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"It depends on when we get the paper from the Senate," Pelosi said on Monday. "It has to be very precise, and it takes time to do that. It has some changes that they have to precisely write. It could be that we get it tomorrow afternoon and then it has to go to Rules. And we'd take it up Wednesday morning at the latest."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Monday that the relief bill had not made its way back to the House yet. "I talked to Leader Schumer. He said as soon as they could get it ready, but it was complicated and they were working on it," Hoyer said when asked about the delay in sending the bill back to the House.

that a final vote on the bill could come Tuesday or Wednesday.

"We are very excited that this bill will pass imminently. If not today, it will be scheduled for a vote tomorrow," Clarke said

The Senate version of the bill largely mirrors the $1.9 trillion package first approved by the House and laid out by President Joe Biden in January.

The sweeping aid legislation originally passed the Democrat-controlled House at the end of February, but it needs to be taken up in the chamber again following changes made to the legislation in the Senate.

The nearly $2 trillion package includes a slate of Democratic priorities, including up to $1,400 stimulus checks to many Americans, and billions of dollars for states and municipalities, schools, small businesses and vaccine distribution. It also extends a 15% increase in food stamp benefits from June to September, helps low-income households cover rent, makes federal premium subsidies for Affordable Care Act policies more generous and gives $8.5 billion for struggling rural hospitals and health care providers.

Pelosi said she does not expect more Democrats to vote against the bill because of the changes that were made in the Senate, saying, "I think more will vote for it," and that she felt "sad" for Republicans who will vote against it

Asked about bipartisanship, Clark told Berman this is a "time of great divide" but said they'll find issues to work on together. She also said the lack of support by Republicans on certain measures was "stunning."

Progressive Democrats have expressed frustration over changes made to the legislation, but top progressives are not signaling that they will jeopardize its passage in the House.

"I don't think that the changes the Senate made were good policy or good politics," Jayapal said. "However, they were relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, with the exception of course in the $15 minimum wage."

An estimated 11.4 million workers will lose their unemployment benefits between mid-March and mid-April unless Congress passes its next coronavirus relief package quickly, a recent study by The Century Foundation found.

This has transformed policy design: These are now negotiations among Democrats, done with the intention of finding policies popular enough that Republican voters will back them, even if Republican politicians will not

iden still talks like he believes bipartisanship is possible in Congress, but his administration has put the onus on Republicans to prove it, and to do so on the administration’s terms. That, more than any other single factor, has unleashed Democrats’ legislative ambitions.

in general, the younger generation has sharply different views on the role of government, the worth of markets and the risks worth taking seriously.

the new generation of staff members see the world very differently. “There has been a lot more work done to try to understand what the roots of economic inequality are over the course of the last decade, and openness to thinking about power and power dynamics,

“The next generation of the economics profession is rebelling against its predecessors by being all about inequality in the same way that my generation rebelled against its predecessors by being all about incentives, and this is a good thing,” said Larry Summers,

Multiple economists, both inside and outside the Biden administration, told me that this is an administration in which economists and financiers are simply far less influential than they were in past administrations.

economists are one of many voices at the table, not the dominant voices. This partly reflects Biden himself: he’s less academically minded, and more naturally skeptical of the way economists view the world and human behavior, than either Obama or Clinton. But it goes deeper than tha

The backdrop for this administration is the failures of the past generation of economic advice. Fifteen years of financial crises, yawning inequality and repeated debt panics that never showed up in interest rates have taken the shine off economic expertise

But the core of this story is climate. “Many mainstream economists, even in the 1980s, recognized that the market wouldn’t cover everyone’s needs so you’d need some modest amount of public support to correct for that moderate market failure,” Felicia Wong, the president of the Roosevelt Institute, said. “But they never envisioned the climate crisis. This is not a failure of the market at the margins. This is the market incentivizing destruction.”

the scale of the climate disaster, and the speed at which it must be addressed, simply demands a different role for the government. “If you think across the big systems in our country — the transportation system being one, the power and energy system being another — in order to actually solve climate change, we’re going to have to transform those systems,”

Biden and his team see this as fundamentally a political problem. They view the idea that a carbon tax is the essential answer to the problem of climate change as being so divorced from political reality as to be actively dangerous.

it’s not just a messaging and narrative imperative,” he told me. “It has to be that Americans see and experience that the investments in building out a more resilient power grid actually improve their lives and create job opportunities for them, or their neighbors.”

Even beyond climate, political risks weigh more heavily on the Biden administration than they did on past administrations. This is another lesson learned from the Obama years

Democrats lost the House in 2010, effectively ending Obama’s legislative agenda, and then they lost the Senate in 2014, and then Donald Trump won the White House in 2016, and then Democrats lost the Supreme Court for a generation.

Many who served under Obama, and who now serve under Biden, believe that they were so focused on economic risks that they missed the political risks — and you can’t make good economic policy if you lose political power

Biden is a politician, in the truest sense of the word. Biden sees his role, in part, as sensing what the country wants, intuiting what people will and won’t accept, and then working within those boundaries.

In America, that’s often treated as a dirty business. We like the aesthetics of conviction, we believe leaders should follow their own counsel, we use “politician” as an epithet.

But Biden’s more traditional understanding of the politician’s job has given him the flexibility to change alongside the country

Stagnating wages and a warming world and Hurricane Katrina and a pandemic virus proved that there were scarier words in the English language than “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help,” as Ronald Reagan famously put it

He’s emphasizing the irresponsibility of allowing social and economic problems to fester, as opposed to the irresponsibility of spending money on social and economic problems. His administration is defined by the fear that the government isn’t doing enough, not that it’s doing too much.

“Congress has both the moral obligation and the constitutional authority to pass H.R. 51,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s nonvoting House delegate, using the legislation’s symbolic designation to reflect the new state.

The vote in the House was 216 to 208. The White House confirmed President Biden’s support for the measure this week, with the Office of Management of Budget issuing a statement of administration policy declaring that making the District of Columbia a state would “make our union stronger and more just.”

But even with Democrats now in control of a 50-to-50 Senate, prospects for the measure remain dim. A few Senate Democrats have not publicly endorsed the proposal, and advancing it would most likely require at least 10 Republicans to vote in support, while none have said they would.

A group of House Democrats gathered for a news conference on Thursday to call on their Senate counterparts to abolish the filibuster, as many of their legislative ambitions are doomed to fall short of the 60-vote supermajority threshold needed to advance bills.

“Statehood for the District of Columbia is about showing respect for our democracy, for the American people and for our Constitution,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said on the House floor on Thursday.

Republicans have mounted a fierce campaign against the legislation, insisting it was not about equal representation, but ensuring that Democrats would secure three reliable votes — two in the Senate and one in the House — and pad their slim margins in both chambers.

Other Republicans have pushed for retroceding the nation’s capital into Maryland as a solution to ensure representation, a suggestion that has been repeatedly rejected by both Washingtonians and Marylanders.

Some proponents of statehood have begun pushing for the bill to be incorporated in sweeping legislation to expand voting rights and overhaul national elections, which Democrats have staked out as a top priority.

Backlash over the violent removal of protesters outside the White House during demonstrations against police brutality galvanized the movement. A decision to treat the District of Columbia as a territory when initially distributing state pandemic relief in 2020 also shortchanged the local government more than $700 million, local officials have said.

They are continuing to send legislative priorities to the Senate’s doorstep, in a bid to ramp up pressure on moderate Democrats who remain reluctant to do away with the blocking tactic.

"They reiterated that those who broke the law and stormed the Capitol last week do not represent the America First movement backed by 75 million Americans, and pledged to continue the work on behalf of the country for the remainder of their term," the senior official said.

Trump had spent the weekend largely in isolation, as aides either distanced themselves from him or limited their time in his presence. Trump canceled a planned trip to Camp David, where his closest aides were hoping he would get into a good mindset ahead of his final stretch in office.

The mob event, and Trump's fury at Pence in the lead-up to it, left their relationship in tatters. Before their Oval Office meeting Monday, the pair had not spoken since before Trump's rally on the Ellipse last week. Their last conversation was punctuated by a vulgarity the President uttered after Pence informed him, for a final time, that he could not unilaterally reject the results of the election, something he had already told Trump in previous meetings that often dragged on for hours.

Pence finally got "a glimpse of POTUS' vindictiveness," one source familiar with the situation said, using the acronym for President of the United States.

And while Pence now appears unlikely to entertain invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office, he has not weighed in on it publicly, allowing the idea to persist, which people close to him described as intentional.

Pence, who is often internally mocked for how deferential he is toward Trump, has taken a quiet but defiant stance in their final days in office.

The attempted insurrection that Trump incited at the US Capitol last week prompted the permanent suspension of his Twitter account, a looming second impeachment and a wave of administration resignations

It was the first time in their more than four years as political partners that Trump's vengeance had been trained on a man known mostly for his fealty. Even as others once close to Trump -- from his personal attorney Michael Cohen to his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to any manner of former aides -- met similar fates, Pence was spared.

The final conversation left Trump irate, and his anger emerged during the rally itself, when he told the crowd he hoped "Mike has the courage to do what he has to do" and ignores "the stupid people that he's listening to."

Pence also recently learned that pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell was involved in the lawsuit filed by Trump's Republican allies against him. Trump was not only aware, but had encouraged the effort, people close to the situation said.

Even when the President returned to the White House while his crowd set off for the Capitol, Trump's anger at Pence did not abate. And as the crowd broke down doors, mobbed the building, and in some cases appeared to be hunting Pence himself, Trump remained focused on the perceived disloyalty.

After Wednesday's events, Pence allies were aghast the President did not call to ensure the vice president's safety, or the safety of his wife and daughter, who had accompanied him as he performed the ceremonial role of overseeing the Electoral College tally.

"Was he concerned at all that an angry mob that he commanded to march on the Capitol might injure the vice president or his family?" a person familiar with the matter asked.

Pence's actions earned him praise within the administration, including from national security adviser Robert O'Brien, who tweeted on Wednesday that Pence "is a genuinely fine and decent man. He exhibited courage today."

Democrats, however, remain frustrated at Pence's unwillingness to move on the 25th Amendment, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Other Democrats are skeptical that after four years of standing by Trump -- including through his attempts to cast doubt on the election results using false claims of voter fraud -- Pence can recover his moral standing now.

A day later, an attempt by House Democrats to bring up a resolution urging Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power was blocked by Republicans. If that resolution ends up failing, Democrats plan to to vote Wednesday to impeach Trump for his role in the Capitol riot.

Advisers have said Pence hopes to provide a bridge to the next administration and do as much as possible to assist Biden's team in preparing for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Pence and Biden consulted regularly in the early days of the Trump administration, including on foreign policy matters.

On Monday, Pence's schedule listed a coronavirus task force meeting -- one of the final times the group meets before the end of the administration. Pence did not bring up the siege at the Capitol during the discussion, a person close to the task force said.

One phone call occurred at 6:25 p.m. ET, Sund says, when he spoke to Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to coordinate their returns back into their respective chambers.

However, he signaled that perhaps congressional oversight of Capitol Police may have had a role to play in the security failures. "I know a number of a number of groups are investigating this incident. I think they'll find that it's a very convoluted, bureaucratic method of maintaining security in the nation's capital," Sund said.

The day after the attack the top security officials at the Capitol — the House sergeant-at-arms, Irving, and the Senate sergeant-at-arms, Stenger — resigned their posts

Sund told NPR he spoke with Pelosi three times on Jan. 6, including a call with top leaders about reconvening in the House and Senate to continue the count of the electoral votes."It was very chaotic that evening, I know. I can only imagine just how busy Speaker Pelosi was that night. I know I had been on at least three phone calls with her,

Sund said Capitol Police did not receive intelligence from the FBI or other agencies of an orchestrated attack. It was later revealed that the FBI was aware of some extremist activity and said it shared a warning with its partners, including the Capitol Police.He also rejects claims that bias, or systemic racism, played a role in the decisions leading up to, or on, that day. He said it's unfair to compare security for the joint session with other high-profile events at the Capitol

Sund told NPR on Friday that he increasingly believes the insurrection was part of a coordinated, planned attack on the Capitol. Specifically, Sund believes that reports of pipe bombs planted at the headquarter offices of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee in southeast Washington were part of an effort to distract police as the violent mob approached the Capitol complex. The Justice Department said it has "no direct evidence of kill or capture teams" but is still looking into what kind of planning there was.Sund said moments before those reports came through, he was in the operations center for Capitol Police and watching the rally with President Trump at the Ellipse.

The FBI has said the first pipe bomb was reported at 1 p.m. ET at the RNC in southeast Washington, followed by a report of a second pipe bomb at the DNC at 1:15 p.m. A suspect in that case has not be identified.

Sund said he believes new information since released by the FBI and others signal this could have been part of a coordinated attack. "This was not a demonstration. This was not a failure to plan for a demonstration. This was a planned, coordinated attack on the United States Capitol," Sund said.

On Friday, Pelosi said she has asked retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré to lead an investigation into security at the Capitol complex following the riot."We must subject this whole complex to scrutiny," Pelosi said.

Pelosi noted she has been in touch with the secretary of the Army and the head of U.S. Secret Service to ensure that all requests for reinforcements from the Capitol Police for security around the inauguration are met. She pointed out that for weeks the inauguration would be a smaller ceremony due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The speaker said security needs should be based on intelligence from law enforcement, but "redundancy may be necessary," adding there should be "not too much, but enough" to meet possible threats.

Pelosi, when asked about allegations that some members of Congress were potentially linked with those involved in the attack, said lawmakers have to trust that their colleagues respect each other and their oath of office.

A letter from Giuliani to then-President-elect Zelensky requesting a meeting in his capacity as the President's personal attorney.Text messages that show Parnas' communications with Zelensky aides where he pursued a meeting between Zelensky and Giuliani and provided negative information about Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.A previously undisclosed letter from Giuliani to Zelensky asking for a meeting in mid-May of last year.There are also cryptic text messages suggesting that Yovanovitch's movements were being tracked.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar called the impeachment hearings against Trump a "decency check" on American government.

After nearly a month of waiting, we appear to have a trial date. Several things still need to happen, but if the House transmits the articles of impeachment on Wednesday as expected, that kicks off a series of events that culminate in Trump's Senate impeachment trial beginning next Tuesday.

Asked if the trial will be over by the time Trump is slated to deliver his State of the Union address -- scheduled for February 4 -- Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said, "I wouldn't bet on that myself." President Bill Clinton gave his 1999 State of the Union address in the midst of his own impeachment trial.

"I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: so help me God."

The next step is a vote in the House to appoint impeachment managers. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she'll announce their names Wednesday morning. That vote sets off choreographed steps that lead us to a trial.

While Trump on Monday pushed the idea of Republicans simply dismissing the charges, it is growing clear there will be a substantive trial and, depending on how the arguments go, there's a pretty good chance there will be witness testimony, too.

The question of whether to vote on dismissing the articles before the trial is clearly splitting the GOP. Sen. David Perdue, a Georgia Republican who talks to Trump and advises him regularly, said he is still interested in the motion to dismiss and hinted Republicans may need to step up and force a vote on it. But GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, now a key Trump ally, said flat out that a motion to dismiss was not realistic and should not happen. Read more on the divide.

The Senate could vote on a resolution laying out parameters for the trial.

Who will the House managers be? It's not yet clear who Pelosi will pick to deliver arguments in the Senate on behalf of the House. Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, is a good bet. Other than that? We will find out Wednesday.

One key Republican to watch in terms of votes on procedural matters during impeachment is Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah. He has expressed a desire to hear from witnesses.

Sen. Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democrat pushing the war powers resolution to limit Trump's military actions in Iran, tweaked it this week to gain some more Republican support. He told reporters Tuesday he has 51 votes to pass the resolution through the Senate. He said GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Todd Young of Indiana and Susan Collins of Maine support the resolution.

"I've got 51 declared votes on version two, on the motion to discharge, and passage. So I've got a version on which I have 51 votes, but the timing on version two is different than version one," he told reporters.

this second impeachment of Trump, in which a US President is accused for the first time of inciting violence against another branch of government.

In that first effort, the details of Trump's pressure on Ukraine leaked out over the course of weeks and built into Democratic support to launch and conduct an investigation and, ultimately, to impeach him.With Trump's time in office set to expire at noon on January 20, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also gave Trump and Vice President Mike Pence the option of avoiding impeachment if either Trump resigned or Pence mobilized the Cabinet to use the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.When those two offramps were ignored, Democrats in the House moved quickly toward impeachment and the first post-presidential impeachment trial in US history.

The Article argues that Trump incited his supporters by repeatedly denying the election results in the lead-up to the counting of the electoral votes, that he pressured Georgia's secretary of state to "find" additional votes for him, and in doing so he "gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government," "threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government."

Getting from Trump's misdeed to impeachment proceedings in the House took 86 days in 2019. It's going to take just a week in 2021.

This time, while there's an argument he committed treason, Democrats in the House have alleged Trump "engaged in high Crimes and Misdemeanors by inciting violence against the Government of the United States."

It took 48 days to get from Trump's December 19, 2019 impeachment to his February 5, 2020 acquittal. That process was slowed by a break over the holidays. The trial actually began January 16.

This time it could be slowed by the fact that Trump won't be in office any more by the time the trial starts and new President Joe Biden will be asking the Senate to vote on his Cabinet nominees and act on legislation to address the Covid pandemic as well as relief for Americans hurt by the troubled economy.

This time, incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is hoping to pursue a half-day schedule to conduct the trial part of the day and business the rest of the day.

When both of the new Democratic senators from Georgia are seated, it will take 17 Republicans voting with Democrats to reach a two-thirds majority and convict Trump.

The most unconventional aspect of this second impeachment effort is that Trump will be a former President by the time it concludes. There is precedent for former officials facing impeachment both in US history and in England, from whence the Founders imported the idea of impeachment. Read here about what's technically called a "late impeachment" from the scholars Frank Bowman and Brian Kalt.

Beyond the stain of being a President who a majority of Congress feels it's worth impeaching for a second time, conviction could mean he can't run for office again in 2024. Barring him from further office would require a second vote by senators, although it probably would not require two-thirds agreement. It could also cost him his more-than $200,000 per year pension if the Senate wants to take that way.

Trump is widely thought to be considering the never-before-attempted self-pardon, to inoculate himself from future legal jeopardy related to his time in office and running for office. What's not clear is whether a late impeachment would have any bearing on his power to pardon himself. As the impeachment scholars Kalt and Bowman point out, the text of the Constitution doesn't mention pardons in terms of impeachment. It certainly seems like a successful impeachment would come up if and when a potential self pardon is challenged in court.

Conservatives are mainly taking aim at a pair of Obama directives to ensure protections for LGBT employees of federal contractors and to direct public schools to provide access to locker rooms and bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. 

Also on Wednesday, a measure by Alabama GOP Rep. Bradley Byrne passed to exempt religious groups from complying with the directives.

Republican leaders have tried to steer lawmakers away from wading into the hot-button debate on the House floor.

The speaker this week cautioned GOP members at a closed-door session that Democrats were likely to keep trying to force them into uncomfortable votes on LGBT discrimination, according to aides and members who were present.

He floated the idea of modifying House rules in a move that would likely restrict the number of amendments that could be offered on the floor, which would allow leaders to get out ahead of controversial votes and avoid any potentially embarrassing floor fights.

The GOP leadership is trying to “thread the needle,” according to aides, between conservatives itching for another chance to challenge Obama and those who don’t want to tackle on an issue they think is best left for the states to resolve. 

For their part, Democrats are exploiting the rift, looking to draw attention to the GOP infighting after a measure that would have banned federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT employees failed in the House last week.

Democrats see LGBT rights as a prime opportunity to prove that House Republicans are intolerant of minorities. 

The vote on Maloney’s original measure turned heated last week when it appeared that seven Republicans switched their votes after the bill seemed to have passed.

Ryan told reporters on Wednesday that the breakdown — which involved Democrats shouting “shame, shame” across the aisle at their GOP colleagues —  was just a misunderstanding.

Then, Democrats successfully rallied support from moderate Republicans to ban the flag on federal property. Southern Republicans were enraged and threatened to vote against the overall bill, forcing former House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to give up on the entire appropriations process to avoid an embarrassing failure.

The stakes are much higher this year for Ryan who has vowed to return the House to working order, starting with passing spending bills and allowing any member to offer amendments.

But a re-election to the speakership would allow Mr. Ryan to pick up the pieces of a party that splintered during the 2016 election cycle.

Republicans’ willingness to anoint Mr. Ryan again for speaker will face its first test with the leadership votes that follow close on the heels of the Nov. 8 election. Mr. Ryan remains popular with many House Republicans, and perhaps his biggest advantage is that no one so far has emerged as a viable alternative to replace him.

But the House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, has voiced angry opposition to the huge package of tax breaks, saying it would unfairly benefit big business.

And even Tuesday night, some Democrats in the House leadership said Ms. Pelosi was on the verge of turning against the omnibus spending measure because of her opposition to a Republican provision that would lift the 40-year ban on exports of crude oil from the United States.

The question of delaying important provisions of the Affordable Care Act provided a surprising area of common ground — among Republicans who have sought to dismantle President Obama’s signature health care law, and Democrats who had reservations about a tax on generous health plans. The White House and many economists have defended the “Cadillac tax” on high-cost employer-sponsored health plans as a way to reduce health costs and make the health care system more efficient.

Throughout Tuesday, major components of the spending legislation appeared to be falling into place, including a tentative agreement to alter major provisions of the Affordable Care Act, delaying a planned tax on high-cost health insurance plans and suspending a tax on medical devices for two years.

Paul D. Ryan has gained momentum in his early weeks as speaker, clearing a major highway bill and an important education measure. But the omnibus spending bill, needed to keep the government functioning, presented a particular challenge given the Obama administration’s opposition to numerous policy prescriptions that Republicans wanted to attach to the must-pass bill.

And while Mr. Ryan has won plaudits from his rank and file for running a more inclusive House, the late rush to finish the spending deal seemed likely to test him on that front.

Republican congressional leaders and the White House reached a budget accord in late October that set top-line spending levels for 2016 and 2017.

But lawmakers said they had tentatively agreed to delay the tax, originally scheduled to take effect in 2018, by two years. Labor unions strenuously opposed the tax, saying it could lead to reductions in health benefits prized by their members.

Demagogues found popular support for their demand to keep Jewish refugees out of the country. Mr. Dinnerstein describes an anti-Semitic speaker warning of “200,000 Communist Jews at the Mexican border waiting to get into this country,” adding that “if they are admitted they will rape every woman and child that is left unprotected.

Today, these tropes feel familiar but in a new context. Mr. Trump started his political career by amplifying rumors that President Barack Obama was secretly Muslim. He resurrected the disgraced slogan “America First.” In October, he warned that Hillary Clinton was meeting “in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers.” Mr. Trump called for refugees to be kept out of the country, smearing them as agents of a sinister foreign ideology. Breitbart, the website formerly run by Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, has run a stream of alarmist articles about refugee rapists

In the Trump administration’s conspiratorial nationalism, avowed anti-Semites hear their overarching narratives reflected back to them, their prejudices tacitly approved.

During the presidential campaign, Michael T. Flynn, who would briefly serve as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, retweeted someone attacking CNN with the words, “Not anymore, Jews, not anymore.” (Mr. Flynn later apologized.)

Under Mr. Bannon’s leadership, Breitbart defended online anti-Semitism as subversive good fun and published a column attacking the conservative writer Bill Kristol as a “renegade Jew.”

When the National Cathedral hosted a Muslim prayer service in a gesture of ecumenical good will, Mr. Gorka published a Breitbart column headlined: “Muslim Brotherhood Overruns National Cathedral in D.C.”

At an inauguration ball, Sebastian Gorka, a Breitbart editor who was soon to become a White House adviser, wore a medal associated with a Nazi-collaborationist Hungarian group, the Vitezi Rend. The Forward, a Jewish newspaper, reported that Mr. Gorka was a sworn member of the group. (Mr. Gorka claimed he wore the medal to honor his father, from whom he “inherited” Vitezi Rend membership.)

This is where we are now: A senior administration official dons fascist paraphernalia, defends himself by saying he did so out of filial loyalty, and suffers no political repercussions

Naturally, many Jews find this chilling, but we should not lose sight of the real import of Mr. Gorka’s appointment. He may flirt with anti-Semitic iconography for sentimental reasons, but he owes his career to his apocalyptic view of America’s war with radical Islam. The Islamic State, he claimed last year, “is already well entrenched on the shores of the United States.

In power, the new administration, too, seemed to be trolling the Jewish community. In January, the White House released a statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day that failed to mention Jews. A spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, told CNN the omission was intentional, because the administration “took into account all of those who suffered” — echoing the position of neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers who seek to play down the genocide of Jews.

Last year, Michael Anton, now a White House national security staffer, wrote a pseudonymous essay arguing that “mass immigration has overwhelmed, eroded, and de-Americanized formerly American communities.” He was particularly contemptuous of Muslim immigration. Yes, he allowed, “not all Muslims are terrorists, blah, blah, blah, etc. Even so, what good has Muslim immigration done for the United States and the American people?”

To be an American Muslim or a brown-skinned immigrant and know that people like this are in power must be terrifying. Mr. Trump and his appointees have consistently denigrated and dehumanized these minorities in ways we’d never tolerate if they were talking about Jews.

The president and his cronies talk a lot about representing “the people,” but they don’t mean all Americans. “The only important thing is the unification of the people,” Mr. Trump said at Eugene, Ore., campaign rally last year, “because the other people don’t mean anything.”

Naturally, a government that decides certain groups of people “don’t mean anything” shakes many Jews to the core. But the horror of the president’s vision isn’t that “the other people” might include Jews. It includes people. Even in this brutally tribal moment, that should be enough.

“When a member uses his or her national platform to encourage violence, tragically, people listen,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said, adding that “depictions of violence can foment actual violence, as witnessed by this chamber on Jan. 6, 2021.”

Mr. Gosar showed no remorse.

The last time the House censured one of its members, the vote capped months of humiliating headlines over tax evasion, self-dealing and other ethical lapses that had blemished the reputation of one of Congress’s most powerful and colorful characters, Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York. Ms. Pelosi herself read out that rebuke, which passed overwhelmingly with the support of many Democrats.

e posting online of a crudely edited video drawn from a popular anime series — and more sinister. In his video, Mr. Gosar is depicted slashing the neck of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, amid imagery of violence meted out against hordes of refugees and migrants.

“There’s an old definition of abuse of power: rules for thee but not for me,” Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, said, repeating the phrase over and over. Going through a litany of House Democrats who have offended Republicans, he warned that every one of them might soon be serving — and potentially penalized — under the rules of a Republican-led House.

And many warned that a Republican majority — which could come as soon as 2023 — would not hesitate to take advantage of the precedents set by Democrats.

“They are really setting an ugly precedent, and the bad news for Democrats is that we’re going to take back the House and we’re going to hold the majority,” Ms. Greene said.

Not only does Mr. Gosar’s character kill Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s, and swing swords at one with the face of Mr. Biden, but the makers of the video also include images of refugees and migrants making their way into the United States only to be repelled by brutal force.

Mr. Gosar has not apologized for posting the video, downplaying it as “symbolic” and privately blaming staff aides for circulating it.

“I don’t think this should be an issue about party, about partisan politics,” Ms. Cheney said. “If a Democrat had done this, that would require censure as well.”

Censure fell out of favor, and the bar for it was raised considerably, in the 20th century. In 1978, Representative Charles C. Diggs was censured after he was convicted on 11 counts of mail fraud and 18 counts of false statements in a payroll fraud investigation. On one day in 1983, Representatives Gerry E. Studds and Daniel B. Crane were both censured for having sex with 17-year-old congressional pages, criminal offenses that would likely warrant a far more dramatic response today.

Warnock is the first Georgia Democrat elected to the Senate in 20 years, and his election is the culmination of years of voter registration drives conducted by former state House Democratic leader Stacey Abrams and other activists.

"I am an iteration and an example of the American dream," the senator-elect told CNN's John Berman Wednesday morning on "New Day." He added, "When I think about the arc of our history, what Georgia did last night is its own message in the midst of a moment in which so many people are trying to divide our country, at a time we can least afford to be divided."

fter no Georgia Senate candidate received 50% of the vote in November, the races turned to two runoffs.

rump's ongoing onslaught against the Republican officials in charge of the elections pressured the two GOP senators to make a choice: Join the President in seeking to overturn the democratic outcome or risk losing Trump supporters, some of whom have become disenchanted with the electoral process. Trump recently appeared to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on a private call, urging him to "find" enough votes to reverse the results. Raffensperger refused.

Republicans hoped their message that Georgia should be a check on Washington would prove successful, noting that if Warnock and Ossoff win, Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer will be in charge.

The American people deserve a platform in Congress, permitted under the Constitution, to have election issues presented so that they can be addressed," said Loeffler

Warnock told CNN Wednesday that his opponent "has consistently put what she perceives to be her own short-term political interests over the concerns of ordinary people."

Georgia is a rapidly diversifying state, the Republican candidates came into the Senate runoff elections with an advantage.

In November, Perdue received over 88,000 more votes than Ossoff, while Loeffler and the other Republican candidates received more votes than Warnock and the other Democratic candidates in the special election (Warnock received most of the vote -- 33% -- overall).

We've seen tremendous enthusiasm in the early voting numbers, both in person and by mail, and we know that while Democrats will have a lead when polls open ... Republicans are expected to have a strong Election Day," said Seth Bringman

Loeffler and Perdue decided to join the President in objecting to Congress' certification of the Electoral College's results in a final, deluded display of devotion to Trump supporters.

"Senator Perdue and Senator Loeffler are being whipsawed by the President on one side and by the Democratic money on the other side," he said.

Perdue's closing message in a recent video was littered with attacks, saying that if Republicans lose, undocumented immigrants will vote, Americans' private health insurance will be "taken away," and Democrats will pack the Supreme Court and defund the police.

The Democratic candidates counter that they would "demilitarize" rather than defund the police,

They argued they would do a better job ending the health care crisis over the coronavirus, which has infected more than 20.8 million Americans and killed at least 354,000, in order to reopen the economy.

Warnock told CNN Wednesday that he believes tackling the pandemic by effectively distributing the vaccine and passing $2,000 stimulus checks should be the new Senate's top priority.

After no candidate received 50% of the vote, the runoffs turned even more vicious, as Loeffler portrayed Warnock an anti-police Marxist who would destroy America in the Senate.

"Kelly Loeffler spends tens of millions of dollars to scare you," said Warnock in an ad. "She's trying to make you afraid of me because she's afraid of you. Afraid that you understand how she's used her position in the Senate to enrich herself and others like her. Afraid that you'll realize that we can do better."

Perdue, a 71-year-old former Fortune 500 CEO, has dismissed Ossoff, a 33-year-old media executive, saying the Democrat does not know how to create a job

The Georgia US Senate races have attracted enormous attention due to the stakes for the first years of the Biden administration and the state's shift from red to purple. Dr. Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia political science professor, told CNN that the Senate elections could be the first in which urban Georgia casts more votes than rural Georgia.

epublicans are worried that Trump's unwillingness to concede jeopardizes the party's hold on the Senate,

Political groups spent about $520 million to advertise in the two runoff races, according to Kantar Media/CMAG, averaging more than $8 million per day. Republicans outspent Democrats by tens of millions of dollars.

Biden said electing Ossoff and Warnock would end the gridlock in Washington and allow Congress to provide $2,000 stimulus checks to Americans. Trump urged the state to elect Perdue and Loeffler, and claimed that Biden would not take the White House.

While he has said he is personally opposed to impeachment, he and other party leaders did not mount an official effort to defeat the push, and Mr. McCarthy was working on Tuesday to build support for a censure resolution to rebuke the president for his actions.

After four years of backing the president at nearly every turn and refusing to condemn even his most extreme behavior, party leaders were racing to distance themselves from a president many of them now regard as a political and constitutional threat.

“It is true that the president’s remaining term is limited — but a president capable of fomenting a violent insurrection in the Capitol is capable of greater dangers still,” they wrote. “He must be removed from office as swiftly as the Constitution allows. He must also be disqualified to prevent the recurrence of the extraordinary threat he presents.”

The Republican Party’s rapid turn against Mr. Trump unfolded as the House met into the night on Tuesday to debate and vote on a resolution formally calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to strip the president of his powers, a move that Mr. Pence shot down hours before the House passed it along party lines.

In a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Pence argued that the amendment was meant to address medical emergencies or presidential “incapacity” and that using it as “a means of punishment or usurpation” would set a “terrible precedent.”

Mr. Trump has shown no trace of contrition. On Tuesday, in his first public appearance since the siege of the Capitol, he told reporters that his remarks to supporters at a rally that day — in which he exhorted them to go to the Capitol and “fight” so Republicans would reject the election results — had been “totally appropriate.”

In a veiled reference to impeachment, he urged Congress “to avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment” and pledged to work in “good faith” with Mr. Biden’s transition team.

Mr. McConnell has indicated he wants to see the specific article of impeachment that the House is set to approve on Wednesday, and to hear the eventual arguments in the Senate. But the Senate Republican leader has made clear in private discussions that he believes now is the moment to move on from Mr. Trump, whom he blames for causing Republicans to lose the Senate.

“Our nation was founded precisely so that the free choice of the American people is what shapes our self-government and determines the destiny of our nation.”

On Monday, Mr. Biden telephoned Mr. McConnell to ask whether it would be possible to set up a dual track that would allow the Senate to confirm Mr. Biden’s cabinet nominees and hold a Senate trial at the same time, according to officials briefed on the conversation who disclosed it on the condition of anonymity. Far from avoiding the topic of impeaching Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell said it was a question for the Senate parliamentarian, and promised Mr. Biden a quick answer.

“The bottom line is that Leader McConnell has the ability to call us back into session and we can then move to convict Donald Trump, draw on the impeachment trial and try him,” Mr. Schumer told reporters in New York. “And that’s what we hope McConnell will do.”

For Mr. McConnell and other Republicans, the crisis offered an opportunity to bar Mr. Trump from seeking the presidency again in 2024, as he has repeatedly mused with allies about doing.

But that prospect has created a conundrum for Republicans who, understanding the deep affection for Mr. Trump among a powerful segment of their party’s core supporters, are concerned they could pay a steep political price for abandoning him.

Mr. Biden has made clear, in public and private, that he will not oppose the Democratic push to impeach Mr. Trump, even though his advisers and some lawmakers in his party are concerned about the impact it could have on his first days in office.

"I think I prefer others who have a better grasp in my view of the challenges we face," McCain said, adding that he will stay neutral through the duration of the primary.

suggesting he'd need to separate himself from the top of the ticket. Kinzinger, a Jeb Bush supporter, said he was "very concerned" about the rhetoric from Trump and what it would mean in a general election.

"I think his tone has been bad -- it's not an inclusive tone," said Kinzinger, a leading moderate. "Only 30-something percent, maybe of Americans identify as Republicans,

"What she ultimately is trying to do is talk about how do we have a message that's inspiring, inclusive, hopeful, optimistic and that unites the country," Ryan said.

They want to harness the energy of the grassroots that is powering the candidacies of Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz,

Nowhere is that more urgent than the race for the Senate, where 24 GOP seats are in contention, including in states like Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Florida. To stay in the majority,

Our presidential candidates are out there beating each other up at the moment, and that's going to solve itself at some point during the process,"

McConnell's remarks comments came after the choice of the GOP leader and House Speaker Ryan -- South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley

"We don't want to have another President like this one who divides our country," Ryan told reporters.

North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, a member in the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said Haley was a "very articulate speaker, a very persuasive speaker."

I think the American people don't want that -- whether you are an unaffiliated voter, Democrat of Republican they want it to be about what affects them on Main Street not necessarily what affects those who end up in Washington, D.C."

"If Republicans are afraid to bring their standard-bearer's policies up for votes, Democrats will hold Republicans accountable by seeking floor votes on Trump's policies ourselves," Reid said.

"What's good for the goose is good for the gander," McConnell said.

Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, an ally of party leaders, said congressional Republicans are very mindful that whoever the nominee is "going to be is the most important single factor in whether or not we retain majorities in the Senate and the House."

"telling everyone it's going to be 'awesome or great and huge' is not going to cut it all the way through November."

their own alternative health care reform proposal, a major overhaul of the tax code

But multiple members and aides said no decisions were made about whether the House and Senate will actually vote on new proposals they intend to unveil in 2016 to contrast with Democrats.

Trump would listen to their ideas, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California,

Still, by promoting conservative ideas, they believe, it will be enough to differentiate Republican lawmakers from the likes of Trump.

"What we are trying to do is ensure that our members are well-positioned to make their argument about why we need to continue to have a Republican majority,"

this next Congress will be her last as speaker. And that there will be a massive leadership vacuum for Democrats sometime very soon.  

Caveat: Pelosi did not come right out and say, "I will not run for speaker again in late 2022,"

Her top deputies -- Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Maryland) and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (South Carolina) -- are 78 and 77 years old, respectively. While it's not clear whether they will step aside from leadership when Pelosi does or not, it's very likely that the broader caucus will look to younger leaders.

The most obvious name on that list is New York's Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who is currently the fifth ranking member of leadership

At 50, Jeffries represents a next-generation leader who is trusted by Pelosi; she named him as one of a handful of House impeachment managers to make the case for President Donald Trump's impeachment to the Senate last January.

While those ambitious Democrats now have an end date for the era of Pelosi, it's far less clear whether they will be vying to be speaker of the House or House minority leader come January 2023, after Republicans had a far-better-than-expected election in 2020 -- and history suggests that the president's party fares poorly in his first midterm election.

Mr. McCarthy sought to equate the progressive policies in the bill with socialism, and said “House Democrats have abandoned any pretense of unity.”

The bill that will go before the House on Wednesday differs in notable ways from the legislation that the chamber initially approved last month. It no longer contains an increase to the federal minimum wage, which Mr. Biden had proposed and House Democrats had included in their bill, but the Senate omitted.

The bill, which cleared the Senate on Saturday, would send direct payments of up to $1,400 to many Americans and extend a $300-per-week federal unemployment benefit until early September. It would provide funding for states and local governments as well as for schools to help them reopen. The bill also contains money for coronavirus testing, contact tracing and vaccine distribution.

Mr. Biden is expected to sign the bill Friday. All but one Democrat, Representative Jared Golden of Maine, voted in favor.

Congress gave final approval on Wednesday to President Biden’s sweeping, nearly $1.9 trillion stimulus package, as Democrats acted over unified Republican opposition to push through an emergency pandemic aid plan that included a vast expansion of the country’s social safety net.

It would provide another round of direct payments for many Americans, an extension of federal jobless benefits and billions of dollars to distribute coronavirus vaccines and provide relief for schools, states, tribal governments and small businesses struggling during the pandemic.

“With the stroke of a pen, President Biden is going to lift millions and millions of children out of poverty in this country,” Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, said. “It is time to make a bold investment in the health and security of the American people — a watershed moment.”

“House Democrats have abandoned any pretense of unity,” said Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader. “This isn’t a rescue bill, it isn’t a relief bill. It’s a laundry list of left-wing priorities that predate the pandemic.”

“This bill represents a historic, historic victory for the American people,” Mr. Biden said at the White House following the measure’s approval, thanking Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House.

The bill also includes $30 billion for transit agencies; $45 billion in rental, utility and mortgage assistance; and billions more for small businesses and live performance venues.

Federal unemployment payments of $300 per week would be extended through Sept. 6, and up to $10,200 of jobless aid from last year would be tax-free for households with incomes below $150,000. It would also provide a benefit of $300 per child for those age 5 and younger — and $250 per child ages 6 to 17, increasing the value of the so-called child tax credit.

And for six months, it would fully cover COBRA health care costs for people who have lost a job or had their hours cut and who buy coverage from their former employer.

Yet there is no doubt that the political implications of his plan have the potential to be nothing less than radical.

It was 11 years ago, almost to the day, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of Obamacare, “we have to pass the bill so that you can know what’s in it.” That notion, which seemed borrowed from the Queen of Hearts’ absurdist “Sentence first! Verdict afterwards!” approach in Alice in Wonderland, turns out to have been even more applicable to this week’s American Rescue Act.

And there’s an $86 billion commitment to protect the pensions of a million retirees whose multi-employer plans were in danger of insolvency—without even a pretense that this is linked to the Covid pandemic. It’s the kind of bailout you might expect in a nation where organized labor is a significant share of the workforce. Now, in a United States where unions represent barely 6 percent of the private sector labor force, that protection is law.

what it represents is the possibility that the Democratic Party has found a tool to reconnect it to a working and middle class whose loyalty has been threatened for well over half a century.

The fraying of the New Deal coalition was very much on the mind of Robert F. Kennedy, whose presidential campaign was based on holding it together. In his last weeks, he began talking about an issue he believed had broad appeal: specifically, how many of the wealthiest Americans avoided paying a fair share of taxes. By the end of 1968, divisions over the war in Vietnam, deadly riots in the cities and upheaval on college campuses reduced the Democratic share of the presidential vote from 60 percent in 1964 to 43 percent; Richard Nixon and George Wallace divided the rest.

All through the 1980s, Democrats and their intellectual allies tried to grapple with the fact that voters seemed to prefer Democratic policies (on health care, education, taxes), but voted, at least at the presidential level for Republicans. (I have a vivid memory of House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt assuring a group of journalists that once the American people saw his party’s proposals for lower drug prices and access to college, they would return to the fold.)

And it took an emerging demographic sea change that yielded an increasingly nonwhite electorate, and a more liberal cohort of college-educated whites, to outweigh (at least in popular vote terms), the increasingly Republican tilt of less-educated whites and to put Barack Obama in the White House.

While both were reelected, those midterm failures had severe consequences that endure; in particular, 2010 produced a GOP takeover at the state level that now threatens severe voting limits across the country.

It is an unapologetic assertion of the power of government to redress a set of grievances without any assertion of identity politics; while the stark facts of the pandemic mean that it has hit with special force in Black and brown communities, the remedial power of government is directed to the victims defined by circumstance, not color.

This is a possibility that Republicans simply may not have imagined, given their midterm successes in running against the initiatives of the past two Democratic presidents, and inflicting on Clinton and Obama successive political catastrophes.

More broadly, it appears to contain provisions that leapfrog a dilemma that has plagued Democratic social programs in the past: When they are perceived as helping one class of voters, they meet with a powerful backlash, (often one infused by racial resentment). When a program reaches broadly—Social Security, Medicare and, increasingly, the Affordable Care Act—it becomes politically potent.

But what does seem clear is that, unlike past measures that required huge congressional majorities, a radical change in the social fabric of the United States has become a reality—and with it, an opportunity for the Democratic Party no one could have imagined 50 days ago.

Pelosi cited Greene's remarks in her criticism of the GOP leadership, calling it "absolutely appalling."

the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives who is willing to overlook, ignore those statements, assigning her to the Education Committee when she has mocked the killing of little children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, when she has mocked of killing of teenagers in high school at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

"These comments are deeply disturbing and Leader McCarthy plans to have a conversation with the congresswoman about them," the spokeswoman said.

Hours after Pelosi's comments, acting U.S. Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman said that in the wake of the agency's security failures, they will ask for new measures, including a permanent fencing system and the availability of "ready, back-up forces in close proximity to the Capitol."

California Rep. Jimmy Gomez said Wednesday that he would introduce a resolution to expel Greene from Congress. Also Wednesday, Massachusetts Rep. Jake Auchincloss said that if Greene doesn't resign, she needs to be expelled.

"If you don't understand that calling for the murder of political rivals is a threat to democracy, you shouldn't be allowed to represent one," Auchincloss said in a tweet.

supplemental funding to raise security measures for lawmakers — to address new security concerns among members, especially "when the enemy is within the House of Representatives.

"It means that we have members of Congress who want to bring guns on the floor and have threatened violence against on other members of Congress."

"What could they be thinking?" Pelosi told reporters. "Or is 'thinking' too generous a word for what they may be doing?"

The union representing U.S. Capitol Police officers says the force's leadership failed to relay the known threat of violence adequately ahead of the Jan. 6 deadly riot, calling the acting chief's recent admission of prior knowledge of the threat to Congress "a disclosure that has angered and shocked the rank-and-file officers."

By January 4th, the Department knew that the January 6th event would not be like any of the previous protests held in 2020. We knew that militia groups and white supremacists organizations would be attending. We also knew that some of these participants were intending to bring firearms and other weapons to the event. We kne

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