This is the absolute height of Putinist arrogance from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy: He won’t commit to continue providing Ukraine aid ahead of a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy until he personally gets answers. “I have questions for him,” McCarthy told reporters. “What’s the accountability in the money we already gave? What is the plan for victory? I think that’s what the American people want to know.”
He’s demanding to know Ukraine’s strategic battle plans? Coming from the guy who can’t even lead his own party conference, that’s pathetic and embarrassing. McCarthy did follow up with a weak acknowledgement that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an “atrocity” and that “we want to make sure that ends,” but he added, “I want accountability for whatever the hardworking taxpayers spend their money on.”
Ukraine’s plan for victory is slogging this out until they have driven Russia out of their country and restored their territorial integrity. There can be no other plan. This is real war. And that plan is going to require assistance from the U.S. and allied nations. It’s going to require McCarthy putting on his big-boy pants and standing up to the likes of Putin-boosters like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz. As of right now, he’s failed there, still refusing to attach Ukraine aid to the must-pass government funding bill the House is currently struggling over.
This is what real leadership looks like.
Zelensky looks on as Biden at the UN says "Russia alone bears responsibility for this war" and "Russia alone [stands] in the way of peace" "The US together with our allies and parters around the world will continue to stand with the brave people of Ukraine, he adds to applause pic.twitter.com/kqpJn8jFlJ
“The United States, together with our allies and partners around the world, will continue to stand with the brave people of Ukraine,” President Joe Biden declared at the U.N. Tuesday. That message—not to mention the status of the U.S. as a world leader—is being undermined by the circus that McCarthy is letting flourish in the House. That’s something Senate Republicans have to reckon with as well.
The entire Senate will be meeting with Zelenskyy on Thursday, whereas in the House only McCarthy, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and a few other members are currently scheduled to meet with him. That Senate meeting is vital because there’s some wavering now among Republicans in that body, despite Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s unceasing support for aid and warnings against Republicans going “wobbly” on it.
The best outcome of the Zelenskyy Senate meeting is Republicans finally coming together to save Ukraine—and their party from themselves. Supporting a government funding bill, with Ukraine aid attached, and presenting it to the House as a done deal is the best way they can do that.
The Senate has relaxed its dress code, prompting Republican complaints against Sen. John Fetterman’s notably informal attire. But it’s not just Republicans springing to the defense of mandatory suit-wearing. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is also upset … and maybe a little confused.
“I said ‘John, I think it’s wrong & there's no way I can comply with that,’” Manchin told Politico's Ursula Perano. “Wanted to tell him directly that I totally oppose it & I will do everything I can to try to hold the decorum of the Senate.”
There’s no way he can comply? Does Manchin think there’s a strict new dress code that will force him to wear gym shorts and a hoodie, and that wearing a suit will be an act of defiance?
Manchin’s limited view of what constitutes decorum for the Senate was recently highlighted when the U.S. Census Bureau announced that child poverty has more than doubled since the expanded child tax credit expired. Manchin’s opposition to extending the credit, as well as the opposition of all Republicans, killed the expanded credit. And children across the country have suffered ever since—but at least until this week, senators had to wear suits to work.
Causing child poverty is decorum. Blocking Senate rule changes to preserve minority control is decorum. Informal attire is a breach of decorum to resist fiercely.
What do you do if you're associated with one of the biggest election fraud scandals in recent memory? If you're Republican Mark Harris, you try running for office again! On this week's episode of "The Downballot," we revisit the absolutely wild story of Harris' 2018 campaign for Congress, when one of his consultants orchestrated a conspiracy to illegally collect blank absentee ballots from voters and then had his team fill them out before "casting" them. Officials wound up tossing the results of this almost-stolen election, but now Harris is back with a new bid for the House—and he won't shut up about his last race, even blaming Democrats for the debacle.
To everyone’s horror, this weekend's big news revolved around video of Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert and her date vaping, taking flash photos, and groping each other in public during a performance of “Beetlejuice The Musical.” She got booted from a Denver theater for that, then ended up lying her ass off about it before she realized there was video, then shoved out a half-assed apology after the video was released and it showed much, much more than any of the rest of us wanted to see.
It’s no surprise that her colleagues on the right have responded with radio silence. In recent years, Republicans have honed an intentional strategy of “whataboutism” whenever one of their own gets caught in a scandal that would have political leaders calling for someone's resignation back when we all pretended politicians had a shred of decency. It's rote.
Russia boosted Trump's 2016 election with a bit of strategic hack-and-dump; Rudy Giuliani comes back with a new theory that Russia's enemy Ukraine was behind it all. Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner scores $2 billion in "investments" from Saudi royals immediately after departing the White House; suddenly House lawmakers are frothing with impeachment-level rage over the thought that President Joe Biden's son might have gotten a board position years ago based more on his name than his qualifications. Some Republican gets caught in a sex scandal, and that's enough for another two weeks of every other Republican in politics calling some other subset of Americans "groomers."
I'm not one who has much patience for "this thing is meant to be a distraction from that other news" claims, but a new Republican outrage at somebody not following The Esteemed Senate Dress Code came on conspicuously close to the weekend's video-assisted news of Boebert getting tossed from a theater for acts of public indecency that she would likely be prosecuted for if she wasn't a state big shot.
That's right: The latest Republican push is expressing public horror over a Democrat not meeting Senate dress code standards. Engaging in mammalian rutting behavior while the adults and children around you are trying to enjoy a high-priced musical production might count as a bit uncouth, in the same way that ransacking the Capitol might count as an ordinary tourist visit in Republican minds. But the sheer indecency of not following the dress code? Well, I never.
Police. Firefighters. Judges. Pilots. They all have uniforms. Ours is a suit and tie. We shouldn’t abandon it because it’s more comfortable to wear sweats. https://t.co/Ij9KOETPJkpic.twitter.com/9z8hP76cUX
Axios reported that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has told the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms not to enforce the dress code anymore. This led to thinly veiled as well as direct jabs at Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who is known to favor hoodies and gym shorts. The Pennsylvania senator was not particularly in the mood to take etiquette lessons from the House Revenge Porn Caucus.
Thankfully, the nation's lower chamber lives by a higher code of conduct: displaying ding-a-ling pics in public hearings. https://t.co/a4sLQ7nSBL
Yeah, this is the thing that will bring America down: not wearing formal attire when you're gleefully showing off stolen pictures of the president's son's penis on C-SPAN. Or wearing sweats when you're getting publicly mauled by your date in a manner that would get you fired as a strip club lap dancer, just after vaping in a pregnant woman's face, rather than wearing something classy.
This is the hill Republicans will die on rather than comment on the video that just 10 years ago would have resulted in the immediate resignation of any politician anywhere. Pay no attention to the humping couple in the theater: This guy over here doesn't have his tie on!
What do you do if you're associated with one of the biggest election fraud scandals in recent memory? If you're Republican Mark Harris, you try running for office again! On this week's episode of "The Downballot," we revisit the absolutely wild story of Harris' 2018 campaign for Congress, when one of his consultants orchestrated a conspiracy to illegally collect blank absentee ballots from voters and then had his team fill them out before "casting" them. Officials wound up tossing the results of this almost-stolen election, but now Harris is back with a new bid for the House—and he won't shut up about his last race, even blaming Democrats for the debacle.
The White House on Tuesday pounced on Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) hold on hundreds of military promotions, saying that Americans have had enough with him and Senate Republicans playing politics with service members.
“The American people have had enough with the excuses. Senator Tuberville, and all 48 Senate Republicans who are standing by him, owe it to the country to stop playing politics with the lives of those who serve in uniform and their families, and risking our nation’s safety,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a memo.
The memo highlighted that former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R), a presidential hopeful, criticized the hold Tuesday, arguing that “there’s got to be other ways” to protest the Pentagon’s abortion policy.
It also highlighted a CNN report about hundreds of military families who recently signed a petition for Tuberville to relent, calling his hold “political showmanship.”
The Defense Department’s new abortion policy provides paid leave and travel reimbursement for abortions. Tuberville argues it violates the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being used for abortion.
The White House memo, titled “The Evolving World of Senator Tommy Tuberville,” also points to Tuberville’s past comments about why he is holding up the military promotions since he began his protest in February.
“For nearly six months, Senator Tuberville’s excuses for holding up the confirmation of more than 300 senior military positions have piled up, with each one weaker than the last,” Bates said.
The memo noted that Tuberville said in February that the abortion policy was an “illegal expansion of [Department of Defense] authority,” in April said “the military is top heavy” and last month said that the freeze is not holding up readiness.
President Biden and other top officials have for weeks been hammering Tuberville about his protest. Last week, the White House called out Tuberville on X , formerly known as Twitter, posting “This you?” and sharing a series of headlines about the issues the holds have caused.
Tuesday's memo is the latest example of the White House recently becoming punchier going into 2024, increasingly jumping in and bashing the GOP. Earlier Tuesday, it issued a statement accusing Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) of lying in order to cave to the far-right members of the House Republican Conference and their push for an impeachment inquiry into Biden.
The indictment brought against former President Trump for trying to halt the transfer of presidential power in 2021 has been met with somber silence from many Republican senators, who view the new charges as more serious than the previous felony counts faced by Trump.
The four new charges unveiled by special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday focus on Trump's actions in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which prompted seven Senate Republicans to vote in February 2021 to convict him on the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection.
Senate Republican aides and strategists say the gravity of the new charges is underscored by the blistering speech Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) delivered at the end of Trump’s impeachment trial, in which he called Trump “practically and morally responsible” for the chaos of that day and suggested he could face criminal prosecution.
Conservative legal experts are raising concerns about the free speech implications of charging Trump for claiming repeatedly over the course of weeks that the election was marred by fraud and for revving up a large crowd of supporters that then marched on the Capitol.
But Republican strategists say the latest indictment could have the biggest impact on Trump’s candidacy for president because the American public is well aware of the chaos and violence of Jan. 6.
“It’s politically more salient because of Jan. 6. The whole country knows what happens on Jan. 6. Most of the country watched it unfold on television. Whereas the Mar-a-Lago [documents case], while it may be very serious, it’s not something the average person pays a lot of attention to,” said Vin Weber, a Republican strategist and former member of the House GOP leadership.
“In terms of its political impact, this one is more salient to people, but I’ve also noted that among the conservative legal community, [Tuesday’s] indictment is more controversial on free speech grounds,” he said. “It’s a serious matter but it’s also somewhat debatable.”
A Senate Republican strategist who requested anonymity to discuss Trump’s indictment said the latest charges are the ones he most “deserves,” because Jan. 6 was a direct attack on the nation’s tradition of transferring power peacefully and resulted in injuries to more than 100 Capitol police officers.
“This is the most significant because of what happened on Jan. 6,” the source said.
Two prominent Trump critics in the Senate GOP conference issued statements underscoring what they view as the significance of the new charges.
“In early 2021, I voted to impeach former President Trump based on clear evidence that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election after losing it,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said in a statement responding to the indictment.
“Additional evidence presented since then, including by the January 6 Commission, has only reinforced that the former president played a key role in instigating the riots, resulting in physical violence and desecration of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” she said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) asks a question during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)
Murkowski was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection against the U.S. government.
Of that group, only Murkowski, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) still serve in Congress.
Romney blamed Trump for inciting an insurrection on the very day of the attack against the Capitol and stood firm in response to Smith charging Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, obstructing the vote certification proceedings and conspiring to violate civil rights.
“My views on the former president’s actions surrounding Jan. 6 are well known. As with all criminal defendants, he is entitled to due process and the presumption of innocence,” Romney said in a statement.
Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has written about Trump’s efforts to hold onto power, said the latest indictment puts many Senate Republicans and moderate GOP House members in a tough position.
“It puts Republicans who are defending Trump in the stance of opposing democracy. The indictment outlines fundamental threats to democracy on the part of Trump, and so it really puts the GOP in a very difficult political stance,” he said.
Senate Republicans have had an easier time dismissing the charges against Trump for mishandling classified documents at his residence at Mar-a-Lago because investigators have also retrieved classified documents from President Biden’s personal office in Washington and his home in Wilmington, Del. He kept the documents after leaving the vice president’s office at the end of the Obama administration. Biden has cooperated with the Justice Department in returning them.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has shrugged off the charges against Trump over holding classified information as a “storage” issue.
West pointed out that Smith, the special prosecutor, said Tuesday he wants a “speedy trial,” which raises the possibility that a jury may render a verdict on Trump’s actions before the 2024 election.
“It could be the most ominous” of the charges, he said, because “there could be a verdict before the election.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) speaks to a reporter as he arrives to the Senate Chamber for a vote on Tuesday, July 25, 2023.
McConnell has remained silent on the latest round of federal charges against Trump, in contrast to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who quickly rallied to Trump’s defense after the charges became public.
McConnell told reporters last month that he wouldn’t have anything to say about Trump if he was indicted for his actions in the lead-up to Jan. 6.
Asked on July 19 whether it would be legitimate to charge Trump for trying to stop the certification of the 2020 election, McConnell replied: “I’ve said every week out here that I’m not going to comment on the various candidates for the presidency.”
Referring to his view of Trump’s culpability for inciting the violence on Jan. 6, McConnell said: “How I felt about that I expressed that at the time, but I’m not going to start getting into sort of critiquing the various candidates for president.”
McConnell was unequivocal two years ago in blaming Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 riot and suggested at the time that he could face criminal charges.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., center, returns to his press conference after the 81-year-old GOP leader froze at the microphones and became disoriented, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, July 26, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
He warned that Trump “didn’t get away with anything yet,” adding: “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”
McConnell’s top deputy, Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), didn’t say anything either about the newest charges.
The highest-ranking member of the Senate GOP leadership to come to Trump’s defense was Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).
“The American people have lost faith in Biden’s Justice Department. They are uncomfortable watching the current president weaponize the justice system against his political opponent,” he said in a statement his office provided to The Hill.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) on Tuesday called for the release of security footage of his fellow Wisconsin Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R), who cursed out teenage Senate pages last week.
Pocan wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that he wants “greater transparency” around the incident, which occurred early Thursday morning. Pocan also included a letter he wrote asking Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Committee on Administration, for the footage.
According to a transcript obtained by The Hill, Van Orden called the pages resting in the rotunda “jackasses” and “little s----," and he told them they were “defiling the space.”
“If widely shared reports are accurate, Representative Van Orden’s behavior towards the pages was completely unacceptable and further calls into question his fitness for office,” Pocan said in the letter. “It is critical that members of the public, including his constituents in Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District, know the truth of what happened that evening.”
Van Orden defended his actions in the wake of the incident, saying he thought the pages were disrespecting the space. In a statement to The Hill, he said the rotunda’s history contributed to his reaction.
“The history of the United States Capitol Rotunda, that during the Civil War it was used as a field hospital and countless Union soldiers died on that floor, and they died because they were fighting the Civil War to end slavery. And I think that place should be treated with a tremendous amount of respect for the dead,” Van Orden said.
Former President Trump is stepping up his war with Senate Republicans by calling for primary challenges next year against GOP incumbents who do not support investigating President Biden's family finances.
Many Senate Republicans have made clear they don’t want Trump to win their party’s nomination for president, and they’re leery about rallying to his defense given the former president’s polarizing effect on moderate Republican and swing voters.
Senate GOP aides and strategists argue they can’t do much regarding the Biden family's business dealings because they don’t have the power to issue subpoenas as the Senate’s minority party.
But GOP senators aren’t giving Trump much rhetorical support either — in sharp contrast from prominent House Republicans such as Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Ron Bonjean, a GOP strategist and former Senate leadership aide, said the Trump call will appear to a number of Senate Republicans like a way for Trump to distract people from the investigations into his own activities.
But he suggested it isn’t likely to work.
“A good number of Senate Republicans take a more measured approach usually. They don’t knee-jerk to pressure,” Bonjean said.
Trump appears to be losing patience with Republican lawmakers on the fence about impeaching Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland, as the federal and state felony charges pile up against him along with his mounting legal bills.
Trump mocked GOP senators and House members who say they have “other priorities” and would prefer to leave the investigations of Hunter Biden and the Biden family's business dealings to the House committees.
“They sit back and they say, ‘We have other priorities, we have to look at other things.’ Any Republican that doesn’t act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried. Get out. Out,” he declared at a Saturday rally in Erie, Pa.
The comments came a few days after Trump hit Senate Republicans for not taking a more aggressive approach to Biden’s personal finances.
“With all of these horrible revelations and facts, why hasn’t Republican ‘leadership’ in the Senate spoken up and rebuked Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats, Fascists, and Marxists for their criminal acts against our Country, some of them against me,” he demanded in a post on Truth Social.
Cool to launching impeachment proceedings
Republican senators are cool to the idea of launching impeachment proceedings against Biden in the House and generally have kept their distance from House GOP threats to cut funding to the Department of Justice and FBI in response to more than 30 felony counts prosecutors have brought against Trump.
Asked last week whether he saw any merit to an impeachment inquiry into Biden, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said impeachment “ought to be rare rather than common.”
“I’m not surprised that having been treated the way they were, House Republicans last Congress, [they] begin open up the possibility of doing it again,” he said, referring to the two impeachments of then-President Trump by a Democratic-controlled House.
“And I think this is not good for the country to have repeated impeachment problems,” McConnell warned.
It was hardly a ringing endorsement of the House Republican-led investigations into the Biden family and the Department of Justice’s handling of criminal allegations against Hunter Biden.
Bonjean said “in any impeachment, there would be a trial in the Senate,” which is another reason why Republican senators want to preserve an appearance of impartiality and not rush to judgement about allegations of corruption against the sitting president.
Republicans up for reelection next year include Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), an outspoken Trump critic, as well as Republicans who have largely stayed quiet about the president, including Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.).
None of these incumbents appear vulnerable, but GOP strategists warn that Trump’s support could result in several of them facing credible primary challenges.
“They could. Some Senate Republicans could face primary pressure over the next year, but they have a lot of time to position themselves on the matter and see how things unfold,” Bonjean said.
Trump tried to drum up opposition in the last election cycle to Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
He was more successful in stirring up support for Murkowski's Republican challenger, Kelly Tshibaka, but his efforts to recruit a primary challenge to Thune in South Dakota quickly fizzled.
Senate Republicans believe they have a good chance to win back the Senate majority in 2024 because Democrats will have to defend 23 seats, while they only have to protect 11 GOP-held seats.
A tough spot
Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University who served several fellowships in the Senate, said Trump’s calls for Republicans to embrace the partisan investigations of Biden’s family puts Republicans facing competitive general-election races next year in a tough spot.
“These are people who given the political physics of their congressional districts have to play a very exquisite balancing act. The idea that they move to impeach Biden does not play well in those districts,” he said of Republican lawmakers in competitive House districts.
Baker warned that some Senate Republicans could be in “jeopardy” in primaries next year if Trump decides to launch a full-scale assault against incumbents he views as reluctant allies.
“Think of people like Roger Wicker, who is someone who is seen as a pretty solid guy who votes the right way but is not an extremist,” Baker said, identifying a senator who might have to watch his right flank. “There are constituencies that will respond to any demand that Trump puts out who will say, ‘I can’t support [a senator] unless he gets on the impeachment bandwagon.’
“But I don’t think any Republican who is up for reelection wants to have to do that,” he said.
Baker said that Senate Republicans up for reelection don’t want to alienate the sizable share of the Republican electorate — which he estimates at about 25 percent of Republican voters — who don’t support Trump and don’t like the idea of GOP candidates embracing his scorched-earth tactics.
One Senate Republican aide defended the Senate GOP leadership from Trump’s broadsides by pointing out that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a member of McConnell’s leadership team, played a key role in publicizing an FBI 1023 form that makes reference to unsubstantiated allegations that Biden was involved in a foreign bribery scheme.
“We’re not in the majority, and we don’t have subpoena power. You see Chuck Grassley and [Sen. Ron] Johnson [R-Wis.] pulling the levers on oversight and whistleblowers,” the aide said.
The form, which FBI investigators use to catalogue raw, unverified claims by informants, received little attention from other Republican senators.
A second Senate Republican strategist who requested anonymity argued that Grassley has made important contributions to the House investigations of Biden’s, even if Senate Republican leaders have generally kept their distance.
“I can’t imagine any House Republican would say that the stuff that Grassley has uncovered in his ongoing efforts is less important than what they’re doing. But I think it’s really a matter of, House Republicans are in the majority and have subpoena power and can do a lot more that Republicans in the Senate can,” the aide said.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been a familiar face and voice on Fox News, right-wing talk radio and elsewhere in the conservative media ecosystem since first being elected to the Senate more than a decade ago.
But these days, Cruz is getting a boost in raising his profile through a media product of his own making.
The Republican lawmaker hosts a now thrice-weekly podcast that has grown in popularity since its first episode published during former President Trump’s first impeachment trial.
Over the last three years, “Verdict” has helped Cruz amass a following of millions of listeners each month, all while promoting frequent GOP talking points, blasting his political enemies and keeping the senator's name in the headlines.
“I’m not interested in being a pundit,” the Republican senator told The Hill during an interview this week. “But part of fighting successfully is communicating and explaining what the issues are that matter. So, I view the podcast as fulfilling one of the really important responsibilities of representing Texans.”
“Verdict” became a quick success in terms of listenership during Trump’s first impeachment drama, quickly climbing podcasting leaderboards, with Politico noting at the time it beat out “The Daily” from The New York Times and Joe Rogan’s popular talk show on iTunes.
Today, it ranks among the top podcasts in the “politics” category and among the top 25 among all “news” podcasts, according to podcast tracking website PodBay. This month alone, “Verdict” has raked in 2 million downloads, including more than a million unique listeners, Cruz said.
The Republican argues that his show, which often features lengthy discussions on constitutional law and politics, has seen success because of what he described as the failings of the mainstream media in acknowledging topics important to conservatives.
“Much of the corporate media does not provide in-depth coverage of what is going on,” Cruz contends. “The reason why people faithfully listen three times a week is because when they’re done they’ve learned something … far better than what they’re able to get from the vast majority of media sources.”
Started initially as an explanatory program laying out and poking holes in the impeachment charges against Trump, Cruz now uses each episode of “Verdict” to pontificate about everything from President Biden’s family to foreign policy issues and other news of the day.
During one recent episode, Cruz explained for his audience the legalese around Hunter Biden’s plea deal, which fell apart in a Delaware courtroom last week after the president’s son was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay income taxes as part of a deal announced last month with the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“It’s a plea deal that is designed to be a slap on the wrist, so Hunter serves no jail time whatsoever, and that it’s real purpose as we’ve discussed is to protect Joe Biden from any exposure to Hunter’s influence-selling and corruptions,” the GOP senator said during the episode.
Cruz, a second-term senator who mounted an unsuccessful campaign for president against Trump in 2016, fashions himself as a media-savvy national political operative — one who is mindful of audience demographics on each platform he appears on.
“If I’m walking through an airport and a woman in her 70s comes up and says, ‘Hey I loved you on TV,’ you know many of the demographic that are watching TV interviews are of an older generation,” the senator said.
“On the other hand, if I’ve got another guy with a ponytail and tattoos comes up and says, ‘Hey, I love what you’re doing,’ I know what the next words he’s going to say. He’s going to mention the podcast.”
Other high-profile lawmakers have also dipped their toes in the podcasting arena. Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) are regulars on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast.
Other up-and-coming lawmakers have used social media to boost their brand, such as freshman Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-N.C.), who has mobilized an aggressive campaign on TikTok to reach voters, and progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has made news with opinions given while speaking on Instagram Live.
Cruz, likewise, makes it clear his goal with his podcast is to drive the news cycle as much as he can.
“It’s a way of raising issues and advancing issues that matter to Texans,” he told The Hill.
Cruz’s podcasting venture has been met with some criticism, including over the ethics of a sitting U.S. senator operating a talk show.
The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics after he reached a syndication agreement with iHeartMedia, one of the largest providers of audio content in the country, contending the deal violated Senate rules on accepting gifts from lobbyists.
iHeartMedia is a registered lobbyist, according to OpenSecrets.
Cruz has said he receives “no financial benefit” from his podcast.
“It’s no surprise Democrats and their allies in the corrupt corporate media take issue with Sen. Cruz’s chart-topping podcast — it allows him to circumvent the media gatekeepers and speak directly to the American people about what is really happening in Washington,” a Cruz spokesman told the Austin American-Statesman at the time.
“Sen. Cruz receives no financial benefit from 'Verdict.' There is no difference between Sen. Cruz appearing on a network television show, a cable news show, or a podcast airing on iHeartMedia.”
While Cruz, who is up for reelection in 2024, still sees some value in traditional cable news hits and radio appearances, he says the show he puts on himself allows for extra flexibility in pushing his agenda.
“Let’s say you’re doing a TV interview and it’s six or eight minutes. That can be valuable if you reach a lot of people,” he said. “But in six or eight minutes, you can’t engage in a whole lot of substance. You can have a few talking points, you can have kind of a clever one-liner, but it’s difficult to have really detailed analysis in a short TV or radio interview. The podcast format, I’ve really grown to like.”
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) announced Monday night that she is receiving outpatient care after experiencing a "sudden onset of numbness" in her face and is expected to need "several weeks" of recovery.
Doctors believe that the numbness was likely the result of swelling of a facial nerve that was caused by a post-viral infection, Britt said in a statement. She was admitted to Baptist Medical Center South in Montgomery, Ala., and was released, saying that her condition is not considered life-threatening.
“A specialist from [the University of Alabama at Birmingham] has subsequently evaluated me on an outpatient basis and concurred with the prognosis and course of treatment," Britt said in the statement. "My condition is not life-threatening, and recovery could take several weeks.
"I am grateful for the medical professionals providing excellent care, and my family and I are deeply grateful for your prayers," she added.
The news came only days after the Senate broke for its monthlong August recess, with lawmakers not slated to return to Washington until after Labor Day.
Britt, 41, won her first term in office last year and has largely kept a low profile during her first seven months in the upper chamber. However, she was recently added to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) leadership team.
The junior Alabama senator also sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is set for a busy September as it looks to help avoid a government shutdown and fund the government for fiscal 2024.
A pair of Democratic senators is challenging Justice Samuel Alito to testify before lawmakers, just days after the justice said Congress had “no authority” to regulate the Supreme Court.
Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) both called on the justice Monday to testify before lawmakers after Alito told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Friday that Congress lacks the jursidiction to regulate the court. This comes as Democrats attempt to mandate stronger ethics rules since Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas have come under recent scrutiny for ethics controversies.
“If Justice Alito is willing to expound to the Wall Street Journal that Congress has no authority over the Court, he should come before Congress to tell us directly why—in testimony before the Judiciary Committee,” Blumenthal posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“And while he’s there, we can talk about ethical lapses & a Supreme Court code of conduct,” he added.
Whitehouse reposted Blumenthal’s comments, adding that “Alito can also explain how it’s ethical to offer opinions on matters likely to come before the Court — that’s not what they tell us in confirmation hearings.”
Blumenthal and Whitehouse both serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee and have both been outspoken about the recent ethical controversies the Supreme Court has faced. Whitehouse also blasted Alito’s interview with the Journal in a separate post on X on Monday.
“And why would they not offer opinions about matters that might come before the Court? Right, because it would be unethical,” Whitehouse wrote. “To belabor the point, Alito just did something colleagues have called unethical, to protect his ability to do things that are unethical. Rich.”
