Home Democratic leaders announce opposition to try to take away Johnson as speaker
The highest Home Democrats, together with minority chief Hakeem Jeffries, say they’ll oppose any try by congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and different rightwing Republicans to take away Mike Johnson because the chamber’s speaker.
Final month, Greene filed a movement to oust fellow Republican Johnson from his place as speaker of the Home, citing his collaboration with Democrats to go a authorities spending invoice. Within the weeks since, Johnson once more labored with the Home minority to approve laws authorizing navy help for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and reauthorize a controversial surveillance legislation. Greene, in the meantime, has picked up solely two different co-sponsors to her movement to vacate the speaker’s chair, and it was unclear if she would proceed together with her marketing campaign.
“At this second, upon completion of our nationwide safety work, the time has come to show the web page on this chapter of Professional-Putin Republican obstruction,” writes Jeffries together with Democratic whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar.
“We’ll vote to desk Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Movement to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the movement, it is not going to succeed.”
Their place was a reversal from October, when all Democrats joined with eight Republican insurgents to vote for Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as speaker – resulting in Johnson’s ascension after weeks of GOP infighting.
Key occasions
Greene accuses Johnson of ‘slimy again room deal’ for Democratic help, hints at forcing vote on movement to vacate
In response to Home Democratic leaders’ vow to oppose her effort to take away Mike Johnson as speaker, far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene hinted she could pressure a vote on the matter.
“What slimy again room deal did Johnson make for the Democrats’ help?” the Georgia lawmaker requested. She continued:
If the Democrats need to elect him Speaker (and a few Republicans need to help the Democrats’ chosen Speaker), I’ll give them the prospect to do it. I’m an enormous believer in recorded votes as a result of placing Congress on report permits each American to see the reality and offers transparency to our votes.
Right here’s the total tweet:
Along with the banner studying “intifada”, Columbia College protesters have unveiled exterior Hamilton Corridor one other banner studying “Hind’s Corridor”:
A bunch supporting the protests says that’s in reference to Hind Rajab, a six-year-old discovered lifeless amongst her relations in Gaza amid Israel’s invasion:
Extra on her story:
White Home spokesman condemns Columbia constructing takeover, protesters’ use of ‘intifada’
Deputy White Home press secretary Andrew Bates has condemned protesters’ utilization of the phrase “intifada” and their takeover of a constructing on Columbia College’s campus, saying the motion was “not peaceable”:
President Biden has stood towards repugnant, Antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric his total life. He condemns the usage of the time period ‘intifada,’ as he has the opposite tragic and harmful hate speech displayed in current days. President Biden respects the precise to free expression, however protests have to be peaceable and lawful. Forcibly taking up buildings just isn’t peaceable – it’s incorrect. And hate speech and hate symbols don’t have any place in America.
Protesters unfurled a banner studying “intifada” after breaching Hamilton Corridor on Columbia’s campus early this morning – a time period that denotes Palestinian uprisings towards Israel. Right here’s extra about its historical past:
The pledge by Home Democratic leaders to avoid wasting Mike Johnson’s speakerships caps per week of whiplash for the conservative, who gained plaudits on the left for permitting a vote on Ukraine help, then pivoted to insinuating that anti-Israel protests on faculty campuses had been “backed” by Hamas. The Guardian’s David Smith has a recap of the wild few days Johnson has had:
Democrat Nancy Pelosi cited his “integrity” and described him as “brave”. Republican Michael McCaul known as him a “profile in braveness”. CNN hailed him as “an unlikely Churchill”.
Mike Johnson, speaker of the Home of Representatives, started the week showered in plaudits for main the Home in approving $95bn in urgently wanted wartime help for Ukraine, Israel and different US allies.
It was broadly famous that Johnson had achieved his homework, modified his thoughts, prayed for steerage and risked his job by going through down far-right extremists in his personal occasion together with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had threatened to oust him if he helped Ukraine.
However the refrain of praise-singers echoed previous renditions when the likes of William Barr, Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney had been valorised for doing the naked minimal by denouncing the serial liar and election denier Donald Trump. (Barr, by the way, now says he’ll help Trump in November.) That’s how low the bar is now set.
Home Democratic leaders announce opposition to try to take away Johnson as speaker
The highest Home Democrats, together with minority chief Hakeem Jeffries, say they’ll oppose any try by congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and different rightwing Republicans to take away Mike Johnson because the chamber’s speaker.
Final month, Greene filed a movement to oust fellow Republican Johnson from his place as speaker of the Home, citing his collaboration with Democrats to go a authorities spending invoice. Within the weeks since, Johnson once more labored with the Home minority to approve laws authorizing navy help for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and reauthorize a controversial surveillance legislation. Greene, in the meantime, has picked up solely two different co-sponsors to her movement to vacate the speaker’s chair, and it was unclear if she would proceed together with her marketing campaign.
“At this second, upon completion of our nationwide safety work, the time has come to show the web page on this chapter of Professional-Putin Republican obstruction,” writes Jeffries together with Democratic whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar.
“We’ll vote to desk Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Movement to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the movement, it is not going to succeed.”
Their place was a reversal from October, when all Democrats joined with eight Republican insurgents to vote for Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as speaker – resulting in Johnson’s ascension after weeks of GOP infighting.
Trump fined $9,000 for violating gag order in New York hush-money trial
Donald Trump has been hit with a $9,000 nice after the decide presiding over his trial on expenses referring to falsifying enterprise information associated to hush-money funds made earlier than the 2016 election discovered he violated a gag order.
Testimony within the trial continues at present, with Gary Farro, a banker beforehand at an establishment utilized by Trump’s fixer Michael Cohen, on the witness stand. Observe our dwell weblog for extra:
Mike Johnson has beforehand threatened to make use of Congress’s powers to revoke visas for international scholar protesters, and lower funding to universities that fail to guard Jewish college students.
However doing any of that will require passing new laws, which the Senate’s Democratic majority may reject. Johnson is little question conscious of that dynamic, and yesterday, his workplace signaled that the “crackdown on antisemitism” Johnson envisions will depend on Home committees and their powers of investigation.
“Home Republicans, with management from committees of jurisdiction, will broaden a wide-ranging investigation centered on holding accountable faculty and college directors who fail at their core accountability: preserving their college students secure,” Johnson’s workplace mentioned in an announcement that introduced his press convention set for two.15pm at present.
If Johnson duties Home committees with investigating antisemitism at schools, anticipate plenty of subpoenas and testimony by college officers – maybe not not like the December listening to that result in the presidents of Harvard and the College of Pennsylvania resigning:
Johnson says Columbia protests ‘utter shame’, once more requires college president’s resignation
Republican Home speaker Mike Johnson continues to direct his ire on the college students and management of Columbia College, accusing them of antisemitism for his or her protests towards Israel’s invasion of Gaza:
The protesters at Columbia say they’re outraged by Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and are sparring with college directors, together with president Minouche Shafik. Columbia’s leaders yesterday started suspending college students who remained at a protest encampment after a day deadline to disperse, and hours later, dozens of protesters took over a college constructing on Columbia’s Manhattan campus.
Right here’s the most recent on the protests at Columbia, and universities nationwide:
Mike Johnson to announce ‘crackdown’ on antisemitism at universities as protests intensify
Good morning, US politics weblog readers. As campus protests towards Israel’s invasion of Gaza escalate nationwide – together with at Columbia College, the place demonstrators took over a constructing in a single day – the GOP is urgent ahead with allegations that the rallies are motivated by anti-Jewish bias. Whereas the proof for that’s disputed, the Republican speaker of the Home Mike Johnson at present plans to announce “a Home-wide crackdown on the virus of antisemitism spreading all through faculty campuses”. Johnson paid a go to to Columbia final week, the place he alleged Hamas “backed” the coed protests, a comment that was criticized as baseless. He has additionally threatened to make use of Congress’s powers to revoke visas from international college students concerned within the demonstrations, and lower funding to universities that don’t shield Jewish college students.
Johnson will maintain a press convention at 2.15pm ET to elaborate on simply what his proposed crackdown entails, whereas the Republican-controlled Home can be contemplating laws to codify into federal legislation a definition of antisemitism that has been criticized for equating criticism of Israel with prejudice towards Jews. In fact, regardless of the Home passes have to be accredited by the Democratic-led Senate, and there’s no assure they’ll go together with the speaker’s plans. Count on to listen to extra from Congress in regards to the protests because the day unfolds.
Right here’s what else is happening:
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Joe Biden is heading from Washington DC to his residence city of Wilmington, Delaware, for a marketing campaign occasion at 3pm, after which again to the capital.
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Will at present be the day that Hamas agrees to a ceasefire deal that would see the discharge of Israeli hostages? Such a improvement may additionally take the warmth off Biden, who has confronted intensifying protests of his personal for his help of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Observe our dwell weblog for the most recent on this growing story.
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Donald Trump’s trial over allegedly falsifying enterprise information is again in session in New York Metropolis. Observe alongside right here for the most recent.