Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

"Joe Biden has always been the guy who goes home to Delaware," said another person who has worked with the President. "The White House isn't going to change that."

Biden's instinct -- sometimes last-minute, say those familiar with his schedule -- is to get away from it for a weekly breather.

Tension is building between White House staff tasked with delivering the news of a weekend away and the logistical apparatus that allows it, said another person familiar with operations.

"President Biden is deeply proud of his roots and his family and it has been a staple of his time in public life to never lose touch with either," White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement to CNN.

And as all Americans can agree, it's important for leaders to avoid becoming ensconced in Washington, DC."

It's not wholly unusual for presidents to feel the urge to escape the confines of the White House campus, and many before Biden have taken hearty advantage of doing so.

Visiting retreats or second homes, most of which were personal touchpoints for a president, doesn't make a commander in chief immune to the demands of the job. "He's always working, no matter where he is," said one administration official of Biden's habits, noting he spends a good deal of time on the weekend prepping for the week ahead, or thinking on larger ideological conundrums. "He is by no means 'checked out' just because he isn't in the Oval (Office.)"

Another person familiar with the mood of the Biden residence noted the first couple is well-liked by the White House staff, but their frequent absences make it difficult to get to know them.

The Bidens have not overtly personalized the residence yet, instead making small changes and adding special touches, said one person familiar. (A recent Biden addition is the building of a green lattice fence around the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden on the east side of the building, erected to create a daytime dog-run for the first couple's two German Shepherds Champ and Major.)

speculates it's possible Biden might still think of the White House as the spot where his former boss, Obama, lived and worked. "It's sort of like moving into your ex's place," said the source.

"You know, I don't know what I ever expected it to be," Biden said during the town hall about actually residing in the White House. "I said when I was running, I wanted to be President not to live in the White House but to be able to make the decisions about the future of the country. And so living in the White House, as you've heard other presidents who have been extremely flattered to live there, has -- it's a little like a gilded cage in terms of being able to walk outside and do things."

The setback, while widely expected, poured fuel on calls from a growing number of Democratic senators and progressives to change the Senate’s rules. 

A coalition of 57 progressive groups released a joint statement arguing that Democrats could either “protect the filibuster or deliver on critical and popular policies.” 

“The path forward is clear: The filibuster must be eliminated as a weapon that a minority of senators can wield to veto popular democracy-protecting bills,” the groups said. 

The setback on the commission vote comes as Democrats, and some Republicans, were also frustrated by a group of conservative senators slow-walking a debate on China-related legislation, even after a lengthy committee process and amendment votes on the Senate floor. 

He is vowing to give a sweeping bill to overhaul federal elections a vote in June, as well as a paycheck bill previously filibustered by Republicans under the Obama administration. He’s also mulling bringing up a LGTBQ protection bill that previously passed the House and gun reforms amid slow-going talks that Murphy is leading with GOP senators. 

Trump’s blog, in contrast, struggled to amass even a fraction of that engagement, NBC News reported a week after its launch, citing data compiled with BuzzSumo.

Since leaving office on Jan. 20, the former president, who has strongly hinted he may run for president again in 2024, has made just a handful of in-person appearances and has participated in interviews with only friendly media outlets.

Collins also defended Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the third ranking House GOP leader who voted to impeach Trump earlier this year, as "a woman of strength and conscience."

Collins was one of seven Republican senators who joined with Democrats in voting to convict Trump at the conclusion of his second impeachment trial. Trump was acquitted of inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6.

The F.B.I. is investigating 37 people related to the killing of Officer Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police officer who died after being injured during the pro-Trump riot on Jan. 6, according to an F.B.I. memo sent to the private sector and others on Friday. The Times obtained a copy of the report.

ttacking the Capitol was not patriotism, it was anarchy.”

One core feature of Trumpism is that it forces you to betray every other commitment you might have: to the truth, moral character, the Sermon on the Mount, conservative principles, the Constitution. In defeat, some people are finally not willing to sacrifice all else on Trump’s altar.

It’s a pure power struggle. The weapons in this struggle are intimidation, verbal assault, death threats and violence, real and rhetorical. The fantasyland mobbists have an advantage because they relish using these weapons, while their fellow Christians just want to lead their lives.

On the left, leaders and organizations have arisen to champion open inquiry, to stand up to the cancel mobs. They have begun to shift the norms.

“Whether they liked each other or not, they would ride together for the show of unity,”

“Harry Truman didn't like Eisenhower, but he rode up to the Hill with him. Nixon rode with LBJ. Ford rode with Carter. Reagan beat Carter and rode with him. … Everybody did that. Even Trump rode with Obama.”

But this will not be the case this year, as President Donald Trump has said he will not attend the inauguration of Joe Biden.

“It's a celebration of American democracy, it’s a celebration of how we peacefully transfer power,” he said. “The symbolism and the imagery of it is critical.”

The 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore was one of the most contentious in American history, with the Supreme Court having to ultimately settle a recount dispute before Gore would concede.

“You can see his lips are pursed, and in that little moment it had to be incredibly painful for him on every level,” Kennerly said. “He's giving up the presidency. No one's ever done it that way, and he was a disgraced leader and he was leaving under duress.

The President’s absence isn’t the only reason that this inauguration will be unlike any we have ever seen. The celebrations have been significantly pared down because of the coronavirus pandemic, and Biden’s inaugural committee — trying to keep crowds to a minimum — has urged Americans not to travel to Washington, DC. The National Mall will also be closed to the general public because of security concerns, according to an official familiar with discussions.

The Nixon transition was a moment Kennerly said he will never forget. “For drama, that’s definitely top five in my life — that moment, the only time an American president resigned,” he said.

Kennerly was on a press riser with other photographers and had only a few seconds to immortalize the historic spectacle. It was a quick sequence of photos as Nixon waved farewell before boarding his helicopter.

“It’s not just to pay off the people who supported you,” he said. “It’s to show the people of the United States that we can do this the right way and that’s why we’re different than so many other places.”

“But once again, it was a peaceful transition. A few minutes later, Ford was sworn in as president of the United States. No guns were fired, no coup was attempted, and as President Ford put it in his remarks, ‘Our long national nightmare is over.’ “

“These are photos that can give you more insight behind the scenes,” he said. “And it really boils down to the access of the presidential photographers. Everything's so locked down. This time, (the security) will be insane. There won't be very much behind the scenes, outside the personal photographer to Biden. That is my guess.”

So we likely won’t be seeing many of the great photos we’ve seen from past inaugurations. There will be an emptiness about the day, as the celebration is mostly intended to be a virtual event viewed on television.

After the elections, those on the supply side of the conservative media equation — especially Fox, a huge corporate entity with significantly more to lose than its smaller rivals — believed their greatest challenge was how, exactly, to serve the audience’s demands without running afoul of libel law.

The network understood that it could spend all day pushing scandals, even tendentious ones, but there were still some things better left to wilder precincts.

But the even more outlandish Obama-era claims tended to get significantly less airtime on Fox.

But the even more outlandish Obama-era claims tended to get significantly less airtime on Fox. It was Donald Trump, during his guest appearances on “Fox & Friends” and other Fox shows, who banged the drum of birtherism; the network’s own stars largely steered clear.

But the even more outlandish Obama-era claims tended to get significantly less airtime on Fox. It was Donald Trump, during his guest appearances on “Fox & Friends” and other Fox shows, who banged the drum of birtherism; the network’s own stars largely steered clear. When conspiracy theorists claimed online that Obama planned to use a military training operation to declare martial law in Texas, Fox covered the kerfuffle mostly to dismiss or even mock it. The network understood that it could spend all day pushing scandals, even tendentious ones, but there were still some things better left to wilder precincts.

Now that Fox is preparing for a Biden administration, the same muscle memory is kicking in. The business dealings of Biden’s son Hunter and his brother James have given rise to myriad Fox reports about a “Biden crime family,” and the network has become preoccupied with Biden’s age, with a “medical contributor” appearing on Tucker Carlson’s show to talk about atrial fibrillation and cognitive decline.

Indeed, since Trump’s defeat, many conservative-news consumers have abandoned the comparably more staid precincts of Fox for OANN and Newsmax; in the month after the election, Newsmax viewership rose 497 percent between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., while Fox suffered a 38 percent decline. The demand among conservative-news consumers for the unhinged is obviously high.

For the past four years, Trump has not only met that demand; he has steadily increased it. Now, with his claims of a landslide electoral win, he has crossed a line that conservative media is asked to cross, too, lest it be left behind. It’s one thing for conservatives to believe Biden is corrupt or hopelessly senile, but to believe that his election is patently fraudulent goes far beyond the outer edges of even toxic partisanship

About 75 percent of the public said Mr. Trump bore some responsibility for the violence and destruction of Jan. 6, which put the lives of the vice president and members of Congress at risk and resulted in five deaths, according to the survey.

encouraged supporters who do not view President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. as legitimate, and refused to concede — has cost Mr. Trump support even with those individuals who have loyally supported him up until now.

Mr. Biden, in contrast, has benefited from how he has handled the transition period. About 64 percent of voters said they had a positive opinion of his conduct since the November election. The majority of voters said they also approved of his cabinet selections.

Mr. Trump’s polling while in office has been surprisingly stagnant, despite regular eruptions from the president

About 34 percent of respondents said they believed Mr. Trump was “definitely” or “probably” the rightful election winner.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have tried to play up that base of loyal support to him, noting that there are “welcome home” events planned for his arrival in Florida on Wednesday. They have also planned an upbeat send-off on the morning of Jan. 20 to commemorate his final departure from Washington as president, aboard Air Force One

Not only has he made history as the first president to be impeached twice. But he appears to be on track to leave office with the lowest approval rating of any modern-day president.

Only the most ardent political junkies closely follow the re-shuffling and re-drawing of legislative and congressional districts that follow the decennial census. (Guilty, your honor!)

In fact, like many things that the general public either knows nothing about or has a decided lack of interest in, how these lines are drawn and by whom has an outsized impact on the sort of government we have -- and what the motivations of our elected officials are.

For decades, the line-drawing process has fallen, in most states, to state legislators and governors. What that has meant, in the main, is that when Democrats control the state capitol and, therefore, the line-drawing process, they create districts that are as favorable as possible for their side.

The strategy of both sides has been simple: Pack as many of the opposition party's voters into as few districts in the state as possible while spreading out their own voters to make as many districts winnable for their side as they can. Innovations in redistricting software have made this slicing and dicing of people based on their party registration or past voting history an art form -- allowing the line-drawers to literally go street by street when it comes to crafting new districts.

The state's congressional districts have regularly changed hands between the parties, with Republicans winning two previously-held Democratic seats in the 2020 election. And generally speaking, three of the four districts in the state -- the exception being the Republican-friendly 4th in western Iowa -- are extremely competitive every two years. Check out the winning percentages for four incoming members of Congress in the state: 62%, 49%, 50% and 51.3%. In the state's 2nd District, the Republican candidate leads the Democrat candidate by six -- SIX! -- votes.

The vast majority of members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, represent what we would call "safe" districts -- meaning that their only chance of losing their job would be in a primary, not a general election.

In 1956, for example, less than 6 in 10 House incumbents won with 60% of the vote or more, according to Vital Statistics on Congress. By 2002, the first election after the 2001 nationwide redistricting, 85% of all House incumbents seeking reelection won with 60% or higher. In 2014 and 2016, that number hovered in the mid-to-high 70s before dipping to just 63% in the tumultuous 2018 midterm election.

The practical, political effect of this trend is simple: Members of Congress have little reason to demonstrate their ability to work across the partisan aisle and every reason to be as partisan and ideological as possible in hopes of staving off any sort of primary challenge.

Independent or bipartisan commissions to redraw the maps in states -- as Hogan is trying to do in Maryland -- work to reorient the incentive structure for members by creating districts that are far more competitive between the two parties in general elections.

Maps drawn over the past two decades -- by Democrats and Republicans -- in places like North Carolina, Texas and yes, Maryland -- have come under legal scrutiny for using political considerations as the sole motivator in creating legislative and congressional districts. Maps in which one party overreached have, occasionally, led to unpredictable results in which the party in power loses seats they expected to win because they tried to divide up their own voters among too many districts.

While bipartisan -- and independent -- line-drawing commissions are on the rise in recent years, the majority of states in the country still rely on politicians to draw lines.

The Senate’s majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has said that he cannot commence an impeachment trial before Jan. 20, unless all members of the Senate agree to allow it sooner. In fact, as Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, has suggested, in emergency situations, the rules allow him and Mr. McConnell to reconvene the Senate immediately. Removing from power at once a president who has incited an attack on his own government certainly qualifies as an emergency situation.

We should not allow that to happen. He tried to steal the election and incited a mob to abet his wrongdoing. He is a danger to the nation and must be removed immediately and disqualified from ever holding public office again.

n many countries, there’s a perception that Facebook bases its actions on its business interests more than on human rights. In India, home to Facebook’s most users, the company has been accused of not policing anti-Muslim content from political figures for fear of upsetting the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party.

“Developments in our countries aren’t addressed seriously,” said Mishi Choudhary, a technology lawyer and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center, a digital rights group in India. “Any takedown of content raises the questions of free expression, but incitement of violence or using a platform for dangerous speech is not a free speech matter but a matter of democracy, law and order.”

But if those systemic problems made Trump president, the more visceral shock of the pandemic and the visceral incompetence (and worse) of his administration have created a space where a meaningful majority of Americans may be satisfied with recovery, normalcy, a phase of decadence that feels depressing but not dire.

Greene -- who has previously called Hogg "#littleHitler" -- said in a written statement to CNN that the video was taken while she was in Washington, "going from office to office in the Senate to oppose the radical gun control agenda that David Hogg was pushing."

"In 11th grade, one of my fellow student took our school hostage with a gun he brought to our 'gun-free' school," Greene said. "I understand that fear firsthand and I will always work to protect our gun rights so that Americans can defend themselves and others against bad people intent to harm or kill them."

The video reemerged one day after CNN's KFile reported that Greene repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress.

In one post, from January 2019, Greene liked a comment that said "a bullet to the head would be quicker" to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In other posts, Greene liked comments about executing FBI agents who, in her eyes, were part of the "deep state" working against Trump.

A commenter asked Greene, "Now do we get to hang them ?? Meaning H & O ???," referring to Obama and Hillary Clinton.Greene replied, "Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off."

"Over the years, I've had teams of people manage my pages. Many posts have been liked. Many posts have been shared. Some did not represent my views. Especially the ones that CNN is about to spread across the internet," she wrote. Greene did not specify whether she or a member of her team were behind the posts reviewed by CNN's KFile.

"My message to Kevin McCarthy is, take all of her committee assignments away ... also, don't support her when she runs for re-election again and try to get her primaried. If you say this is not your party, actually call it out and hold her accountable," he said.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley led the charge in contesting the Electoral College results on January 6 -- before and after the riot at the US Capitol. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was his wingman. (Cruz had previously offered to serve as the lawyer for a spurious case brought by the Texas attorney general to invalidate votes in other states. The Supreme Court rejected the case.) Even House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (California) got in on the act, traveling to Florida to make nice with Trump on Thursday. "President Trump's popularity has never been stronger than it is today, and his endorsement means more than perhaps any endorsement at any time," read a statement released after the get-together.

Republican politicians spent four years cowering in fear from Trump's wrath, worried that any hint of something short of utter fealty to his cult of personality would lead to a presidential tweet that could cost them their jobs in the next election. It appears that fear hasn't abated, even with Trump out of office. And it also appears that the next Republican presidential primary will be heavily shaped by Trump -- whether or not he decides to run again.

On one closely watched issue, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa offered an amendment to prevent a hike in the minimum wage to $15 an hour during a pandemic

Democrats want to include a $15 minimum wage in the Covid relief bill, but her measure could have been complicated for centrist members

But before a roll call vote was called, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent who is the chair of the Budget Committee and a champion of the $15 minimum wage, intervened and said his proposal would actually make the jump to $15 over five years, not right away as Ernst had formulated in her amendment.

The budget resolution that passed is not the Covid relief bill. It simply sets the stage for Democrats to be able to use a process known as "budget reconciliation" to pass the relief bill on a party-line vote, possibly in late February or March, after the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump is complete in the Senate.

The House already passed the budget measure earlier in the week.

Biden has said he is willing to go forward without the support of Republicans, but he's also stressed that he's willing to make certain concessions if it will earn bipartisan support.

Congressional Democrats have also made clear that they think time is of the essence on the proposal, and a deep divergence remains between Biden's $1.9 trillion and the $618 billion GOP proposal.

The counterproposal still includes $160 billion to battle the pandemic, but Republican senators want to send smaller, more targeted relief checks and only extend unemployment benefits through June, not September.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated during a briefing this week there are certain "bottom lines" that Biden wants to be in the next round of Covid-19 relief

"His view is that at this point in our country, when 1-in-7 American families don't have enough food to eat, we need to make sure people get the relief they need and are not left behind,"

Republicans are unhappy Democrats are resorting to the aggressive tactic, though, arguing it will set a partisan tone for the rest of Biden's presidency and that he's not operating as the political unifier he pledged to be

The 10 Senate Republicans who met with the President to discuss his relief package are pushing for talks to continue

Signaling is a concept originally drawn from economics; it says that people sometimes engage in costly, seemingly pointless behavior as a way to prove that they have attributes others value.

In the context of dictatorial regimes, signaling typically involves making absurd claims on behalf of the Leader and his agenda, often including “nauseating displays of loyalty.”

how does the Leader know if you’re truly loyal unless you’re willing to demonstrate your loyalty by inflicting harm both on others and on your own reputation?

At most, they stand to lose intraparty offices and, possibly, future primaries. Yet such is the timidity of Republican politicians that these mild threats are apparently enough to make many of them behave like Caligula’s courtiers.

once this kind of signaling becomes the norm, those trying to prove their loyalty have to go to ever greater extremes to differentiate themselves from the pack. Hence “flattery inflation”:

the G.O.P. is no longer a normal political party.

it bears a growing resemblance to the ruling parties of autocratic regimes.

The only unusual thing about the G.O.P.’s wholesale adoption of the Leader Principle is that the party doesn’t have a monopoly on power

Does all of this sound familiar? Of course it does, at least to anyone who has been tracking Fox News or the utterances of political figures like Lindsey Graham or Kevin McCarthy.

As Bloomberg’s Jonathan Bernstein suggests, today’s Republicans are always looking for ways to show that they’re more committed to the cause than their colleagues are — and given how far down the rabbit hole the party has already gone, the only way to do that is “nonsense and nihilism,” advocating crazy and destructive policies, like opposing vaccines.

the G.O.P. has become something different, with, as far as I know, no precedent in American history although with many precedents abroad. Republicans have created for themselves a political realm in which costly demonstrations of loyalty transcend considerations of good policy or even basic logic.

"I think it's more like between Thanksgiving and Christmas" for the end of the investigation, said one Democratic member involved in the probe. "After that, it's a strategic decision about when to bring it to the floor."

"We are committed to moving as methodically but expeditiously as possible -- but we will interview witnesses, release transcripts and hold open hearings at time appropriate given the collection of facts," the source said.

There are still a number of more witnesses in a variety of agencies -- State, Pentagon, Energy, Office of Management and Budget and the White House national security council -- who have firsthand knowledge of Trump's handling of Ukraine, the work of his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and why congressionally approved military aid was held up for Ukraine.

Democrats still hope to talk to some big name witnesses, like Bolton, who privately raised concerns about Giuliani's efforts. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney's statement Thursday — quickly retracted — that the White House held up aid pushing for Ukraine to investigate the 2016 Democratic National Committee server has added him as a potential target. And it's still uncertain if the committees will talk to the whistleblower whose complaint about Trump spawned the investigation.

At some point, the three House committees leading the probe plan to hold public hearings after all their witnesses have been behind closed doors. Plus, the committees say they will release transcripts of their depositions -- some of which have gone as long as 10 hours -- and that process can often take days, if not weeks, to complete.

"When you're shocked by the chief of staff basically saying that there was a quid pro quo, it's a little hard to make any predictions whatsoever about what the timing will be," Rep. Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat, said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "You know shocking things happen every single day. My belief is that the speaker of the House would like to get this wrapped up by the end of the year. I think that's probably possible."