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‘Open Rebellion’: Mike Johnson, Mitch McConnell and Ronna McDaniel Under MAGA Fire
In a presidential election year where their likely nominee often leads in the polls, it is close to unheard of that the leaders of that party would be under direct and very public attack from the base and their own elected leaders, yet Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel are facing increasing dissatisfaction – and even some calls for their ouster.
After two critical and “embarrassing” losses Tuesday night – one on the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the other on aid to Israel, some House Republicans and staffers have called into question the “decision-making abilities” of Speaker Mike Johnson, according to Punchbowl News.
“Tuesday’s debacle — failing to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and then choosing to lose a vote on $17 billion in aid to Israel — is truly one of the most embarrassing days in recent House GOP history,” Punchbowl News reported. “Inside Johnson’s leadership circle, there are plenty who doubt his decision-making capability while being forced to begrudgingly execute his questionable strategies. And among rank-and-file House GOP lawmakers, there are a lot of people scratching their heads about where he’s leading them.”
READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene Mocked After Fiery Denials of ‘Insurrection’
Late Wednesday morning, Speaker Johnson defended those failures, telling reporters “democracy is messy,” while blaming Democrats for bringing one of their members who had been in the hospital in to vote.
“Last night was a setback, but democracy is messy … We have a razor-thin margin here … People show up when they’re not expected to be in the building, it changes the equation … We will pass those articles of impeachment.”
— Speaker Mike Johnson on failed Mayorkas impeachment pic.twitter.com/4ukTmq3rud
— The Recount (@therecount) February 7, 2024
When confronted with remarks attacking him from Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, that ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy “was an ‘unmitigated disaster’ for your party,” Johnson tried to turn the tables.
“Well, look, it was a mess, what happened here, but we’re cleaning it up. And Massie is one of my dear friends and colleagues and I don’t think that this is a reflection on the leader. It’s a reflection on the body itself.”
On the other side of Congress, Politico reports, Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is “under open attack from the right for even trying to work with Democrats on the border.”
McConnell’s “far-right critics are speaking out more loudly: Several held a press conference Tuesday where they denounced his handling of the border talks, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) calling on McConnell to step down.”
RELATED: ‘Mutiny’: Far Right GOP Senators Start to Give McConnell the McCarthy Treatment
McConnell put U.S. Senator James Lankford (R-OK) a hardcore conservative, on drafting the border bill that includes funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. McConnell supported Lankford and endorsed the legislation, before walking away and throwing Lankford, as Mother Jones’ David Corn noted, “under the bus.”
Politico adds that “Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) posted a fundraising link asking donors to ‘kill this border bill’ in the middle of a closed-door GOP meeting on Monday and demanded ‘new leadership,’ while Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) memed McConnell as Charlie Brown whiffing on an attempt to kick a football held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.).”
“’I’ve been super unhappy since this started,’ Johnson said in an interview. ‘Leader McConnell completely blew this.’”
Over at the RNC, various reports state that Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has either already quit, is “expected to leave amid pressure from Donald Trump,” or offered to resign, possibly after the South Carolina primary.
The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, “RNC chair Ronna McDaniel discussed with Trump stepping down after South Carolina primary, per person familiar. NYT reported she told Trump she’s planning to step down. Trump met with her at Mar-a-Lago yesterday where Trump didn’t ask her to quit but told Newsmax she needed to go.”
A quick NCRM review found only one other time in the U.S. when the chair of a major national political party stepped down just months before a presidential election: the DNC’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz, after emails were leaked in 2016. Donald Trump, the Republican, went on to win that election.
Watch the video above or at this link.
READ MORE: Tuberville: Democrats Want Women to Be ‘Extinct’
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Donald Trump says the day he enters the Oval Office for a second term he will end anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students implemented by the Biden administration.
Serving up a scattershot series of complaints with the hosts from the Philadelphia-based right-wing talk radio show “Kayal and Company” on Friday, Trump compared LGBTQ+ protections to a “cuckoo’s nest.”
“A lot of things don’t make sense, having to do with what they’re doing, from the border to all of the men playing in women’s sports. I mean, the world is like a cuckoo’s nest right now with what they do,” Trump declared.
One of the hosts alleged President Joe Biden has engaged in “manipulation” of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. She claimed parents now have to “pinch some pennies” to be able to afford private Christian schools for their children, to remove them from the enhancements that go into effect this summer.
“Many schools are grappling with what they’re going to do,” she said, “because as of August 1, as you know, because of Biden’s manipulation of Title IX, these kids, the school boards, have no choice, they’re meeting right now they, many of them perplexed, and they don’t know what to do, Mr. President, because they’re so upset over this that at August 1 a biological boy can change in a locker room.”
READ MORE: ‘Rejection of Trump’: 1 in 5 Indiana GOP Voters Just Cast Their Ballot for Nikki Haley
Trump replied, “It’s crazy. Crazy.”
“We’re going to end it on day one,” Trump vowed. “We’re going to change it on day one. It’s going to be changed. We’re going to end it. That’s right.”
“The whole thing is crazy. Look, it’s like men playing in women’s sports. It’s like open borders for the world to come in. Send all their prisoners. We’ll take as many as you can give us. Send all their people from mental institutions.”
“We’ll get that changed. Tell your people not to worry about it. It’ll be signed on day one. It will be terminated,” Trump promised, vowing to end the LGBTQ+ protections which include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.
On his first day in office, President Biden implemented “the most far-reaching of any federal protections yet” for LGBTQ+ people, according to NPR.
In an explainer on the new expanded rules, Ms. Magazine reports “The 2024 regulations prohibit discrimination not only on the basis of sex, but also on the basis of sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”
According to GLAAD, which is tracking “the Biden administration’s executive orders, legislative support, speeches and nominations that affect LGBTQ people and rights,” President Biden has made 337 “moves” in 1206 days.
Listen to a short clip below or at this link.
ICYMI: @realDonaldTrump joined @NickKayal & @DawnStensland sharing his perspective on Title IX…
Watch below or listen on @Audacy pic.twitter.com/wzx0QxKPJ7
— Talk Radio 1210 WPHT (@1210WPHT) May 10, 2024
READ MORE: Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict
A Fox News panel discussing the Trump New York criminal trial debated whether or not the indicted ex-president could attack the judge’s daughter, with former Bush 43 press secretary Ari Fleischer insisting he should, and claiming doing so would not violate the terms of the gag order.
“President Trump needs to stop calling the judge ‘conflicted.’ He needs to explain why he’s conflicted,” Fleischer said Friday to a panel that included former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. “Every day of the trial he goes in there, he says, ‘the judge is conflicted, conflicted bigger than I’ve ever seen anywhere in my life.’ He doesn’t explain how or why. He needs to say that the judge’s daughter works for a Democratic political consulting firm that does anti-Trump business. He needs to explain it. Otherwise, it’s just an assertion with no proof. And the President if he’s going to say it, back it up. Explain.”
“I think that’s a violation of the gag order, is it not?” a Fox panelist replied.
“No, he can criticize the judge,” McEnany responded.
READ MORE: Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict
“Not the judge but the family,” the panelist added.
“But when he says the judge is conflicted, you can still explain how and why, and I think comply with a gag,” Fleischer insisted.
The panelists then agreed Donald Trump has been “measured” in his remarks.
National security attorney Brad Moss weighed in on social media, posting the relevant portion of the gag order and writing that Fleischer “effectively recommends Trump violate the terms of the gag order.”
The gag order in part reads: “Defendant is directed to refrain from” … “Making or directing others to make public statements about (1) counsel in the case other than the District Attorney, (2) members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or (3) the family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staffs work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is likely to result.”
Despite Trump’s repeated attacks, an ethics panel last year cleared Judge Juan Merchan of any issues surrounding his daughter’s work.
On Monday, Judge Merchan warned Trump he may throw him in jail if he violates the gag order again.
Watch below or at this link.
Fleischer: Trump needs to talk about Judge Merchan’s daughter.
McDowell: I think that violates the gag order
Kayleigh: No, he can criticize the judge pic.twitter.com/CLgNxNpg6B
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 10, 2024
READ MORE: ‘Undisguised Corruption’: Critics Slam Trump for ‘Selling the White House’ to Big Oil
A federal appeals court panel of three judges has upheld the criminal contempt of Congress conviction of Steve Bannon, the far-right provocateur and former Trump chief strategist and senior White House advisor. Legal experts say he can appeal but ultimately he will he headed to prison.
Bannon had refused to comply with a subpoena lawfully-issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
“Bannon was sentenced to four months in jail in 2022 by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols after a jury convicted him of two counts of contempt of Congress,” Politico reports Friday. “But Nichols, a Trump appointee, agreed to postpone the jail term while Bannon appealed the decision, agreeing that the complex mix of laws that govern executive privilege and testimonial immunity for White House aides could be overturned by higher courts.”
The appeals court panel includes judges appointed by President Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, according to CNN’s Zachary Cohen.
In their ruling the judges wrote: “Public accounts indicated that Bannon had predicted on a January 5, 2021 podcast that ‘all hell [wa]s going to break loose’ the next day,” and noted, “In addition to the podcast prediction, Bannon had reportedly participated in discussions in late 2020 and early 2021 about efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.”
READ MORE: House Ethics Committee Extends Investigation Into ‘Ultra MAGA’ Congressman
Politico noted the “three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Bannon’s argument, saying the former aide and prominent podcaster had no legal rationale for his blanket refusal to appeal before the Jan. 6 committee — and that long-standing case law.”
Bannon is a peddler of conspiracy theories whose podcast “was crowned the top peddler of false, misleading and unsubstantiated statements among political podcasts,” according to The New York Times, citing a Brookings study.
“Bannon is unlikely to have to report to prison immediately,” NBC News reports.
Legal experts weighed in on the question of prison for Bannon.
READ MORE: ‘Undisguised Corruption’: Critics Slam Trump for ‘Selling the White House’ to Big Oil
“And now it’s time for Bannon to be given a date to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence,” remarked MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor.
“Bannon is effectively out of appeals,” observed professor of law and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance, former U.S. Attorney. “He can delay a little bit longer, asking for the full court to review the decision en banc & asking SCOTUS to hear his case on cert, but neither one of those things will happen. Bannon is going to prison.”
Professor of law and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter remarked, “it’s slammer time.”
Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’
‘On Day One’: Trump Vows to End Protections for LGBTQ Students
Ari Fleischer Offers Donald Trump Advice Attorney Says ‘Effectively’ Violates Gag Order
Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict
