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‘Dimwitted’ and ‘Dysfunction’: Republicans Buried by Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal Over Post-Midterm Chaos
In a blistering opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal on Saturday morning, the editorial board hammered House Republicans for turning their takeover of the House in the midterms election into a circus as members battle over who will be the new Speaker.
With their slim majority margin — due in great part to the failure of the so-called “red wave” to materialize in the November midterm election — presumptive new Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is finding it impossible to get the 218 votes he needs to move on from being House Minority Leader.
As the WSJ editors point out, there is little difference in the policies espoused by McCarthy and his detractors and the battle is not only a waste of time but evidence that the House Republicans are bound and determined to screw up their success at becoming the House majority.
In a word, the editors called un-named GOP House members “dimwitted.”
After writing, “A handful of other backbenchers say they’ll also oppose Mr. McCarthy, which could lead to multiple ballots and perhaps even a Democratic Speaker,” the editors added, “What’s bizarre is that the dissenters don’t have major policy differences with Mr. McCarthy or a plausible alternative candidate for Speaker. Mr. Biggs has no chance. He and his rump group also don’t seem to have any constructive reason to oppose Mr. McCarthy beyond a desire to grab the media spotlight or blow everything up.”
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They continued, “… a narrow GOP majority of only 222-213 requires a leader who can enforce party discipline. That’s how Nancy Pelosi has been able to govern with the mirror-image majority in the last two years. Too many House Republicans are too dimwitted to understand the uses of power and how to wield it. They’d rather rage against the machine to no useful effect.”
Also swept up in the WSJ editorial attack are the Republicans in the Senate who are working on an omnibus deal with the Democrats that the editors said is not helping McCarthy’s cause.
“[Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell and the Senate GOP don’t trust that Mr. McCarthy can deliver in January, or so they say. They won’t even give him the chance,” they wrote before adding, “Senate Democrats and the White House will have a united front and could roll over a divided GOP.”
The editors then lamented, “The GOP dysfunction since Election Day won’t matter if it teaches Republicans that their only chance of influencing policy is to stay united. On the evidence so far, however, Republicans are the gang that couldn’t shoot straight—except at one another.”
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A federal judge chastised the Trump administration for defying his order issued last week to fully distribute SNAP payments by Monday, or at least partially by Wednesday. The administration had said it would release 65 percent of the funds but offered no timeline for doing so.
Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island sharply rebuked the Trump administration “for what he said was defying his order to make full SNAP payments by Nov. 5,” Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported on Thursday. “He has ordered USDA to make the *full* payment to states by tomorrow.”
“It’s likely that SNAP recipients are hungry as we sit here,” McConnell said, according to Cheney.
READ MORE: ‘Make Lots of Trump Babies’: Dr. Oz Highlights Midterm Goals
The judge alleged that “Trump and his allies have admitted to withholding SNAP benefits for ‘political reasons’ rather than to preserve child nutrition programs, which the judge said was a pretext,” Cheney also reported.
Judge McConnell cited a Truth Social post President Trump made in which he vowed to hold up the SNAP funds. The President wrote that food stamp benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!”
The White House later walked back the President’s remarks, claiming he was referring to any future shutdowns.
The judge “said Trump’s Truth Social post was essentially an admission of his ‘intent to defy the court order,'” according to Cheney.
“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP,” McConnell said, according to the Associated Press. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial Snap payments and failed to consider the harms individual who rely on those benefits would suffer.”
READ MORE: Democratic Rep. Interrupts Speaker Johnson — Accuses Him of ‘Lies’
Image via Reuters
Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, shared a few of his goals for next year’s midterms with reporters.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Thursday, Oz promoted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” platform.
“We’ve dropped the [price of] infertility drugs to make lots of Trump babies — I’m hoping by the midterms,” he told reporters, as HuffPost reported.
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Praising President Donald Trump’s plan to lower prices on popular GLP-1 weight loss drugs, Oz said, “America will have to get fit in order to rightsize the health care system.”
Dr. Oz has talked about making “Trump babies” before.
“Now I know what you’re all thinking, and you’re probably right, that there are going to be a lot of Trump babies,” Oz said in October at a White House event focused on making in vitro drugs more accessible. “I think that’s probably a good thing.”
“But it turns out the fundamental, creative force in society is about making babies,” he continued. “It’s about creating. And this country, the one that President Trump is leading so beautifully has been a country of abundance, not scarcity.”
Oz: We’ve dropped in fertility drugs to make a lot of Trump babies hopefully by the midterms pic.twitter.com/LxdPEasSns
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 6, 2025
READ MORE: Democratic Rep. Interrupts Speaker Johnson — Accuses Him of ‘Lies’
Image via Reuters
As the federal government shutdown enters its 38th day with no end in sight, the Speaker of the House and the House Democratic Minority Leader appear united — on one aspect only: blaming the Senate.
Amid reports that a few Senate Democrats might agree to vote to reopen the government if Republicans guarantee a date-certain vote on restoring the Affordable Care Act subsidies, Speaker Mike Johnson appeared to attempt to scuttle that potential bargain on Thursday.
Asked if he would assure that the House would vote on restoring the Obamacare subsidy funding, which would be the basis of a Senate deal, Johnson refused.
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“No, because we did our job, and I’m not part of the negotiation,” the Speaker told reporters on Thursday. “The House did its job on September 19th” when it passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through November 21. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has effectively declared that legislation is dead, unless he can change the end date.
“I’m not promising anybody anything,” Johnson continued. “I’m gonna let this process play out.”
Over on the Democratic side of the aisle, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries blasted the Senate Majority Leader.
“Not a partisan thing, a patriotic thing: We have to decisively address the Republican healthcare crisis,” Jeffries declared.
“And John Thune is divorced from reality,” he charged.
“I mean, it’s a clown show over in the Senate,” Jeffries continued.
READ MORE: Democratic Rep. Interrupts Speaker Johnson — Accuses Him of ‘Lies’
“Fourteen, fifteen times, you bring the same partisan Republican spending bill?” he said, referring to the House-passed continuing resolution that Leader Thune has been putting before the Senate several times a week.
“Expecting a different result? That’s the classic definition of legislative insanity. Doing the same thing, over and over and over again,” he said while blasting Thune, saying he “has no ability to actually negotiate in good faith.”
Weeks ago, Jeffries told MSNBC, “what I’m saying is that we need an ironclad path forward that decisively addresses the Republican healthcare crisis.”
“In terms of the Affordable Care Act, you know, this is a group of people, Republicans, who have tried to repeal the Affordable Care more than 70 different times since 2010. They can’t be trusted on a wing and a prayer. We need a real path forward to address the crisis that Republicans have visited upon the American people in terms of healthcare, the cost of living, and affordability.”
Jeffries: “John Thune is divorced from reality. It’s a clown show over in the Senate. 14, 15 times you bring the same partisan Republican spending bill to the Senate floor expecting a different result? That’s the classic definition of legislative insanity. Has no ability to… pic.twitter.com/MqPUA1sIMJ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 6, 2025
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Image via Reuters
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