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Politico
15 minutes ago
- Politico
Why Senate Republicans won't scrap the ‘blue slip'
It also doesn't look like their position will change heading into the fall, either, as Republicans have indicated they'll seek a rules change to speed up the confirmation process for certain Trump nominees on the Senate floor but not at the committee level. 'As a practical matter, the Senate's not going to give up the blue slip,' said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, in an interview. 'So my appeal to the president is: please reconsider. Why do we want to have this fight for nothing?' It marks a rare instance where Hill Republicans have publicly broken with the president, underscoring how even Trump's most loyal allies are willing to stand up to him when it comes to protecting their institution's traditions — and their own ability to exert influence back home. 'The Senators have a real vested interest in what happens in their states,' said Mike Fragoso, a former chief counsel for nominations and constitutional law for the Senate Judiciary Committee. 'At the end of the day, there's probably very little support for what Trump wants within the conference.' Fragoso, who also served as chief counsel for former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, argued that even Republicans wary of crossing the president now have taken advantage of the blue slip policy when Democrats held power. He added that there are relatively few bench seats in solidly Democratic states that Trump could even fill now without consent from Democrats. Ultimately, said Fragoso, the blue slip's elimination would just expose future seats in reliably red states like Florida and Texas to being filled with progressive judges by future Democratic administrations — and without the GOP getting much in return. Grassley has also already made changes to the blue slip practice once, in 2017, when he announced he would move forward with circuit court nominees over home state senators' objections. Although Judiciary chairs over the years had not always strictly followed that precedent, Grassley's decision to consistently disregard it helped Trump see hundreds of judges confirmed during his first term in the White House.
Politico
21 minutes ago
- Politico
GOP bucks Trump on blue slips
IN TODAY'S EDITION:— Judiciary Rs rebuke Trump's blue slip orders— RSC hosts more megabill 2.0 talks this week— Oyster farmer jumps into race to oust Collins Senate Republicans are standing their ground against President Donald Trump's order to get rid of so-called blue slips. Last month, Trump tried to pressure Senate Republicans to end the process that allows minority party senators to veto judicial nominees who would serve in their home states. The president publicly called on Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley to 'step up' and end it, adding that he helped the senator get reelected 'when he was down, by a lot.' It didn't work. GOP senators dismissed Trump's push in a rare split with the president. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there was little appetite to nix blue slips. And it looks like the divide will continue when lawmakers return this fall, Hailey Fuchs reports this morning, as Republicans plan to change the rules to speed up the confirmation process for Trump nominees on the Senate floor. 'The Senate's not going to give up the blue slip,' Sen. John Kennedy, a Judiciary member, told Hailey in an interview. 'So my appeal to the president is: please reconsider. Why do we want to have this fight for nothing?' Republicans also fear getting rid of blue slips could hurt them later on if Democrats regain control. Grassley seems to have anticipated that danger; he polled his committee members to see if they'd support getting rid of blue slips, Thom Tillis recently said on the Senate floor. Tillis said he told Grassley he'd honor the policy even if it were rescinded. 'I get President Trump is frustrated,' Tillis told Hailey. 'But I also understand, as somebody who's spent 10 years in this institution and 10 years on Judiciary, it would be a bad idea. And he would even regret it.' GOOD TUESDAY MORNING. Mia is back from vacation — big thanks to Calen and Cassandra Dumay for holding down the fort while she was gone. Email us: mmccarthy@ and crazor@ And congratulations to Rep. Kat Cammack and her husband Matt, who welcomed their daughter Augusta Dair last week. THE LEADERSHIP SUITE GOP leaders back Trump in Russia-Ukraine talks Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson backed the president Monday as he hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy just days after Trump's 1:1 with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Johnson praised Trump on X as 'the PEACE PRESIDENT' while Thune applauded him for 'his courage to engage with all parties in a way his predecessor refused to do.' The majority leader added that the Senate is ready to provide Trump 'any economic leverage needed to keep Russia at the table to negotiate.' A bill by Sen. Lindsey Graham to impose secondary sanctions on Russia is on ice as the senator yields to Trump on the timing of such action. Trump and Zelenskyy both expressed hopes for a future trilateral meeting with Putin to 'deter any future aggression against Ukraine.' Trump also said he would support European security guarantees for Ukraine, but stopped short of promising U.S. troops. POLICY RUNDOWN OVERSIGHT TO RECEIVE EPSTEIN FILES — House lawmakers will get their hands on a first batch of Jeffrey Epstein-related files Friday provided by the Justice Department, Oversight Committee Chair James Comer announced Monday. He cautioned it could take a while for all the DOJ materials to come through, Hailey reports. 'There are many records in DOJ's custody, and it will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted,' Comer said. Democrats are gearing up to reignite the controversy over the secretive nature of the Epstein files once lawmakers return to Capitol Hill next month. MORE RSC BRIEFINGS ON MEGABILL 2.0 — The House Republican Study Committee is hosting GOP staff this week for more discussions on potential policies to include in a second reconciliation package, according to invites viewed by our Benjamin Guggenheim. On Tuesday, aides will hear from key members of the America First Policy Institute like Save America Coalition co-chair Steve Moore. Wednesday's focus will be on values-related, pro-family policies featuring Paul Dupont, director of policy at the American Principles Project, and Tom McClusky, director of government affairs at CatholicVote. Thursday's agenda will center on immigration policy, with speakers including Grant Newman of the Immigration Accountability Project. WRIGHT TALKS RISING ELECTRICITY COSTS — Energy Secretary Chris Wright told our Josh Siegel in an exclusive interview he knows Republicans could suffer for rising electricity prices ahead of midterms next year, but he's hoping voters will point to Biden administration policies instead. Last week Wright was in Iowa — a state that gets 60 percent of its electricity from wind, higher than any other state — and said wind and solar projects that have already started construction should continue to qualify for the tax credits that Republicans phased out in the GOP megabill. The energy secretary also acknowledged that wind-powered grids can be successful in some contexts. Joining Wright were Iowa Republicans who have called on Trump to take a softer approach to federal tax breaks for wind and solar initiatives. 'There are a number of projects that have been planned already, and we would like to see those continue to qualify,' Sen. Joni Ernst said. Best of POLITICO Pro and E&E: THE BEST OF THE REST Congressional Book Club: Lawmakers Earn Big Money from Author Side Hustles, from Dave Levinthal at NOTUS New Capitol Police chief faces DC takeover, member security, from Justin Papp at Roll Call THE CARRY OUTA recess spotlight on lawmakers' Capitol Hill food recs Rep. Brad Schneider said he often grabs a pre-made chicken caesar wrap from Au Bon Pain in Cannon. Asked if it was good, he replied: 'It's edible.' What's your go-to meal in the Capitol? Email mmccarthy@ and crazor@ CAMPAIGN STOP DEMS VOW TO DEFEND MAIL-IN VOTING — Schumer is promising to slow any legislative effort to roll back mail-in voting after Trump on Monday promised to end the practice ahead of 2026. Schumer called the move Trump's latest attempt to undermine American democracy and vowed that Senate Democrats 'will make sure that any and every measure that would make it even more difficult for Americans to vote will be dead on arrival in the Senate.' GOP LEANS INTO IMPEACHMENT MESSAGING — Republicans are hoping to shore up midterm support by warning their voters that 'Democrats would vote to impeach [Trump] on their first day' if they win the majority, Brakkton Booker and Andrew Howard report. A digital ad by the National Republican Congressional Committee claims Democrat's 'Project 2026' agenda is to 'impeach President Trump.' Democrats have little consensus about their party's strategy on impeachment and many are wary of even talking about it. 'We should never, at least in the near future, use the 'I' word,' said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. 'One of the things we learned is that articles of impeachment are also articles of recruitment for Trump.' WHO'S RUNNING — Democrat Graham Platner, a little-known oyster farmer, is launching a Senate bid in Maine in an attempt to oust Sen. Susan Collins. It's disrupting establishment Dems' plans to recruit and unite behind Gov. Janet Mills, Holly Otterbein reports this morning. … Former Sen. Sherrod Brown officially launched his comeback bid for the Senate seat in Ohio, kicking off a nearly 15-month face-off against Sen. Jon Husted. JOB BOARD American Oversight is elevating Peter Kenny to VP of litigation and investigations. Kenny is a White House and House Oversight alum. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Former President Bill Clinton … Sen. Pete Ricketts … Rep. James Comer … former Rep. Will Hurd … Mary Matalin … Julius Genachowski of the Carlyle Group … Brody Mullins … Adam Tomlinson … BGR Group's Steve Pfrang … Steve Sothmann … Andrew Vlasaty … Maria Reynolds of Sen. James Lankford's office … Christian McMullen … Adam Conner of the Center for American Progress … Shannon Campagna … Rob Damschen of Gov. Glenn Youngkin's office … Tipper Gore TRIVIA MONDAY'S ANSWER: This one stumped you all. Emmanuel Leutze was the first painter to depict an African American in a Capitol mural. Leutze added a black pioneer to his painting, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (1861-1862), shortly after President Abraham Lincoln signed the first Emancipation Proclamation. TODAY'S QUESTION, from Mia: Who was the first U.S. president born in California? The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Inside Congress. Send your answers to insidecongress@
USA Today
43 minutes ago
- USA Today
Trump, Putin rewrite history in Alaska as Republicans stay obediently silent
An obedient silence from Republicans about the 2016 election was really the only win Trump logged last week while meeting with Putin about Russia's unjust invasion of Ukraine. The news out of Alaska on Aug. 15 focused understandably on how President Donald Trump was once again completely and predictably played on the world stage by Russian President Vladimir Putin. But one element of Trump's international embarrassment drew little notice, as he stood with Putin and again took his side, crying "hoax" while rejecting the bipartisan conclusion supported by America's intelligence agencies that Russia interfered with our 2016 presidential election. We can't grow numb to the notion that Trump consistently picks Putin over America. That long-standing resentment of his about accurate intelligence on his presidential election has mutated into a source of looming injustice as Trump's top aides eagerly seek to help him distort that history to comply with Russia's corrupt narrative. It's not enough anymore for Trump to just deny reality. Now he wants to rewrite it so that officials from then-President Barack Obama's administration who correctly identified the 2016 Russian interference are pursued in criminal investigations just for doing their duties. This inversion of justice and intelligence acts as some kind of balm for Trump's constant state of irritated grievance. And it presents an obligatory abdication of truth for Republicans in Congress who now swallow and regurgitate his lies about 2016. Opinion: Midterms are more than a year away, but Trump is already challenging them Trump's only win around Russia is obedient silence That obedient silence about 2016 from Republicans was really the only win Trump logged in Alaska while meeting with Putin about Russia's unjust invasion of Ukraine. Just consider how Republicans in Congress have contorted on this. Trump, standing next to Putin at a news conference in Helsinki in 2018, embraced the Russian president's denials about the 2016 election meddling and rejected the assessment from America's intelligence agencies. It was a strikingly shameful moment from his first term, which had no shortage of shameful moments. Republicans swiftly rebuked Trump, including Marco Rubio, then a senator from Florida, for siding with Putin over America. A bipartisan backlash prompted a rare walk-back from Trump, who, a day later, was forced to say: "I accept our intelligence community's conclusion that Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place." That was Trump, seven years ago, grudgingly accepting what was obviously true. But now he wants you to forget what he claimed to accept and see it all not just as a "hoax" but as a criminal conspiracy against him. We have to take that sort of nonsense seriously because, unlike Trump's first term, his second administration is politically populated with people who would never dissuade him from his worst impulses. This time around, they're jostling to be first in line to amplify those impulses. Trump and Putin are old hands at rewriting history Rubio, now Trump's secretary of State, was in the front row for the Trump-Putin news conference on Friday, Aug. 15. He clearly no longer has a problem with Trump lying about Russia and 2016. Congressional Republicans kept quiet about it this time, too. In Trump's twisted history, his first term was unfairly hobbled by the investigations of election interference, which he again called "the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax" during the Alaska meeting with Putin. "He knew it was a hoax, and I knew it was a hoax," Trump said as Putin beamed beside him. "But what was done was very criminal, but it made it harder for us to deal as a country, in terms of the business, and all of the things that we'd like to have dealt with, but we'll have a good chance when this is over." Hear the shift there? Trump is saying that attention paid to what Russia did in 2016, when Putin clearly favored him over Hillary Clinton as America's next president, is an abuse aimed at him that needs to be prosecuted. That is the shoddy foundation for Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of national intelligence, making the easily debunked claim in July that Obama's administration "manufactured" intelligence about the 2016 election interference, which she handed off to Attorney General Pam Bondi in a criminal referral. Opinion: Gabbard yells 'Russia hoax' to distract MAGA from Epstein for Trump. It won't last. Bondi has set a grand jury in motion on that, not because it serves justice but because it complies with the false narrative Trump and Putin are still pushing. Rubio may be on board with Trump's push for senseless prosecutions to rewrite our history. But his own Senate history is still around for us to read. His party controlled the Senate in 2020 and he was acting chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, issuing a report in August of that year that cited "irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling" in the 2016 election. Special counsel Robert Mueller, appointed by Trump's first attorney general, issued a 2019 report that confirmed the Russian election interference was driven by Putin's desire for Trump to beat Clinton in 2016. Putin declared that in public in 2018, standing next to Trump in Helsinki, saying he thought a Trump presidency would be better for Russia. That turned out to be true. And it might be the only time we hear Putin speak truth, as Trump tries to erase the history of 2016 and replace it with a fabrication that he and Putin prefer. Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.
