Category: MitchMcConnell

Senate Republicans second only to Putin in their reckless disregard for U.S. democracy

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, who's up for reelection this fall, took a bold stand for the republic Thursday after Donald Trump had brazenly refused the day before to commit to a peaceful transition of power. “He says crazy stuff," said Sasse, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "We’ve always had a peaceful transition of power. It’s not going to change.”

Wow, strong stuff. Sasse really drew a line in the sand. But despite his hardball tactics, Trump shockingly went straight back at it Thursday. Asked again if he would accept defeat if he lost the election, Trump responded, “We want to make sure the election is honest, and I’m not sure that it can be.” Because there's nothing Trump values more than honesty. 

Sasse, his pathetic response, and those of all his Senate GOP counterparts—with the possible exception of Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah—are exactly why Trump is destroying this nation without a single care in the world. Every time Trump has done something totally unconstitutional or illegal— like deliberately corrupting our once-sacred elections—GOP senators have waved it off with a wink and a smile. Or worse yet, they've actively worked to band together and save Trump’s presidency, even in the face of a mountain of evidence. Voting to acquit Trump of impeachment charges without hearing from a single witness was both a masterpiece of cowardice and the height of complicity. 

Once Senate Republicans proved to Trump that no matter what he did, they could always be counted on to either look the other way or even exonerate him, Trump was free to do absolutely anything. And so he does. 

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who did her part to give Trump his get-out-of-jail-free card during the impeachment trial, had the gall to later suggest that Trump had learned "a pretty big lesson.” Now, there's some serious duplicity. Hope Collins is resting easy at night—maybe just skip that last look in the mirror before bed.

On Thursday, I made an honest mistake while writing up a story for the Daily Kos website. I published a piece that included an outdated poll of the presidential election. I should have caught it, but I didn't. When I realized my mistake, I started shaking as my blood pressure spiked and I sought to get it off the site immediately, which honestly took longer than I had hoped. It's certainly not the first mistake I've made as a reporter/blogger and, frankly, I've done worse.

But in this moment when the world feels upside down and we are all collectively pushing as hard as possible to save our democracy, it just felt horrible to think I may have misled people, however unintentionally, especially given all the misinformation out there. 

I went for a walk to shake it off. Later in the day, I started revisiting the damage done with a touch more perspective. No one had lost their job. No one had died. I hadn't irreparably harmed our democracy or willed future generations to suffer decades of fascist rule. I hadn't personally let children go hungry during a pandemic (though children are going hungry) out of sheer malice. I hadn't left struggling families without food, shelter, health care, and a basic sense of safety and dignity. And on top of the 200,000 already dead, I hadn't consigned tens of thousands more Americans to death in the coming months through the indifference and incompetence of my leadership.

Nope. That's what Senate Republicans like Ben Sasse, Susan Collins, and their entire band of miscreants have done. Through their conniving, they have lent a helping hand to Donald Trump as he's worked to flush every last vestige of this centuries-long experiment down the toilet and hang the American people out to dry.

Pondering all that really put my own misstep on the day in a new light. How do these people sleep at night? Do any of them have a conscience? Do they have kids or grandkids or nieces and nephews they care or worry about? And it may sound silly to even ask, but do they give a damn about anybody else at all but themselves? 

Following Trump’s failure to commit to leaving office peacefully, just one lone Republican senator dared to stand up for our democracy, however small a gesture it was. "Fundamental to democracy is the peaceful transition of power; without that, there is Belarus. Any suggestion that a president might not respect this Constitutional guarantee is both unthinkable and unacceptable," Romney tweeted Wednesday evening.

GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, who trampled the Constitution to steal a Supreme Court seat, promised an "orderly transition" in a tweet without ever mentioning Trump. That's worthless as ever. Mitch McConnell doesn't believe in democracy, he believes in raw power. And if Trump has an opening to contest the election and hold on to power, McConnell will back him 100%. Just like with impeachment.

All that is to say, these people are simply horrific. Perhaps only Russian President Vladimir Putin himself has shown more disdain for U.S. democracy. Frankly, no one summed it up better than the satirical website The Onion. 

GOP Lawmakers Watch Silently As Trump Strangles Each Of Their Loved Ones In Turn https://t.co/rcGwLVYjHW pic.twitter.com/xZeQNpEzK8

— The Onion (@TheOnion) September 24, 2020

Democrats, don’t let RBG’s seat—or the Supreme Court—be further soiled by Trump

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Honestly, there isn't much that Senate Democrats can do to fully prevent a Republican majority, slim though it may be, from seating another Supreme Court nominee from Donald Trump, illegitimate as that nomination might be. What they can do, however, is delay it until after the election. And after the election, the chances of blocking it are probably better. There could very well be some defeated Republicans who won't have anything to lose anymore and might just decide not to seal their legacies with something so ignoble as this. Additionally, if they can delay throughout November, Democrats will likely have a new member—Arizona's Mark Kelly, who could be seated as early as Nov. 30 by Arizona law.

To that end, congressional procedural experts have drawn up a memo that's reportedly circulating on Capitol Hill that details the myriad options available to Democrats—both in the House and Senate—to eat up Senate time and prevent Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham from rushing the nomination through before Nov. 3. There's no silver bullet here for Democrats to stop the confirmation, but there are tons of BBs.

We talked about a lot of what the Senate can do in this post, but didn't explore the House's options. Like sending over articles of impeachment. (I nominate Attorney General Barr for that one, personally.) The House could act on Senate bills pending in the House, amend them, and send them back as privileged—the Senate could be forced to act on them.

In a perfect world, Sen. Chuck Schumer and team would deploy all of them. As of now, they are not. As of now, with no official appointment, they don't have to. McConnell is going to have to deal with the continuing resolution the House just passed to fund government through Dec. 11 early next week, because the deadline is midnight Wednesday.

Republicans are not devoid of ways of trying to keep Democrats from doing this—they can keep putting up things for unanimous consent, like this resolution expressing support for the Pledge of Allegiance. Now, what Democrats could do is use every tactic from Republicans to engage the Republicans in hours of debate on them. That's something they need to be doing anyway: standing on the floor punching holes in Republican arguments and making them answer for their blind loyalty to Trump.

Democrats can start doing these things now to show McConnell their resolve to stand together in making his life hell, dissuading him from trying to push through the nomination before the election. They can use a wide variety of procedural tactics to force Republicans who need to be spending all their time on their reelection at home to stay in Washington, D.C., having to be subject to a call to come to the chamber at any given time. Sowing as much unrest as possible among those Republicans is always helpful.

It's about meeting McConnell's fire with fire; it's about not being steamrolled, and not letting him and Trump further foul the Supreme Court of the United States.

Romney makes up new ‘precedent’ to say he’ll vote on a Trump Supreme Court nominee

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Sen. Willard Mitt Romney, the Republican from Utah who broke ranks with Republicans to vote to convict Donald Trump on one of the articles of impeachment, abuse of power, has snapped back into line when it matters most: a Trump Supreme Court nominee. He says his decision isn’t based on “a subjective test of ‘fairness’ which, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder,” but on “the Constitution and precedent.” And then makes up some real bullshit on precedent: "The historical precedent of election year nominations is that the Senate generally does not confirm an opposing party’s nominee but does confirm a nominee of its own." Except for when a Democratic Senate confirmed Ronald Reagan’s nominee, Anthony Kennedy, in 1988. 

“The historical precedent of election year nominations is that the Senate generally does not confirm an opposing party’s nominee but does confirm a nominee of its own,” he says. Historical precedent set by Mitch McConnell in 2016 in order to steal a Supreme Court seat from President Barack Obama. Maybe in the future we’ll have to call it the Romney Doctrine, just to cement for history how pathetic he is. 

This means McConnell has the votes. He doesn’t know (supposedly) the nominee yet, but he’s got the votes. It’s worth noting that he’s been sitting on the HEROES Act coronavirus relief bill for four months without acting, but will try to push a Supreme Court nominee in five weeks. It means that Sen. Susan Collins now has permission from McConnell to vote against the nominee, if she thinks that will save her pathetic political skin, because he doesn’t need her vote. It will be too little, too late for Collins, but that’s what will happen. 

It's about saving the country. Simple as that. Donate now to help bring it back to the White House and Senate.

David Frum: Don’t assume McConnell has the votes to confirm

Posted on by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

Last night and this morning, I felt like crawling into a hole for the next 40 days or so. And not a deep hole. I didn’t have the energy or joie de vivre for a deep hole. It would have been a shallow hole. Barely a hole at all. Really, I would have just lay down in the dirt until my DNA fused to the worms’ and slugs’ and grasses’ much more upbeat genetic material.

But I’m a more resilient guy ever since I got into therapy and on antidepressants (I recommend both if you’re struggling). And this morning a friend sent me this Atlantic story from former George W. Bush speechwriter and confirmed NeverTrumper David Frum.

He makes some excellent points (one of them being, don't swallow your tongue in abject, pants-shitting fear just yet):

What McConnell did in 2016 was an assertion of brute power, and what he proposes in 2020 is another assertion of brute power. And so the question arises: Does McConnell in fact have the power he asserts?

The answer may be no, for four reasons.

Do tell, David Frum:

The polls do not favor Susan Collins, Cory Gardner, or Thom Tillis—senators from Maine, Colorado, and North Carolina up for reelection this cycle. Yet these competitors may not be ready to attend their own funerals. They may regard voting against McConnell's Court grab as a heaven-sent chance to prove their independence from an unpopular president—and to thereby save their own seats.

Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has also made skeptical noises, and even Lindsey Graham of South Carolina may flinch. He faces an unexpectedly tough race this year, and he is extra-emphatically on the record vowing not to support a Supreme Court confirmation vote in the later part of a presidential year.

Frum also asks if Trump can find a woman nominee (Trump almost needs to nominate a woman to replace the legendary RBG, lest his female support erode even further) at the 11th hour who will be viewed as moderate enough by the senators who could be thinking of defecting.

Any last-minute Trump nominee will face a gantlet of opposition in the Senate, a firestorm of opposition in the country, and probably a lifetime of suspicion from the majority of the country.

Can McConnell and Trump find an appointee willing to risk all that for the chance—but not the guarantee—of a Supreme Court seat? Specifically, can they find a woman willing to do it? The optics of replacing Ginsburg with a man may be too ugly even for the Trump administration. And if they can find a woman, can they find a woman sufficiently moderate-seeming to provide cover to anxious senators? The task may prove harder than immediately assumed.

In addition, Yertle the Asshole’s hypocrisy on this issue is so egregiously off the charts it might create a mutually assured destruction scenario in which Democrats (assuming Biden wins and Dems retake the Senate) feel justified in packing the court by, say, adding two more justices.

But a last-minute overreach by McConnell could seem so illegitimate to Democrats as to justify radical countermoves should they win in November: increasing the number of appellate judges and Supreme Court justices; conceivably even opening impeachment hearings against Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

McConnell may want the win badly enough to dismiss those risks. But many conservative-leaning lawyers in the country may be more cautious. And their voices will get a hearing in a contentious nomination fight—not only by the national media, but by some of the less Trump-y Republican senators. This could be enough to slow down a process that has no time to spare.

I think Frum makes some great points, and anything that will keep me from reaching for the shovel is welcome news right now.

So let’s breathe, and keep fighting on.

A Democratic Senate has never been more important. Make it so.

“This guy is a natural. Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry." — Bette Midler on Aldous J. Pennyfarthing, via Twitter. Find out what made dear Bette break up. Dear F*cking Lunatic: 101 Obscenely Rude Letters to Donald Trump and its boffo sequels Dear Pr*sident A**clown: 101 More Rude Letters to Donald Trump and Dear F*cking Moron: 101 More Letters to Donald Trump by Aldous J. Pennyfarthing are now available for a song! Click those links, yo!

It’s time to get in Good Trouble to preserve the legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Of course we’re crying. A woman who held us all up for so, so long has finally laid down her burden after the literal fight of a lifetime. We’re hurting. We’re afraid. We miss her already. 

But Republicans are already celebrating the death of pioneering Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as an opportunity. Donald Trump is calling on Republicans to act quickly to confirm whatever nominee he puts forward. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is contemplating whether a no-witnesses impeachment can be topped with a no-hearings confirmation. Ted Cruz is thinking about nothing except what he won’t be wearing under that black robe. Tom Cotton is speeding through his collection of KKK-approved all-white handkerchiefs mopping up all of the drool. And Josh Hawley is … probably shooting something.

There is absolutely no doubt that the GOP will now engage in the Hypocrisy Olympics, working hard to master the art of the 180-degree turn and racing to put Trump’s nominee across the line in record time. But a mere willingness start a hell-in-a-handbasket assembly line may not be enough to put another butt in Ginsburg’s seat on the Court before it even has a chance to cool. Democrats are not about to roll over. This is a fight worth having.

2020 may have robbed us of both Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Rep. John Lewis, but it’s time to get in Good Trouble. And there are multiple ways to fight.

“From where I sit, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dying wish was not that McConnell would do the right thing. She knew he wouldn't. It was that we would FIGHT LIKE HELL to preserve her legacy.” — Elie Mystal, The Nation

Hillary Clinton has offered a three-part plan for fighting against the rapid replacement of Justice Ginsburg: 

1) Win over GOP Senators on principle.

There are dozens of Republicans who barely finished articulating why there could not be a nomination for a Justice during an election year. Not only did many of them voice this in 2016, some of them have continued to do so over the last four years in the most adamant terms; terms that having included things like “even if this was a Republican president.” It’s included telling America to “use my words against me” if they didn’t hold true to this claim. It may seem that there are no Republicans left willing to stand up for any principle, especially one they created out of convenience in the last election cycle, but that feeds right into the next point.

2) Pressure GOP Senators in tight re-election bids.

There are definitely Republicans in red states who will feel like falling in line behind Trump and McConnell is the only option. But there are also those—like Susan Collins—who are already finding that standing too close to Trump is leaving them with radiation burns. Push them. Make this an issue. There’s absolutely no doubt that, no matter who Trump nominates, it will be some Federalist Society-approved ultraconservative, ready to tear down everything Justice Ginsburg accomplished and paint the nation in a shade of industrial repression gray. Make it clear that anyone voting for Trump’s nominee—anyone who even supports a vote on Trump’s nominee—is supporting the reversal of every gain made under Ginsburg. 

3) Use procedural obstacles in the Senate.

There are not nearly as many obstacles here as there used to be, because the idea that the Senate runs on rules has been simply discarded by McConnell—who regularly discards the idea of regular order to simply do as he pleases. Still, there are some shreds remaining. To start with, Democrats must refuse  a continuing resolution so long as there is any threat of McConnell forwarding a nominee. Unless there is a binding agreement—an agreement that goes way beyond McConnell’s word—shut it all the #$%@ down. In addition, Democrats must deny the Senate unanimous consent. Not just unanimous consent on the nomination, but on everything. The Senate has less than two weeks of scheduled sessions in the remainder of the year. Democrats need to deploy every possible roadblock to scheduling hearings, holding hearings, bringing a nominee forward, scheduling a vote … these are delaying tactics, and there’s little doubt that McConnell will run over them all. Only, if the polls start to show that Americans aren’t happy about the nominee or the process, McConnell might start to lose some of these procedural votes.

And Americans are already not happy.

In Times/Siena polls of Maine, North Carolina and Arizona released Friday, voters preferred Mr. Biden to select the next Supreme Court justice by 12 percentage points, 53 percent to 41 percent. In each of the three states, Mr. Biden led by just a slightly wider margin on choosing the next justice than he did over all.

According to that poll, the desire to see Biden pick the nominee is actually higher than the base support for Biden. This could very well mean that the importance of this issue gets driven home to Republicans up for reelection in a very visible way.

But if any of the above is going to happen, it’s also going to have to happen in the streets, on the phones, and in every forum where Democrats—and everyone else—can make it clear that the legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg must be preserved at all cost. She carried us this far. Now we have to carry her dream.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s body isn’t even cold and Mitch McConnell is dancing on her grave. This is war. Dems have powerful weapons. Now is the time to use them.

— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) September 19, 2020

Will Republicans stand by their own statements, or join McConnell in the most profound hypocrisy?

Posted on (Updated by Mark Sumner

Four years ago, Mitch McConnell infamously refused to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Instead, McConnell twisted a never-employed 1992 comment from Joe Biden into a “rule”: Nominees to the Court should not be considered in the year before an election. There was absolutely no justification, in law or in practice, for this rule, and while Republicans trotted out statement after statement claiming that they were following some sort of “tradition,” the truth was that McConnell invented this faux tradition whole cloth. 

Even before Donald Trump, McConnell recognized the fundamental flaw in the American Constitution—at too many points, it counts on the participants in the process of government to act with a sense of honor and commitment to the nation. The authors of that document assumed that commitment to country, and a fair dose of public pressure, made it unnecessary to cross every “T” on the to-do list. They did not contemplate the kind of men who were perfectly willing to ignore a president’s nominee to the Court, or to dismiss an impeachment without hearing a single witness. They didn’t contemplate the depth of partisanship that would make these cowardly actions something Republicans would celebrate and encourage.

Like Donald Trump and William Barr, Mitch McConnell saw that the rules as written gave him the power to grab hold of the process of democracy and strangle it. But McConnell wasn’t alone in the fantasy he spun in 2016; a long line of Republicans joined him in fabricating claims and statements, and went before the nation under the pretense of a rule that never existed. It’s clear—it’s long been clear—that McConnell is unconcerned about being caught in his lies. He’s a happy hypocrite, unconcerned with either public scorn or the verdict of history. After all, he expects the nation he’s creating through corruption of the judiciary to write that history. The questions now are: Who will join him, and can they be stopped?

As McConnell spun his rule straight from his nethers, Republicans in 2016 did the same thing that Republicans have long demonstrated as their primary attribute: They fell in line. And if falling in line required lying about Senate rules, the Constitution, or history, they were willing to go there, even if the lies were obvious. Mother Jones has compiled a list of Republican senators who, four short years ago, engaged in chest pounding over the wrong, wrong, wrongness of voting on a Supreme Court nominee in an election year. FactCheck.org has also compiled a set of statements made by Republicans in 2016—and after—that definitely need to be on the lips of every reporter, and constituent, who speaks to them from now until January. Finally, Cosmopolitan put together such a list back in February of 2017, for the express purpose of holding Republicans true to their own statements.

Of course every list is headed by McConnell.

Morning Joe put together a montage documenting Mitch McConnell's shameless flip-flop about the appropriateness of filling a SCOTUS seat in a presidential election year pic.twitter.com/Czc6dmPGbS

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 29, 2019

John Cornyn (from his own website): “I believe the American people deserve to have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court Justice, and the best way to ensure that happens is to have the Senate consider a nomination made by the next President.”

Ted Cruz:  “It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don’t do this in an election year.”

Marco Rubio: “The Senate is not moving forward on it until after the election. Senator McConnell, the majority leader, has already made that clear. And I agree with that. There’s been precedent established over 80 years that, in the last year, especially in the last 11 months, you do not have a lame-duck president make a lifetime appointment to the highest court on the land.”

Also Marco Rubio: “Number one, I don’t think we should be moving on a nominee in the last year of this president’s term—I would say that if it was a Republican president."

Lindsey Graham: “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait to the next election.”

“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination." pic.twitter.com/quD1K5j9pz

— Vanita Gupta (@vanitaguptaCR) September 19, 2020

Cory Gardner: "I think we’re too close to the election. The president who is elected in November should be the one who makes this decision." (This statement was made in February 2016, 10 months before the upcoming election. Gardner at first said he would consider a nominee for Obama, before McConnell forced Gardner to recant.)

Jim Inhofe: “It makes the current presidential election all that more important as not only are the next four years in play, but an entire generation of Americans will be impacted by the balance of the court and its rulings. I will oppose this nomination as I firmly believe we must let the people decide the Supreme Court's future.”

Chuck Grassley: “Following the death of Justice Scalia, as Americans were beginning to cast their votes for the next President, I said that we’d move forward with the next President’s nomination to the Supreme Court, regardless of who won. The President has made his selection and that’s what we’ll do."

Also Chuck Grassley: “A lifetime appointment that could dramatically impact individual freedoms and change the direction of the court for at least a generation is too important to get bogged down in politics. The American people shouldn’t be denied a voice.”

Still more Grassley: Grassley invited Merrick Garland to a breakfast meeting, not to consider him as a candidate, but to ”explain why he will not hold hearings.”

Joni Ernst: “We will see what the people say this fall and our next president, regardless of party, will be making that nomination.” 

Thom Tillis (from his own web site): “The campaign is already under way. It is essential to the institution of the Senate and to the very health of our republic to not launch our nation into a partisan, divisive confirmation battle during the very same time the American people are casting their ballots to elect our next president.” 

Ron Johnson: “I strongly agree that the American people should decide the future direction of the Supreme Court, by their votes for president and the majority party in the U.S. Senate.”

In 2016, Susan Collins called for public hearings on Merrick Garland and praised the nominee. This was, of course, pre-falling in line.

Ditto for Lisa Murkowski, who at first supported holding hearings, only to come back and “revoke” her support after a conversation with Grassley. “Senator Murkowski respects the decision of the chair and members of the Judiciary Committee not to hold hearings on the nominee.” 

As a special bonus, here’s Ted Cruz—not just proclaiming that there should be no vote before the election, but warning about how Merrick Garland is exactly the kind of nominee you could expect … from Donald Trump: "Merrick Garland is exactly the type of Supreme Court nominee you get when you make deals in Washington D.C. A so-called ‘moderate’ Democrat nominee is precisely the kind of deal that Donald Trump has told us he would make—someone who would rule along with other liberals on the bench like Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor. We cannot afford to lose the Supreme Court for generations to come by nominating or confirming someone that a dealmaker like Donald Trump would support ... I proudly stand with my Republican colleagues in our shared belief—our advice and consent—that we should not vote on any nominee until the next president is sworn into office. The people will decide. I commend Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley for holding the line and ensuring that we the people get to exercise our authority to decide the direction of the Supreme Court and the Bill of Rights.”

Senate Republicans privately more worried that Trump talked to Woodward than about his deadly lies

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Three days into the revelation that Donald Trump willfully lied to the American people about the deadly coronavirus from the absolute beginning of the crisis, and Senate Republicans are still hiding out, avoiding the press, pretending like they missed the biggest news of the week entirely.

"Haven't seen it." "Didn't read it." Or, in the case of Sen. Susan Collins, pretending like she's invisible. Collins "walked quickly into Thursday's morning series of votes, flanked by an aide who shielded her from a reporter who yelled a question in her direction about Trump downplaying the threat of coronavirus," The Hill reported. CNN adds she refused to take any questions on Wednesday or Thursday. At least her fellow vulnerable colleague, Iowa's Joni Ernst, took the question. She waffled it—"I haven't read it, I haven't seen it, so give me a chance to take a look"—but she answered the damn question.

We'll never get out of this crisis without taking back the Senate. Donate now to help make that happen.

Same with Arizona's Martha McSally and Colorado's Cory Gardner. Not reading or paying any attention to any news at all has become quite fashionable among Republicans. If you haven't read it or listened to the tapes with your very own ears, it didn't happen. At least that's Texan John Cornyn's take. He said he didn't have "personal knowledge" and didn't "have any confidence in the reporting," so he couldn't weigh in on it.

Others decided their best bet was going all in with the Trump excuse that he was trying to avert a national panic. Because if there's anything the guy who screams about antifa and Mexicans and Black Lives Matter protesters coming to rape and pillage and loot in the suburbs wants, it's not to cause a panic. North Carolina's Thom Tillis endorsed Trump's excuse. "When you're in a crisis situation, you have to inform people for their public health but you also don't want to create hysteria." When Tillis was pushed and asked if Trump should have been comparing the virus to the flu when he knew that it was far deadlier, Tillis wouldn't answer.

Trump's little golfing buddy, Lindsey Graham, piped up: "I don't think he needs to go on TV and screaming we're all going to die." Georgia's David Perdue agreed. "I understand trying to manage the psyche of the country and also look at the actions that he took. […] I look at what he did—and it was certainly a strong response." In no universe whatsoever was it a strong response, but that's a popular lie among Republicans. "Actions speak louder than words," said Louisiana's Bill Cassidy, another Republican up for reelection. "The President tends to speak loosely. We know that. That's just his pattern." And of course there’s Sen. Mitch McConnell, who combined the professed ignorance and defense of Trump into one: "Well, I haven’t read the Woodward book, but we all knew it was dangerous. The president knew it was dangerous and I think took positive steps very early on, for which he should be applauded, not criticized," he said.

Anonymously, Republican senators were less bothered by Trump's lies to the American public about a pandemic that has gone on to kill 200,000 Americans than about the fact that he would talk to Bob Woodward. "Most of us say, 'What the hell is he doing talking to Bob Woodward at 11 at night?'" one of them told The Hill.

Remember back in March, when McConnell talked about how Trump's flat-footed response to the pandemic was the fault of House Democrats and impeachment? How he said that it "diverted the attention of the government?” Yeah, that. The refusal of McConnell and fellow Republicans to actually look at the evidence, to put country over party in the impeachment, has led directly to this: 200,000 people dead. McConnell's continued insistence on putting party over country means that six months into the pandemic, he's abandoned it.

Senate Republicans don’t want to talk about what Trump knew about COVID-19 and when he knew it

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter

Donald Trump knew. He knew in February how dangerous, how deadly coronavirus was going to be and he deliberately played the severity of it down. Some of the revelations from the Bob Woodward interviews now surfacing are old news. Everyone watching knew he's been lying through his teeth from January onward about the disease and the crisis surrounding it.

No one knew better than the people closest to Trump, including Republican senators. When they voted to acquit Trump on February 5, they knew. They knew that he had obstructed justice, they knew that he was a liar and a cheat and they knew this epidemic had reached our shores and that Trump was likely the least capable person imaginable to deal with what was coming. They let this happen. And now that it's all out in public, not a one of them wants to talk about it. Especially Mitch McConnell. "I didn't look at the Woodward book," he told MSNBC's Kasie Hunt. "I will later. But I haven't even seen what you're referring to yet."

It's about basic decency. It’s about the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Donate now to help save the nation.  

That must have been the talking point sent out to the conference. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Kennedy and Shelley Capito and Rob Portman—not a one of them would comment. They "haven't seen" it, "haven't read it," practically stopped up their ears when it was read to them. Florida man Sen. Rick Scott is the only one ready to make himself complicit by willfully burying his own head in the sand: "I have not read it. I don't want to read it. I think the president did the right thing by stopping flights from China."

You won't be shocked to find out that the Republicans up for reelection in a matter of weeks haven't been rushing out with statements. Remember what Sen. Susan Collins said in April? She said "the president did a lot that was right in the beginning." That's what she said. In the beginning, when he was telling Bob Woodward that he understood the disease was transmitted through the air, that he knew how deadly it would be, that he was deliberately downplaying its dangers. That he was setting up the deaths of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Americans. He "did a lot that was right," she said.

Here's what she said last week. Last. Week. "[H]e has also done some things right. […] On January 31st, he ended travel to and from China, where the virus and the pandemic originated. He was roundly criticized for that, but it saved lives." She said that. Just like Rick Scott. We haven't heard from her today, though. We haven't heard from most of them.

All these deaths, they're on Trump's head. But not on Trump's head alone. Every single one of those Republican senators who voted against his impeachment bear responsibility. They could see what was coming. They knew Trump would be just as likely to do precisely what he did—try to figure out a way to profit from it, lie about it, blame everyone else for it, and fail to protect the people who elected them.

‘Masterful’ McConnell’s GOP caucus now in an all-out defensive crouch clinging to seats

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Remember when political reporters crowed about what a masterful play Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had made when he lined up his caucus to acquit Donald Trump without hearing from a single witness? Yeah, that acquittal came on February 6 when U.S. senators were already getting briefed on the seriousness of the coronavirus' spread abroad. 

But Senate Republicans, led by McConnell, fell all over themselves to make sure Trump was at the helm when the pandemic hit U.S. shores. Now, what once looked like a promising cycle for Senate Republicans has turned entirely treacherous precisely because the caucus is saddled with Trump as their standard bearer. 

Let's give Mitch McConnell and his GOP majority the boot. Give $2 right now for bragging rights on election night!

Politico reports the party is directing nearly its entire $100 million war chest at saving the seats of eight incumbent senators while the few GOP candidates aiming to defeat a Democrat have been left almost entirely to their own devices. With the exception of funneling a little money into the effort to defeat Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in Alabama, they simply don't have the resources to play offense. 

The seat of Democratic Sen. Gary Peters from Michigan, for instance, once seemed like a flippable seat. But as Trump has tanked in the state and Joe Biden is presently positioned very well there, Senate Republicans have left Republican candidate John James to fend for himself. 

Instead, GOP groups, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund have been trying to bolster their defenses in Georgia, Iowa, and Montana—three states that weren't even on the radar as potential Democratic pick ups when the cycle started. 

Perhaps even more striking has been the GOP spending to protect seats that Democrats weren't even truly contesting yet. In Montana and Georgia, for example, Republicans went up with defensive ads before Democrats even got there.

“It's unusual when the other side goes there first and expands the map for you,” said J.B. Poersch, president of the Democratic super PAC Senate Majority PAC.

The bottom line is that Republicans have been left with little choice but to protect a growing map of incumbents who are inextricably linked to a president who has presided over 165,000 American deaths and counting while decimating a decade of economic growth. In fact, Trump is such a drag now that McConnell has reportedly given GOP senators the green light to distance themselves from him whenever necessary. Yeah, good luck with that after four years of letting Trump trash the country without raising hardly a single objection. 

"They're just not making the early investments they would if the president or the party was running better in the polls," said Saul Anuzis, a former GOP state party chair in Michigan.

And a giant part of the party's downfall is due to McConnell jamming that acquittal vote down the throats of his caucus members. Masterful. 

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Republicans devolve into party of warring vagrants as prospect of electoral doom looms

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Republican lawmakers long ago surrendered any hint of principle or ideal in subservience to a single man—a mad man at that—who is now dragging their party toward a frightful fate in November. Flailing and rudderless, they have now turned into a ship of warring vagrants wildly trying to save their own hides in an election that could deliver total wreckage to what's left of their party.

As the coronavirus continues to roil the nation, Republicans have no one who's even capable of stepping into the leadership void left by Trump and his aides. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell didn't even turn up on the Senate floor Thursday morning to deliver a vision for stewarding another relief package through Congress, despite the fact that House Democrats passed their version of the bill over two months ago. As Minority Leader Chuck Schumer noted Thursday during a joint press conference with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Republicans "dithered" and now congressional lawmakers are "up against a cliff" as expiration of the original relief package looms.

Over in the House, where fringe Republicans have run roughshod over the caucus leadership for a solid decade, Trump's toadies are making war on Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the highest-ranking Republican woman on Capitol Hill whom they apparently deem to be a traitor to their cause—Trump. The House Freedom Caucus is calling on Cheney to step down from her leadership post for daring to defend Dr. Anthony Fauci, the administration's outspoken and highest profile infectious disease expert, against Trump's attacks. 

And on the electoral front, retiring GOP Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts officially backed the opponent of one of Trump's most loyal allies—immigration right winger and former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Republican prospects for holding the U.S. Senate have dimmed to the point where many Republicans argue a Kobach primary win could jeopardize the GOP majority in November. Kobach famously lost his 2018 bid to become governor of the state to Democrat Laura Kelly. 

As Republicans factionalize over how to move forward with the next relief package, their closed-door quarreling has gone public. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz captured the spotlight Tuesday during a closed-door caucus session, asking, “What in the hell are we doing?"—a widely reported quote about his misgivings over the ballooning price tag of the legislation. But what's perhaps most stunning is that the counterweight to Cruz's argument is coming from right-wing stalwarts like Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who advocated for including slightly more relief for struggling Americans in the bill in the hopes of protecting GOP counterparts facing tough reelection bids. 

Naturally, Trump isn't doing anything to quell the GOP controversies erupting into full view. He's deployed White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to look over the shoulder of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who is once again taking the lead on negotiating the relief package for the White House. Meanwhile, neither Senate Republicans nor White House negotiators have included a single Democrat in their floundering talks over the legislation. House Democrats passed a $3 trillion package in May as Republicans eye a price tag of closer to $1 trillion—and that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of differences that could sink the bill. 

Both Speaker Pelosi and Schumer denounced their exclusion from the GOP talks. "What we have seen so far falls very short of the challenge that we face in order to defeat the virus and to open our schools and to open our economy," Pelosi said their joint press conference.

Schumer added, "Republicans need to pull their head out of the sand, get their act together, sit down with Speaker Pelosi and me, and start negotiating a real package."

Republicans have apparently forgotten that the only way to pass another bill is through bipartisan compromise. But McConnell is such a weak leader that he can't even forge the semblance of some consensus within his own caucus. That’s his job, but McConnell couldn't legislate his way out of a paper bag. The only time McConnell ever manages to keep his caucus in line is when it's in support of his abuse of power. Take, for example, the Senate GOP vote earlier this year to kill the prospect of hearing from any witnesses during the impeachment trial of Trump. Republicans fell in line for that vote at McConnell's strong urging, and now they're all saddled with having acquitted who ultimately botched the pandemic response, stoke racial divisions nationwide, and is now repeatedly siccing unmarked federal troops on peaceful protesters exercising their first amendment rights.

As for the House squabble, Trump stoked divisions Thursday with a tweet targeting Cheney's criticism of his foreign policy, including his plans to pull troops out of Germany and Afghanistan. “Liz Cheney is only upset because I have been actively getting our great and beautiful Country out of the ridiculous and costly Endless Wars,” he tweeted. “I am also making our so-called allies pay tens of billions of dollars in delinquent military costs. They must, at least, treat us fairly!!!”

Cheney responded Thursday by promising she would "continue to speak out" against Trump policies with which she disagreed.

In any case, don't expect the collective GOP meltdown to end anytime soon unless Trump's polling numbers miraculously rebound. And the only way for that to happen is for Trump to start governing—something he's both constitutionally bound to do and constitutionally incapable of doing.