Current or modern politics in the United States

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‘Grow Up’: A Veteran Republican Is Tired of His Party’s Insurgents
Politico

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...2608583e&ei=81

Speaker Mike Johnson is on the verge of his biggest legislative victory yet — and it might mean his undoing.

Johnson’s decision to maneuver a long-stalled, sprawling foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan through the House amid stiff resistance from many conservative Republicans has once again raised the threat of a coup through the motion to vacate. How that drama ends is still unclear.

But in the meantime, the move has fueled an extraordinary experiment in bipartisan governing of the House, as Democrats stepped in to save the aid — supporting the rule governing the legislation in the Rules Committee and then on the floor.

I caught up with Rep. Tom Cole, a veteran Republican from Oklahoma, to get his insights into the internal dynamics at play here. Cole knows what he’s talking about, having chaired the Appropriations Committee and the Rules Committee — both in the past month.

In press shorthand, Cole is usually described as an institutionalist, and since the tea party era, he’s also been known for butting heads with his more rambunctious, often newer colleagues on the far right.

Today’s antagonism toward House leadership stems from “a lack of respect for the institution and the wisdom of the institution,” he said. Speaking of the bomb-throwers, he added, “You know, you’ve got to grow up.”

Cole is also a member of the Chickasaw Nation, a trained historian and as a cigar aficionado, literally a devotee of Washington’s smoke-filled back rooms.

On this week’s episode of Playbook Deep Dive, we got deep into the weeds of why the Rules Committee has been such a trouble spot for recent GOP speakers and whether Cole thinks Johnson can hang on as members threaten to oust him. I also had Cole answer some prying questions from some of his favorite historians on the subject of Donald Trump.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity with help from Deep Dive producer Kara Tabor and senior producer Alex Keeney.

Let me ask you a key “process” question. On the motion to vacate, which Kevin McCarthy reduced to one member: Do you think that that should be raised?

I do.

Should leadership be considering that right now?

You'd have to ask them that.

You talk to them pretty frequently.

Well, it's being widely discussed. I think a lot of members are frustrated with this. And frankly, I think it's on both sides of the aisle. They see the turmoil. I think Democrats kind of enjoyed it in McCarthy's case because they weren't particularly fond of him. He was our most effective political player, largest fundraiser, best candidate recruiter, best strategist. So I get why they wanted to take our Tom Brady off the field.

But now they've seen, “Geez, this is getting out of hand.” You know, McCarthy got taken out for taking something Democrats wanted to take to the floor. He kept the government open on a Saturday, and he was fired on Tuesday.

Presumably Republicans wanted to keep the government open too.

Well, obviously most of us did, but it wasn't all of us. It was 125 or 130 — pretty much a substantial majority — but not everybody. The Democrats knew that McCarthy was running a political risk when he did that. Certainly I had a number of “Oh, don't worry, Tom, if he does it, we've got your back.” Well, you know, we saw how reliable that was.

What do you think the right number is for the motion to vacate?

You know, I haven't gotten down to everything but — substantial.

Double digits?

Yes. Frankly, I think you should have a majority of your own caucus that wants to do this. We had eight people that put ourselves at the mercy of the Democratic minority leader — and there wasn't any mercy in that case. And quite frankly, they had no alternative candidate. They had no exit strategy. It was just, “I'm mad and I have the ability to do it.”

Every caucus can have a few of those members. You should never be in such a weak position structurally, process-wise, rules-wise, that a group that small can do something as significant as bringing down a speaker.

One of the consequences of that process-wise, rules-wise, was that the Rules Committee, which you chaired until very recently, was stacked with some of the more “exotic” members who don't always do the will of leadership. It used to be known as “the Speaker’s Committee” and that hasn’t always been the case in this Congress.

No, I think this is very different. Frankly, none of those members were involved in any effort to overturn the speaker.

Right. But they were sort of a few clicks to the left of that.

The reality is, this was McCarthy's idea. It is, “If I'm going to have a problem, I want to see it in the Rules committee, not on the floor.”

And we've never had a problem in passing a rule. We never lost in committee.

But you lost—

On the floor.

Six rules since June—

Seven from January of last year.

That's a conference problem, not a Rules Committee problem. Because we didn't lose them. We're not responsible once it goes out the door. Our deal is to produce the rule that our leadership asked us to.

Sure but that doesn't include all the rules that you didn't even put forward in the committee presumably because you didn’t think they’d pass.

That's not true. There's no rule that we ever seriously considered that we couldn't get out of committee.

Is there a moment when the tradition of members of the majority not voting against a rule, when the dam broke and you saw that this is going to be a thing going forward?

First time it happened. You know, the rule is a tool for the majority, any majority, either side to shape the legislation in a way that it thinks maximizes its chance to pass. That's what the rule is for. What happened here is people decided they would start using it as a weapon against others, and they thought they could be the only ones. Well, the minute somebody starts to do it, other people think — “Oh, okay, you get to do it. I get to do it.”

What enforced this previously that doesn't work anymore?

I think people aren't willing to play for the norms. Go back to the very beginning. Why would 21 people think that they should decide that 86 percent of their conference [doesn’t get to choose McCarthy for speaker]? So this is not something that starts in Rules or whatever. This is something that's been with us for a while.

Is it generational? Is it ideological?

I go back to Boehner. People used this as a weapon against Boehner. They used it as a weapon against Ryan or the threat of it. We just finally saw the dam break. And part of this is, I think, these are comparatively newer members in many cases, not always, that use it. And I would argue it's a lack of respect for the institution and the wisdom of the institution. These things have evolved over not decades, but centuries. This is a 234-year-old institution. Nobody lost a rule in 20 years. And does anybody think the people that have used it are people that, frankly, are going to likely ever be elected leadership. So it's, you know, you’ve got to grow up.

I want to challenge that a little bit because you endorsed Jim Jordan for speaker. And Jordan, like a lot of members when they first came in, was on the wing of the party that was willing to violate some of these norms. And by last year, he’d become a card-carrying member of the establishment being endorsed by Tom Cole.

Well, I'm happy to endorse Jim.

So could you see the Marjorie Taylor Greenes and Matt Gaetzes of the world taking that path?

Look, John Boehner and I didn’t agree. Do you think I voted for John Boehner the first time that he was running for speaker in conference when he had basically made my life miserable at the NRCC and had endorsed Pete Sessions against me? No. But I would have never dreamed of going to the floor and voting against it once the conference had made its decision. And that's just the way the game is played.

You gave a nominating speech for Jim Jordan though.

Yeah, I'm chair of the Rules Committee. He was our nominee. He was our candidate for speaker.

I'm only bringing it up to show that some of the most out there, far-right guys move into the establishment over time.

Again, I think Jim Jordan has been a very effective chair of Judiciary. If you don't think he has some bipartisan skills, he's up there with Nadler arguing for their version of FISA. When he's been given responsible positions first on Oversight and Judiciary, I would argue he's occupied them responsibly and he's played within the rules.

And he was the nominee of my party. He won the vote. So why would I not support the nominee in my party, particularly if you're on the Rules committee? For God's sake. That's why I support, obviously, what we're doing on this foreign policy thing. Somebody asked me, “Would you sign a discharge petition?” Never. It's not what anybody on Rules, let alone a Rules chair should do. I wouldn't do it now. I'm not in the business of taking away authority from the majority that I'm part of and handing it over to the minority for any reason, at any time. You're not supposed to do that.

During the speaker’s battle from last year, your name was floated quite a bit when they were trying to pick a successor.

It shows you how desperate the situation was. Never going to happen.

You never considered it?

Nope.

There were no House of Cards moments where you thought, “You know what? I could be running this place.”

Well, anybody that wanted to be running this place should probably have had a psychiatric examination at the moment. But no, I mean, I know where I want to go, and I know what I want to do. And speaker is not it.

That's a good segue way to talk about being chair of the Appropriations Committee, which I think is where you wanted to be. Right?

Absolutely.

Let's talk about some of the issues that you're going to have to grapple with on this committee. First, let's talk about earmarks. There's two sides of this debate historically. One is that earmarks are sort of the lubricant that helps legislation get through Congress in a positive way — they allow a little bit of horse trading. The flip side is it's gotten out of hand at certain points and it's led to corruption.

People have gone to jail. I think that's a pretty good indication that there needed to be some guardrails put on.

So what's your view on earmarks?

First of all, I look at them less as something to get legislation passed and more as something where members can tangibly do something they think is important in their district. And I think they're an appropriate tool. There's a lot of misunderstanding about them. They don't add to the deficit because we set the topline before; we know what we're spending up to. Now, I'm not a big fan of using them as either carrots or sticks. Nobody should vote yes on a bill they would otherwise oppose because they got a bridge.

But as a student of history, don't you think earmarks have sort of helped unlock some significant legislation in history?

If you can solve a problem for a member and it's legitimate? Sure. You can save billions by spending millions sometimes. People actually vote to cut spending to get an earmark sometimes, because that particular problem is more important to them.

So it's how you use the tool. I think we've set up some really good guidelines, Democrats and Republicans alike. I think because we went a decade without them, people are being very careful about minding their Ps & Qs, and we've put more transparency on it.

I want to talk about one of the unique aspects of your website, which is that you're always posting what you're reading. And I want to talk about some of your recent books. I think the most recent one on there is Garrett Graff's book UFO.

And so, I was talking to Garrett today and asked him, you know, what's a good question for Cole, who's a historian, a student of history.

One of Garrett's clear arguments in that book is that the government is definitely covering up what it knows, but he assumes probably what it knows isn't that interesting. But, why do you think the government covers up what it knows about UFOs?

Because I think in this case, we don't know very much and we don't want people to realize we know that little. We can't tell people that we can explain every kind of aerial phenomenon that they see.

But I thought the book showed both the benefits and limitations of what government can do in answering a very challenging question.

It also shows me how suspicious people are. They always think the government knows something that it probably doesn't know and might not even be capable of knowing. But everybody wants to think there's always some big secret. There's always some vast conspiracy. And I can tell you as an old, old historian, coincidence is a lot more common in history than conspiracy.

The other book you recommended recently is Jeffrey Frank’s The Trials of Harry Truman, which I think you called the single best account of the Truman presidency.

In my view. And that includes even the McCullough biography. I thought it was a great book and so wonderfully researched.

His question is about the limits and restraints on presidential power. He brought up the example of when Truman tried to seize the steel mills and the Supreme Court came back and said, “No, you can't do that,” and wrote that the purpose of the Constitution was not only to grant power, but to keep it from getting out of hand. You know that history.

And Jeff wondered, how do you react to Trump's threat to assume dictatorial powers, even for a day, if he gets elected?

I think that's hyperbole. First of all, you have to look at the way Trump speaks, and I don't see anything he said in that case, as much different than what Joe Biden did on his first day.

You know, [Biden] decided we're going to stop the Keystone pipeline. He had the ability to do it because it crosses an international border. He wouldn't have been able to do something if he was running from Cushing to Houston inside the United States. But he had that power. You know, he reversed a lot of powers by executive order that Trump had assumed. He didn’t come talk to Congress about it. I mean, clearly, his campaign or transition had developed some sort of list, “these are the things we're going to do.”

I think that's all Trump's talking about. I don't see this as dictatorial power on day one. I see it as an aggressive use of what's already been established, as executive authority, which as a member of Congress, I don't like a lot of times.

This is a similar question from Michael Beschloss, who wrote Presidents of War. He talks about how the message of that book is that the Constitution gives any president potentially enormous unchecked power. This is his question: “As a lover of democracy, who knows history, do you feel any trepidation about putting this enormous power in the hands of Donald Trump?”

No more than I would any other individual. Remember the scene in the Lincoln movie that's based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, where he rises up and he wants something done? The 13th Amendment’s something I think we all agree with. And he’s talking to a group of lobbyists and advisers and he goes, “I'm the president of the United States, cloaked in enormous power. This will get done.” So there is enormous power there.

But there are also really strong checks and balances. And there's also a very strong tradition in American history of federalism. Again, I am not as worried as his political opponents are. Now, I think what people do worry about with Trump is, I will tell you this, having dealt with him over a term, not directly. I'm not one of these guys that gets on the phone every day to try to call the president to tell him what to do. One of my rules in politics is never give unsolicited advice. It never turns out well. So I don't call presidents telling them things. But I've seen this from close enough up that if he tells you he's going to try and do something, he's going to try and do it. He will push to the limits of his authority.

Now he's transactional and he's practical, and he knows there are limits to his authority. So no, don't put me in that group to say that I think democracy's at risk. If the guy is president for four years, the judgments may be right or wrong and that's fair game. But I think the constitutional order in the country is very, very strong.

You also had Tim Snyder's On Tyranny on your list. That book has become almost a Bible to people on the left who are deeply concerned about Trump. Is there anything —

Well, people were deeply concerned about FDR and a lot of people argue —

No, that's fair. That's why I'm asking you, because you study this stuff and you study some of the same works. And some of these same writers take very different lessons from this history than you do —

No and that’s fair.

That's why I'm asking you. Is there anything from that book or this general kind of collection?

Let's just talk about who’s abused power in American history. Look, I'm Chickasaw Indian. My great-great-grandfather got moved 800 miles by a Democratic president named Andrew Jackson, and so did thousands of my people.

And Trump put his portrait in the Oval Office.

I know and I was not happy about it and let him know.

How did he react?

I think somebody just told him he was an anti-establishment president. By the way, Democrats had Jackson… What was it?

Jefferson-Jackson dinners.

Yeah, Jefferson-Jackson. So two slave owners and an anti-Indian president. Two anti-Indian presidents, to be fair. But so that's an enormous abuse of power. FDR interning 120,000 Japanese Americans — it was something certainly George W. Bush never thought about doing with Muslims or something [after 9/11]. Quite the opposite. He was going to a mosque and said “We need to not overreact.”

Although I’ve got to point out that Trump tried to institute a Muslim ban.

Look at what he did, what he said and which countries, and it's much different than described. So, again, I don't want to get in here defending or whatever. But all I'm saying is, this idea that somehow this has not happened in American history before, that we have not had far worse abuses — I mean, Indian removal is a far worse abuse than anything Donald Trump ever did or contemplated doing, in my view.

I think all these historians would agree with you there.

120,000 American citizens for the most part, put in not concentration camps, but turned forcibly out of their home, losing their property. Those are people, in both cases, that Democrats historically have really celebrated. They think these are really wonderful people.

Power abuse isn't the province of any one party. Right now it's used as a weapon politically and that's unfortunate. We want to talk about lessons of history, that's fine. But again, I view this as serious. It's worth talking about. But do I think the constitutional order is in that kind of danger? No, I don't. I worry right now more about the polarization inside the country than I do about the abuses of any particular politician.

We have a tradition on this show where the last question I ask is actually something proposed by our previous guest. This question comes from Michael Cohen.

Ah!

Yes. That Michael Cohen. And then once you answer this, you can come up with a question for our next guest, and you don't know who it's going to be.

Here's Michael Cohen's question: “Why do you think that Merrick Garland failed to move the January 6th case more expeditiously, so as to ensure that the case would not interfere with the unwritten rule of the DOJ not having anything active 90 days before an election?”

I wouldn't suggest a conspiracy, I don't know. I actually never dealt with him directly, but I was pretty heavily involved in the Oklahoma City bombing [recovery]. He did the prosecution.

Oh, so you know him from that?

I wouldn't say I know him, but obviously I was following it pretty closely. I was literally the guy appointed by Frank Keating to be the liaison with the federal government. I wasn't dealing with justice matters. We were dealing with reconstruction. Obviously, we interacted with the FBI a lot as they were looking early on. We knew who it was pretty quickly. They did a good job.

But I would say this: I think one of the reasons why I think the second impeachment was inappropriate is we're impeaching a guy when he was already out of office, and already removed. He couldn't possibly do the trial. And by the way, we stripped all the normal protections that any president in any impeachment would get so they could rush fast through it, because they'd already made up their mind about what the appropriate outcome was.

I thought at the time that if he committed a crime, the appropriate thing was to charge him with a crime and proceed that way in the courts. That wasn't done for a long time. And so, again, without casting aspersions on anybody, there's enough out there to ask, “Why did you wait so long? Was it because you thought he was politically dead in that time frame? But now you see, he's not and so we're going to use the Justice Department. And why is Trump charged on a documents case while Biden is not?” It looks like you have a double standard at the Justice Department. And if you don't think millions of people believe that, then you're not paying much attention. I have questions about some of these things that I would have never dreamed I would have had ten years ago, five years ago. But I do now.

All right, final thing. Give us a question for next week’s quest.

You know, the most interesting question to me that I ask almost every politician is, “What got you in the business?”

I didn't start my life wanting to be a politician. I'm always fascinated by the ones who do. But most of them didn’t. Most of them stumbled into this in other ways. So, what crossroads did you reach that you decided political life, whether it's elected or staff or whatever it was the way you were going to go when there are so many other attractive alternatives. And then what kept you doing it?

I like that. That's a good one. I thought you were going to ask what their favorite cigar is, but that might not apply to as many…

I know.

What do you smoke these days?

My favorite cigar’s always free. But after that, my go to is an Ashton or Montecristo Number Two. I love both those cigars.

Is that what that is? [Points to a chest on the table]

Yeah. There's actually always a mixture. I'm a big believer in open humidors and open bars because they bring people together. I used to tell this to Boehner. I said, “Quit the cigarette stuff. That's an addiction.” I mean, you're sitting *makes sucking noises* for three minutes or something.

With a cigar, you're going to sit down for 30 to 45 minutes, and if you're doing it with somebody, you're going to talk, you're going to have a relationship. You're going to find something in common with one another. It's a lovely way to build a relationship and to socialize with people in a way that the cigarette generally isn't. You never see a 15-year-old kid standing outside a building with a $20 premium cigar, sucking it up. They don't do that. This is an adult product that leads to adult conversations and can quite often lead to some really interesting relationships and, frankly, good relationships between people that don't often get along.

One of the worst things Pelosi ever did, and I know she did it for health reasons… You guys won’t like this, but…

I know where this is going.

… When you quit smoking in the Speaker's Lobby and when you let in the press, you just destroy one of the places where bipartisan relationships are built. That's how I got to know Barney Frank. That's how I got to know Jesse Jackson Jr. when he was up here. Sit down, have a cigar, build a relationship. They were smoking cigarettes and in Frank's case I don't think he was ever a big cigar guy, but Jesse was.

There's got to be some spaces where people can get together. We used to do this in the Rules office — one of the best smoking venues in the Capitol. But you'd get members from different generations there. I mean, Hal Rogers is there all the way to freshmen. There are different committees and most people live their life within their committee. I don't know what the hell's going on over in Ways and Means or Energy and Commerce until they produce a product and head it toward the floor. But it's really interesting when you sit down and hear, “This is what we're doing in Science, and this is what we're doing in Ag. This is why we have ag crop insurance or whatever.”

If you're not in those committees, you don't know. Over a cigar people talk about their work. Even their questions are interesting. Their observations are interesting. It's an enjoyable thing, but it's also a great way to learn information, build relationships and frankly in some ways, educate people because most people learn politics by listening to stories. They're not reading political science books for God's sake. They talk to real politicians and they hear real stories and that’s interesting.

“Bring back cigar diplomacy.” That’s the headline here.

I’ll tell you what, the world was a better place, I’m sure.

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Republican's Stunning Condemnation of GOP Colleagues: 'Scumbags'
Newsweek

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...e34de1be&ei=36

Representative Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, shared a stunning condemnation of some his GOP colleagues on Sunday, describing them as "real scumbags."

Tensions are high among House Republicans, with a few GOP lawmakers threatening they could try to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, after he passed a series of major bipartisan bills. The far-right faction of the GOP has been frequently at odds with more moderate members since Republicans took control of the House in the 2022 midterms.

Some far-right lawmakers were exceptionally frustrated this past week as Johnson pushed through a series of foreign aid bills as part of a $95 billion package to support Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Many of those Republicans expressed particular opposition to the Ukraine aid.

During a panel discussion on CNN's State of the Union, Gonzales, who voted for the foreign aid package, was asked by host Dana Bash about the opposition to Johnson's leadership and whether he'll be able to "survive."

"He will survive," Gonzales quickly responded who then went on to describe the House as a "rough and rowdy place," and added that it is his "absolute honor to be in Congress" before attacking his colleagues.

"I serve with some real scumbags," Gonzales said. He then took specific aim at Representative Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, and Representative Bob Good, a Virginia Republican.

"Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties," the Texas Republican said. "Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around in white hoods at night. Now they're walking around with white hoods in the daytime."

Newsweek reached out to Gaetz' and Good's press secretaries via email for comment.

Bash responded by saying, "wow, OK." She then clarified that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) "decided not to prosecute" Gaetz after looking into the allegations Gonzales raised.

It was first reported in February 2023 that the DOJ officially decided not to pursue charges against Gaetz after he faced allegations of sex-trafficking. Gaetz always maintained his innocence and suggested the investigation was fueled by his political critics. The House Ethics Committee has opened a separate investigation into the allegations against Gaetz, which remains open.

Good endorsed Gonzales' GOP primary opponent Brandon Herrera, a gun rights activist and social media influencer. Herrera and Gonzales will face off in a May 28 runoff after neither candidate secured 50 percent in the March primary. Jewish Insider reported earlier this month that Herrera posted videos that included "Nazi imagery, songs and jokes."

Newsweek reached out to Herrera's campaign via email for comment.

Later in the segment, Bash came back to Gonzales to follow up on his remarks. "I have heard you say a lot of things. What you just said, at the top of this discussion, was intense," she said.

"Is it your sense that, I'm just asking from your own opinion and your own perspective, you're trying to put them in a box—put them in a corner?" Bash asked.

"Members are tired, we're exhausted," Gonzales responded. "It has been a brutal Congress, but we're also dug in. For some reason, these fringe people think as if they have the high ground. They do not."

He said that the days of "easygoing" lawmakers are over. "The fight is here," Gonzales continued, saying the way to take care of a bully is to "bloody their nose."

Other Republicans, meanwhile, have raised complaints about the atmosphere in Congress during the current session.

"It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I've been in Congress. And having talked to former members, it's the worst year in 40 or 50 years to be in Congress," former GOP Representative Ken Buck of Colorado said in March as he announced that he'd be leaving Congress before the end of his term.

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Lindsey Graham Crediting Trump for Ukraine Aid Passing Raises Eyebrows
Newsweek

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...233feb9f&ei=27

Remarks made by Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, on Sunday crediting former President Donald Trump for Ukraine aid funding has raised eyebrows on social media.

During an interview appearance on Fox News Sunday, Graham stated his approval for the House of Representatives approving more than $60 billion in aid to Ukraine to bolster its fight against Russia's invasion that began in February 2022. The bill designates approximately $10 billion of the Ukraine funding as repayable loans.

"There's a loan component to it. This would not have passed without President Trump. I want to thank the House Speaker [Mike Johnson] and [Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries working together in a bipartisan fashion to give weapons to Ukraine to fight a fight that matters to us," Graham said. "And President Trump has created a loan component to this package that gives us leverage down the road."

Earlier this month, Johnson visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago where the former president expressed support for structuring some Ukraine aid as a loan.

"We're looking at it right now, and they're talking about it, and we're thinking about making it in the form of a loan instead of just a gift," Trump said during the media event with the House speaker. "We keep handing out gifts of billions and billions of dollars, and we'll take a look at it."

Earlier this year on the campaign trail and on his Truth Social social media platform, Trump advocated for loans as Ukraine's primary form of foreign aid.

"They want to give like almost $100 billion to a few countries," the former president said about the U.S. Senate at a February campaign event in South Carolina. "I said why do we do this? If you do, you give them not $100 billion, you give it to them as a loan."

Polish President Andrzej Duda told reporters in February that he believes Trump would keep his previous promise to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours if reelected. Last month, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Trump will not give money to help Ukraine fight Russia if he's reelected after meeting with him.

"He will not give a penny into the Ukraine-Russia war and therefore the war will end," Orbán told state television at the time. "As it is obvious that Ukraine on its own cannot stand on its feet."

Newsweek has reached out to Trump's office via email on Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Graham's comments on Sunday drew immediate reactions on X, formerly Twitter.

The "Republicans against Trump" X account posted, "Lindsey Graham on the passage of Ukraine aid: This wouldn't have passed without Donald Trump. WTF?"

Political analyst Sarah Reese Jones wrote on X, "Propaganda Alert: Lindsey Graham gives Trump credit for House passage of Ukraine aid, 'Ukrainians are fighting like tigers. This aid package has a loan component to it and this would not have passed without Donald Trump.' *Trump has promised to end all aid to Ukraine."

Ron Filipkowski, a former federal prosecutor and vocal Trump critic, posted, "Just embarrassing what these people have become. Not a shred of self-respect left."

Newsweek has also reached out to Graham's office via email Sunday afternoon. This story will be updated with any provided statements.

The loans included in the foreign aid bill offer approximately $7.9 billion in economic assistance to Ukraine and $1.57 billion in assistance for Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia. The legislation also "mandates agreement on repayment for economic support by the government of Ukraine."

The text also that stipulates that the president can cancel up to 50 percent of the loan after November 15, 2024, with congressional review. After January 1, 2026, any remaining debt can also be canceled.

Some House GOP members are skeptical about the loans ever being repaid.

Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania called the loan all "smoke and mirrors" in a post on X on Wednesday. He also took aim at the president's ability to cancel 50 percent of the loan by the end of this year.

"No bank would allow this," he added.

Lawmakers also approved billions more in aid for other U.S. allies like Taiwan and Israel. The Senate will now vote on the package before it heads to President Joe Biden for sign-off.

Of four separate bills passed Saturday, the military aid package for Ukraine was the most contentious, passing 311-112. In total, 210 Democrats and 101 Republicans voted in favor of the bill, while 112 Republicans voted against it.

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House Republicans blame Greene and Freedom Caucus for lack of border wins
Axios

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...233feb9f&ei=81

A growing number of House Republicans are accusing their conservative colleagues of enabling Democratic wins, especially after this weekend's foreign aid votes.

Why it matters: Multiple members believe they could have gotten concessions from Democrats on border policy in exchange for Ukraine funding, only to be blown up by backlash from conservatives.

GOP leadership brought up border security provisions alongside their foreign aid package — but the package was blocked by Republicans from reaching the House floor under normal rules.
It ultimately failed to get the two-thirds majority needed to pass the House under suspension of the rules.

Zoom in: "If you were a true conservative, you would actually advance border security, but what they want to do is they want to blow up border security," Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) told Axios.

"[T]he members who scream the loudest about border security were actively and knowingly preventing us from getting it done," another member said.
"They're making us the most bipartisan Congress ever," a third member told Axios. "Because they are unwilling to compromise just a little bit in a divided government, they force us to make bigger concessions and deals with the Dems."

The other side: Conservatives who advocate for blocking procedural motions argue it's necessary to light a fire under GOP leadership to demand more.

Multiple conservatives said they expected more out of Johnson than former Speaker Kevin McCarthy due to his record as a rank-and-file member.
"Republicans have control of the House and we should be leveraging it to secure our border, unfortunately the Uniparty is working to secure the borders of Ukraine instead of our own border," Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) tweeted.
"[T]he problem is [Johnson's] gotten nothing on anything. Right? They roll him every time," Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — who is pushing the motion to vacate — told reporters on Saturday.

Between the lines: Republicans left town yesterday without Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) pulling the trigger on her motion to vacate.

Johnson "needs to do the right thing, to resign and allow us to move forward in a controlled process. If he doesn't do so, he will be vacated," Greene said on Fox News.

The big picture: Johnson has faced some of the most tumultuous weeks of his speakership, with his longevity in the role remaining in question.

But the Louisiana Republican has asserted that he won't cave to threats to his speakership and feels rules changes should be made in the next Congress to tamp down on the unprecedented level of chaos.

[Furry Triangle]

well Greene has been their mouthpiece for years. This is what they wanted.
Fuck them. They been relying on blind propaganda, hate, and identity politics for an extremely long time. This is the result.
Tell them to stop with the fascism & rhetoric, and start doing their fucking jobs.

[DTravel]

Time to end America’s obsession with manufacturing
The Hill - Opinion

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...19b9646d&ei=75

In his 2023 State of the Union Address, President Joe Biden asked, “Where is it written that America can’t lead the world in manufacturing again?” It is tempting to cite a few central tenets of international economics and international business to respond to this query, but there is a more fundamental issue lurking behind it: the role of manufacturing in high-income countries.

Democrats and Republicans appear to disagree on almost everything these days, but the importance of reviving manufacturing is to be a rare area of harmony, especially when it comes to America’s strategic rivalry with China. Unfortunately, this obsession with manufacturing is misplaced, and it is critical to the economic future of the United States to understand why.

First, for the high-income countries of the world, the share of manufacturing as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP) is currently approximately 13 percent. In the U.S., it is approximately 11 percent, very close to the average of high-income countries. So there is nothing unusual about the amount of manufacturing taking place in the United States.

Second, in high-income countries, the share of the labor force in manufacturing declines at least as fast as the GDP share. For the high-income countries, the share is approximately 13 percent. In the United States, it is approximately 8 percent. This reflects the increased labor productivity in American manufacturing. Since wages are tied to labor productivity, this is a positive trajectory.

Third, services, or more precisely producer services, are at the heart of the increase in manufacturing productivity. Economists and business analysts have noted the increased “servitization” of manufacturing; it is now very difficult to disentangle manufacturing from producer services given their symbiotic relationship. And services are increasingly part of exports, either in their own right or supporting manufacturing exports.

Fourth, manufacturing can no longer be envisioned as a single stage. Rather, it is spread out over multiple stages and countries in complicated global value chains (GVCs), held together by, you guessed it, producer services: transport, logistics, information and communication technologies, insurance and many others. Rather than a single stage, manufacturing is now a network.

Fifth, as recognized by economists going back to Adam Smith, what really matters for economic success is high value added. High value added can be found in manufacturing, but also in agriculture and services, especially (once again) producer services. Further, as a general principle, within manufacturing, high value added tends to be found at the beginning and end of GVCs, in research and development, branding, design, distribution, marketing and after-sales services. The actual assembly stage of GVCs is often where the least value added is to be found.

Sixth, national security requires producer services along with manufacturing. There is a saying among military analysts that “amateurs talk strategy, but experts talk logistics.” These “logistics” are producer services. In the words of one researcher, these include “the construction, maintenance and operation of military bases; equipment maintenance; food service; transportation; communications and IT support; and supply chain management.” Neglect of these factors is one reason the Russian army failed to take over Ukraine in early 2022.

The U.S. is currently involved in a bipartisan experiment to throw an extraordinary amount of subsidies at particular manufacturing sectors, including semiconductors and green energy. Estimates of the total subsidies reach as high as $1 trillion. Manufacturing subsidies are a way of being seen to be “doing something” in the economic realm and signal “standing up to China.” These efforts have coalesced into a new techno-nationalism that has increasing political appeal. Indeed, the Biden administration envisions undermining China in all “foundational technologies.” There has been little pushback from Republicans on this issue.

The trouble is that the European Union, China and India are all doing this as well, so the Biden Administration has precipitated a subsidy war. The World Trade Organization places limits on subsidies, and will no doubt eventually determine that, in many circumstances, this new round of subsidies has violated these limits. But the United States has hobbled the WTO dispute settlement process, so it will not be able to address the negative effects of other players in the subsidy war on the American economy.

This manufacturing subsidy war will be expensive and will support inefficient sectors, raising costs for households and firms. For example, most estimates of semiconductor chip fabrication in the United States are that it costs up to 50 percent more than fabrication elsewhere. American taxpayers will eventually bear the cost of subsidizing this kind of relative inefficiency.

As a techno-nationalist effort, large-scale manufacturing subsidies will also undercut open innovation that has been pursued by international firms to positive effect. Many “foundational technologies” are collaborations across national frontiers that provide real benefits.

For example, the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine was the product of a corporate partnership between the U.S.-based multinational Pfizer and the German-based biotechnology firm BioNTech. BioNTech, in turn, was owned by two German citizens of Turkish origin. Pfizer itself was headed up by a Greek citizen. The production of the vaccine requires approximately 280 inputs from 19 countries. This is not manufacturing nationalism but rather globalized manufacturing enabled by producer services.

We need to end our obsession with manufacturing and focus on high value added wherever it is found. We also need to limit manufacturing subsides and allow them to be subject to WTO disciplines that the U.S. has developed and utilized intensively. Otherwise, long-run growth and prosperity will be diminished.

[DTravel]

Interesting facts about inflation and what causes it
Financial World

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...9b9646d&ei=107

In the midst of all the headlines bombarding us with inflation these days and the amount of uncertainty and fear accompanying it, we decided to address it head-on.The current economic situation does not seem to be favorable, nor is it likely to improve in the future, so what can we do about it? As a matter of fact, let's start from the beginning.Inflation - what is it and how does it work?

Inflation simply refers to a decline in money's value.

Wealth is said to be killed silently by her. Our childhood memories tell us that chewing gum, candies, and chocolates were immeasurably cheaper than they are today. Price increases are not caused by greedy profit-seeking companies, but rather by inflation.Despite the fact that production techniques are constantly improving, we still have consumer goods (eg clothes, food, plastic products, etc.) that cannot be produced more efficiently because they have been on the market for quite some time.

Transport costs play a major role in their final price. Fuel has become increasingly expensive in recent years.Increasing inflation can be attributed to these products categories. The rise in fuel or food prices is not a cause, but an effect.

How does inflation occur?

State-run monetary policy, that is, the central bank's policy, is the primary cause of inflation.

An inflationary situation can be controlled by adjusting interest rates and controlling money entering the system.The long-term goal of most central banks is to maintain inflation at around two percent per year. What is the point of doing that? The economy benefits from mild inflation.Let's pretend we live in a society where cash appreciates over time (i.e.

a deflationary one). By doing this, people would save more, because that money will be worth more tomorrow, rather than spend more on products and services. Consequently, the company's income would decrease, which would lead to layoffs.

Nobody wants to live in such a scenario.The economy is simply propelled by inflation. We are more likely to invest or consume cash today if we know its value decreases over time. There is a benefit for the overall economy in both cases.

[Priapus]

Originally Posted by DTravel

Time to end America’s obsession with manufacturing
The Hill - Opinion

Ken Reinert wrote this article, and he's not as dumb as this article would have you believe. He actually wrote the textbook I learned international economics from. That said there are a few mistakes that I am going to generously assume were made by changes from the copy editor.

Second, in high-income countries, the share of the labor force in manufacturing declines at least as fast as the GDP share. For the high-income countries, the share is approximately 13 percent. In the United States, it is approximately 8 percent. This reflects the increased labor productivity in American manufacturing. Since wages are tied to labor productivity, this is a positive trajectory.

This is a gross oversimplification. Wages aren't tied to labor productivity, that's an outright falsehood. Wages are an input to figure out what the labor productivity is. Second, the relationship between the share of labor force in manufacturing and its share of GDP might be accurate as a descriptor, but it's not accurate in terms of qualifying the effects of this. Meaning, that is not necessarily a good thing. In fact, one could argue that it's a bad thing because the inverse would be true. More manufacturing would mean more jobs.


His third, fourth, fifth, and sixth points would suggest that more manufacturing would support my view that more manufacturing would help support higher-income jobs nationally.

This manufacturing subsidy war will be expensive and will support inefficient sectors, raising costs for households and firms.

Wait, I thought you just said that manufacturing was growing in efficiency?

We need to end our obsession with manufacturing and focus on high value added wherever it is found. We also need to limit manufacturing subsides and allow them to be subject to WTO disciplines that the U.S. has developed and utilized intensively. Otherwise, long-run growth and prosperity will be diminished.

This is kind of true, but Ken is conflating the difference between wealth creation and income creation. Regardless of the differences between the two, at the end of the day, you have to extract resources from the ground, add value to them via processing, add more value by shipping them somewhere, add value to them by finally assembling them into a finished good that the end user will exchange currency for and find value in. At the root of the value chain is manufacturing, resource extraction, and agriculture. That said, subsidizing most things over the long run is a dumb idea, but that doesn't mean in that short term subsidies don't have positive long term overall positive effects. As far as the WTO, no one cares. Countries do what they want anyway.

Originally Posted by DTravel

Interesting facts about inflation and what causes it
Financial World

This is a painfully ignorant take.

State-run monetary policy, that is, the central bank's policy, is the primary cause of inflation.

This is how you tell the world that you have never taken anything other than an intro to macroeconomics course in your life and you have no idea what you're talking about. While Milton Friedman said: "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." it's not actually true. Following the GFC we had a very long period of very low interest rates and very low inflation, bordering on deflation in some instances. Basically, there are a lot of different types of inflation with a lot of different root causes. Ascribing inflation solely to monetary policy ignores a far more complex phenomenon.