POLITICO Nightly: The triumph of the gerontocracy

 

By Charlie Mahtesian Presented by The Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) speaks to reporters outside of a House Oversight Committee hearing on May 16, 2023. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images STAYING THE COURSE — In a few weeks’ time, Democrats will be facing the hard reality of the 2024 election results. They will be shut out of power in every branch in Washington and confronted with a swaggering Republican president who won the popular vote in November, captured every swing state and splintered the Democratic base. It’s a dire situation, yet you might not know it from the party’s recent appraisals. Top officials have been circulating always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life statements recounting catastrophes averted and minor victories. Harris staffers have spoken of their campaign as “flawless.” House Democrats did their part this week, sidestepping an opportunity to chart a different course for Trump’s second term by returning a roster of top committee members marked by almost no significant generational change. The election was shaped by the ouster of 82-year-old President Joe Biden as the party nominee over concerns about his age. And then the November results were marked by a huge dropoff in the Democratic vote among those under 30 years old. And yet given the chance to inject some youth and shake up the leadership in the House committees that will take on the Trump bulldozer, Democrats politely declined. It’s true that several Democrats leapfrogged more senior members to claim posts as ranking members on key committees like Natural Resources and Agriculture. But those changes were low-hanging fruit — a matter of pushing out enfeebled or ailing members. The argument for installing Rep. Jamin Raskin (D-Md.) as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee was likewise hard to deny. Raskin is a former constitutional law professor and one of the most dynamic voices in the Democratic Caucus. Installing the 62-year-old over 77-year-old Rep. Jerrold Nadler in the arena where some of the highest stakes battles of the next four years will take place — on issues like executive powers, immigration, abortion rights, and the independence of the Justice Department — was a no-brainer, especially since he will be going head-to-head with combative GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, the committee chairman. Yet it’s revealing that even after the ouster of three 70-somethings from ranking spots on committees — Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), David Scott (D-Ga.) and Nadler — top Democrats on 10 different committees in the next Congress will be over 70 years old. Two of them are octogenarians, including 86-year-old Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who will be ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee. The GOP House chairmen these Democrats will be up against aren’t exactly spring chickens. But Republicans will have half the number of 70-plus-year-olds serving in the top spot. Two GOP chairmen will be more than 25 years younger than their Democratic counterpart on the committee. In part, it’s a function of the term limits imposed on committee leaders by the House GOP conference. Democrats, by contrast, are wedded to seniority as the basis of power. The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday was the scene of one of the clearest and most publicized Democratic rejections of a generational shift. In that case, 74-year-old Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) defeated 35-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to become the high-profile committee’s ranking member. In isolation, it was a decision that made some sense — Connolly is a respected veteran and a productive member. Ocasio-Cortez is an outspoken, progressive lightning rod whom Republicans might have leveraged against party centrists. But the decision wasn’t made in isolation. Tapping Connolly — who has been diagnosed with cancer — was part of a pattern that places seniority, institutional experience and intra-party relationships above all else at a time when new ideas, new leadership and a break with past party practice might be more important than ever. Together, these choices are the mark of a complacent party that still seems unwilling to make the hard choices necessary to reorient itself, and where too many aging Democratic officials won’t willingly give up power. It’s a phenomenon that played out to devastating effect for the party just last month. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at cmahtesian@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @PoliticoCharlie .   A message from The Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing: Big Pharma’s patent abuse drives up drug prices and blocks competition – costing patients and the U.S. health care system billions. Patent thickets protect profits, not innovation, and extend monopolies on blockbuster drugs while millions of Americans struggle to afford their medications. This year, the Senate unanimously passed Cornyn-Blumenthal, a bipartisan solution to curb these anti-competitive tactics. Time is running out – Congress must pass Cornyn-Blumenthal and deliver relief to patients before it’s too late. Learn more.   What'd I Miss? GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN? — Johnson’s spending nightmare grows: GOP leaders are now considering a plan B to avert a shutdown deadline on Friday as conservatives, Elon Musk, Donald Trump and JD Vance have excoriated the original spending plan, which included several add-ons like $100 billion in disaster aid and a one-year farm bill extension. Trump and Vance, while objecting to the current bill in a long statement, also surprised lawmakers by demanding that Congress address the debt ceiling now and explicitly opening the door to a shutdown. — Supreme Court will take up TikTok’s bid to avoid U.S. ban: The Supreme Court said today it will decide whether a looming ban on TikTok in the U.S. violates the First Amendment . The high court put the case on an unusually accelerated timeline, agreeing to hear arguments on Jan. 10 — nine days before a law is slated to take effect that would ban the popular app or force its Beijing-based owner ByteDance to sell it. TikTok had asked the justices to grant an emergency injunction that would have temporarily put the law on hold and lifted its Jan. 19 deadline while the high court considered whether to take up the case. — Ethics Committee secretly voted to release Gaetz report: The House Ethics Committee has taken the rare and controversial step of voting to release its investigative report into former Rep. Matt Gaetz, according to a person familiar with the matter. The private vote earlier this month means at least one Republican on the panel, which has membership that is evenly split between both parties, sided with Democrats to release the report. Its release is expected after lawmakers wrap up their votes this week, the person said.   You read POLITICO for trusted reporting. Now follow every twist of the lame duck session with Inside Congress . We track the committee meetings, hallway conversations, and leadership signals that show where crucial year-end deals are heading. Subscribe now .     THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Labor, walks to a meeting in the Hart Senate Office Building today. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images HEADED TO THE HILL — Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer has begun making the rounds on Capitol Hill to secure support for her bid to become Labor secretary in the Trump administration. The Oregon Republican will meet today with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who serves on the Senate HELP Committee, a staffer in his office confirmed to POLITICO. Unions have expressed cautious optimism about President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to tap DeRemer to head up DOL, while some businesses are wary of the pick, which could signal a move away from the GOP’s pro-employer labor tilt. However, she remains one of Trump’s least controversial nominees and will likely gain support from Democrats looking to preserve remnants of President Joe Biden’s labor agenda. JOHNSON’S NEWEST HEADACHE — Speaker Mike Johnson has a massive new headache as he races to stop a holiday government shutdown — and his name is Elon Musk . The tech scion and mega-ally of President-elect Donald Trump took to his social platform X today to slam a short-term funding bill Johnson backed, criticizing the 1,547-page continuing resolution for its numerous unrelated spending measures — including a raise for lawmakers — and calling it “criminal,” “unconscionable” and a “crime against the American people.” It started at 4:15 a.m. ET, when Musk posted on X “this bill should not pass.” And he hasn’t let up since, repeatedly urging his nearly 208 million followers to call their representatives to “Stop the steal of your tax dollars!” and threatening that “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” That’s a problem for Johnson — a Republican and Trump ally himself who could face a gavel fight in January — who must clear the bill by Friday night to avoid a government shutdown at the peak of the holiday season.   A message from The Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing:     AROUND THE WORLD TILTING RIGHT — Ireland’s new parliament has picked an ex-trucking boss and its first woman to be its speaker in a move that suggests the country’s next government is taking a turn to the right. The election by secret ballot of independent lawmaker Verona Murphy — a tough communicator who once infamously branded immigrants as Islamic State terrorists — sets the stage for a new government reliant on support from rural mavericks like herself. Murphy, a 53-year-old school dropout who became a trucker and ultimately president of the Irish Road Haulage Association, lost her first parliamentary by-election in 2019 after claiming that Islamic State supporters were “a big part of the migrant population” who represented a security risk and would need to be “deprogrammed” to fit into Irish society. Murphy quickly apologized. But she was sidelined and quit the government party Fine Gael as both it and the rival centrist party Fianna Fáil dismissed her views as ignorant and racist. Undeterred, she since has built a poll-topping base in her native southeast county of Wexford as a blunt-spoken independent — the very kind of politician that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil now are courting to form a parliamentary majority. NIGHTMARE START — New French Prime Minister François Bayrou’s first few days at Matignon, the residence of the French prime minister, have been marred by controversy over his insistence on keeping a side job as mayor of Pau — a small city in southwestern France — and his handling of the crisis that followed the devastating cyclone in the French overseas region of Mayotte. Even more crucially, Bayrou has so far been unable to extend his narrow base of support in France’s fragmented legislature — something he will need to accomplish to avoid the fate of his predecessor Michel Barnier whose minority government was toppled by a no-confidence backed by nearly all opposition parties. LET’S WORK TOGETHER — Canada’s government says it wants to create a joint “strike force” at the Canada-U.S. border to target transnational organized crime — a shared initiative with the added goal of convincing President-elect Donald Trump to drop his tariff threat. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly discussed details of the plan with Trump “border czar” Tom Homan during a phone call Monday — the same day Canada announced a C$1.3 billion border security package. The proposed force would be made up of U.S. and Canadian law enforcement, LeBlanc’s office said.   POLITICO Pro's unique analysis combines exclusive transition intelligence and data visualization to help you understand not just what's changing, but why it matters for your organization. Explore how POLITICO Pro will make a difference for you.     Nightly Number 1,000 The number of nuclear weapons that China will likely have by 2030 , as they rapidly stockpile, according to a new report from the Pentagon. China has added at least 100 nuclear warheads in the last year. RADAR SWEEP FYODOR FEVER — Amidst romances and books that have been turned into blockbuster movies, a surprising book is shooting back up to the top of bestseller lists: Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “White Nights,” a novella that runs about 80 pages. And the thinness of the volume is part of its success — unlike some of his other, more famous works like “The Brothers Karamazov” or “Crime & Punishment,” “White Nights” has gained much of its recent popularity from “BookTok,” the side of TikTok concerned with reviewing and discussing books. Many popular “BookTok” creators are concerned especially with how many books they’re reading in a year to meet their own defined goals. Hence, “White Nights.” Read all about how Dostoevsky shot up the list with a surprising volume, and what modern “BookTok” is prioritizing from Imogen West-Knights in The Guardian. Parting Image On this date in 1987: South Korean riot police drag a bleeding demonstrator away after students clashed with police in Seoul. The students were protesting against alleged election violations by the ruling party. | AP Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   A message from The Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing: Big Pharma’s patent abuse drives up drug prices and blocks competition – costing patients and the U.S. health care system billions. Patent thickets protect profits, not innovation, and extend monopolies on blockbuster drugs while millions of Americans struggle to afford their medications. This year, the Senate unanimously passed Cornyn-Blumenthal, a bipartisan solution to curb these anti-competitive tactics. Time is running out – Congress must pass Cornyn-Blumenthal and deliver relief to patients before it’s too late. Learn more.     Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   Follow us

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NC GOP candidate asks court he’s running for to weigh in on race

 

Wednesday, December 18 Share this newsletter with a friend and help amplify our pro-democracy news outlet — we’re committed to keeping readers informed on voting and elections in the courts. North Carolina GOP candidate asks court he’s running for to weigh in on race North Carolina Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin (R) asked the state Supreme Court to toss out 60,000 ballots and pause the certification of his race by Dec. 23. Griffin lost to incumbent Justice Allison Riggs (D) by 734 votes. Arizona officials knew about voter data error for years An administrative error in Arizona’s elections system that affected the voting eligibility of 218,000 voters in the weeks before the 2024 election was a known problem for seven years, according to new reporting from the Washington Post. Trump’s presidency will unleash right-wing sheriffs across America From mass deportation to mass incarceration, President-elect Donald Trump is planning to execute his dangerous agenda by transforming right-wing sheriffs into his personal vigilantes, Jessica Pishko argued in a new piece. New analysis shows impact of Arizona’s proof of citizenship requirement Arizona requires voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections, and this disproportionately impacts voters living on Native land, on college campuses and at the state’s main homeless campus, according to a new analysis from Votebeat. Court hearing coming up tomorrow An Alabama court will hear a lawsuit challenging the commission districts of Jefferson County. Civil rights organizations argued that the districts are racially gerrymandered and violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

 

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Politics Today Bulletin 29, 12/18/24

Ron Filipkowski Dec 19 ∙ Preview

… MAGA Republicans are furious at Mike Johnson after he released the CR last night, which they claim is loaded with new and excessive spending. Rather than pass a “clean” CR to continue the existing budget at current spending levels for another 90 days, Johnson decided to add additional spending in a variety of areas that was certain to alienate far-right members.

… Why? It may be that Johnson realized that there was simply no way he was ever going to get Republican unanimity on any spending package and he needed Democratic support. But putting together a CR that makes Democrats happy puts his Speakership very much at risk with solid block of Republicans rapidly losing confidence in him as a leader.

… The problem for Johnson, or any potential successor if he is replaced, is that Republicans have a tiny majority and they have demonstrated repeatedly that they can’t agree on anything substantive. And new members who were just elected in 2024 are even more militant and far-right than many of the people he has already had problems with in the past. How to govern when you need a unanimous verdict for everything but nobody likes each other or agrees with each other? You don’t.

… How does this play out? It will likely pass with Democratic votes. Lots of Republicans in the House and Senate will vote against it. They will return to their districts for the holidays, go on Fox and Newsmax, jump on social media, and blast away at the feckless leadership of their own party. Trump Unity.

… I also see this costing Johnson his Speakership if the current bill passes. I don’t see how he can possibly survive. He has zero political skills. None. He is literally the opposite of Pelosi when it comes to strategy. She is brilliant, he is a dunce.

… To make matters even worse for Johnson politically, Members of Congress will now also get a pay raise as a result of the new bill. He has an impeccable sense of strategic timing. Why not just throw everything in there that people hate two days before a Christmas government shutdown?

… The report I saw on the congressional pay raise was that their annual salaries will go from $174,000 a year to $243,000 a year. That’s a nice raise. Ben, if you’re reading this - I’m better at my job than they are at theirs. Just saying.

… Some Republican reaction:

… Kat Cammack: “Conservative Republicans should start an OnlyFans account considering how often we get screwed. The CR is a bad deal.”

… Nancy Mace: “I don’t make threats, only promises - and I promise to hold the line on this CR.”

… Elon Musk: “Ever seen a bigger piece of pork? This bill should not pass. Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” That would include Mike Johnson.

… DOGE committee member Thomas Massie said that he will oppose Mike Johnson for Speaker in January and will nominate someone else.

… Rick Scott: “1,500 pages, billions in reckless and unpaid spending, new bills that we have no time to review and wouldn’t have passed otherwise - business as usual in Washington!”

… Tommy Tuberville: “It’s absolutely ridiculous what we’re doing here. We should’ve gotten a clean CR. Mike Johnson promised that.” (But he then Tommy went on to say that he agrees with new funding for farmers and disaster relief, which is not a clean CR).

… Paul Gosar: “The CR is garbage. I will be a hard no.”

… Rand Paul: “I had hoped to see Speaker Johnson grow a spine, but this bill full of pork shows he’s a weak, weak man. A sad day for America.”

… Matt Gaetz: “The CR is DOGE kryptonite. It locks in the spending that will destroy America.”

… Keith Self (R-TX): “We won. We should start acting like it.”

… Victoria Spartz: “I think a lot of Republicans, including moderate Republicans, are questioning whether Johnson can lead. We don’t have the right leaders with backbone and vision.”

… Dan Meuser (R-PA): “I’m leaning no on this bill. Let’s face it, there could be a government shutdown.”

… Michael Cloud (R-TX): “Word is the CR vote will be today at 5, which is 1,345 minutes after the text was released. There are 1,547 pages in the bill. That’s less than 1 minute per page to read it. I will be a NO vote.”

… Ralph Norman (R-SC): “I will personally be raising hell if we vote on this omnibus in under 72 hours from receiving the text.”

… Late in the day, Anna Paulina Luna announced that she would vote against the bill despite the fact that a big chunk of the new spending was specifically for her district to provide aid to her constituents who were victims of a hurricane. I’m sure that will go over big in Pinellas County.

… Johnson told Fox that he was on the phone last night with Musk and Ramaswamy until midnight last night since they were so upset. He said this is what he told them, “We got to get this done because here’s the key. By doing this, we are clearing the decks and we are setting up Trump to come in, roaring back with the America First agenda. That’s what we’re going to do with gusto beginning January 3 when we start the new Congress.”

… What a load of BS. Doesn’t seem like Johnson is fooling anyone. He is looking for Trump to save him by getting all the House Republicans in line because he can’t do it. I seriously doubt Trump can do it either - he’s never been able to before and now he enters office as a lame duck.

… Johnson did such a great job convincing Musk by talking to him until midnight that Musk posted on X at 4 AM that Republicans should vote against it. What a leader.

… But then, early in the evening, we finally heard from Dear Leader in Palm Beach. And he ordered House Republicans to essentially agree on and pass a clean CR with no help from Democrats. Good luck. “Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH. If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CALL THEIR BLUFF.”

… Except Republicans control the House, not the Democrats. So they would be shutting down the government.

… Sen Dick Durbin (D-IL) got into a little argument in the hall with a reporter per Fox about the pay raise:

Reporter: Should we give them more money?

Durbin: What about the media? Think about that first.

Reporter: We're not paid by public money.

Durbin: I know you're not, but half of your listeners are not there anymore. You're still getting the same paycheck. What's going on?

Reporter: Well, I mean, is it taxpayer money? Do you guys deserve a raise?

Durbin: Let me tell you, I think that men and women serving in Congress, House and Senate by large are hardworking, principled people and deserving to be adequately compensated.

… Fox programming today was 50% Republicans complaining about Mike Johnson and 50% on mystery drones.

… Fox did post a story on their website noting that the FBI has asked people to please not shoot or point lasers at things in the sky.

… Joe Biden was asked about the drones. He basically blamed most of the hysteria on Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ): “Nothing nefarious. I think one started, and they all got - everybody wanted to get in the deal.”

… Rep. Tim Burchett said that he thinks the drones are from China and says there is no way China would dare fly the drones over Tennessee because people there would shoot them down.

… Sen. Chuck Schumer brought a bipartisan bill to the floor today to provide funding and authority for local law enforcement agencies to track drones. Schumer said the agencies report that they simply don’t have the equipment or personnel to track down all the complains and reports.

… The House Ethics Committee voted in secret to release their report on Matt Gaetz shortly before he resigned from Congress. The report was about to be released just days after Gaetz resigned, which he thought would block it from ever coming out. But the report will now be released anyway, since he continues to hint at running for office again, as is expected to come out right after Christmas.

… And will be posted on the internet.

… Gaetz then responded by posting a bizarre statement: “In my single days, I often sent funds to women I dated - even some I never dated but who asked. I dated several of these women for years. I have never had sexual contact with someone under 18. My 30s were an era of working very hard - and playing hard too.

… More Gaetz: “It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank, and smoked more than I should have earlier in life.”

… That is not the statement of an innocent man with nothing to hide.

… Wednesdays are always tough because my live podcast Uncovered is 90 minutes today, and that doesn’t include show prep or watching it back to post clips on social media. I try my best to keep up with research for this column, but Wednesday bulletins are always likely to be a little shorter because of that.

Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

 

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Bird Flu is Back and We Are Screwed

12.18.24

Ally Sammarco Dec 19

Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash

Happy Wednesday and welcome back to yet another edition Today’s American News, your source for news and analysis on the circus that is American politics and entertainment.

Trump and Vance are ready to burn it all down… It’s a bad sign when a president-elect and vice president-elect are already calling the shots leading America to another federal government shutdown, but that’s what Donald Trump and JD Vance are doing. Sorry, Mike Johnson, you no longer run the House. “Trump and Vance issued a statement Wednesday insisting that Congress raise the nation’s debt ceiling and cut a range of spending proposals instead of passing the package that Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans had negotiated with their Democratic counterparts.” Politico writes.

It’s starting: Trump is going after his enemies and Liz Cheney is first on the list… Convicted felon Donald Trump is making good on his promise to go after his enemies, and former Republican Congresswoman and vice-presidential daughter Liz Cheney is first on the list. Cheney’s former colleagues in the House of Representatives are doing Trump’s bidding, laying the groundwork and abusing their power and making the former Congresswoman’s work on the January 6 Committee an impetus for criminal prosecution.

Prepare to be grossed out as the Matt Gaetz ethics report is coming… After blocking release of the ethics panel investigation into the release of former Congressman Matt Gaetz’s ethics report into sexual misconduct and drug use for weeks, Republicans in the House of Representatives have finally green-lit the report to make its way into public view. After the shutdown mess is figured out, the report is coming, allegedly.

Bird flu on the rise across the United States… Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, “A person in Louisiana has the first severe illness caused by bird flu in the U.S.,” according to the CDC. “Officials determined the patient had exposure to sick and dead birds in backyard flocks, though an investigation into the source of the infection in the state is ongoing. This is also the first case of H5N1 bird flu in the U.S. that has been linked to exposure to a backyard flock, a news release noted… The case was first confirmed by health officials Friday, adding to the total of 61 reported human cases of H5 bird flu reported in the United States.”

Today’s Buzz

Sean “Diddy” Combs in court on sex trafficking… “Diddy” was in court today on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation, and the prosecution said it’s still putting together its case. Discovery–the collection of relevant documents for the case–”is on track to be completed by the end of 2024. A trial date has been set for May 5, 2025.” New information about the celebrity’s so-called “freak-offs” could implicate additional figures in the entertainment industry.

Thanks again for reading Today’s American News. Check back for tomorrow’s edition.