Latest news with #R-Mich.
Epoch Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Epoch Times
House Lawmakers Voice Support for AUKUS in Letter to Pentagon Chief
The bipartisan leaders of a House committee have voiced support for the trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—known as AUKUS—which is currently under review by the Pentagon. In a letter sent to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on July 22, Reps. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) stated that the three countries are 'stronger together' under the AUKUS framework, in the face of the Chinese regime's expanded capabilities and coercive actions against its neighbors.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Republicans weigh giving Stefanik a beefed-up version of a long-vacant role
One option that Republicans are floating to bring Rep. Elise Stefanik back into their House leadership fold: an elevated version of an existing lower-profile job. As GOP leaders search for a landing spot for Stefanik after the abrupt withdrawal of her nomination as ambassador to the United Nations, two sources told Semafor that they're considering making her chair of the Elected Leadership Committee. The ELC is a group of advisers to leadership — and its chair is a speaker-appointed position that got filled for the first time in more than a decade by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Stefanik and Johnson's camps remain in active discussions about her return to leadership, and no decision has been made. But if Stefanik were to be offered the ELC job, two Republicans familiar with the conversations said it would involve more 'heft' and 'teeth' than the position has previously held. 'That's a possibility,' Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., who replaced Stefanik as conference chair this year, told Semafor when asked if ELC chair was on the table for the New Yorker. 'That's an option.' ELC was revived when McCarthy tapped then-Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves, an influential ally of the former speaker, to fill the spot. Even if the role were beefed up, it would likely result in diminished significance for Stefanik. She did not seek reelection to the No. 4 leadership post that McClain won out of the expectation she would be confirmed as President Donald Trump's UN ambassador. Now that Stefanik's nomination has been pulled — with Trump publicly airing concern about hanging onto her House seat in a special election — the party has agreed she'll return to GOP leadership. That's where the clarity ends. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters Tuesday that there would be 'a lot of roles presented to her.' Still, the dilemma of trying to retrofit an influential member of Congress into leadership four months into the start of the term is proving tricky. 'We can't give her a gavel. We can't give her one of the elected positions. So we want to bring her back in to have a seat at the leadership table,' McClain told Semafor, adding that leaders agree 'she's so valuable.' Johnson also repeated his willingness to reinstall Stefanik to leadership while also acknowledging the challenges. 'Recognizing her talent, I said I would love to have her back immediately to the leadership table. All the leadership posts are filled at the moment, so we're trying to figure out some creative role for Elise to play,' Johnson said. Stefanik voted last Friday, a day after Trump's announcement, but did not cast a vote this week. She has served as a vocal Trump ally since his 2019 impeachment trial, a role that helped rebrand her from the moderate image she first ran on into a MAGA favorite. Stefanik's ascension to leadership followed the removal of former Rep. Liz Cheney from her post as conference chair in response to Cheney's harsh criticism of Trump. Stefanik was elected the following year, the Harvard alumna made headlines for her questioning of Ivy League college presidents for their handling of antisemitism allegations. Her work prompted a series of resignations, including one from the president of Stefanik's alma mater. Here's the luxury Stefanik had to give up after the ambassador to the UN position was yanked from her, according to Newsweek. Johnson removed Graves from the ELC post after becoming speaker and opted to lead the committee's meetings himself, Politico reported at the time.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Republicans' shocking about-face on Russia
Like a gang of political 'Mean Girls,' the Republican Party is totally committed to making Russia happen. The last two weeks leave no question about President Trump's feelings toward Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The speed and totality of Trump's policy shift shocked our foreign allies and divided congressional Republicans, culminating in his surprise decision to pause all military aid to Ukraine even as the country faced a heavy new round of Russian air raids. America's pivot to a pro-Russian foreign policy isn't Trump's doing alone, though/ Across the federal government, we are witnessing a coordinated Republican effort to realign American foreign policy away from the world's liberal democracies and toward gangster regimes like Putin's. But for this to succeed, Trump must change Americans' overwhelmingly negative opinion of Russia. Sadly, plenty of Republican leaders are willing to whitewash Putin's brutality for political gain. Trump's frontal assault began in earnest this week when he joined Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to demand Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's resignation. Calling for regime change against an American ally is a hugely destabilizing move, made even worse by a Republican media blitz intended to portray Zelensky not as the victim of unprovoked Russian aggression but as a dictator and aggressor. That was too much for Rep. John James (R-Mich.), who joined 'Face the Nation' to flatly reject Johnson's and Trump's warped view of history. 'Russia is the aggressor,' James told Margaret Brennan, adding that Putin is a 'war criminal' hardly deserving of American sympathy. In response, Trump supporters flooded James's social media accounts with the bitter recriminations and threats that have become the MAGA movement's bleak trademark. The effort to portray Zelensky as the villain in the Russo-Ukrainian War goes beyond just revisionist history amplified by partisan media outlets. Last month, the U.S. opposed a G-7 statement labeling Russia as the war's aggressor, just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth slammed the door on Ukraine's entry into NATO — an announcement celebrated by Russian state media outlets as a victory nearly as valuable as winning the ground war itself. Before Trump can have his own Nixon-in-China moment in Red Square, he'll need to unwind decades of economic sanctions Russia earned through financial crimes, human rights violations and state sponsorship of terrorism. The White House took its first steps toward removing those sanctions on Monday, when Trump requested the State and Treasury departments draft plans for normalizing economic relations with Putin. Removing those sanctions would put the U.S. in the bizarre position of stage-managing Russia's return from economic and political exile — not as a reformed liberal democracy but as an anti-democratic alternative to Europe and the West. This would shred nearly a century of post-World War II collective security and torch the trust of America's most essential allies. This is a path to ruin. Unfortunately, there is growing evidence that Trump's pro-Russia psy-op is beginning to turn public opinion against Ukraine and Zelensky. A CBS News-YouGov poll found that Trump enjoyed a 2-point net approval on his handling of Russia and Ukraine, compared to Biden's 22-point net disapproval rating at the end of 2024. Even so, a majority of Americans still support Ukraine's side of the conflict — though those numbers are fading fast, as more voters open up to the idea of a compromise. Voters are also acutely aware that their president has a soft spot for Russia. Forty-six percent of respondents said Trump's actions clearly favored Russia, compared to just 11 percent who said his actions favored Ukraine. The Republican Party's newfound fondness for Putin has led many Americans to question their own opinions about Russia, with the country now evenly split between viewing Russia as an enemy and an ally. By eliminating sanctions against Putin's corrupt oligarchs and erasing the horrific history of war crimes that earned Russia its economic isolation, Trump hopes to cleanse America's cultural memory of the atrocities we've witnessed over the course of decades. His new diplomacy aligns the U.S. with the struggling illiberal regimes of the world and endorses their criminal practices. It's a nightmarish future both for America and for the world. It is pointless to guess at Trump's motivations in linking arms with Putin and the other wretched autocrats with whom he finds common cause. What's easier to understand is the immense cost of the foreign policy shift Trump and his cronies are trying to inflict on our country. If Republicans have any serious foreign policy voices left, they're running out of time to speak up. Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What to know about the possibility of Trump serving a third term
Murmurs from President Trump and his allies have stirred up questions of the incumbent possibly seeking a third term in office, even as he's currently constitutionally barred from doing so. Trump has remarked on a few occasions since being sworn in for a second term that he wouldn't be running again unless people insist and decide to 'figure it out.' And Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) has even introduced a constitutional amendment that would specifically allow Trump to run for another term but not any of his two-term predecessors. These efforts, which aren't entirely unheard of in recent history, would require a number of steps that make a third Trump term a considerable long shot. Here's what you need to know: Most presidents followed George Washington's tradition of not running for more than two terms. A few attempted a third term, but none were successful until former President Franklin Roosevelt won four terms amid the crises of the Great Depression and World War II. After Republicans won control of Congress in 1946, they almost immediately introduced a resolution to limit the president's time in office. Brian Kalt, a law professor at Michigan State University who has studied the 22nd Amendment, said Democrats at the time weren't 'crazy about it,' but they didn't stop it and many supported it. Once ratified, the amendment declared, 'No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.' Presidents could also serve up to two years of a term that someone else was elected to and be elected to two additional terms, for a total of up to 10 years in office. But the amendment has received some criticism since its ratification in 1951, and a few have called for repealing it. Kalt said former President Eisenhower was so popular that some called for him to be able to serve a third term, but Eisenhower wasn't interested. In 1986, then-Rep. Guy Vander Jagt (R-Mich.) called for amending the Constitution to allow then-President Reagan to serve a third term. 'Ronald Reagan is one of the greatest American Presidents of all time, and I want to keep him on the job,' he wrote at the time. Both Reagan and former President Clinton raised the idea of changing the amendment, with Clinton saying the limit should maybe be two consecutive terms, but both were speaking generally for the future and not referring to themselves. Even though the proposals aren't entirely new, Trump has taken them to a new level in reference to his political future and isn't letting them go. 'The thing that's different about Trump is that in the past, the president would always be very demure about it,' Kalt said. 'They sort of take the approach of letting other people say that and keeping their hands up. That's not Trump's style. So obviously that's not the tone that he took in his recent remarks.' Trump has discussed the possibility of a third term multiple times before and after being sworn in last month. In November, he said in comments to House Republicans: 'I suspect I won't be running again, unless you do something. Unless you say, 'He's so good, we have to just figure it out.'' Multiple Republicans said Trump was joking. Trump said it again a week into office at the House GOP's annual policy retreat, saying he wasn't sure if he was allowed to run again and asking Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) if he could. Some again said he was joking, but Ogles introduced a resolution to amend the Constitution days earlier. The amendment would allow Trump to run again because he was elected to nonconsecutive terms but prevent anyone from being elected to more than three terms overall or two consecutive terms. 'He has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation's decay and restoring America to greatness, and he must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal,' Ogles said. While the 22nd Amendment precludes running for a third term, some arguable if unlikely loopholes exist, Kalt said. The amendment clearly prevents being elected a third time, it doesn't state that someone can't be president a third time, though that doesn't mean it's allowed. 'This really gets to the heart of people's different views of how to interpret the Constitution because the loophole only emerges if you're really strictly limiting yourself to the text,' Kalt said. 'If you're saying, well, what's the point of the 22nd Amendment? What is it trying to accomplish? What it's trying to accomplish is, if you have two terms, then you leave and that's it.' What's unsettled is if someone who has served two terms can be elected vice president, or a position lower down in the presidential line of succession and ascend to the presidency. The 12th Amendment states that no one ineligible to be president can serve as vice president, but it's arguable whether that applies to term limits, which were enacted later, or only the other constitutional qualifications like age. 'One thing is that no one has ever tried this… because it was part of our constitutional norms,' said Victoria Nourse, a law professor at Georgetown University who worked at the White House and Justice Department, about seeking a third term despite the 22nd. 'They're calling into question all sorts of things that no one has paid attention to for a very long time.' If Ogles is serious and his resolution gains some momentum, the chances of this likely highly controversial amendment, or even less controversial ones, passing seem slim to none. The Constitution places a high bar for passing an amendment, and it seems even more difficult in these highly polarized times. A resolution first must pass with two-thirds support in both houses of Congress, and then three-quarters of all state legislatures, equal to 38 states, must ratify it. A post from the Constitution Center from last month noted just how difficult and rare passing an amendment is, intentionally so. Since the 27th Amendment was ratified in 1992, more than 1,400 have been proposed in Congress, but none has received the two-thirds vote to go to the states, the post said. But Nourse argued that Trump's words should still be taken seriously regardless of the low chances of this coming to fruition. 'What happens is it takes it from the crazy off the wall to on the wall,' she said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
10-02-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
What to know about the possibility of Trump serving a third term
Murmurs from President Trump and his allies have stirred up questions of the incumbent possibly seeking a third term in office, even as he's currently constitutionally barred from doing so. Trump has remarked on a few occasions since being sworn in for a second term that he wouldn't be running again unless people insist and decide to 'figure it out.' And Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) has even introduced a constitutional amendment that would specifically allow Trump to run for another term but not any of his two-term predecessors. These efforts, which aren't entirely unheard of in recent history, would require a number of steps that make a third Trump term a considerable long shot. Here's what you need to know: Not completely without precedent Most presidents followed George Washington's tradition of not running for more than two terms. A few attempted a third term, but none were successful until former President Franklin Roosevelt won four terms amid the crises of the Great Depression and World War II. After Republicans won control of Congress in 1946, they almost immediately introduced a resolution to limit the president's time in office. Brian Kalt, a law professor at Michigan State University who has studied the 22nd Amendment, said Democrats at the time weren't 'crazy about it,' but they didn't stop it and many supported it. Once ratified, the amendment declared, 'No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.' Presidents could also serve up to two years of a term that someone else was elected to and be elected to two additional terms, for a total of up to 10 years in office. But the amendment has received some criticism since its ratification in 1951, and a few have called for repealing it. Kalt said former President Eisenhower was so popular that some called for him to be able to serve a third term, but Eisenhower wasn't interested. In 1986, then-Rep. Guy Vander Jagt (R-Mich.) called for amending the Constitution to allow then-President Reagan to serve a third term. 'Ronald Reagan is one of the greatest American Presidents of all time, and I want to keep him on the job,' he wrote at the time. Both Reagan and former President Clinton raised the idea of changing the amendment, with Clinton saying the limit should maybe be two consecutive terms, but both were speaking generally for the future and not referring to themselves. Trump takes it to a new level Even though the proposals aren't entirely new, Trump has taken them to a new level in reference to his political future and isn't letting them go. 'The thing that's different about Trump is that in the past, the president would always be very demure about it,' Kalt said. 'They sort of take the approach of letting other people say that and keeping their hands up. That's not Trump's style. So obviously that's not the tone that he took in his recent remarks.' Trump has discussed the possibility of a third term multiple times before and after being sworn in last month. In November, he said in comments to House Republicans: 'I suspect I won't be running again, unless you do something. Unless you say, 'He's so good, we have to just figure it out.'' Multiple Republicans said Trump was joking. Trump said it again a week into office at the House GOP's annual policy retreat, saying he wasn't sure if he was allowed to run again and asking Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) if he could. Some again said he was joking, but Ogles introduced a resolution to amend the Constitution days earlier. The amendment would allow Trump to run again because he was elected to nonconsecutive terms but prevent anyone from being elected to more than three terms overall or two consecutive terms. 'He has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation's decay and restoring America to greatness, and he must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal,' Ogles said. Convoluted process under current laws While the 22nd Amendment precludes running for a third term, some arguable if unlikely loopholes exist, Kalt said. The amendment clearly prevents being elected a third time, it doesn't state that someone can't be president a third time, though that doesn't mean it's allowed. 'This really gets to the heart of people's different views of how to interpret the Constitution because the loophole only emerges if you're really strictly limiting yourself to the text,' Kalt said. 'If you're saying, well, what's the point of the 22nd Amendment? What is it trying to accomplish? What it's trying to accomplish is, if you have two terms, then you leave and that's it.' What's unsettled is if someone who has served two terms can be elected vice president, or a position lower down in the presidential line of succession and ascend to the presidency. The 12th Amendment states that no one ineligible to be president can serve as vice president, but it's arguable whether that applies to term limits, which were enacted later, or only the other constitutional qualifications like age. 'One thing is that no one has ever tried this… because it was part of our constitutional norms,' said Victoria Nourse, a law professor at Georgetown University who worked at the White House and Justice Department, about seeking a third term despite the 22nd. 'They're calling into question all sorts of things that no one has paid attention to for a very long time.' Bar for passing constitutional amendment is high If Ogles is serious and his resolution gains some momentum, the chances of this likely highly controversial amendment, or even less controversial ones, passing seem slim to none. The Constitution places a high bar for passing an amendment, and it seems even more difficult in these highly polarized times. A resolution first must pass with two-thirds support in both houses of Congress, and then three-quarters of all state legislatures, equal to 38 states, must ratify it. A post from the Constitution Center from last month noted just how difficult and rare passing an amendment is, intentionally so. Since the 27th Amendment was ratified in 1992, more than 1,400 have been proposed in Congress, but none has received the two-thirds vote to go to the states, the post said. But Nourse argued that Trump's words should still be taken seriously regardless of the low chances of this coming to fruition. 'What happens is it takes it from the crazy off the wall to on the wall,' she said.
