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‘This Is All a Game for a Lot of Them’: MSNBC Conservative Slams GOP as Jordan Fails Again

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Conservative MSNBC political analyst Brendan Buck critiqued House Republicans’ inability to unite against a nominee for Speaker after Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan forced a third vote Friday that most correctly predicted he would lose, and by an even greater margin. On Tuesday Jordan lost by 20 votes. On Wednesday he lost by 22 votes. On Friday he lost by 25 votes.

“This is all a game. It’s a game for a lot of them,” said Buck, referring to House Republican lawmakers. Buck is a former top communications aide to both former GOP Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner.

House Republicans “can play as long as they want because there’s no real consequences for it,” Buck added, noting that “despite all of this chaos, 95% of these people are going to get reelected without a problem.”

MSNBC host José Díaz-Balart observed that America is “16 days, 18 hours, 42 minutes and 35 seconds without the Speaker of the House of Representatives. And kind of like, there are a lot of things happening around the world and certainly a lot of things happening in our country that need to be dealt with. Brendan, do you see any solution going forward in the next days, weeks? Months? I mean, what are we talking about?”

READ MORE: ‘Red Herring’: Death Threats Against GOP Lawmakers Are Overblown Says Top Jordan Ally

“You know, you would think that there would be a lot of urgency to figure this out,” Buck replied. “But I actually I don’t know that they actually do that at this point. There’s a lot of hurt feelings. There’s a lot of tempers. I don’t think they’re going to start feeling like they really need to resolve this until you get it maybe closer to a government funding deadline. Maybe the Senate passes a package with money for Israel in it, that they feel like they need to do something.”

The federal government is set to shut down at 12:01 AM on November 18, four weeks from tonight. Friday morning President Joe Biden sent Congress a $105 billion national security request for Israel, Ukraine, and the southern U.S. border.

“There’s a lot of things going on in the world and I think the world is looking at us right now and just hopefully, you know, hopefully just shaking their head is not worse. So I think at some point soon, they will realize that they can’t do this any longer. But we’re not probably at rock bottom yet. Unfortunately.”

Buck also noted that if the Republican majority ever do elect a Speaker, that Speaker will have their hands full.

READ MORE: Biden Says ‘American Leadership Is What Holds the World Together’ in Speech Urging Unity

“Whoever becomes Speaker, you know, say somebody emerges and, oh, my goodness, all of a sudden, 220 Republicans are excited to vote for them. That person still has to oversee this conference and try to keep them together. It is almost impossible at this point, and whatever cohesion we had before, whatever structures kept us in place before, it’s completely fallen apart. Everybody is on their own now, there’s not going to be any significant legislative going forward, you can forget about it, it’s going to be just whatever the bare minimum that absolutely has to be done is. Because as you said, there are some people in this in this conference who care only about their primary in their district.”

“They are so hyper-obsessed with such a narrow slice of the electorate that they can’t even see straight. There’s a comment from Eli Crane, a freshman who said, you know, he’s representing his voters,” Buck said, referring to the Arizona Republican U.S. Congressman. “He said, ‘I’m representing the American people who want Jim Jordan.’ I had to stop and think, in what world are you living, that the American people, of all other things that Congress can be doing right now, what’s the American people are demanding is Jim Jordan. I think just 30% of the country only knows who Jim Jordan is, and probably most of them don’t like Jim Jordan. But that is the mindset that a lot of these people have and they convince themselves of their righteousness. They convince themselves that their cause is so good and so right that the American people are behind them, but they’re just completely hyper and actually focused on such a narrow, narrow portion of this country. That’s why we can’t get anything done.”

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‘Disgraceful’: ICE Slammed After Allegedly Pepper-Spraying US Congresswoman

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U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) is accusing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents of pepper-spraying her in her face while she was at a local Tucson, Arizona restaurant.

Rep. Grijalva in a video on social media said she saw about 40 mostly-masked ICE agents at a restaurant she frequents weekly.

The agents were “in several vehicles that the community had stopped right here, right in the middle of the street, because they were afraid that they were taking people without due process, without any kind of notice.”

READ MORE: Warning Signs Flash as Trump Slump Raises Fears of 2018 Blue Wave Rerun: Conservative

She said that the community was “protecting their people” when she was “sprayed in the face by a very aggressive agent,” and “pushed around by others when I literally was not being aggressive.”

“I was asking for clarification, which is my right as a member of Congress,” she continued. “So, once I introduced myself, once I did, I assumed that it would be a little calmer, but there was literally only one person that was trying to speak to me in any kind of civil tone, and everyone else was being rude and disrespectful, and I just can only imagine if they’re going to treat me like that, how they’re treating everybody else.”

Congresswoman Grijalva said she saw “people directly sprayed,” including “members of our press” and staff members.

She blasted President Donald Trump, saying that he “has no regard for any due process, the rule of law, the Constitution — they’re literally disappearing people from the streets.”

Critics slammed the agents’ action.

READ MORE: Trump: Democrats Are Plotting ‘Total Obliteration’ of Supreme Court

U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) wrote that Rep. Grijalva “was doing her job, standing up for her community.”

“Pepper-spraying a sitting member of Congress is disgraceful, unacceptable, and absolutely not what we voted for. Period,” he added.

“This is unacceptable and outrageous,” observed Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes. “Enforcing the rule [of] law does not mean pepper spraying a member of Congress for simply asking questions. Effective law enforcement requires restraint and accountability, not unchecked aggression.”

The Bulwark’s Sam Stein noted, “quite the beginning for Grijalva, who wasn’t seated for weeks, [cast] the decisive vote to get the Epstein files, and now has apparently been pepper sprayed in the face by immigration agents.”

Also calling the action “outrageous,” U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wrote: “We are Members of Congress with oversight authority of ICE. Rep Grijalva was completely within her rights to stand up for her constituents. ICE is completely lawless.”

“First they tackle a sitting Senator,” noted U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY). “Now they’re pepper spraying a Representative. It’s clear ICE is spinning out of control. We will hold the agency accountable.”

READ MORE: Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

 

Image via Reuters 

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Warning Signs Flash as Trump Slump Raises Fears of 2018 Blue Wave Rerun: Conservative

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A well-known conservative commentator has a warning for the Republican Party: take action now or face a repeat of the 2018 midterms when the GOP lost 41 House seats in a landslide. And this time, he says, the Senate could go to the Democrats as well.

Award-winning writer and journalist Bernard Goldberg reminded readers at The Hill that in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term, “Republicans got walloped … and a good chunk of that had President Trump’s name written all over it.”

Trump’s “approval ratings were in the low 40s, and independents — the folks who usually decide elections — had seen enough. They broke hard for the Democrats,” Goldberg noted. “Now here we are, staring down 2026, and you can almost hear history clearing its throat, getting ready to repeat itself.”

READ MORE: Trump: Democrats Are Plotting ‘Total Obliteration’ of Supreme Court

Goldberg noted that Trump’s approval rating is currently the lowest it’s been this term.

“Among Republicans, his support dropped from 91 percent right after the 2024 election to 84 percent last month. Among independents, it cratered — from 42 percent to just 25 percent.”

“If the trend continues,” he warned, “Republicans could be headed for another blue wave — and this time, it could wash away not just the House majority, but control of the Senate too.”

Why?

“It’s the economy — still,” he wrote.

“Trump is out there saying the economy is humming. Biden said the same thing before him. But voters didn’t buy it then, and they’re not buying it now. Why? Because it’s not GDP numbers that matter. It’s affordability,” Goldberg noted.

READ MORE: Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

That’s a word that President Trump continues to call a “con job,” while his own administration tries to claim he is focused on.

He pointed to a Karl Rove Wall Street Journal column and wrote: “The Republicans may have ‘avoided disaster’ in Tennessee, but the result should be a wake-up call for Republicans. He’s right.”

Goldberg asked: “will anyone in the Republican Party actually pick up the phone?”

“Because if Republicans don’t wake up — and fast — they’re going to find out the hard way what happens when you keep rerunning the same movie and expecting a different ending. To lose in 2026, all they have to do is nothing. And right now, that’s pretty much what they’re doing.”

READ MORE: Trump Urges Judge Aileen Cannon to Keep Jack Smith Report Secret

 

 

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Trump: Democrats Are Plotting ‘Total Obliteration’ of Supreme Court

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President Donald Trump is claiming that the top priority of Democrats is the “total obliteration” of the U.S. Supreme Court. His remarks came just hours after SCOTUS gave Republicans a 6-3 win along partisan lines, in the form of approving Texas’s redrawn mid-decade congressional maps that could help add five GOP-held seats to the U.S. House of Representatives. A lower court had ruled the redrawn Texas maps were likely racially biased.

Although there are different ways to measure, one study by Court Accountability this fall found that the Supreme Court has ruled in Trump’s favor 90% of the time.

“Most of these wins for the president came from the court’s ‘shadow docket’ slate of opinions — where the court has typically, in the past, only ruled on administrative measures,” according to Truthout. “However, in recent years, the Supreme Court has been making announcements on cases, issuing injunctions or allowances of actions to remain in place, that have the same effect, essentially, as a final decision.”

READ MORE: White House Touts Trump’s ‘Track Record’ on Affordability

On Friday, the president declared that the “Democrats number one policy push is the complete and total OBLITERATION of our great United States Supreme Court.”

“They will do this on their very first day in office, through the simple Termination of the Filibuster, SHOULD THEY WIN THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS,” he wrote.

Trump has strongly advocated for Republicans to eliminate the Senate filibuster.

“The Radical Left Democrats are looking at 21 Justices, with immediate ascension,” he wrote, claiming that Democrats would more than double the current size of the court.

“This would be terrible for our Country. Fear not, however, Republicans will not let it, or any of their other catastrophic policies, happen. Our Country is now in very good hands. MAGA!!!”

Some court reform advocates have suggested the Supreme Court be expanded to 13 justices, one for each of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals.

READ MORE: Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

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