A majority of Republican voters want Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to resign. The Senate minority leader froze twice this summer while addressing the press.

A recent poll from the right-leaning Rasmussen Reports shows that 74% of Republicans have called on McConnell to step down. When expanded to all voters, that number drops a percentage point to 73%. In addition, most voters, 60%, view McConnell unfavorably.

The poll was conducted last week, from September 3-5. The margin of error is 3%.

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McConnell has faced criticism from the left and the right in recent years. On the right, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly disparaged McConnell. It appears the feeling is mutual, with a book quoting McConnell as saying “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us,” after the January 6 insurrection, according to CNN. Even when he voted to acquit Trump during his second impeachment, McConnell made clear he blamed him for the insurrection.

“There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said at the time, according to NPR.

“He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed and order restored,” he continued. “No. Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily — happily — as the chaos unfolded. Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in serious danger.”

On the left, McConnell is hated for many reasons, but one of the biggest is McConnell’s refusal to hold hearings on former President Barack Obama’s pick for Supreme Court during the final year of his second term. He said that it would be improper to hold the hearing during an election year when his party may not win. However, McConnell was happy to hold hearings for Amy Coney Barrett only a month before the 2020 election.

McConnell has also faced concerns over his age and health. In addition to freezing twice during press conferences this summer, he’s also fallen at least three times this year. In 2020, McConnell went viral for photos showing his lips and hands bruised and blue.

The senator is 81 years old, and a member of one of the oldest congresses in U.S. history. The average senator is 65.3 years old, according to the Pew Research Center. In the House, the average age is just under 58. Questions of age have come up several times about many different the current crop of politicians, including Biden and Trump—both of whom, when elected, broke the record for oldest president—and California Senator Dianne Feinstein.

A protest in Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)’s office over AIDS funding ended in arrests Monday morning.

Protesters from Housing Works and Health GAP held a sit-in in McCarthy’s office, according to video from Politico reporter Alice Miranda Ollstein.  In the video, posted to X, activists sit on the floor, chanting, “Pass PEPFAR Now McCarthy.”

BREAKING: Activists are occupying @SpeakerMcCarthy’s office demanding a full 5 year reauthorization of PEPFAR, which some Rs are opposing. Background: https://t.co/nQVnCxPDE0 pic.twitter.com/wCZx4Z6wzu

— Alice Miranda Ollstein (@AliceOllstein) September 11, 2023

Seven activists were arrested for unlawful entry by Capitol Police, according to The Hill. They had occupied McCarthy’s office for about 10 to 15 minutes, the paper reported.

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PEPFAR, or the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, was started by Republican President George W. Bush in 2003. However, current Republicans in Congress are blocking a reauthorization effort backed by President Joe Biden, over allegations from the Heritage Foundation that PEPFAR funding has gone to abortion providers. These claims are disputed by the Biden administration as well as AIDS charities working with PEPFAR.

“It’s just dumbfounding to me that the charge has been taken seriously,” Shepherd Smith, co-founder of the Children’s AIDS Fund International, told the Washington Post.

PEPFAR, which has a $7 billion budget, is due to expire on September 30, unless the reauthorization passes. While anti-abortion groups like the National Right to Life Committee and the Family Research Council are fighting the reauthorization of the AIDS funding bill, groups including Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign and UNICEF have called for its passing.

A number of Republicans who were involved with the original bill, including former Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from Florida and former Senator Bill Frist from Tennessee are lobbying hard in favor of reauthorizing the bill, according to Politico.

“Allowing a significant lapse in the program would erode our international standing at a time when we are in a geopolitical competition with China and Russia,” Frist told the outlet. “Throughout our country’s history, no initiative has had a more profound impact or saved more lives around the world than PEPFAR.”

He also put to bed the abortion funding claims from critics.

“In response to assertions that PEPFAR supports abortion, I’ve seen no evidence to support that claim,” Frist said. “On the contrary, the program gives the children of HIV-positive mothers an opportunity for a life full of promise.”

Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey, who is leading the fight against PEPFAR, is in favor of a stop-gap bill providing one year of funding—instead of the five-year reauthorization—in order to keep the program until anti-abortion restrictions can be passed, according to Politico. He also said that the danger of PEPFAR lapsing is a “false narrative,” saying that the program could continue. PEPFAR briefly paused during 2013 and 2018, according to Politico, but was extended by the end of those years.

PEPFAR has been credited with saving 25 million people during its lifetime.

The IRS announced that its enforcement system will change its focus from going after average and low-income taxpayers to millionaires and corporations who owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax debt.

The change follows a recent “top-to-bottom review of enforcement efforts,” the IRS said Friday. In addition to focusing on “high-income” cases of people earning more than $1 million a year with over $250,000 in tax debt, the agency said it was increasing safeguards for people receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit, one of the government’s largest antipoverty programs.

“This new compliance push makes good on the promise of the Inflation Reduction Act to ensure the IRS holds our wealthiest filers accountable to pay the full amount of what they owe,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. “The years of underfunding that predated the Inflation Reduction Act led to the lowest audit rate of wealthy filers in our history.”

READ MORE: Cursing Congressman Doubles Down: I’m Being Attacked for Swearing at Teenagers Because Republicans Defunded the IRS

The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August 2022, gave the agency $80 billion. Prior to the Inflation Reduction Act, funding for the IRS had been cut repeatedly since 2010, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

During former President Donald Trump’s term, additional cuts were made, even over the objections of Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. During Trump’s administration, the number of IRS agents had been cut by a third from 2010 levels, according to a 2018 ProPublica investigation, with the number of auditors reaching levels not seen since the early 1950s.

Under the Trump administration, 36% of audits were towards people receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit, according to ProPublica. Most of of those receiving the credit earned under $20,000. Between 2011 and 2018, the number of audits for those earning over $500,000 a year dropped from 8% to 2.5% while audits of those earning under $25,000 only dropped from 1.2% to 0.7%.

“Republican budget cuts going back a decade have gutted the ability of the IRS to crack down on tax cheating by high earners,” Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) told the Associated Press in 2020. “The next Congress needs to get serious about making sure that corporations and the wealthy are paying a fair share, and rebuilding IRS enforcement is a big part of that job.”

The $80 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act is more than six times the IRS’ 2017 annual budget of $12 billion.