Politics
Trump FBI director nominee Kash Patel draws scorn from Democrats
Last year, Patel pledged to target government officials and journalists who he baselessly alleged stole the 2020 presidential election from Trump.
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Senate Democrats push to confirm Biden judges amid GOP absenteeism dispute
Democrats are racing to confirm more than two dozen of President Biden’s judicial nominees before losing their majority next year.
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Matt Gaetz withdraws from Attorney General nomination; senators react
Embattled former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from contention to serve as U.S. Attorney General on Thursday, sparing Senate Republicans a fraught confirmation fight.
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Fed’s Barr Commits to Full Term Amid GOP Calls for Regulatory Pause
Republican lawmakers criticized Biden-era financial regulations and urged a halt to major rulemaking until the Trump administration takes office.
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Native American leaders press lawmakers for solutions to missing indigenous women crisis
Native American tribal leaders urged for federal funding and national reporting systems at a House Appropriations Committee hearing on the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women.
read moreLawmakers clash on partisan immigration records in hearing on migrant children trafficking
WASHINGTON — In the first House Homeland Security hearing on immigration since Republicans’ decisive 2024 election victory, both sides of the aisle derailed a conversation on migrant children trafficking to debate their administrations’ respective immigration records.
Clashes within the committee over the choice of witnesses, the evidence presented and representatives’ questioning led to verbal confrontations, while many Republican committee members left the hearing room before speaking their turn during witness questioning.
While members on both sides of the aisle agreed the trafficking and exploitation of migrant children is a pressing issue, Democratic members said placing the blame on President Joe Biden’s administration was counterproductive to its resolution.
“It didn’t start all of a sudden one day on January 20, 2021,” Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., said. “It’s gone on for decades, and we spent all of our time blaming each other and pointing at boogeymen instead of doing our jobs in the United States Congress.”
The hearing, jointly led by the Subcommittees on Border Security and Enforcement and Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability, contained witness testimony from whistleblowers, researchers and people from government oversight organizations.
A key tension point revolved around the risks of U.S. sponsors taking custody of unaccompanied migrant children.
Congress granted the Office of Refugee Resettlement custody of unaccompanied migrant children in 2002. Their responsibility includes placing them with U.S.-based sponsors that have undergone background checks and completed risk assessments.
As of Nov. 1, 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services has 6,148 unaccompanied children in their care, with the average length of stay under the ORR’s care being 34 days. The ORR plans to expedite this process further, raising concerns about placing children in dangerous scenarios due to insufficient sponsor vetting.
Witness Tara Lee Rodas, an HHS whistleblower, said the HHS does not have the resources to properly vet U.S. sponsors as it is “not an investigative or law enforcement agency.”
Both Rodas and witness J.J. Carrell, a documentary maker and former Border Patrol officer, testified that the Biden Administration had lost over 320,000 unaccompanied migrant children after placing them with U.S. sponsors.
They appeared to be referencing a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement report from August 2024, which said more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children did not attend their immigration court hearings from 2019 to 2023, putting them at higher risk of exploitation and trafficking. The report said the number may have been greater if ICE had given notices to appear to more than 291,000 unaccompanied children remaining in the U.S.
Discord started with the introduction of Carrell, due to past incendiary comments and the content of his written testimony, in which he accused Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas of treason for their handling of the Southern border.
“Here in Congress, we don’t accuse sitting presidents, sitting vice presidents or members of Congress of treason,” Subcommittee Chair Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., said.
Carrell’s posting history on the platform X, also drew sharp criticism from Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., who called attention to a post he made in early November saying deportations under the new Trump administration will be “swift, but deadly” and should take “violence and deadly force.”
“I have no questions for you. No one serious about our role here should be asking you questions,” Ramirez said to Carrell.
Claims made by Carrell and fellow witness Alicia Hopper, a human trafficking researcher for Sadulski Enterprises, were also questioned by both sides of the aisle. In their testimony, both made reference to criminal organizations targeting unaccompanied migrant children heading to the United States for organ harvesting.
When asked to give further details on organ harvesting schemes by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Carrell could not give specifics.
Democratic lawmakers challenged Republicans’ convictions against migrant child trafficking, bringing up their support for President-elect Donald Trump’s family separation policies and his plans to resume the agenda in his upcoming term.
“My Republican colleagues pretend to care about children, but their actions say otherwise,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., said.
Ramirez said Republicans shouldn’t use the abuse migrants have faced as a political attack, due to her family’s personal experience with immigrant exploitation long before the Biden administration’s border policies.
“I don’t want to hear about one woman being raped crossing that border. My mother experienced it while pregnant with me, crossing that border,” Ramirez said.
While Ramirez said she would gladly work with her Republican colleagues if they want to pass solutions for migrant children in the upcoming administration, she disagreed with their language and motivations in discussing the problem.
“If all we’re going to continue to do in this committee is bring people here who continue to dehumanize children and families who are risking everything because they have lost everything crossing that border, then I’m going to continue pushing back,” Ramirez said.
Trump’s shadow looms as Ukraine allies mark 1,000 days of the war
WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, Nov. 19, Ukraine marked 1,000 days since Russia launched its full-scale invasion with a military milestone—its first use of the U.S.-manufactured Army Tactical Missile Systems to strike into Russian territory.
The move came days after President Joe Biden’s administration approved Kyiv’s long-sought demand to use American-manufactured weapons to strike deep into Russia.
Shortly after, Russian President Vladimir Putin formalized changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons and enshrining Russia’s right to respond to “aggression by any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear one” in what appears to be a direct reference to the Biden administration’s action.
As tensions escalate and uncertainty looms over the future of the conflict, U.S. and Ukrainian officials face the delicate task of balancing their advocacy for Ukraine with attempts to curry favor with President-elect Donald Trump.
“I look forward to working with President Donald Trump to rebuild the deterrence that the Biden-Harris regime has wandered into endless one-sided war, one with Ukrainian sovereign borders,” Joe Wilson (R.-S.C.), the U.S. Helsinki Commission Chair, said in an opening statement at the commission’s hearing to acknowledge the war’s milestone on Tuesday.
Still, Wilson expressed his support for continuing and accelerating U.S. support of Ukraine, diverging from Trump’s national security approach.
“Unprecedented restrictions that should have never been applied to an ally have led tragically to countless Ukrainian deaths, and have put the world in greater danger than ever before,” Wilson said, adding that “peace through strength is ensuring that Ukraine can strike legitimate military targets within Russia.”
Key Trump allies, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and the president-elect’s son Donald Trump Jr., have accused President Joe Biden of trying to start World War III by lifting the restriction. Trump himself has not commented on the development, but has criticized the amount the U.S. has spent on supporting Ukraine and pledged to end the war swiftly, repeatedly saying he could end it “in a day.”
Steve Cohen, (D-Tenn.) a member of the Helsinki Commission, noted that Wilson’s outspoken support for Ukraine might hurt his political future under the president-elect’s government.
“At this time, he’s seeking a higher position on the Foreign Affairs Committee, which I hope he gets, but some of his support for Ukraine may be used against him because of the change of administrations,” Cohen said.
“I don’t have much hope for the continued American support which Ukraine needs, but they’ll have mine, and I think they’ll have most of the Democrats, and hopefully they’ll have Republicans like Joe Wilson too,” Cohen added.
Ukraine and Trump
Ukrainian officials speaking at the hearing also appeared preoccupied with getting in Trump’s good grace.
“We cannot call a pause in the war ‘peace.’ We cannot say that justice has been solved while Russian war criminals are still smiling,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a message pre-recorded specifically for the hearing.
The statement appears to be a criticism of the mounting pressure to pursue peace talks with Moscow. Among the main advocates for the negotiations is Trump’s incoming administration: Vice-President JD Vance outlined a plan that critics call an equivalent to a Russian victory, with Moscow retaining de facto control over the Ukrainian territory it occupies now and Ukraine left with no membership to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, which it has sought after.
“This war must end in accordance with international law, with peace built through strength, so that Russian forces can never again shatter peace anywhere, anywhere in the world,” Zelenskyy added, paying tribute to Trump’s own pledge. The president-elect has promised “peace through strength” in announcements of several key nominees, and Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also used the phrase.
This statement is the latest in a series of Zelenskyy’s apparent attempts to win favor with Trump. He told Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne on Friday, Nov. 15, that Trump’s reelection as president means the conflict will “end faster,” playing to Trump’s “dealmaker” reputation. The Ukrainian leader was also among the first to congratulate the president-elect on his victory, saying he appreciates “President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs.”
Foreign Minister of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha also attempted to strike a balance between opposing Trump’s alleged plans to strike a deal with Russia and building rapport with the president-elect.
“When facing such a brutal and lawless regime as Putin’s Russia, there can be no alternative to peace through strength,” Sybiha said in testimony at the hearing, honoring Trump’s national security approach.
“Ukraine will not accept any initiative that suggests compromises on our sovereignty or territorial integrity,” he added. “Rewarding Russia with territorial gains will not restore peace, but instead provoke further aggression.”
Protesters call for ending U.S. aid to Israel at postponed House Homeland Security Committee meeting
WASHINGTON — The gallery filled and protesters chanted, but the House Homeland Security Committee hearing entitled “Worldwide Threats to the Homeland” did not start on Wednesday after scheduling conflicts with the witnesses.
The hearing, which would be the second on the same topic hosted by this committee, was slated to focus on issues related to the southern border, while also touching on threats from Russia and the Middle East.
Instead, protesters arrived early and staged a mock hearing, sitting in the committee members’ chairs and agreeing to resolutions ending U.S. support and involvement in the Israel-Hamas war. One protester acted as a pretend chairwoman, declaring a resolution to end all U.S. aid to Israel as “unanimously agreed” to.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas was slated to testify at the hearing. Mayorkas’s tenure at DHS has been marred by partisan accusations of dereliction of duty surrounding the influx of crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, which led to a successful impeachment by House Republicans with a near-party line vote in January.
FBI Director Christopher Wray, appointed by former President Donald Trump, and Brett Holmgren, acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, were also scheduled to testify.
Instead, demonstrators homed in on the Israel-Hamas war before the hearing was scheduled to begin, with many arriving more than an hour early. Some wore matching keffiyeh, a traditional cotton headdress worn in parts of the Middle East, and shirts adorned with the names and photos of children killed in Gaza.
Multiple people in the group, the majority of which were women, wore pink-colored keffiyeh, a reference to their membership in the anti-war non-profit Code Pink: Women for Peace.
“Bombs and weapons and guns do not keep us safe,” the protesters chanted before the hearing. “We keep us safe, the community keeps us safe, stop arming Israel.”
Protester Ann Wright said they have been focused on this issue for over a year, staging events across Washington and in both chambers of Congress.
Recently, some senators have proposed a measure to appease these protesters’ demands. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, announced he would call for a floor vote on the “Joint Resolutions of Disapproval,” a piece of legislation pushed by progressives to end weapons shipments to the State of Israel. The measure is unlikely to pass, as members from both sides of the aisle have spoken against it.
But some protesters seek more than just the cut-off of U.S. weapons.
“I’m from Hawaii, but I’ll be here until we have a ceasefire,” Wright said. “I’ve been opposing U.S. international action for 21 years, and I’m not stopping anytime soon.”
At the mock hearing, the group held up signs on printer paper reading, “Israel: A threat to national security.”
Upon learning of the hearing’s postponement, the group planned where they would protest for the remainder of the day, splitting their time between the House and Senate chambers before returning tomorrow for the Senate Homeland Security committee hearing.
Republican Leaders Dodge Questions on Rep. Nancy Mace’s Transgender Bathroom Ban
WASHINGTON — Republican congressional leaders dodged questions surrounding Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-S.C.) resolution that would ban transgender women from using women’s restrooms in the Capitol complex, weeks after Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.) became the first ever openly transgender person elected to Congress.
In the resolution introduced on Monday evening, Mace proposed that House members and staff “may not use a single-sex facility (including a restroom, changing room, or locker room) in the Capitol or House Office Buildings, other than those corresponding to the biological sex of that individual.”
Mace has subsequently posted about the subject on X over 50 times, referring to McBride as a “man” and framing the issue around women’s privacy rights. “Women’s bathrooms are for biological women. Not men in a mini skirt,” Mace wrote in one post.
McBride, who was born male, came out as transgender when she was a 21-year-old student at American University. She has served in the Delaware State Senate since 2020 and defeated Republican John Whalen in this November’s election for Deleware’s at-large congressional district.
In response to the resolution, McBride took to X to appeal for compassion. “Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully,” McBride wrote. “I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness.”
A Politico report said that McBride influenced President Joe Biden’s views on transgender rights, having worked for Biden’s late son Beau during his 2006 Delaware Attorney General campaign while she was still in high school. She went on to work at the White House during the Obama administration and speak at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
Asked whether McBride is a man or woman at a press conference Tuesday morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he believes “it’s a command that we treat all persons with dignity and respect.”
“We will accommodate the needs of every single person,” Johnson added.
Later in the day, Johnson briefly addressed a gaggle of reporters to clarify his earlier comments. Johnson backpedaled and said he had rejected the premise of the question because the answer was obvious to him.
“A man is a man and a woman is a woman. A man cannot become a woman,” he said.
The two highest-ranking members of the incoming Republican Senate majority told Medill News Service they had not paid attention to the Mace resolution. Majority Leader-elect John Thune (R-S.D.) said the resolution is “not on my radar.” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the incoming Senate majority whip, said, “Is it over in the House? Oh, I haven’t seen it.”
Yet, while the resolution only sets rules for members or employees of the House, several high-profile Senators weighed in on the debate over whether transgender women like McBride should be allowed to use women’s restrooms in the Capitol.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) accused Mace of using cruel tactics to generate press coverage. “It’s just mean, and it’s not how we treat other human beings,” Warren said. “She’s wrong, and I presume she’s doing this just to get attention for herself at someone else’s expense.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) echoed Warren’s sentiments in his press conference following the Democratic conference policy luncheon, saying the measure was meant as a distraction. “We in the Senate are gonna be focusing on the things we should be doing — coming forward with good judges… trying to get the budget done,” Schumer said. “As for what the Congresswoman [Mace] did, I think it’s mean and cruel.”
Two outgoing Senators — West Virginia independent Joe Manchin and Montana Democrat Jon Tester — expressed support for the resolution’s content. Manchin said he wanted to make accommodations for everybody and pointed out that the Capitol already has gender-neutral facilities. When asked whether transgender women should be allowed to use the women’s restroom, Manchin said, “I’m from West Virginia, hell no.”
Tester, meanwhile, told Medill News Service he thought banning transgender women from using women’s restrooms in the Capitol was “the right thing to do.”
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska called for accommodations for all people. “Transgender people are people and they have to use the restroom facilities,” Murkowski said. “So making sure that we have restroom facilities that accommodate all visitors to our Capitol is important.”
Mace’s resolution is binding and would be enforced by the House’s Sergeant-at-Arms.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus welcomes new members; addresses Latino voter concerns
WASHINGTON — The Congressional Hispanic Caucus introduced its newest members for the 119th Congress and outlined key issues facing Latino voters during a press conference Friday morning.
“Every crisis also brings great opportunity,” said Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., deputy chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, (CHC), as he took the podium to introduce his new colleagues.
Following his remarks, various caucus leaders fielded questions about how their priorities would shift under an incoming Trump administration that has repeatedly cited mass deportation and economic overhaul as key elements of its agenda.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus was founded in 1976 as a bipartisan organization, but in 2003, Hispanic Republican members split off to form the Congressional Hispanic Conference, following policy disagreements that grew in the late 1990s. Today, the group is composed entirely of Democrats.
Caucus chair Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán, D-Calif., began by introducing six new Latino representatives-elect, celebrating the Caucus’s historic growth to 43 members. However, the achievement comes at a difficult moment for the Democratic Party, which lost significant ground with Latino voters in the 2024 presidential election.
Former Democratic strongholds in predominantly Latino communities—such as South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and Florida’s Miami-Dade County—shifted towards now-President-elect Donald Trump.
“Just so we’re clear, the economy was top of mind for Latinos in the election,” Barragán said.
Multiple polls, including Latino polling organization UnidosUS and the Pew Research Center, identified the economy as Latino voters’ largest priority in the run-up to the 2024 election. This messaging particularly influenced working Latino men, of whom 43% voted for Trump in hopes of a better economy, according to UnidosUS.
Caucus leaders, such as Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., doubled down on prioritizing the economy for Latino working-class communities, including working Latino men, across the United States.
“I think we need to get back to our communities and continue to talk to the proud Latino men that work the hardest jobs, sometimes the dirtiest jobs, but simply want an opportunity for good wage and a fair employer. And that’s what we represent, we are getting back to that message, and we are positive that we will get back the people we lost in this election,” Torres said.
Caucus members also addressed community concerns about the incoming Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations primarily targeting Latin American immigrants.
Some lawmakers warned that mass deportations would harm an already troubled economy for their constituents by reducing the labor force, which they said would drive prices even higher.
The issue is not only an economic one; Barragán emphasized that mass deportations would not only affect vulnerable undocumented immigrants, but would catch Latino U.S. citizens in its crosshairs as it did under the first Trump administration.
“I myself was at the southern border during Trump 1.0, when I ran into a young U.S. citizen child who was being held in detention. This is not a country where we hold U.S. citizen children,” Barragán said.
Caucus members also addressed and vehemently opposed the incoming Trump administration’s escalating rhetoric of denaturalization of immigrants.
“I think it’s a radical approach, one that is unprecedented in America, and I think that the vast majority of American people will oppose it as well.“ Espaillat told the Medill News Service.
These concerns come days after President-elect Trump’s nomination for “border czar” Tom Homan, who has promoted “zero-tolerance” policies on immigration and has expressed little remorse for immigrant families separated under the previous Trump administration.
“I wake up everyday pissed off because this administration destroyed the most secure border in our lifetime and I’m sick and tired of hearing about the family separation,” Homan said at the annual Conservative Poitical Action Conference in 2023.
Amid a range of pressing issues affecting Latino constituents and a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate, Barragán said the caucus was ready to “roll up their sleeves” and tackle the challenges ahead as they welcomed their newest members.
The CHC introduced Representatives-elect. Luz Rivas, D-Calif., Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., Sam Liccardo, D-Calif., Nellie Pou, D-N.J., Emily Randall, D-Wash., and Puerto Rico’s Residential Commissioner-elect, Pablo José Hernández Rivera, D-P.R. at Friday’s conference. Notably, Rep. Randall is the first openly LGBTQ+ Latina to be voted into Congress.
Caucus leadership also emphasized that Democratic Latinos are making up more of the country’s legislature than ever before, tracking with Hispanics’ overall population growth as the largest racial and ethnic minority population in the United States since 2003.
“That shows that Latinos are everywhere, not just in California, Florida, New York, but everywhere,” Espaillat said.
Caucus members closed the conference with a call for unity and support for Latino communities despite Democrats’ minority status in the upcoming 119th Congress.
“Our focus in the next couple of years is going to be protecting our communities to see where there’s any common ground to make progress for our communities, because that is still at the forefront of the work that we do,” Barragán said.
Jeffries calls for bipartisanship, vows to defend key priorities as Republicans retain House majority
WASHINGTON — In his first weekly press conference since the election, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., stressed the need for bipartisan solutions while pledging to push back “whenever necessary against far-right extremism.”
Republicans officially retained control of the House Wednesday when Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., narrowly defeated his opponent Kirsten Engel. The win secured 218 seats for the GOP and a slim majority, setting the stage for a legislative agenda shaped by President-elect Trump’s priorities.
As Democrats brace for a Republican trifecta in the House, Senate and White House starting in January, Jeffries framed the moment as both a challenge and an opportunity to find common ground—though he made clear that his party would not shy away from confrontation when principles are at stake.
“We will defend the Affordable Care Act. We will defend the progress we’ve made on the climate crisis. We will defend voting rights,” Jeffries said, outlining what he deemed to be non-negotiable priorities for House Democrats. “And we will certainly defend a woman’s freedom to make her own reproductive healthcare decisions at all times.”
When asked about electoral gains for Trump in nearly every demographic voter bloc, Jeffries said that it was going to be important to examine the election results on a state-by-state basis to determine what happened, offering his home state of New York as “an interesting case study.” Jeffries pointed out that while Trump made electoral gains even in strongly held Democratic areas like Queens and the South Bronx, Democrats flipped four Republican-held seats in the state of New York.
Jeffries addressed a broad array of topics, touching on everything from the war in Ukraine to the implications of artificial intelligence, to his experience working alongside former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., on the House Judiciary Committee. His remarks came amid reports of a pending House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct involving Gaetz, who is under scrutiny following his recent appointment as Attorney General.
When first asked about Gaetz, Jeffries deflected the question toward other senior position appointments in the Trump administration.
“The former president promised on the campaign trail that America would have the best economy, the best border security, and the best administration possible,” Jeffries said. “And the question that we all have to ask when we’re confronted with nominations like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is, are these the best individuals available?”.
When asked again, Jeffries appeared more frustrated. He said that he’s not going to answer questions about potential White House officials for the next two years, citing former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and Gaetz as examples.
“That’s all a distraction,” Jeffries said, calling on Senate Republicans to act independently and serve as a check and balance on “a particularly out-of-control, when it emerges, administration.”
Veterans and lawmakers react to Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary, who opposes women in combat roles
WASHINGTON — Concern, questions and condemnation from veterans and members of Congress have grown since President-elect Trump announced Pete Hegseth, a Fox News contributor and retired Army National Guardsman, as his selection for Secretary of Defense.
Hegseth, who served in the Army National Guard from 2002 to 2021, including combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been outspoken in his opposition to women in combat-oriented service.
“I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” he said on a podcast just days before Trump announced his selection as Defense Secretary on Tuesday.
Women have been able to serve in full-combat roles in the United States military since 2016 but have been a part of the armed forces in partial roles since the American Revolutionary War. Today, nearly a fifth of Americans in active duty service are women, and both the Navy and Coast Guard have women in senior leadership positions.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Marilla Cushman, who initially served in the Women’s Army Corps until Congress fully integrated the service in 1978, said she believed excluding women would be a detrimental decision by the armed services.
“It does deeply concern me,” Cushman said. “As someone who served 25 years in the Army, I experienced those pieces of legislation that restricted me. I don’t want to see that again.”
When Cushman first joined the Army in 1972, women were excluded from all combat operations and had only been allowed to receive high-level promotions since 1967.
Republicans, even some who disagree with Hegseth’s position, have appeared keen to avoid addressing the issue, redirecting the conversation to Hegseth’s vast combat experience.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), who serves in the majority on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, lauded Hegseth’s military service record but disagreed with Hegseth’s statement.
“I support women in the military in all phases,” Fleischmann said, rebuking Trump’s nominee. Fleischmann told the Medill News Service that he was unaware of Hegseth’s comments on The Shawn Ryan Show.
He continued, however, and said, “[Hegseth] is very talented and a very unique pick. It shows great flexibility on the part of the President to pick somebody who just may not have…come out of a set groomed mold.”
Democratic dissent has been swift. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said restrictions on women’s service would be illegal and challenged in the courts.
“The courts have clearly said that women have the same rights,” Nadler said. “Even this Supreme Court is not totally sublime. I’d be surprised if they went that way.”
Hegseth’s position partially aligns with Project 2025, a policy agenda for a second Trump administration written and published by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. Their proposal appeared to take a middle ground between Hegseth and current Defense Department policy. It would allow women in the armed services so long as they meet identical fitness requirements, regardless of age or sex. Physical fitness tests are currently adjusted for gender and age across all six services, although specialized roles do not change requirements.
President-elect Trump has echoed this sentiment since his first presidential campaign. In a 2015 interview with CBS’s Face the Nation, then-candidate Trump said that there are “major problems” with women in military service. The Trump-Pence Transition Team did not respond to a request for comment.
Despite the concern, Cushman said she hopes the policies will not change.
“It’s all about a need,” Cushman said. “Things change, but throughout history men looked at women differently when the nation needed them. Our military always needs more people.”
House Republicans gather to elect conference leadership, Gaetz resigns
WASHINGTON – House Republicans gathered Wednesday afternoon at a hotel just blocks from the Capitol to elect their leadership team for the 119th Congress after projections showed that they would retain control of the lower chamber.
“We have a very well-designed playbook,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said during a press conference following the vote. “And we will begin to execute those plays with precision on day one.”
While Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) all ran unopposed for their positions, the conference chair role was the most closely watched contested race. The position is currently held by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), but is set to become vacant when the Senate confirms her appointment as U.N. ambassador for the incoming Trump administration.
Members elected Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) to fill the role over Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), making McClain the fourth-ranked Republican and the highest-ranking woman in Congress.
Ahead of the vote, President-elect Donald Trump met with House Republicans in a closed-door session Wednesday morning, endorsing Johnson as Speaker and delivering a unifying message that Johnson later described as “a bit of a pep rally.” Johnson was nominated by the conference without opposition and now awaits his formal election after the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3.
“When President Trump talked about the things he would do to make America great again, it’s not just a tagline on a hat,” Scalise said.
Before introducing the newly elected conference leaders, Speaker Johnson was joined at the podium by the leaders of two major factions within the House Republican conference: Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), chair of the Main Street Caucus and Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the Freedom Caucus.
Together, the pair discussed changes to conference rules governing House Republicans’ internal affairs. Most notably, they announced an agreement to raise the threshold required to force a vote to remove a Speaker from one member to nine, a move aimed at preventing the kind of chaos that erupted when Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) filed a motion that eventually ousted then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy in October 2023.
“We’ve been able to work across the conference to eliminate the controversial issues that could have divided us and move forward together to deliver on the President’s agenda,” Harris said.
In addition to the four top leadership roles, House Republicans re-elected Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) as chair of the Republican National Congressional Committee, the party’s campaign arm. Hudson ran unopposed for the position after a highly successful election cycle for the GOP.
The conference selected Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) as Policy Chair, Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) as Vice Chair and Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.) for conference secretary.
While the leadership vote was underway, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he had selected Gaetz as his nominee for Attorney General. Gaetz became the third sitting House Republican to be tapped for a senior role in Trump’s administration, joining Stefanik and Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.). In an unexpected move, Gaetz resigned from Congress immediately following the announcement, Speaker Johnson confirmed after the vote.
“Out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately from Congress. That caught us by surprise a little bit,” Johnson said.
The House Ethics Committee was reportedly set to release a critical report on its investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use involving Rep. Matt Gaetz Friday. However, the release is now expected to be shelved following Gaetz’s resignation.
Johnson said the reason Gaetz resigned immediately was to speed up the process of filling his seat, given the slim majority by which Republicans are expected to control the House
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis will need to schedule both a primary and a general election to fill Gaetz’s vacant spot. Johnson explained that, under Florida law, the process of electing a replacement would take about eight weeks. Although Johnson said he had already called DeSantis after Gaetz’s resignation, the two will not discuss the details of a special election until Thursday at the earliest, as DeSantis is currently in Italy.
Filling Gaetz’s seat is just the first of several Republican vacancies expected to arise in both the House and the Senate.
In addition to Gaetz, DeSantis will be responsible for scheduling a special election to fill Rep. Michael Waltz’s seat. However, unless Waltz follows the same path as Gaetz—something Johnson noted they would discuss—the special election for Waltz’s seat won’t take place until January.
In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul will have to call for a general election within 10 days of Stefanik’s seat becoming vacant. Local party officials will select candidates to run in the general election in lieu of a primary.
“People have asked me all day long, ‘Is President Trump poaching all of your talent?’” Johnson said. He jokingly responded with a “yes,” but added that he told Trump, “Enough already.”
Republicans elect John Thune Senate Majority Leader, snubbing Trump allies’ pick
WASHINGTON – Republican Senators elected South Dakota’s John Thune to be their new Majority Leader on Wednesday morning, marking an end to Mitch McConnell’s 17-year stint atop the Senate Republican Conference.
Thune defeated Senator John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) and Senator Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) bids for the post. After Scott was eliminated on the first ballot, Thune narrowly defeated Cornyn 29-24 on the second ballot.
Scott had gained momentum among President-elect Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters in recent days, as X owner Elon Musk, political commentator Tucker Carlson and former presidential candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. all publicly backed his candidacy. Yet, with Senators casting their ballots in secret, a majority ultimately chose to entrust the more experienced Thune, currently the second-ranking Senate Republican behind McConnell.
“It’s a new day in the United States Senate. It’s a new day in America,” Thune said at a press conference following the vote. “The American people have loudly rejected the failed policies of the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda.”
Thune pledged stronger border security, streamlining government bureaucracy and restoring American energy dominance as his top agenda items. “We have a mandate from the American people,” he said. “A mandate not only to clean up the mess left by the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda but also to deliver on President Trump’s priorities.”
Thune confirmed that he did not intend to change the legislative filibuster in the Senate, which requires a bill to receive 60 votes in order to pass.
Republicans also chose a new slate of Senate leaders under Thune, electing John Barrasso (R-WY) to the number two spot as the party whip in the chamber. Other incoming party leaders include Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who was elected Republican Conference Chair, and Tim Scott (R-SC), who was elected National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chair.
Tim Scott, whose role places him in charge of raising money for Republican Senate candidates, said his eyes were already on 2026. “My passion is making sure that we defend our current seats, expand the map and expand our majority so that President Trump does not have two years with a Republican majority in the Senate — he has four years,” Scott said.
The reaction to Thune’s election from Democratic Senators was largely positive, with many praising the South Dakota Senator’s personal character while expressing disappointment over having lost the majority.
Current Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) congratulated Thune on his victory at a later press conference, urging the incoming Republican Senate to collaborate on bipartisan legislation. “Senator Thune and I have done lots of things together in a bipartisan way here in the Senate,” Schumer said. “I strongly believe that bipartisanship is the best and often the only way to get things done around here.”
Schumer said his focus before losing the majority was on ensuring the government was funded by the December deadline, passing a National Defense Authorization Act, securing disaster aid funding and confirming new judicial appointments.
Senator Joe Manchin, the outgoing West Virginia Independent known for frequently bucking the Democrats who he caucused with, told Medill News Service the outcome of the Majority Leader vote was “excellent” and called Thune a “beautiful person.”
Colorado Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper, meanwhile, said Thune is a “skilled leader” and expressed optimism that the new Congress would be able to reach bipartisan agreement on issues such as regulation of artificial intelligence.
Republicans are expected to hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, which includes an Associated Press race call that Republican David McCormick defeated Democratic Senator Bob Casey in Pennsylvania. McCormick, a former hedge fund manager, currently holds a roughly 30,000-vote edge and has claimed victory, but Casey has yet to concede. McCormick attended the leadership vote today.
Vice President-elect JD Vance also made an appearance at the leadership vote, greeting reporters with a “good morning” as he walked toward the old Senate chamber. Vance declined to publicly endorse a candidate, despite several significant figures in the Trump administration backing Rick Scott.
Schumer will hand over the gavel to Thune on January 3, 2025, when the 119th Congress is sworn in.
UAP hearing witnesses claim U.S. government has hidden information from the public for decades
WASHINGTON – Multiple witnesses criticized the U.S. government for its lack of transparency regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) information and called for greater accountability from the Executive Branch on Wednesday during a House Oversight and Accountability Committee Hearing.
Michael Shellenberger, a journalist and one of the witnesses, released a 12-page report to Congress on Wednesday written by a current or former U.S. government official.
“The Executive Branch has been managing UAP/NHI issues without Congressional knowledge, oversight or authorization for some time, quite possibly decades,” the report reads.
UAPs, previously referred to as Unidentified Flying Objects, are objects that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena.
Shellenberger’s government source also detailed an active Department of Defense Unacknowledged Special Access Program called Immaculate Constellation, which includes classified photos and videos of UAPs. Shellenberger’s whistleblower detailed interactions between UAPs and U.S. aircraft, including a 2023 incident during which an F-22 was forced out of its patrol area by an orb.
Shellenberger said another source recently came forward to tell him about a 13-minute video discovered on DOD’s secure network that shows “a white orb UAP coming out of the ocean approximately 20 miles off the coast of Kuwait.”
Then, the source said, “the orb is joined by another orb that briefly comes into the frame from the left before rapidly moving again out of the frame.”
The hearing, attended almost exclusively by Republicans, was held jointly by the subcommittees on Cybersecurity, Information Technology and Government Innovation and National Security, the Border and Foreign Affairs.
Michael Gallaudet, a retired rear admiral for the U.S. Navy, began his testimony by describing a 2015 email he received from the operations officer of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command. The email included a now-declassified video of a UAP, and the officer expressed concern over near-collisions with U.S. aircraft. But the email disappeared from Gallaudet’s account the next day, and the Commander of Fleet Forces and his operations officer never discussed the incident.
“It was evident that no one at the Flag Officer level was addressing the safety risks posed by UAPs,” Gallaudet said. “Instead, pilots were left to mitigate these threats on their own, without guidance or support.”
Another UAP committee hearing was held in July 2023, with testimonies claiming the United States government took part in a concerted effort to hide information about encounters with UAPs and to discredit those coming forward as UAP whistleblowers.
In 2023, Congress passed the UAP Disclosure Act, which directed the National Archives to collect government documents about UAPs, including technologies of nonhuman intelligence. But major provisions were deleted before the bill passed, and the witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing called for Congress to strengthen the bill by establishing an independent UAP Records Review Board.
Luis Elizondo, an author and former Department of Defense official, testified that advanced technologies not made by any government are currently monitoring military installations around the world. “We are not alone in the cosmos” he said, later defining a UAP as “an enigma, and a frustration.”
Elizondo also said he believes the U.S. government and its adversaries possess UAP technologies. After questioning from Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who co-chaired the hearing, Elizondo testified that the government has conducted secret UAP crash retrieval programs designed to identify alien craft.
“I believe we are in the midst of a multi-decade, secretive arms race— one funded by misallocated taxpayer dollars and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies,” he said.
Advocates for public access to UAP research expressed optimism about President-Elect Donald Trump’s commitment to transparency on behalf of the Executive Branch.
“President-elect Trump ran on and was elected with a mandate to make government more transparent and release long-held secrets,” Shellenberger said.
Why voters chose to protect abortion and vote for Donald Trump, according to experts
WASHINGTON– Experts say the successful protection of abortion rights in seven states Tuesday shows reproductive rights are popular among voters. However, an interesting scenario in four states is raising questions about the issue.
Voters in Nevada, Arizona, Montana and Missouri voted for both state amendments to protect reproductive rights and former President Donald Trump, helping him win the 2024 presidential election.
The former President has taken credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, removing federal protections for abortion rights. Trump nominated three justices to the Supreme Court, all of whom voted to overturn the 1973 decision in the case Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The two outcomes represented a stark “dissonance” among voters, according to Melissa Goodman, Executive Director of the UCLA Center on Reproductive Health, Law and Policy. She said that voters simultaneously voted to protect and harm those rights.
“We have these overwhelming wins in ballot measures to protect abortion rights around the nation and a majority of voters obviously elected Donald Trump, which will unquestionably have extremely devastating consequences for reproductive health care access and gender equality in our country for the next four years,” Goodman said.
Exit polling shows abortion was not the most important thing on voters minds in the voting booth. According to a Washington Post report, 66% of voters felt the economy and “the state of democracy” were the most important issues. On abortion, polling found just 14% of voters had reproductive rights as their top issue.
Goodman contends that a big reason for the lesser concern and disconnected results was that Donald Trump effectively “obfuscated” his own views and policies on the issue. She points to the former president’s repeated commitment to leave things to the states and at times murky view on signing a national abortion ban.
“In these states where they had the ability to kind of express their views about abortion in the way of a state ballot measure, that was the way they expressed their feelings on that subject, and then possibly felt free to express their opinion on other topics in their candidate votes,” Goodman says.
Long-time Democratic party pollster Celinda Lake agrees. She said the state amendments “almost gave [voters] permission” to vote on their other concerns by making it “impossible for [politicians] to act further on the abortion issue.”
Lake said that Vice President Kamala Harris did a “brilliant job on the abortion issue,” and that her loss was not a failure in her messaging on reproductive rights. She said the results of the election and abortion amendments shows Harris fell short in her messaging about the economy, something Lake says is a long-time issue in Democratic platforms. But the issue in Lake’s eyes isn’t the quality of the policy, but trouble with getting the word out about them.
According to Lake, she found through focus groups that 60% of people don’t really know what Democrats stand for economically, and that lack of clarity may have impacted voters when deciding who to give the economic reins to for the next four years.
“We don’t have an economic brand, and we start out every campaign 20 points behind on the economy,” Lake says. “We have to step back and have an economic brand that works for working people.”
Goodman and Lake both said that pollsters, strategists and academics will have to work to find out what happened this election, and understand how abortion was outshone by other concerns.
But they agree the takeaway here should not be that abortion does not matter to voters.
“There remains extremely strong support for abortion rights throughout this country, despite the actual presidential election result,” Goodman said.
A Dance Party at the Edge of Disaster
WASHINGTON – As a big screen at Vice President Kamala Harris’ election-night gathering at Howard University showed Jake Tapper announcing CNN’s call of North Carolina for former President Donald Trump, a smattering of boos rang out.
Seconds later, Tapper and his CNN colleagues were muted, replaced on the loudspeakers with Tupac Shakur’s “California Love.”
It was a moment emblematic of the night’s off-kilter atmosphere. As Trump’s resounding victory became increasingly clear, supporters energetically danced to song after song and expressed hope that Harris might still pull off a comeback, seemingly caught between defiance and denial.
I arrived at Howard at 11:15 p.m. after spending the first portion of the evening watching cable news and relentlessly updating my X feed. By that point, the New York Times needle leaned toward Trump with a 90% chance of winning the presidency. Harris’ lone path to victory through the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin was rapidly closing, and Democrats were racing to register their post-mortems.
Biden should’ve dropped out earlier! She should’ve picked Shapiro! Why did she campaign with Liz Cheney?! This must spell the end of wokeness! They ignored pro-Palestine protesters! Why didn’t she go on Rogan?! Don’t blame the campaign, blame the voters!
Walking through the typically vibrant neighborhood of Adams Morgan, one could hear a pin drop. Those still out on the streets appeared largely oblivious to the anxiety that had gripped the surrounding MSNBC-watching households. As I drew closer to the event, I was met with a trickle — and then a herd — of somber Harris supporters making their way home.
A man gesticulated to his wife about the state of the country. A college-aged woman looked down at her phone and said, “we’re so f***ed” — her friends nodded in agreement. A lone supporter chanted “we won’t go back” through a bullhorn. An exasperated woman exclaimed, “Sherrod Brown!” in a tone that unambiguously communicated the Ohio Democratic Senator’s perilous position in his battle for re-election.
On the grass of Howard’s upper quad, the mood was distinctly different. Following the DJ’s decision to drown out CNN with an assortment of pop and hip-hop songs, much of the remaining crowd kept up a high level of energy.
Delivery driver Ryan Young, 45, was enthusiastically grooving out to “Cool It Now” by 1980s R&B group New Edition when I approached him. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Young said on attending Harris’ election night watch party. “She brought it back to the HBCUs.”
Yet, on the subject of a potential Trump presidency, Young was calm. “Everybody gotta suck it up,” he said. “He was in office before, so we know pretty much how he’s gonna do. It’s gonna be a lot of drama. A lot of people might get fired in the cabinet again. With him, you just gotta hold tight, expect the worst and hope for the best.”
Harris supporters cheer and wave American flags after CNN calls Virginia for the Vice President. (Eli Kronenberg/MNS)
When the silent CNN screen displayed calls for Democratic Senate candidates Andy Kim (N.J.) and Tim Kaine (Va.), a massive cheer went up. American flags waved by the dozen. A similar scene played out when Virginia was added to Harris’ column at 12:03 a.m., long after online Democrats began firing off X posts such as, “the first Republican popular vote victory in two decades. jesus,” as YIMBYs for Harris co-founder Armand Domalewski did.
When the television pundits’ attention turned to the Senate races in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in which the Democratic candidates were trailing at the time, the crowd went briefly silent, before the festive environment hastily returned. Even I found myself instinctively dancing to House of Pain’s “Jump Around” and mouthing the lyrics to Kendrick Lamar’s “Be Humble.”
I had seen the videos of stunned Hillary Clinton supporters reacting to her defeat in 2016 at the Javits Center in New York City. I vividly recalled the tears flowing down cheeks, the looks of utter shock and dismay. In that election, Clinton was a significantly heavier favorite than Harris, and America had yet to truly come to terms with the strength and depth of Trump’s support. Still, given the stakes Democrats had placed on this election for the future of democracy, reproductive rights and the geopolitical world order, I was surprised at how little the scene around me resembled my memory of 2016.
Richard Lange, 27, a German postdoctoral fellow at Heidelberg University currently researching history and foreign relations at the Library of Congress, told me he showed up at Howard both to take in the election results and to observe “how people think and behave.”
Lange said he thought people were struggling to let go of the optimism that had defined the Harris campaign in the week leading up to the election. “Maybe these are the last hours where Donald Trump is not president for sure,” Lange said. “So the music and the very young, very dancing, joyful atmosphere was maybe a coping mechanism.” That theory was echoed by Young, who said, “sometimes you just gotta laugh to keep from crying.”
Dancing wasn’t the only crutch on display Tuesday evening. Even after North Carolina was called and Harris clearly trailed in all seven battleground states, some held out hope that the remaining votes would overwhelmingly come down in her favor.
“I’m getting increasingly worried,” Leila Hamilton, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins studying economics, said. “But I wanna still hold a little bit of hope for the results that still have to come out.”
Meanwhile, Emilomo Unuigbe, a sophomore at Howard studying mechanical engineering, said, “I’m a little nervous, but I have faith that things are going to turn around at the end.” When asked what her biggest issues were in this election, she said she feared Harris not following through on her campaign promises if elected.
Young, for his part, said, “It’s not looking too good, but once California hits, that should be like 50 so it’ll be a little closer.” (California has 54 electoral votes).
Amidst the anxiously hopeful mood, one man stood stoic, alone, holding tight to an American flag. Eric Yang was not born in America, nor does he reside here. An Australian native who currently lives in Taiwan, Yang arrived in the country two weeks ago on a mission.
“I am a Christian, and I have been praying in Australia for about five months,” Yang said. “And then, at the end of it, God wants me to come to America during the elections to pray for America.”
Yang did not explicitly say he was supporting Harris, instead insisting that he was praying for both parties. “I just want to pray that there’s more righteousness and unity of the country, that there’s less split, and America will become a beacon for the rest of the world to enjoy the real freedom and the truth that America was built on,” Yang said.
When asked if he feared the impacts of a Trump presidency on American-Taiwanese relations, Yang said he wasn’t concerned because “God is in control.”
In many ways, Yang stuck out like a sore thumb among the crowd. He was not a Harris supporter, let alone a voter. He was not actively engaging with the results coming in, nor the music blasting all around him. He truly believed America could prosper under either candidate, so long as God led her in the right direction.
Water bottles are left behind at Howard University after Harris-Walz campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond announced that the Vice President would not be appearing that night. (Eli Kronenberg/MNS)
Yet, as the night drew to a close, it dawned on me that Yang did have one thing in common with the rest of the group. While both understood that the events of the night were out of their control, they were each unshakable in their insistence on hope as the night unraveled. There was no other way forward but to be together, to sing and dance — and to pray. They had been through this before eight years ago. They would ride out the storm again.
At roughly 12:40 a.m., Harris-Walz campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond appeared on stage. Expecting the Vice President, supporters uniformly craned their necks and took out their phones to capture the moment. When Richmond announced that Harris would not be appearing that night, thousands groaned at once, and a mass exodus ensued.
All that remained were a few supporters who stayed behind to take selfies, journalists speaking to straggling attendees, and water bottles — hundreds of plastic water bottles — strewn across the ground, crushed and empty. The party was over.
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Medill Today | November 21, 2024