Republicans

CBS News reports: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office said Tuesday night the upper chamber will start Mayorkas’ impeachment trial after senators return to Washington on Feb. 26. “The House impeachment managers will present the articles of impeachment to the Senate following the state work period,” his office said. “Senators will be sworn in as jurors in the trial the …

The Tennessean reports: Hours after a bill allowing marriage officiants to decline to solemnize weddings if they have moral objections received final passage from lawmakers, a vibrant crowd rallied on Capitol Hill advocating against a slate of bills aimed at placing new restrictions on Tennessee’s LGBTQ community. Senate Bill 596, which would allow officiants to decline to perform weddings, passed …

The Salt Lake Tribune reports: Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, who has made increasing trust in government a focus of his tenure as a legislative leader, is giving conflicting reasons for keeping his calendar of speaking engagements from the public after speaking at a Christian nationalist event last month. In January, Schultz was a featured speaker at an event sponsored …

CBS News reports: The House on Tuesday is expected to vote for a second time in a week to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after Republican leaders suffered an embarrassing defeat in their first effort. Mayorkas narrowly survived last week’s vote after a small group of Republicans, who said President Biden’s border chief did not commit impeachable offenses for …

Florida Politics reports: Florida’s Governor is again throwing cold water on a legislative proposal to ban youth social media use because he doesn’t know if the “expansion beyond the current federal law” would hold up in court. “I think that I’m not going to be supporting if I don’t think it’s going to be something that’s going to pass legal …

Politico reports: Mitch McConnell urged Speaker Mike Johnson to allow a vote on Ukraine aid in an interview on Tuesday afternoon, though the Senate minority leader said he would not be “so presumptuous as to tell him how to do it.” “We’ve heard all kinds of rumors about whether the House supports Ukraine or doesn’t. It seems to me that …

The New York Times reports: House Republicans released their report on impeachment charges against Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the Cuban-born homeland security secretary who is the first Latino to lead his department. Using unusually loaded language for a committee report, the panel described its action as “deporting Secretary Mayorkas from his position.” In private, the language was uglier. During a closed-door …

The Houston Chronicle reports: A $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that passed the Senate overnight has sparked a battle between two of Texas’s most prominent Republicans, with Attorney General Ken Paxton calling U.S. Sen. John Cornyn an “America Last RINO” and Cornyn raising Paxton’s ongoing legal troubles. Paxton went after Cornyn on social media early Tuesday …

“I watched this week’s episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and it was a glaring reminder of why most Georgian’s resent Republicans in our state for inviting the nasty commies from California, the Hollywood elites, into our state by dishing out Hollywood tax credits. “This week’s episode lied and painted GA conservatives and Trump supporters as racists and rednecks and made …

NBC News reports: House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik has filed a complaint against New York Attorney General Letitia James over her multimillion-dollar civil fraud case against former President Donald Trump, NBC News has exclusively learned. Stefanik, R-N.Y., alleges that James is “conducting a biased investigation and prosecution” of Trump and “attacking” him through “extrajudicial statements,” her letter to the …

“To the Prime Minister of Poland: I could care less what you think. To the Prime Minister of Poland: if Ronald Reagan were alive today, we wouldn’t have this broken border. To the Prime Minister of Poland: I want to help Ukraine. I want to help make a stronger NATO. But my country is on fire. We’ve had 7 million …

Politico reports: Kari Lake’s months of courting the Republican establishment in D.C. are paying off. Once the consummate outsider, Lake has been maneuvering since even before launching her Arizona Senate bid last fall to show party leaders she’s ready to play nice — and move beyond her antagonistic and election-denial-centered 2022 run for governor. Her efforts’ biggest victory to date …

CNN reports: Former President Donald Trump has endorsed North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley to succeed Ronna McDaniel as Republican National Committee chair. Alongside endorsing Whatley, Trump said in a statement that he will also throw his support behind Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, for the role of co-chairwoman at the RNC. Trump’s endorsement solidifies his effort to bring about …

Axios reports: House Republicans are activating a weekslong, perhaps monthslong, plan to keep questions about President Biden’s mental state in the spotlight, Axios has learned. The GOP planning includes hearings and possibly even subpoenas for documents and recordings. Sources close to House GOP leaders are blunt that they don’t think it even matters what they find. These sources think that …

Florida Politics reports: A plan to grant a two-month sales tax holiday on select items purchased with “virtual currency” would save consumers boatloads of cash, but it’s not because Floridians would flock to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. State economists analyzing SB 352, sponsored by Sen. Jason Brodeur, a Sanford Republican, determined the measure would cost state coffers nearly $1.4 billion. …

The Guardian reports: Rand Paul has launched a talking filibuster in protest of the $95bn foreign aid package making its way through the Senate, $60bn of which would be sent to Ukraine and $14bn of which would be directed to Israel. In a rambling speech, Paul addressed disparate topics like Covid-19 vaccinations and immigration. On the topic of foreign aid, …

The Detroit Free Press reports: State Rep. Josh Schriver, R-Oxford, lost his staff and his spot on a legislative committee as punishment for sharing a social media post amplifying a racist conspiracy theory. House Speaker Joe Tate, D-Detroit, announced Monday his decision to reassign Schriver’s staff and remove him from the House Natural Resources, Environment, Tourism, and Outdoor Recreation Committee. …

The Hill reports: A summit aimed at rivaling the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and featuring prominent Republican critics of former President Trump will take place in Washington later this month. The group Principles First is set to host a summit Feb. 23-25 at the Conrad hotel “focused on advancing a more principled center-right politics in the United States” and …

Sen. J.D. Vance writes for American Conservative: The Republican establishment of Washington is so obsessively committed to Ukraine that they will use every tool at their disposal to apply pressure to other Republicans to write that big Ukraine check. The problem is that every time they apply pressure, they create an opening for Democrats and the media to tank our …

The Meidas Touch reports: Rep. Clay Higgins has always been pretty bizarre. He has a penchant for making menacing speeches at witnesses appearing before Congress, often threatening them with jail or some other consequence as a result of whatever conspiracy he has cooked up in his head to involve them in. His latest obsession is what he has called “ghost …