that if it will take "a fight, I’ll have a fight."

The speaker’s loyalists closed ranks around the California Republican.

"He’s irritated," said Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., when asked about McCarthy’s salty language.

"The speaker said, ‘Look, if you want to make a motion to vacate the chair, bring it on,’" added Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Let’s go back to the math.

MCCARTHY TO GREEN LIGHT BIDEN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY THIS WEEK

It’s doubtful that anyone would have votes to dethrone McCarthy at this stage. And while few say it out loud, many believed McCarthy talking impeachment all summer long would buy him political capital with detractors. 

Even some moderate Republicans representing battleground districts like Bacon and Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, embraced McCarthy’s impeachment gambit of President Biden.

"I think we should have impeached his ass a long time ago," said Gonzales, miffed about how the president handled the border.

But McCarthy faces a triangle of trouble.

The impeachment inquiry begins as McCarthy attempts to avert a government shutdown and could face a no-confidence vote from rank-and-file members.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., characterized it as a "three-ring circus."

"They can’t even bring the defense appropriations bill to the floor because they’ve totally lost control of the floor to the extremists who are running the House," said Jeffries.

The New York Democrat seemingly sympathized with McCarthy about his conundrums.

"He’s not wrong in terms of the schizophrenic nature of some of the demands that have been made by House Republicans," said Jeffries.

McCarthy’s angered right-wingers because the House must likely approve an interim spending bill that simply renews all old funding on a temporary basis to avoid a shutdown. McCarthy said this week the stopgap measure could last for a month or two. 

What McCarthy didn’t say was that he probably needs to lean on Democrats to provide the votes to avoid a shutdown. The combination of failing to trim spending immediately and relying on more Democratic votes — a la what happened in May to approve the debt ceiling accord — is a toxic political cocktail for the speaker. It doesn’t matter what he does on impeachment.

"If it takes too long get a vote for impeachment, I’m forcing a vote on impeachment," vowed Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.

It was Boebert who tried to deposit a snap resolution on the floor in June to impeach President Biden on the spot. This was all without committee hearings or any other vetting. The speaker intervened, euthanizing Boebert’s resolution. It’s unclear if McCarthy wishes he could rapidly say "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice" to make antagonists like Boebert disappear

Some conservatives accused McCarthy of pivoting to impeachment because of struggles to prevent a shutdown and slash spending.

"He likes talking impeachment because it is a way to divert from the very failure to align to the commitment that was made in January," said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

Gaetz nearly blocked McCarthy from becoming speaker in January.

Some conservatives vow they will abandon McCarthy if he attempts to just re-up the old funding without immediate cuts. 

"Speaker McCarthy is not living up to the promises that he made in order to secure that gavel," said Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont.

It’s notable that Gaetz, Boebert and Rosendale — along with representatives Bob Good, R-Va., Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and Eli Crane, R-Ariz., all voted "present" and never supported McCarthy on the 15th and final ballot for speaker in January.

All it takes is one member to demand the House conduct a vote to "vacate the chair" and there’s a potential challenge to McCarthy’s speakership. The House has voted to elect a new speaker before when a speaker died or resigned in the middle of the Congress. 

Such was the case in 2015 when former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced his retirement. Thus, a successful vote to "vacate the chair" would trigger an unprecedented mid-Congress vote for speaker on the floor. 

Ironically, some Democrats could bail out McCarthy if it comes to that. 

"I think the motion to vacate the chair should be opposed," said Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va. "We’d rather have the speaker we know than the speaker we don’t know."

But the top House Democrat said McCarthy could be on his own.

"They’re going to have to work out their own, internal poisonous, partisan, political dynamics," Jeffries said of House Republicans.

Fox is told that House leaders don’t expect any motion to vacate the chair until after the House votes on a still-hypothetical interim spending bill that doesn’t align with conservative demands. So, for now, McCarthy is trying to spray foam on the smoldering spending embers. 

"Nobody wins in a government shutdown," said McCarthy. 

So, McCarthy hopes to forestall a shutdown. He wants to re-up current funding later in the fall. The aim is to sweeten the pot for conservatives by attaching some border security measures to the package.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

That is McCarthy’s plan.

But as the speaker conceded, his plan doesn’t always work out.

Ken Paxton was acquitted at his impeachment trial, but he still faces legal troubles

For years, the powers and protections that come with being Texas’ top lawyer have helped Ken Paxton fend off ethics complains, criminal charges and an FBI investigation.

With the Texas Senate’s Saturday vote to acquit Paxton of corruption charges at his impeachment trial the Republican has once again demonstrated his rare political resilience. And he retains the shield of the attorney general's office in legal battles still to come.

After being cleared, Paxton, 60, thanked his lawyers for “exposing the absurdity” of the “false allegations” against him, and he promised to resume doing legal battle with the administration of President Joe Biden.

"The weaponization of the impeachment process to settle political differences is not only wrong, it is immoral and corrupt," he said in a statement. “Now that this shameful process is over, my work to defend our constitutional rights will resume.”

Back in office, Paxton nonetheless still faces serious risk on three fronts: an ongoing a federal investigation into the same allegations that led to his impeachment; a disciplinary proceeding over his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election; and felony securities fraud charges dating to 2015.

Here's what to know about each.

THE FEDERAL INVESTIGATION

Paxton came under FBI investigation in 2020 when eight of his top deputies reported him for allegedly breaking the law to help a wealthy donor, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

The former deputies' accusation that Paxton abused his power to help Paul were at the core of Paxton's impeachment. Lawmakers in the Texas House of Representatives say it was the still-open question of funding a $3.3 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by four of the deputies that sparked the impeachment investigation.

Several of Paxton's former deputies took the witness stand against him. They recounted going to the FBI and testified that the attorney general tried to help Paul fend of a separate FBI investigation

They also testified that Paul employed a woman with whom Paxton had an extramarital affair. Another former employee, Drew Wicker, said Paxton second-in-command later discouraged him from speaking with the FBI.

Paul was indicted in June on charges of making false statements to banks. He has pleaded not guilty and was not called to testify at the impeachment trial.

The federal investigation of Paxton has dragged on for years and was shifted in February from a prosecutors in Texas to ones in Washington, D.C. In August, federal prosecutors began using a grand jury in San Antonio to examine Paxton and Paul's dealings, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because of secrecy rules around grand jury proceedings.

One said the grand jury heard from Wicker, Paxton’s former personal aide. At the impeachment trial, Wicker testified that he once heard a contractor tell Paxton he would need to check with “Nate” about the cost of renovations to the attorney general’s Austin home.

Paxton has consistently denied wrongdoing. One of his defense attorneys, Dan Cogdell, acknowledged in August that authorities were still interviewing witnesses but said the “case will go nowhere at the end of the day.”

THE SECURITIES FRAUD CASE

In 2015, Paxton was indicted on charges of defrauding investors in a Dallas-area tech startup by not disclosing he was being paid by the company, called Servergy, to recruit them. He faces five to 99 years in prison if convicted and has pleaded not guilty.

The indictments were handed up just months after Paxton was sworn in as attorney general. He won second and third terms despite them.

Paxton's trial has been delayed by legal debate over whether it should be heard in the Dallas area or Houston, changes in which judge would handle it and a protracted battle over how much the special prosecutors should get paid.

Weeks after the Republican-led Texas House voted to impeach Paxton, the state's high criminal court ruled his trial would proceed in Houston. The judge overseeing it said in August that she would set a trial date after the impeachment trial.

Cogdell said that month that if Paxton were removed from office it would open the possibility of him making a plea agreement in the case.

THE DISCIPLINARY HEARING

Also on hold during Paxton's impeachment trial was an ethics case brought by the state bar.

In 2020, Paxton asked the U.S. Supreme Court to, effectively, overturn then-President Donald Trump's electoral defeat by Joe Biden based on bogus claims of fraud. The high court threw out the request.

Afterward, the State Bar of Texas received a series of complaints alleging that Paxton and a deputy had committed processional misconduct with the suit. The bar didn't initially take up the complaints but later launched an investigation.

Last year, the bar sued seeking unspecified discipline for Paxton and his second-in-command, alleging they were “dishonest" with the Supreme Court.

Paxton dismissed the bar's suits as “meritless” political attacks. The attorney general's office has argued that because it is an executive branch agency and the bar is part of the judicial branch, the cases run afoul of separation of powers under the state constitution.

A judge overseeing the bar's case against the deputy, Brent Webster, accepted this argument. But he was reversed on appeal in July. That month, another court scheduled arguments in the disciplinary case against Paxton only to delay them when it became clear they would fall in the middle of his impeachment trial.

The attorney general's office continued to defend Paxton in the case even after he was suspended from office. If he's found to have violated ethics rules, Paxton faces the prospect of disbarment, suspension, or a lesser punishments.