Middleboro Review 2: POLITICO NIGHTLY: How Mo Brooks helps the 1/6 commission

Thursday, March 24, 2022

POLITICO NIGHTLY: How Mo Brooks helps the 1/6 commission

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Campaign signs for Rep. Mo Brooks are lined up ahead of former President Donald Trump's "Save America" rally at York Family Farms on August 21, 2021 in Cullman, Ala. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION — If you’re extremely online, you’ve seen the meme: a balding man, staring sadly into the camera, and a mock headline above it that reads “Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point.” The ClickHole article that accompanies the headline is a joke about the strange sensation of hearing a colleague whose politics you abhor make “an amazing and insightful comment.”

And this meme became real for Democrats this week, thanks to Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.).

Brooks is the picture of a Donald Trump booster, voting with the former president nearly 90 percent of the time. His exhortation for the then-president’s backers to “start taking down names and kicking ass” at the rally that preceding the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, was intense enough to prompt a civil lawsuit from Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.).

That didn’t stop Trump from yanking his endorsement of Brooks to become Alabama’s next senator after the Southern conservative flailed in the polls and publicly turned his focus away from questioning President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. To add insult to injury (though perhaps not unexpectedly), Brooks got the news of Trump’s turnaround from a reporter’s tweet rather than from the man himself.

Brooks was peeved enough by that to make — wait for it — a great point for Democrats: He revealed publicly that not only had Trump asked Brooks to “rescind the 2020 elections,” negating Biden’s victory, but also that Trump had done so during the last six months.

Democrats benefit from this in two distinct but important ways. First, as our Kyle Cheney pointed out minutes after Brooks got in touch to clarify the timing of Trump’s entreaties, Brooks’ version of events reinforces the Democrat-led Jan. 6 select panel’s perspective that Trump “asked his allies to cast aside the law and Constitution in service of his bid to remain in or return to power.”

Trump’s defense against any suggestion that he conspired to obstruct congressional certification of his loss will likely lie in whatever advice he was getting at the time to keep fighting, that baseless claims of widespread voter fraud could be proven.

If Trump was indeed leaning on Brooks as recently as this fall to keep pushing for overturning a democratically administered election, that would underscore the select panel’s portrayal of an ousted president determined to disrupt his own defeat by any means necessary.

In other words: A president who was simply relying on the legal advice of John Eastman and other aides, who argued before Biden’s inauguration that Vice President Mike Pence could stop the certification of Biden’s election, would not still be trying to unseat Biden nine months later, after the aides’ arguments were publicly eviscerated.

The second benefit Brooks has delivered to Democrats — and to Trump’s opponents inside the Republican Party — is purely political, not legal or investigative.

Without his long-held megaphone on traditional social media, the cracks in Trump’s GOP throne are starting to show. Brooks isn’t the first candidate he’s endorsed who is lagging in primaries. His portrayal of Trump as still fixated on undoing Biden’s victory only adds to a perception that the former president is stuck in the past, while the rest of the GOP pushes forward, toward a takeover of one or even both chambers of Congress.

As valuable as Trump’s base has proven, the former president is becoming something of a walking wedge between Republicans in Congress at a time when they need to project unity above all.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at eschor@politico.com, or on Twitter at @eschor.

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WHAT'D I MISS?

— Biden calls for Russian removal from G-20: Biden called for expelling Russia from the G-20 group of the world’s largest economies, suggested Ukraine join the meetings if that cannot happen and pledged to respond in kind if Vladimir Putin uses chemical weapons in the assault on his neighbor. Speaking with reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels during an extraordinary day of meetings, Biden said the question of booting Russia from the G-20 was entertained, but he was deferential to the country now chairing the organization, Indonesia.

— U.S. sanctions Russian State Duma, more oligarchs: The Biden administration announced additional sanctions today on the Russian State Duma and a number of oligarchs, ratcheting up its economic retaliation against the Kremlin for its unprovoked war on Ukraine. This latest tranche of sanctions targets 328 members of the State Duma — Russia’s chief legislative body — by name as well as the Duma as a whole. Several financial institutions and their leaders are also included.

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. President Joe Biden, Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and France's President Emmanuel Macron pose for a G-7 leaders' family photo during a NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium. | Henry Nicholls - Pool/Getty Images

— Legions of foreign soldiers are on Ukraine’s frontline: A month into President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale assault on Ukraine, fighting groups made up of veterans from abroad are seeing combat. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that 16,000 foreigners had traveled to his country to fight Russian forces. A few days later, the volunteer ranks were estimated at 20,000, Ukrainian Brigadier General Kyrylo Budanov told CNN.

— Granholm says Biden will make gas exports announcement ‘soon,’ but details scarce: Biden will make an announcement “soon” in response to talks between U.S. and European leaders about increasing liquefied natural gas and oil exports to Europe , Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said during a press conference today. “With respect to the discussions that are happening right now regarding LNG, United States, etc., I’m going to allow the president to make that announcement — and that is soon,” she said, in response to a question probing how much supply the U.S. could provide — and what details of the plan might look like.

— Biden aide blasts Moscow’s ‘Potemkin’ stock market reopening: A Biden administration official key to crafting sanctions on Russia blasted the Kremlin as it partially reopened the Moscow stock exchange following a month’s hiatus. Daleep Singh, deputy national security adviser for international economics, called the move “a charade” and “a Potemkin market opening.” The Moscow exchange was shut after Russian leader Vladimir Putin proceeded with a large-scale invasion of Ukraine that led to the U.S. and its allies imposing severe sanctions on Russia.

SUBSCRIBE TO NATIONAL SECURITY DAILY : Keep up with the latest critical developments from Ukraine and across Europe in our daily newsletter, National Security Daily. The Russian invasion of Ukraine could disrupt the established world order and result in a refugee crisis, increased cyberattacks, rising energy costs and additional disruption to global supply chains. Go inside the top national security and foreign-policymaking shops for insight on the global threats faced by the U.S. and its allies and what actions world leaders are taking to address them. Subscribe today.

— GOP frets over how hard to fight Jackson: Republicans are rejecting the harshest tactics that could trap Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination indefinitely in the Senate Judiciary Committee — though they’re wrestling with how hard to fight it . While Democratic support alone is enough to get Jackson confirmed in the 50-50 Senate, unilateral GOP opposition would require the nation’s first Black female vice president to break a tie on the nation’s first Black female Supreme Court justice. Even a tied committee vote would force a procedural vote on the Senate floor, a rare occurrence for a high-court nominee.

— Supreme Court weighs in on ‘cancel culture’ with community college case: The Supreme Court weighed in on the long-simmering debate over “cancel culture,” unanimously rejecting a Texas community college board member’s claims that his colleagues’ decision to censure him violated his First Amendment rights . In an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court held that Houston Community College’s board did not abridge board member David Wilson’s free-speech rights when it reprimanded him following years of acrimony between him and other members of the panel. Gorsuch wrote that allowing lawsuits over such claims would amount to an infringement of the First Amendment rights of those who censured Wilson, as well as those who serve on other government boards and commissions.

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NIGHTLY NUMBER

62 percent

The percentage of U.S. adults who reported having unfavorable views of China, compared with 15 percent reporting favorable views, according to a new Morning Consult survey . Chinese perceptions of the United States are even more negatively skewed: 71 percent of adults in the country view the United States unfavorably.

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PARTING WORDS

Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets attends the second half against the New York Knicks at Barclays Center in New York City. | Sarah Stier/Getty Images

UNIONS BALK AT NYC SPORTS VAX MOVE — Mayor Eric Adams said today he decided to waive the Covid-19 vaccine requirement for local athletes and performers because it put them at a hometown disadvantage and hurt the economy, while the heads of public sector unions called the move unfair because their members must still abide by the mandate, Deanna Garcia and Julia Marsh write.

“This is about putting New York City-based performers on a level playing field,” Adams said at a Citi Field press conference flanked by the presidents of the Mets and Yankees. He said the rule instituted by former Mayor Bill de Blasio that exempted out-of-town athletes from the vaccine mandates gave hometown players an “unfair disadvantage.”

“It’s unimaginable we treated our performers different because they lived and played for home teams. It’s not acceptable,” Adams said.

He signed an executive order adding local athletes and performers to the exemption that already existed for their out-of-town counterparts. He pegged the timing of the expansion to the city’s low Covid case rate and the start of the Major League Baseball season.

Labor leaders were furious by what they viewed as a special carveout for sports stars. The rule had benched Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving during home games.

“I wish the same consideration was given to all city employees, the true heroes that kept the city safe and running during the height of the pandemic,” said Patrick Ferraiuolo, president of the Correction Captains’ Association whose members work in local jails.

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