McCarthy is sealing the fate of both House and Senate Republicans

Several months ago, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy began floating impeachment trial balloons, taking the midsummer pulse of his conference in closed-door meetings about exactly which Democrat they would prefer to launch an inquiry into: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Attorney General Merrick Garland, or President Joe Biden.

By late July, when McCarthy cracked open the door on a potential Biden inquiry, Politico wrote:

Speaker Kevin McCarthy raised impeachment during a closed-door GOP meeting on Wednesday, cautioning his members that Republicans would launch a probe only when — and if — they secured the evidence to justify one, according to three lawmakers in the room who spoke on condition of anonymity.

But after months of searching for Biden wrongdoing to no avail, it was apparently time to move. As The New York Times observed, far from launching the inquiry based on evidence, McCarthy simply bowed to pressure from his right-wingers who are threatening to oust him and shut down the government.

Don't look now, but NYT got it right... pic.twitter.com/2Tmfh7SBqQ

— Kerry Eleveld (@kerryeleveld) September 12, 2023

McCarthy may have survived the day, but Senate Republicans and some House GOP moderates are freaking out.

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who holds one of the 18 Republican seats Biden won in 2020, stated a novel concept: “I think an inquiry should be based on evidence of a crime that points directly to President Biden," he said.

"[W]hat crime has the president committed?" Bacon wondered. "[W]e should dig that stuff up before we go down this path,” he added.

Other “Biden 18”members struck a more optimistic note on the question of due diligence.

“I think we’ve got enough substantiation for it to move forward, we’ve got critical mass,” said Rep. Mike Garcia of California, who represents a district Biden carried by double digits in 2020. “What I tell my constituents is we seek clarity, right, I think that’s what most Americans want is clarity. So let’s go get all the facts and data behind it."

Polling of voters in the 18 Biden districts suggests Garcia's rationale is going to be a tough sell. A Public Policy Polling survey of Biden 18 voters conducted last month found 56% thought opening an impeachment inquiry into Biden would be a "partisan political stunt," while just 41% said it would be a serious effort to investigate important problems. Fifty-six percent also said they thought opening such an inquiry would be more about damaging Biden politically than finding the truth, compared with 41% who said the opposite. In both instances, that yawning 15-point chasm should be a flashing warning sign to a Republican in enemy territory.

While some House Republicans, including the speaker, don't seem particularly concerned about risking their majority next year over a baseless inquiry, Senate Republicans spent the day breathing into a bag.

“It is frustrating, obviously,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia told The Hill. “I don’t know what the evidence is, where they’re going with this. I’m going to default to the position that the House is going to do what the House is going to do, and we’ll have to react to that.”

And one GOP senator who was granted anonymity to speak on the matter gave The Hill an earful. “Maybe this is just Kevin giving people their binkie to get through the shutdown,” the Senate Republican said.  

Calling the inquiry "a fool's errand," the Republican senator added, “It seems like we’re spending a lot of time on things that matter to them that don’t matter to the people I want to have a positive opinion of Republicans next November."

The GOP senator concluded, "It doesn’t do anything to help us with our campaigns next year."

Nope, it sure doesn't.

Kerry talks with Drew Linzer, director of the online polling company Civiqs. Drew tells us what the polls say about voters’ feelings toward President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and what the results would be if the two men were to, say … run against each other for president in 2024. Oh yeah, Drew polled to find out who thinks Donald Trump is guilty of the crimes he’s been indicted for, and whether or not he should see the inside of a jail cell.

Senate Republicans’ path to majority is riddled with landmines of their own making

If the Republican Party was even remotely normal, Senate Republicans would be counting down the hours until Election Day 2024, when they would almost assuredly win the two seats they need to retake control of the upper chamber.

Instead, they are biting their tongues and ducking for cover as they face incoming hits from every corner of the Republican Party.

The latest debacle keeping Senate Republicans up at night is the House GOP’s push to impeach President Joe Biden over, well, they're not exactly sure what … but they may or may not bother to find out.

After House Republicans voted Thursday to refer an impeachment resolution over border security to the committees of jurisdiction, Senate Republicans started to review their life choices.

RELATED STORY: Republican disarray is somehow, miraculously, getting worse

"I don't know what they're basing the president's impeachment on. We'll see what they do. I can't imagine going down that road," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia told Axios.

Capito even added the most obvious yet damning observation: "This seems like an extremely partisan exercise."

Senate Minority Leader John Thune would prefer his caucus’s attention and energy be directed toward pretty much anything else. “I’d rather focus on the policy agenda, the vision for the future and go on and win elections," the South Dakotan—and Mitch McConnell’s #2—explained to Axios.

Sounds smart. But does anyone have any clue at all what the GOP "vision for the future" is— other than rounding up all of Donald Trump's perceived enemies, locking them up, and contemplating whether to throw away the key or worse?

The Senate Republican chairing the effort to retake the chamber, Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, also chimed in, saying he hadn't "seen evidence that would rise to an impeachable offense," before conceding that’s what trials are for.

Sure—assuming House Republicans bother to conduct an investigation. That little hiccup appears to have occurred to Sen. Thom Tillis of South Carolina.

"Impeachment is a serious process. It takes time. It takes evidence," he noted. Now, there's one to grow on.

As former Harry Reid aide Jim Manley tweeted about the House GOP's impeachment scheme: "As a so-called democratic strategist—thank you."

But House Republican plans for impeachment (not to mention a potential government shutdown, abortion ban push, or effort to yank aid to Ukraine) aren't the only things keeping Senate Republicans awake at night.

They're a tad uncomfortable with the fact that the party's current 2024 front-runner and possible nominee stole state secrets, refused to return them, and then obstructed justice during a federal probe of the matter.

Several weeks ago, On June 13, Minority Leader McConnell was asked during a press gaggle whether he would still support Trump as nominee if he were convicted. He dodged.

"I am just simply not going to comment on the candidates," McConnell responded. "I'm simply going to stay out of it." He has said anything on the matter since.

Finally, when looking toward 2024, so-called candidate quality is still a sticking point for Senate Republicans. Though they have had some wins on candidate recruitment to date, they have also suffered some missed opportunities. Further, many of their candidates—even the good ones—will be haunted by their extreme anti-abortion views on the campaign trail.

Voters across the battleground tilt heavily pro-choice and largely believe Republicans will try to ban abortion if they gain control of Washington/Congress. Driving these strong views is a fundamental belief that women should make their own decisions, not politicians.

— Senate Democrats (@dscc) June 23, 2023

Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, Senate Republicans top pick to challenge Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin, announced earlier this month that he’ll be taking a pass on a run. The Badger State’s GOP primary promises to be a mess, but former Milwaukee County sheriff and conspiracy theory enthusiast David Clarke has looked dominant in polling.

In response to Gallagher's June 9 news, Clarke, who's eyeing a bid, tweeted of his rivals, "None of them energizes or excites the base voter like I do."

He's not wrong—and that is some very bad news for Senate Republicans hoping to put Baldwin's seat in play.

Republicans also have extreme hurdles in other top-tier target states, such as Montana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. As Daily Kos previously reported, even their best candidates hold downright radical positions on abortion:

  • Senate Republicans’ top choice in Montana, businessman Tim Sheehy, who has accused Democrats of being "bent on murdering our unborn children";

  • Another Senate GOP darling, Pennsylvania hedge fund CEO David McCormick, doesn't support exceptions for rape and incest, and only approves of "very rare" exceptions for the life of the mother;

  • In Ohio, MAGA diehard Bernie Moreno, who's earned the endorsement of freshman Sen. J.D. Vance, is "100% pro-life with no exceptions," according to HuffPost. During his failed Senate bid last year, Moreno tweeted, “Conservative Republicans should never back down from their belief that life begins at conception and that abortion is the murder of an innocent baby";

  • and then there’s West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, who McConnell has convinced to run for the seat of Sen. Joe Manchin. He signed a near-total abortion ban into law last year.

Whether it's Trump, House Republicans, or abortion—the issue that turned the midterms upside down in 2022—Senate Republicans face an uphill battle to recruit and present candidates with broad appeal in a party that thrives on alienating a solid majority of the country.

RELATED STORY: No Republican can escape their party's rancid brand

Joining us on "The Downballot" this week is North Carolina Rep. Wiley Nickel, the first member of Congress to appear on the show! Nickel gives us the blow-by-blow of his unlikely victory that saw him flip an extremely competitive seat from red to blue last year, including how he adjusted when a new map gave him a very different district, and why highlighting the extremism of his MAGA-flavored opponent was key to his success. A true election nerd, Nickel tells us which precincts he was tracking on election night that let him know he was going to win—and which fellow House freshman is the one you want to rock out with at a concert.

Trump’s taint is scaring off Republican candidates

Donald Trump's much-discussed CNN “town hall” may have drawn cheers from his deplorable MAGA base, but congressional Republicans are already shedding tears over it.

Not only did Trump's gross display of misogyny-laden grievances arm Democrats with 70 minutes’ worth of attack ads on both Trump and Republicans, it's also killing the Republican Party's ability to recruit candidates with any reasonable shot at winning over swing voters, according to Politico.

In Colorado, House Republicans are currently trying to recruit construction executive Joe O'Dea to take on freshman Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo in a swingy district that went for Joe Biden by 5 points in 2020. In Pennsylvania, Senate Republicans are urging former hedge fund manager David McCormick to make a bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.

The two Republicans have a lot in common. O'Dea was much ballyhooed in 2022 for his moderate crossover appeal to swing voters, but still lost to Democratic Sen. Michael Bennett by a whopping 15 points. "Joe O'Dea lost BIG!" celebrated Trump, who was irked by O'Dea's refusal to say the 2020 election was stolen.

O'Dea would face two serious deficits in a Republican primary: his refusal to back Trump's stolen election lie about 2020 and his pretzel-twisting on reproductive freedom. But even if O'Dea somehow survived the Republican primary, Trump's MAGA brand in blue-leaning Colorado will likely be toxic—just like it was when O'Dea face-planted in last cycle's Senate race. After all, just last week, independent candidate Yemi Mobolade won the race for Colorado Springs mayor, becoming the first Black mayor in the conservative city’s history and ending decades of Republican-only rule.

One O'Dea ally laughably posited: “The question is: Does the party want to move on and win and govern or do they want to look backwards?”

Judging by this recent poll from Morning Consult on the 2024 Republican primary, a majority of Republican voters are not ready to move on just yet. Trump’s domination is largely unchallenged, winning 58% of the vote with No. 2 Ron DeSantis trailing Trump by 38 points at 20% (consistent with other recent surveys).

McCormick, who made a midterm run for the Keystone State's open Senate seat, was the Mitch McConnell-wing's preferred candidate but didn't even make it past the primary. Instead, Trump's handpicked candidate, TV huckster Mehmet Oz, edged out McCormick by a razor-thin .1% (951 votes) before losing to the Democrat John Fetterman in the general election.

Trump's death grip on the Republican Party arguably sealed the fate of both candidates. Now, as congressional Republicans go back to the well, both candidates share the same chief concern: Donald Trump, the scourge that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his allies failed to neutralize when they had the chance following his impeachment for stoking the Jan. 6 insurrection. The CNN special served as a trenchant reminder of the mountain they will have to climb in 2024 to prevail.

For McCormick, Trump is "the only thing that they’re talking about,” one Republican close to the campaign anonymously told Politico.

Not issues, not policy ideas, just Trump.

.@MorningConsult 2024 Republican Primary Poll: Donald Trump 58% Ron DeSantis 20% Mike Pence 6% Nikki Haley 4% Vivek Ramaswamy 4% Liz Cheney 2% Tim Scott 2% Greg Abbott 1% Kristi Noem 0% Asa Hutchinson 0% Someone else 1% May 19-21, 2023https://t.co/QBhEnUJzrU pic.twitter.com/nLLhlLvTOn

— Aron Goldman (@ArgoJournal) May 23, 2023

One Republican willing to talk on the record was anti-Trumper and former Rep. Barbara Comstock, a onetime Republican rising star whose career was kneecapped in 2018 when she lost her battleground suburban district in the blue-wave backlash to Trump.

“Some people have asked me, ‘Should I run next year?’ If you’re in a swing district, I said, ‘No,’” Comstock advised. “If he’s going to be the nominee, you are better to wait and run after he washes out. Because you won’t have a prayer of winning.”

In fact, Politico noted some Republican operatives are telling candidates to take a pass on this cycle and instead opt for a 2026 run "when Trump may be done seeking elected office."

It's almost as if Republicans, who keep hoping Democrats would neutralize Trump for them, have set their sights on a possible criminal conviction to save them from their cowardice two cycles down the road.

In the meantime, Trump is still killing another cycle for Republicans—even in a year when the Senate map should be rife with Republican pickup opportunities.

Hell yeah! Democrats and progressives simply crushed it from coast to coast on Tuesday night, so co-hosts David Nir and David Beard are devoting this week's entire episode of "The Downballot" to reveling in all the highlights. At the very top of the list is Jacksonville, where Democrats won the mayor's race for just the second time in three decades—and gave the Florida Democratic Party a much-needed shot in the arm. Republicans also lost the mayor's office in the longtime conservative bastion of Colorado Springs for the first time since the city began holding direct elections for the job 45 years ago.

‘Embarrassing,’ ‘stupid’: Republicans blast national party as if it bears no relation to them

Senate Republicans have finally located their problem, and it's the Republican National Committee. After the RNC last week endorsed the Jan. 6 insurrection as "legitimate political discourse," many congressional Republicans are pretending like the national Republican Party bears no relationship to them.

"I'm not a member of the RNC," Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas said Sunday when asked whether GOP Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois deserved to be censured by the RNC for participating in the Jan. 6 probe. Within the text of that censure resolution, the RNC endorsed the violent Jan. 6 assault that resulted in death and destruction as "legitimate political discourse."

"It could not have been a more inappropriate message," said Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the uncle of RNC chair Ronna McDaniel. Romney said he had texted with McDaniel after passage of the resolution and described her to CNN as a "wonderful person and doing her very best." But as for the resolution, Romney added, "Anything that my party does that comes across as being stupid is not going to help us."

Stupid is apt—but let's not limit the moniker to McDaniel and the national party alone. Republicans, eyeing an election cycle that should absolutely favor them based on historical trends, had the chance to bury Donald Trump last year during his second impeachment trial and leave much of his political baggage in the rearview mirror. Instead, they breathed new life into him, and now they're pretending like the RNC is solely responsible for his drag on the party.

The RNC censure resolution came at the end of a week that was kicked off by Trump dangling pardons for Jan. 6 convicts during a Texas rally the weekend before. Trump then called on Congress to investigate his former vice president, Mike Pence, for failing to unilaterally "overturn" a free and fair 2020 election.

But the RNC's endorsement of the Jan. 6 violence was just the latest in a years-long parade of Republican efforts to appease and coddle Trump. He has continually demanded absolute fealty from Republicans every step of the way, and they have acquiesced time and time again. With its censure resolution, the RNC was once again mollifying Trump by pursuing his political vendetta against Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger, both of whom voted to impeach him for inciting the Jan. 6 attack.

Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina, also one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, told CNN the House GOP caucus avoided the topic of the censure altogether in its conference meeting Tuesday, suggesting the whole episode was just too cringey to touch.

“It was pretty damn embarrassing,” Rice said.

But Senate Republicans are especially prickly on the matter, particularly those who had a chance to impeach Trump for inciting the attack on the U.S. government and explicitly declined to take it.

"It's just not a constructive move, when you're trying to win elections and take on Democrats, to take on Republicans," said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, as if no one could have imagined Trump would inspire internecine mayhem when he voted to let him off the hook for Jan. 6.

Asked if McDaniel should step aside, Thune pretended the RNC had nothing whatsoever to do with congressional Republicans. "Oh, I don't know. Ultimately, it will be up to the RNC," he said of McDaniel's fate.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina rolled out the same talking point Senate Republicans have been parroting every time Trump pulls them into some new controversy—2022 is all about the future for Republicans, folks.

"I think all of us up here want to talk about forward and not backward," Graham said. "We want to talk about why we should be in charge of the House and the Senate, and when you're not talking about that, that takes you in the wrong direction."

And by talking about why Republicans should be in charge, Graham means deliberately not releasing a 2022 agenda so voters will have exactly no idea what Republicans plan to do if they retake control of the upper chamber.

The frustration among most Republicans was palpable.

"I think the RNC should be focused on electing Republicans," said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri.

Even House Republicans, led by Trump hack Kevin McCarthy, sought to distance themselves from the RNC's unforced error.

Asked about the RNC resolution, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise told CNN, "My focus has been on what we need to do to take back the House."

The House GOP campaign chief, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, added, "We're focused on winning the majority next fall."

It wasn't exactly a full-throated stand for American democracy, but hey, Republicans want control of Congress so they can end this scurrilous investigation into the worst homegrown attack on the Capitol in U.S. history.

"We ought to capture the Jan. 6 committee and convert it to our purposes: pursuing the extent to which federal involvement might have animated violence," Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, floating a totally unsubstantiated right-wing conspiracy theory.

To be fair, some Republicans did join the RNC in defending the insurrectionists.

"There's no doubt that there were tens of thousands of people engaged in peaceful free speech that the press and Democrats try to demonize falsely," said Sen. Ted Cruz, who voted against certification.

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who also voted to throw the election, called the Jan. 6 panel "illegitimate," presumably while pumping his fist.

"They're not following their own rules. And I think, frankly, it's, it harkens back to the House Committee on un-American affairs," said Hawley, engaging the "un-American" topic on which Republicans have become bonafide experts.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, firmly ensconced in his disreality bubble, couldn't dig out of his conspiracy rabbit hole long enough to take note of the RNC aligning itself with Jan. 6 terrorists.

"I did not pay any attention to that," said Johnson, who's up for reelection this year.

But Johnson was upstaged by House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who coughed up an entirely fictional explanation of the RNC's resolution.

“What they were talking about is the six RNC members who Jan 6th has subpoenaed, who weren't even here, who were in Florida that day," McCarthy said—something that was never even mentioned in the censure resolution.

Asked McCarthy about “legitimate political discourse.” “What they were talking about is the six RNC members who Jan 6th has subpoenaed, who weren't even here, who were in Florida that day." He says those who caused damage “should be in jail.” (RNC resolution doesn’t mention that) pic.twitter.com/k4qsLWAOv5

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 8, 2022

Ted Cruz is trying to discredit the prosecution of violent seditionists. Any guesses why?

Sen. Ted Cruz has been beating pro-seditionist conspiracy theory drums since before the Jan. 6 insurrection ever took place. It's still a bit novel to see Cruz use his pro-sedition conspiracy theory as a campaign fundraising gimmick, though.

But here we are, and the man who once ran for president—only to be crushed by Donald Trump, then subsumed into the fold of Trump's most obsequious boot-polishers—is using the newest Republican hoax to raise money from pro-sedition members of his base. The hoax Ted Cruz is promoting is the "Ray Epps" theory:

"Who is Ray Epps? Was Ray Epps a federal agent or informant?" asks Ted. Because "We know the FBI has been misused in the past to target President Trump" and just "look at the Russia Collusion Hoax" and "Peter Strzok" and "Merrick Garland won't answer questions" and "What are they trying to hide now about the events of January 6, 2021?"

If it sounds like any other Republican fundraising letter, down to the buzzwords and linked conspiracy theories and warnings of an "extreme-left agenda," it's because the party's vocabulary has dwindled down to a mere 500 words or so, all of them focus-grouped to the last serif, and half of those are references to theories that exist only in the Fox News universe. Literally any Republican in the party could send this same letter with only a sentence or two changed to fit their current position. Whatever individuality Ted once had, back in the days when he was known mostly for being the least pleasant person to be around even in Washington, D.C., has been smoothed out in favor of Generic Pro-Trump Conspiracy Guy.

Same fundraising language, same conspiracies, same blanket defenses of the most bumbling and crooked president of the modern era as being the fault of whatever enemies Donald has a personal grudge against.

The "Ray Epps" theory is, short version, a conspiracy theory being peddled by Republican sedition backers (including, of course, Trump backers who participated in the day's violence) that supposes that actually, the crowd that Trump and Trump allies scrambled to assemble on that day and hour were goaded into mounting a violent rebellion by the FBI. Or by antifa. Or by somebody. But the important point, in the theory, is claiming that the seditionists attempted to overthrow the government only because the government egged them into doing it, and so everybody should go free and once again we really should be investigating Trump's enemies, not the people doing grotesquely illegal things on Trump's personal behalf.

Sure, the crowd attacked police officers. Sure, there were deaths. But you see, some guy was seen outside the Capitol on that day but hasn't yet been charged by federal agents, ergo that guy must have been a plant and not a real Trump supporter, ergo the crimes don't count and none of this ever happened.

Ted Cruz has some personal stake in this, of course, given that Ted Cruz was one of those who attempted to nullify an American election that day, erasing the new administration rather than obliging Trump to hand over power. Ted can't well claim that the FBI goaded him into supporting an attempted autogolpe on the Senate floor, but as federal prosecutors target individual insurrectionists with "seditious conspiracy"—the first in-court acknowledgement that individuals in the violent crowd planned their actions as a serious effort to bring down the nation's government—it is to his advantage to argue that the only coup attempt that day was his own effort and that those people were doing something else entirely.

It's not true. Both efforts were linked, as documents from inside Trump's band of schemers have now shown. Republican lawmakers and Mike Pence were supposed to challenge the election's results as corrupted and invalid; Trump and allies had organized the large crowd to "march" to the Capitol grounds at exactly the same moment to intimidate waffling lawmakers into going along—and, under the assumption that violence would break out when Trump's crowd met "antifa" opponents that never appeared that day, provide grounds for using the Insurrection Act to summon the military, declare the election nullified, and promise a "do-over" election that might or might not have ever happened.

Ted Cruz did his part on that day, and the crowd of Trump supporters did theirs. The plan failed only because Mike Pence did not go along, and the expected counter-demonstrators never appeared—which meant there was no plausible deniability for the pro-Trump militia members and others who committed violence that day.

Cruz and his seditionist allies in the House and Senate near-immediately began inventing new theories to explain why the violence was actually the fault of antifa or other "anti-Trump" forces regardless of what we saw and heard on our televisions; one of the catch-all theories has been that the FBI staged the whole thing themselves, or at least helped plan it, or at least were the people goading Trump's frothing supporters into storming the Capitol and attacking people.

It was a theory invented in real time on pro-insurrection television programs and among pro-sedition lawmakers. It was based on nothing—another hoax in the now endless stream of pro-Trump hoaxes.

In real life, Ray Epps is a longtime militia member who was once president of the Arizona branch of the Oath Keepers, one of the two militias whose members are now facing seditious conspiracy charges due to their actions before and during the coup. He was in the pro-Trump crowd for the same reason as the others: to back Trump's attempt to remain in power regardless of the election's actual results. He has so far not been charged with criminal acts for a rather mundane reason: Epps appears to have never entered the Capitol building himself, and while there is footage of him encouraging others to go inside, there is so far no footage of him telling the crowd to be anything but "peaceful."

That makes him a small fry, when it comes to prosecution efforts. Courts and prosecutors are already overburdened with insurrection cases, and even those who did enter the building are not necessarily facing much punishment unless they manage to stack up other illegal acts as well. Prosecutors aren't targeting Epps because it's a harder case to prove than the others and his violations were less severe. So far.

If Ted Cruz is going to claim that every member of the pro-Trump crowd who hasn't been charged with crimes has not been charged with crimes because they're working for the FBI, he's welcome to go nuts with that. But he'd obviously be lying—and he's obviously lying now.

The last remaining bit of this farce hinges around the question that Cruz and other seditionists demand be asked: What if Epps was an FBI informant at some point? What if he did cooperate with investigators?

Okay, Ted, you've got me. What of it? Let's say this guy talked with the FBI and squealed as squealingly as a squealer could squeal—let's say he, or somebody else in the militia movement, sat down in front of a computer screen with three FBI agents named Edward, Thaddeus, and Bifftholomew and spent 10 solid hours going through security footage, naming every last face he recognized.

So then what? Oh my goodness, somebody cooperated with law enforcement to name people who attacked police officers, ransacked offices, or threatened to hang the vice president.

That's your conspiracy theory, Ted, so tell us what that would mean. Don't snivel like a seditionist little coward and suggest that something like that might be true; come out and tell us what the actual outrage would be.

Is it that somebody, somewhere might be cooperating with law enforcement to bring Trump's most violent supporters to justice? Is that what has you so upset?

Are you suggesting that those who stockpiled weapons and who planned their actions on that day so that they would have the best possible chance of toppling constitutional government should be set free, because somebody in the crowd is a snitch?

How very odd. But it's a pattern we've seen from Cruz and the near-entirety of Republicanism over and over again; whenever Donald Trump or someone close to him gets caught doing something that would have been grounds for immediate impeachment, removal, and likely prosecution during any previous administration, the Republican Party immediately launches an all-out war against whatever public official discovered the corruption. Every last time. The Republican enemies list is now just an unending list of names of government workers, foreign diplomats, top journalists, law enforcement agents and others who have reported or testified that Donald Trump did something corrupt.

Merrick Garland is now on that list because Ted is outraged Garland's Justice Department is charging people who attacked police officers and went hunting for lawmakers with crimes. That says a lot more about Ted Cruz than it does about anything else.

There's no mastery as to what is happening here. Ted Cruz was part of a far-right effort to nullify a United States election based on a fraudulent hoax dreamed up by conspiracy theorists and seized upon by his whole party as convenient excuse. He, personally, was accessory to an attempt to erase an election rather than recognize its results. It was all a lie, and Ted Cruz was one of its chief spokesmen.

But it failed, and now Ted and the other lawmakers who engaged in that seditious conspiracy are attempting to throw up whatever barricades they can between themselves and those who are investigating the day's events. They stonewalled congressional investigation—as in, the premise that there should even be one. They have supported architects of the day's events as those figures have defied congressional subpoenas demanding their testimony. They have tossed out countless new conspiracy theories intended to discredit law enforcement investigations of the people who were caught, on camera, attacking and injuring hundreds of police officers.

Ted would rather everyone who attacked police officers and ransacked offices that day go free, so long as that means federal and congressional investigations of who sent them there are stopped in their tracks.

Why?

Because Ted Cruz was part of a seditious conspiracy himself. And however large his part is known to be, it's very, very clear that it's Ted and his fellow lawmakers who are "trying to hide" the "full truth" of what happened that day.

What do you have to hide, Ted? What's so important that you're willing to shove conspiracy theories out to your base, attempting to discredit the entire federal investigation?

Just how low do you intend to sink, buddy?

Senate Republicans say Democrats made such an airtight case against Trump, no need to convict now

What's that old saying? The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome. Yeah, actually, that isn’t the most apt description of Senate Republicans, who are all but certain to repeat the same mistake they made just one year ago: acquitting Donald Trump of slam-dunk impeachment charges.   

Nope, insanity is much too kind an explanation when it comes to GOP lawmakers' incessant cowardice regarding Trump. Endlessly craven, congenitally lazy, indubitably stupid—those descriptions, or some combination of the three, all work. You see, after five years of thinking they could simultaneously hug Trump and let him burn himself out without getting scorched in the process, they have once again settled on an unsupported conclusion that just happens to justify total inaction on their part to solve their Trump problem.

The new rationale goes something like this: House Democrats have done such an excellent job of indicting Trump in the court of public opinion that Senate Republicans now have no need to convict in order to prevent him from holding office again. Here's an unnamed Republican senator making the case to The Hill:

"Unwittingly, they are doing us a favor. They're making Donald Trump disqualified to run for president" even if he is acquitted, the senator said.

Voila! No need for elected GOP officials to lift a finger. Ha—those silly House Democrats putting in all the time and effort and political risk. 

During the last impeachment, a prominent GOP point of view pushed by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was that Trump had certainly learned his lesson by being impeached, so a Senate conviction wasn't necessary. Brilliant!

Now Republicans are back for round two: Voters have certainly learned their lesson, so ... no need for conviction! Yippee!

“I can’t imagine the emotional reaction, the visceral reaction to what we saw today doesn’t have people thinking, ‘This is awful,’ whatever their view is on whether the president ought to be impeached or convicted,” said another GOP senator.

Agree. Voters across the country are thinking, "That was awful. Ya know, someone should really do something about that." But according to GOP lawmakers, that's where the intellectual trail of voters dries up. They'll never make the leap to, "And ya know who should f'ing do something about that—the public servants we elected to run this country."

 “This is very damaging to any future political race for President Trump," the senator added. Indeed.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, whose impeachment vote is still an open question, was the only Republican senator who even had the guts to go on the record expressing a view that was reportedly "shared by many of her GOP colleagues."

"After the American public sees the full story laid out here ... I don't see how Donald Trump could be reelected to the presidency again," Murkowski told reporters Wednesday.

Let's stop right here to recall the cautionary words of House impeachment manager Rep. Ted Lieu of California: "I'm not afraid of Donald Trump running again in four years. I'm afraid he's going to run again and lose, because he can do this again."

Which gets us back to the original GOP premise that Democrats have already done the heavy lifting and they can just sit back and enjoy the ride. Unless Trump is actually convicted of impeachment charges and then a vote is taken to disqualify him from ever holding office again, Trump could do it all over again. He could run the most incendiary, hate-filled, and vitriolic campaign ever seen in the nation's history with the very intention of losing and then unleashing his dogs on lawmakers and the American public alike in order to violently overthrow the U.S. government. 

But, sure, the GOP's entire house is on fire along with most of the surrounding village and the conclusion of the vast majority of GOP lawmakers is to stand back and stand by because a few structures just might manage to survive Trump's raging inferno without them having to lift a finger. 

Censuring Trump for fomenting a violent insurrection would be ‘unity’ rooted in cowardice

Yeah, how about no. Multiple news reports have Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine taking the lead on feeling out whether or not Republicans would be willing to respond to Donald Trump's attempted overthrow of U.S. government by "censuring" him, rather than holding an impeachment trial. It is a terrible, ridiculous idea and hopefully it has already died a quiet death by the time you reach the end of this sentence.

The thinking appears to be that since the near-unanimous majority of Senate Republicans continue to stand behind Trump even after he demanded a mob march on the Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes that would confirm Joe Biden's presidential win—a demand that the mob acted on, resulting in multiple deaths inside the building and the near-assassination of lawmakers—perhaps the party of outright treason would be willing to compromise by giving their would-be authoritarian strongman a stern finger-wagging letter.

It's a given that Senate Republicans will vote to acquit Trump, as they did when Trump got caught brazenly extorting the leader of a foreign nation with personal demands intended to help boost his own reelection chances. But, the thinking apparently goes, maybe we can make a nice show of "unity" by having both parties agree that rallying a mob intent on attacking and possibly killing members of the political opposition is somewhat bad—not bad enough to do anything concrete about or to prohibit a person from re-taking office, but certainly bad enough for a note to be dropped into their permanent record.

Screw that. Screw all of that, very much and sincerely.

What Donald Trump attempted, even before the crowd turned violent, was a coup against democracy. He, his allies, and the majority of Republican lawmakers all demanded that the results of a United States election be overturned, based on nothing but nonsensical and provably false claims, and that the will of American voters simply be ignored because the Republican Party did not like the results. It was an act of sedition before the crowd marched over. It was an act of sedition when prominent Republicans peddled hoaxes relentlessly, claiming the election results to be invalid because of conspiracies that not one damn person in America could prove.

Donald Trump may have been acting purely out of malignant narcissism, and may indeed be living inside delusions layered upon delusions in which any and every failure on his part, during his entire adult life, has only happened due to the secret machinations of invisible enemies, but the action he took was unambiguous. He intended to overturn the election results. His allies intended to help him overturn the election results. The House and Senate Republicans who voted to throw out the election results intended to help him overturn the election results.

It was an insurrection against the government, and if there is no stomach among Republican lawmakers for punishing it as such, it is because they were themselves allied with those efforts. They remain allied in a unified attempt to dodge repercussions for attempting to overturn an election that did not go their way.

To be sure, those who acted with treasonous intent against this country are not eager to vote for consequences. That is to be expected. Attempting to compromise with them, finding some common ground where violent insurrection is still acknowledged to be bad so long as the insurrection's chief beneficiary and provocateur is able to skate by without the presentation of evidence against him, is attempting to compromise with those who sought to end the fabled "peaceful transition of power" by party fiat.

The streak is broken. There was no peaceful transition of power. Among a majority inside the party now fully enmeshed in fascist propaganda and plots, there is only begrudging acknowledgement even now that our democracy remains legitimate; on Fox News and in evasive lawmaker interviews, the same hoax theories are still sniffled about, and Republican officials and leaders are taking not making even the barest effort to clarify to their still-addled base voters that Joe Biden won the most votes and electors, that there was no conspiratorial and secret fraud, and that the new Democratic administration is, indeed, a legitimate one.

If Republican senators are going to vote to immunize Trump even from an attempt to overthrow the government, oblige them to cast that vote. There needs to be a list. There needs to be a record.

Fortunately, there appears to be little to no support for allowing Republicans to dodge a trial; this "censure" nonsense is likely to be over before it begins. We're going to get a list of which top Republicans truly believe, even now, that Donald Trump's actions were within the bounds of what America should allow. It will be a long list, and everyone on it will be senators who have betrayed their nation countless times before in their bid to normalize abject corruption in service to Republican power.

McConnell, feeling the heat of GOP mega-donors, turns on Trump

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, who just one year ago led the charge to acquit Donald Trump of impeachment charges, has been going through a head-spinning donor-inspired evolution over the last couple weeks since Trump incited violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

After more than five weeks of silently endorsing Trump's efforts to overturn the election results, McConnell has moved from accepting President-elect Joe Biden's win to getting to "maybe" on convicting Trump to publicly blaming Trump for the murderous rioters who stormed the Capitol.

"The mob was fed lies," McConnell said from the Senate floor Tuesday, as he prepares to hand off the Senate majority to Democrats. "They were provoked by the president and other powerful people," McConnell added, conveniently failing to define "other people," since the vast majority of GOP congressional lawmakers helped fuel the fire of outrage among Trump supporters. Nonetheless, McConnell’s comments are still by the far the furthest he has gone in trying to disentangle himself and his caucus from Trump. Among GOP congressional leadership, only Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Republicans' No. 3 in the House, has gone further with her statement skewering Trump for lighting "the flame of the attack."

McConnell spent four solid years diligently avoiding leveling any direct criticism whatsoever at Trump, whether he was calling white supremacists "very fine people" or trying to steal a second election by extorting foreign officials. In fact, McConnell rallied his caucus to end the Senate trial last year without hearing from a single witness. In the process, McConnell and Senate Republicans taught Trump he would never suffer the consequences of his actions, no matter how abhorrent or harmful they were to American democracy.

But surprise, surprise—the mighty dollar is proving more powerful than opportunistic loyalty to a man now ending his term as the grossest, pettiest, and least liked American president in modern history. And Republican lawmakers are indeed facing a reckoning for building Trump into a monster and then fanning the flames of his bogus claims that the election was stolen from him. Not only are corporate donors pulling back from their widespread support of Sedition Party candidates, but other big-dollar donors are making their demands for a break with Trump perfectly clear. The New York Times reported over the weekend:

William E. Oberndorf, an influential Republican donor who gave $2.5 million to Mr. McConnell’s super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, in the 2020 election, said that donors should be closely watching the impeachment votes as they formulate their plans for giving. A longtime critic of Mr. Trump, Mr. Oberndorf said it had been a mistake for the party not to oust Mr. Trump during his first impeachment trial last year.

“They now have a chance to address this egregious mistake and make sure Donald Trump will never be able to run for public office again,” Mr. Oberndorf said. “Republican donors should be paying attention to how our elected officials vote on this matter.”

McConnell, who has never really liked Trump, may be legitimately angry over the violent mob Trump sicced on congressional lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans alike. But he's also sure gotten some monetary help in getting there. And given the choice between continuing to endear himself to Trump and securing the cash to help him win back the Senate majority? Sorry Trump, you lose.

In fact, McConnell doesn't even have the time to attend Trump's supposed celebratory send-off Wednesday morning at Andrews Air Force Base—he'll be attending Catholic mass with Joe Biden instead. 

.@senatemajldr on the U.S. Capitol Attack: "The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people." pic.twitter.com/QIeviyHkl3

— CSPAN (@cspan) January 19, 2021

Republicans can’t quit Trump and it’s tearing their party apart

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell's Faustian bargain with Donald Trump is backfiring in spectacular fashion as his Senate caucus descends into bitter internecine warfare over whether to back Trump's seditious effort to overturn the presidential election results.

That intra-party battle spilling into public view is how Republicans kicked off the 117th Congress. As House Democrats narrowly reelected Nancy Pelosi as Speaker Sunday, McConnell lost grip on the caucus he had marshaled nearly a year earlier to clear Trump of impeachment charges against the backdrop of a mountain of evidence Senate Republicans ultimately dismissed without hearing from a single witness. That blind fealty helped assure Trump that no matter what action he took—however reckless, illegal, or traitorous—he would never pay a price for it. And so when Trump lost the presidential election, he decided yet again that making a bid to steal it would be both perfectly in order and without consequence.

So McConnell and congressional Republicans once again stood by Trump for over a month, declaring repeatedly that he had every right to try to overturn the results of an election that was secure, fair, and devoid of fraud. The longer Trump's baseless effort continued, the more bogus it was shown to be through a series of endless losses in both state and federal courtrooms. But when states across the nation finally certified their results rendering Trump the loser, McConnell figured he could just flip the switch, reluctantly embrace the results, and leave Trump in the rearview mirror. 

Not so fast. The monster McConnell nurtured over the last four years with the help of his fellow Republicans has turned on him. Despite his repeated pleas for Senate Republicans to leave Trump for dead when Congress certifies the election results in a joint session Wednesday, the lure of personal ambition proved too powerful for the greater good of the GOP caucus. After Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri announced with the gleam of 2024 in his eyes that he would challenge the results during certification, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas suddenly wanted a piece of the action too. Now about a dozen Senate Republicans—all hoping to ingratiate themselves with Trump's cultists to boost their own political star—have jumped on board the Trump's sedition train. As Joan McCarter notes, that pro-fascist coup faction represents a quarter of the Senate Republican caucus. 

At the other end of the spectrum, several of their GOP colleagues have spoken out forcefully against the largely symbolic, politically expedient, and certainly futile effort—which will ultimately be shot down in the Democrat-controlled House. Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who notably isn't running for reelection in 2022, blasted Hawley and Cruz by name in a statement for trying to undermine "the right of the people to elect their own leaders."

On Wednesday, Toomey said, "I intend to vigorously defend our form of government by opposing this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others.”

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who has regularly marched to the beat of his own drummer in the caucus, also skewered the effort as an "egregious ploy." And Sen. Ben Sasse, who is no doubt working to burnish his own brand of Republicanism, called the challenge “a very, very, bad idea,” saying he was both "concerned about the division in America" and the health of the Republican Party. "This is bad for the country and bad for the party,” said Sasse, who just secured another six-year Senate term.

Sen. Tom of Cotton of Arkansas, a GOP firebrand also eyeing 2024, turned in a somewhat unusual condemnation of the pro-Trump challenge on constitutional grounds, saying it would "only embolden those Democrats who want to erode further our system of constitutional government.” 

Even some Republicans in the House have objected to the Trumpian coup. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, also a GOP firebrand and one-time aide to Sen. Cruz, forced his GOP colleagues Sunday to vote on whether the House delegations from the states Trump is challenging should be seated since Republicans are claiming widespread systemic fraud took place in those states.

"After all, those representatives were elected through the very same systems—with the same ballot procedures, with the same signature validations, with the same broadly applied decisions of executive and judicial branch officials—as were the electors chosen for the President of the United States under the laws of those states," Roy said of the House delegations from Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada. Naturally, nearly every one of his GOP voted in favor of seating the delegations, with a vote of 371-2 permitting Pelosi to swear in all the House members from the states Trump is challenging. The two GOP members who voted against it said they simply wanted to debate the matter. 

While the whole episode on Wednesday will serve as yet another stain on the entire Republican party, it will at least have the benefit of forcing Senate Republicans to go on the record either backing a bald-faced betrayal of American democracy or risking the wrath of Trump. Neither one of those positions is particularly enviable for the cohort of vulnerable Senate Republicans in 2022. It forces those Senate Republicans to place very early bets on risking the alienation of more moderate suburban voters in order to woo Trump voters who may or may not actually continue to turn out for the Republican party once Trump isn't on the ticket. Sitting GOP senators such as John Thune of South Dakota are already facing the prospect of attracting primaries from Trump acolytes, which in turn could imperil the GOP’s path to prevailing in subsequent general election contests. 

If Senate Republicans had hung together and refused to challenge the election results during this week’s joint session, they all could have started to build a certain amount of insulation from Trumpian politics moving forward. But as it turns out, a craven party that eagerly betrayed the country to achieve its own political ends has only served to embolden its own cohort of craven politicians who are eagerly throwing their colleagues under the bus to serve their own political ends. What comes around, goes around. 

You’re fired! The People ousted Donald Trump because Senate Republicans were too corrupt to do it

One of the biggest political stories of 2020—and really Donald Trump’s entire tenure—was what a bunch of traitorous sellouts the entire Senate Republican caucus turned out to be. Sure, we knew these GOP senators were no profiles in courage as Trump took the reins in 2017, but their constant kowtowing and, particularly, their hasty acquittal of Trump against a mountain of evidence that he abused his power to extort a foreign government in order to win reelection was an actual attack on U.S. democracy itself. 

"It was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security and our fundamental values,” Utah Sen. Mitt Romney said in early February shortly before he became the sole GOP senator to vote against clearing Trump of wrongdoing. “Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one's oath of office that I can imagine."
The other 52 Republican senators banded together to shield Trump from accountability and suffering the just consequences of his defilement of the republic slid from claims that there was no quid pro quo to “So what if there was?” Ultimately, every Senate Republican but Romney proved content to play Trump’s stooge regardless of the blight on democracy it represented.
Unfortunately, that craven political calculation worked out for too many vulnerable GOP senators in November. While Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Martha McSally of Arizona suffered the consequences of abetting Trump’s corruption, others such as Maine’s Susan Collins, Iowa’s Joni Ernst, and North Carolina’s Thom Tillis all escaped accountability for their complicity in Trump’s crime. And, at least for now, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell—who led the charge to acquit Trump without hearing from a single witness (including Trump’s former national security adviser and stalwart conservative John Bolton)—is still the presumed leader of the Senate Majority for the upcoming Congress.
But that doesn’t have to be. On January 5, we still have one last chance to exact a price for McConnell’s treachery by relegating him to minority status in the upper chamber and putting Democrats in charge. At the same time, we can send a powerful message that the seditious acts of Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in backing Trump’s fascist power grab to overturn the election will not stand.
But regardless of what happens in those two critical Senate races, the American people did band together to save our democracy from a would-be dictator and an entire major-American party that eagerly helped him undercut this centuries-old experiment in democracy.

You're fired, Donald Trump. The People have spoken.

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