Concerns over Joe Biden to be Morehouse 2024 commencement speaker

Table Of Content

• Majority of Voters Say Donald Trump Was a Success, Joe Biden Is a Failure
• Is there a speaker of the House yet? Nope. And we can't get enough of McCarthy's failure
• Rep. Mike Johnson wins GOP nomination for speaker
• Members of Congress ‘saddened’ by the death of New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne Jr.
• No secret deals for Emmer, colleague says

In the years before he arrived in Congress in 2017, Mr. Johnson worked as an attorney and spokesman for the anti-abortion-rights and anti-gay group Alliance Defense Fund — now called the Alliance Defending Freedom. During that time, he expressed some of his hard-line views in editorials in the local newspaper in his hometown of Shreveport, La. On Nov. 8, 2020, Mr. Johnson was onstage at a northwest Louisiana church speaking about Christianity in America when Mr. Trump called. Mr. Johnson had been in touch with the president’s team on his myriad legal challenges seeking to overturn the results, “to restore the integrity of our election process,” according to a Facebook post by Mr. Johnson recounting the exchange.

Majority of Voters Say Donald Trump Was a Success, Joe Biden Is a Failure

The 118th version of the Senate did the same this week, convening for a celebratory induction of new members and the swearing in of re-elected senators on Tuesday, then quickly fleeing the capital for three weeks to allow the House to occupy the political stage alone. A welcome winter rain has tamped down the Central Valley dust, but high winds have sent tumbleweeds bounding down the city’s wide boulevards. The Republican divisions obstructing Mr. McCarthy’s decade-long ambition of becoming speaker of the House have been playing out on both the national stage in Washington and a far smaller though equally telling one in his hometown and home district. It is easier to find detractors on his far-right flank than die-hard supporters, in what should be friendly home turf for California’s top Republican — one of the reddest cities in one of the bluest states in the country. She told The Hill shortly after starting the job that she had taken diction classes to prepare and had done a three-minute audition that involved reading out a resolution, amendment, handwritten amendment, presidential message and bill. Still, a large contingent of the crowd hung on, with a mixed but visible reaction to Representative Lauren Boebert, who had been a hard holdout, voting “present.” Some booed, and one yelled “sellout!

Is there a speaker of the House yet? Nope. And we can't get enough of McCarthy's failure

Taking the term “small government” to its most-absurd conclusion, House Republicans cycled through another House speaker candidate in a matter of hours Tuesday, leaving the governing body ungoverned and themselves looking like clowns in search of a circus with low standards. Prior to that, the last Republican speaker had been Nicholas Longworth of Ohio, who died in 1931. Technically, he died as speaker, but his party lost its majority before the next Congress convened and elected a Democrat to the job. Like Johnson an era later, Hastert was a relatively quiet member of the leadership who enjoyed goodwill generally in the rank and file. Hastert was speaker through the last two Clinton years and first six of the George W. Bush presidency. But he voluntarily resigned after the GOP lost badly in the 2006 midterms, a defeat Bush called "a thumpin' " at the time.

Rep. Mike Johnson wins GOP nomination for speaker

Some students become fearful that if they participate in any demonstrations, they’re going to face disciplinary action. So fast forward now to April, when these student protesters learned that President Shafik is headed to Washington for her congressional testimony. So these students in real-time are beginning to test some of the things that Columbia’s president has just said before Congress.

Mr. Johnson came to Congress in 2017 with support from the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, though he has never joined the group. “The slates of electors were produced by a clearly unconstitutional process, period,” he said. In December 2020, Mr. Johnson collected signatures for a legal brief in support of a Texas lawsuit, rooted in baseless claims of widespread election irregularities, that tried to throw out the results in four battleground states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. “We will stop the socialist agenda, we will control the purse strings, and you will see some pretty vigorous investigations and oversight because that is a really important responsibility of the Congress in our constitutional system,” he said. House Speaker Mike Johnson entered the speaker's office for the first time after being sworn in, with his new name plate hanging above the door.

They refused to certify that President Biden was the rightful winner. They spread lies that helped ignite a mob of Trump supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. WASHINGTON — The House was in an uproar, unable to settle on its new speaker, forcing roll call vote after roll call vote. The Senate had quietly slipped out of the city while insurgents in the House demanded more power as the nation watched anxiously.

US House still has no Speaker. Here's what happens next - BBC.com

US House still has no Speaker. Here's what happens next.

Posted: Thu, 19 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene files motion to oust Mike Johnson as House speaker - NBC News

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene files motion to oust Mike Johnson as House speaker.

Posted: Fri, 22 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Johnson said Republicans would "dispense with all of the usual ceremonies and celebrations” and get to work. “You’re going to see an aggressive schedule in the days and weeks ahead,” he said. A bloc of Republicans had objected to the speaker bid of Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the hard-right co-founder of the Freedom Caucus, because of his role in helping lead Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. But some said they did not have the same concerns about Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson has opposed continued funding for the war in Ukraine, which has emerged as a bitter fault line in the G.O.P. and in the spending battles that he will have to navigate in the coming days. Democrats were scathing in their assessment of Mr. Johnson’s ascent to the speakership.

Mr. Crane, an incoming freshman, doesn’t have any track record as a player in Washington so it’s hard to discern what he may want, and he hasn’t articulated any particular asks. They are the last remaining six Republican holdouts who in the last round voted against Mr. McCarthy. As the vote-casting began, a few people packed their bags, closed out their tabs and left. “The empty chair is such poetry,” one onlooker said before the vote, pointing at the screen. A bartender switched the channel from basketball to C-SPAN about 10 minutes before the vote was set to start, but it was only when the session was called to order that the rowdy crowd turned its attention fully to the screens, hooting and clapping.

The Ohio Republican is a founding member of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, a key faction of House Republicans that haunted McCarthy and forced him to placate to the right flank of his conference throughout his speakership. As a shutdown looked all but certain, McCarthy ultimately put forth a bipartisan stopgap bill on the House floor to fund the government just hours before a shutdown would have started. Days after the shutdown was averted, Gaetz filed a motion to vacate, and his efforts to oust McCarthy succeeded, putting the House in the frozen state seen today.

Scalise was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a treatable blood cancer, in August. He returned to the Capitol last month and said that he was three weeks into a treatment on chemotherapy at the time. "We need to move swiftly to address our national security needs and to avoid a shutdown in 22 days," Biden said. But the speech infuriated Mr. Trump, and Mr. McCarthy quickly worked to get back in the former president’s good graces, traveling to his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, three weeks later to meet with him. “He will have to live the entirety of his speakership in a straitjacket constructed by the rules that we’re working on now,” Mr. Gaetz said. Carrots may have succeeded in winning Mr. McCarthy the speaker’s gavel.

It has already spent all of the funding Congress had previously provided to support Ukraine, sending more than $44 billion worth of weapons, maintenance, training and spare parts since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. Allies to Rep. Jim Jordan and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise are divided over a proposal to change how the speaker nomination process would work, which would have major implications for who would be able to prevail. There is also some discussion of including funding for border security funding and for Taiwan in an eventual package, as there is growing uncertainty over how future supplemental packages would fare in the GOP-controlled House. Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry is limited to help Israel in the midst of war — meaning the House can’t pass any legislation until a new speaker is chosen. Rep. Steve Womack, a senior GOP appropriator, likened the conference to a “scattergram” as Republicans continue to debate the way forward.

House Republicans chose and then quickly repudiated yet another of their nominees for speaker on Tuesday and rushed to name a fourth, pressing to put an end to a remarkable three-week-long deadlock that has left Congress leaderless and paralyzed. On Wednesday, Mr. Johnson was toiling to help Republicans turn the page from the chaos of the past few weeks. He said there would be none of the typical celebrations that accompany the election of a new speaker. Mr. Johnson was only able to emerge as his party’s nominee for speaker this week after three other G.O.P. nominees before him were unable to rally enough support. The podcasts, spanning 69 episodes, offer an extended window into Mr. Johnson's views and politics, as he co-hosts the program with his wife, a licensed pastoral counselor. In it, the man who has just been elected speaker, an evangelical Christian, talks at length about his vehement opposition to abortion rights, calls the Democratic agenda socialist, and rails against the prosecution of Mr. Trump for his efforts to interfere in the 2020 election.

The four absences mean Johnson will need 215 votes to win the speakership if all members in the chamber vote for a candidate. "Therefore, the Honorable Mike Johnson of the state of Louisiana, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected speaker of the House of Representatives for the 118th Congress," McHenry, the interim speaker, announced after reading the final vote tally. Johnson now faces a daunting list of challenges, with a fast-approaching government shutdown chief among them. The House is staring down a deadline of Nov. 17, when current government funding expires.

This marks a clear departure from how those same members viewed former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision earlier this month to put a short-term spending bill on the floor, which ultimately led to his ouster. House conservatives are signaling they’ll give the newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson some runway and flexibility as the House barrels toward a November 17 spending deadline to fund the government. Republicans held a candidate forum Tuesday night with five members vying to be the next speaker-designee after Emmer withdrew. Former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media site, early Wednesday to urge House Republicans to back Johnson for speaker, less than a day after he effectively derailed Majority Whip Tom Emmer's own bid for the gavel. GOP lawmakers who withheld their support for Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio during his three rounds of voting on the House floor are beginning to line up behind Johnson. Rep. Elise Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican conference, will deliver the speech nominating Johnson for speaker, according to a Republican aide.

He also agreed to open government spending bills to a freewheeling debate in which any lawmaker could force votes on proposed changes. In a secret-ballot vote on Tuesday night, Mr. Johnson got 128 votes, with 44 Republicans voting for nominees not on the ballot, including 43 for Mr. McCarthy, whom many view as unfairly ousted. Still, in a separate vote afterward, only a few Republicans indicated they would not back Mr. Johnson on the floor, while about 20 Republicans were absent. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founder of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus and someone Mr. Johnson has described as a mentor, was the next member to be elected speaker designate in a secret ballot. He had Mr. Trump and the far right in his corner, but ultimately failed to win over more centrist members of his party who steadfastly refused to support him. While Republicans are celebrating finally electing a speaker, across the Capitol, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, chimes in with a reminder of the impending mid-November government shutdown looming unless Congress can pass legislation to keep it funded.