Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace sparred with Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) over Banks’ vote against an emergency relief bill that would have allocated funds to police and first responders, The Hill reports.
Said Wallace: “Can’t you make the argument that it’s you and the Republicans who defunded the police?”
Indeed, you can make that argument, and the Democrats are and will make that argument.
Washington Post: “Thirteen months after the police killing of George Floyd sparked an impassioned movement in the Democratic Party to rein in police departments, a surge in homicides has prompted a shift in the opposite direction. Democrats are scrambling to make new investments in policing and seeking to project toughness on crime, even as they continue pushing for police reforms and alternative means of deterring crime.”
“Now in control of the White House, Congress and most big cities, Democrats have struggled to contain the deadly violence this year, which is expected to worsen as the summer progresses. They are facing a barrage of criticism from Republicans, who are portraying Democrats as soft on crime as part of a coordinated strategy for next year’s midterm elections.”
“These trends have alarmed Democrats at all levels — from the White House, where Biden recently delivered his first major speech on fighting crime; to voters, who are rallying behind crime-focused candidates in early primaries; to U.S. House members who are bluntly warning liberal colleagues to tone down their attacks on law enforcement.”
Former President Trump called Rep. Anthony Gonzalez a “grandstanding RINO” as he advocated for GOP congressional challenger Max Miller at a rally in Wellington, Ohio, Saturday, Axios reports.
Trump said Gonzalez, one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him over January’s U.S. Capitol riot, was a “sellout.”
“He spent much of the rally complaining about his election loss and criticizing the Biden administration on policies including immigration. Trump again hinted at a 2024 run.”
New York Times: Trump holds first rally since January 6.
From Jonathan Karl’s new book, Betrayal, excerpted in The Atlantic:
“Barr told me that Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnel had been urging him to speak out since mid-November. Publicly, McConnell had said nothing to criticize Trump’s allegations, but he told Barr that Trump’s claims were damaging to the country and to the Republican Party. Trump’s refusal to concede was complicating McConnell’s efforts to ensure that the GOP won the two runoff elections in Georgia scheduled for January 5.”
“Republicans needed to make the argument that with Biden soon to be in the White House, it was crucial that they have a majority in the Senate to check his power. But McConnell also believed that if he openly declared Biden the winner, Trump would be enraged and likely act to sabotage the Republican Senate campaigns in Georgia. Barr related his conversations with McConnell to me. McConnell confirms the account.”
“My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time. If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullshit.” — Former Attorney General William Barr, quoted by The Atlantic, on former President Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election.
“President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda appears back on track in Congress, with Republicans praising his newly clarified approach to their bipartisan infrastructure plan and a key Democrat endorsing work on a separate, larger spending package,” Politico reports.
“Two GOP negotiators on the bipartisan infrastructure deal said Sunday that they were mollified by Biden’s Saturday statement vowing to support the bipartisan framework on its own merits, rather than withholding his signature until he also received a larger, partisan proposal.”
“President Biden walked back comments tying the fate of a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure agreement to a separate, Democratic effort to pass a broad antipoverty plan, recommitting to the bipartisan deal after Republicans threatened to withdraw their support,” the Wall Street Journal report.
Biden said that his earlier comments “created the impression that I was issuing a veto threat” on his proposal, “which was certainly not my intent.”
Said Biden: “The bottom line is this: I gave my word to support the Infrastructure Plan, and that’s what I intend to do. I intend to pursue the passage of that plan, which Democrats and Republicans agreed to on Thursday, with vigor.”
Washington Post: Biden reverses himself on Infrastructure, says he would sign bipartisan deal.
“Sen. Ron Johnson preached unity and positivity to the party faithful at the state Republican convention on Saturday, painting Democrats as an angry party bent on fundamentally changing the United States,” the Madison Capital Times reports.
“Johnson said he’s ‘more panicked’ than ever about the state of the country, having run for the first time in 2010 based on the same fears.”
New York Times: “No part of Mr. Biden’s agenda has been as ambitious as his attempt to embrace racial considerations when making decisions. It pushes against limits set by the Supreme Court, which say programs based on race must be ‘narrowly tailored’ to accomplish a ‘compelling governmental interest.’ And it ignites passions at a time when Democrats hold the narrowest majority in Congress and the country is already seething with disagreements about race, power and fairness.”
“The challenges to Mr. Biden’s proposals have so far halted only a small fraction of his broader equity agenda, which has already ensured that billions of dollars in government spending have reached African Americans and poor women… Administration officials say the court rulings and political opposition are merely speed bumps that will do little to block progress. And they say Mr. Biden will continue to fight for parts of his legislative agenda that are not in a compromise bill.”
Washington Post: “Friday’s warm presidential embrace of the LGBTQ community was remarkable for not being all that remarkable because of how much and how quickly the country and the Democratic Party have changed. Public opinion among Democrats is overwhelmingly supportive of LGBTQ rights, and Biden talks so frequently on the subject that it’s become routine, another agenda item he ticks off in his public remarks.”
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) “gave an extended tirade that argued Democrats are disloyal, unpatriotic, dangerous traitors to America—and twice invoked Nazis to make his point,” Vice News reports.
Said Perry: “They are not the loyal opposition. They are the opposition to everything you love and believe in. Go fight them.”
He added: “We can acknowledge that maybe not every one of them is that way, but that doesn’t matter. We’ve seen this throughout history, right? Not every not every citizen in Germany in the 1930s and ’40s was in the Nazi Party. They weren’t. But what happened across Germany? That’s what’s important. What were the policies? What was the leadership? That’s what we have to focus on.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) appeared unable to answer basic questions about her claims regarding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot during a CNN interview, while also saying she wants to serve on the House select committee to investigate the attempted insurrection.
Greene said there were “all kinds of people involved in the rioting,” including “people in black clothes, people in red hats.”
She added that she would be willing to accept that the FBI wasn’t involved, but only if “they say they weren’t and show proof they weren’t.”
“Two high-ranking Trump political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency arranged for a pair of agency employees to reap tens of thousands of dollars in salaries even after they were fired,” Politico reports.
“The improper payments were directed by former chief of staff Ryan Jackson and carried out by former White House liaison Charles Munoz, and totaled almost $38,000.”
Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn nurtured and then profited from the QAnon conspiracy theorists, the Intercept reports.
“Most media outlets treated Flynn’s videotaped oath last summer, in which he uttered a well-known QAnon slogan, as a sort of coming-out story about a onetime Trump insider who had gone off the rails. The video has since become the subject of a lawsuit by members of Flynn’s family who claim that ‘left-wing media outlets began to spread false narratives’ about the Flynn family’s connections to QAnon. An Intercept investigation has found that Flynn’s ties to the QAnon phenomenon stretch back much further than the July 4 weekend last year when the video first appeared, however, to the days immediately following Trump’s 2016 election victory.”
Washington Post: “Thirteen months after the police killing of George Floyd sparked an impassioned movement in the Democratic Party to rein in police departments, a surge in homicides has prompted a shift in the opposite direction. Democrats are scrambling to make new investments in policing and seeking to project toughness on crime, even as they continue pushing for police reforms and alternative means of deterring crime.”
“Now in control of the White House, Congress and most big cities, Democrats have struggled to contain the deadly violence this year, which is expected to worsen as the summer progresses. They are facing a barrage of criticism from Republicans, who are portraying Democrats as soft on crime as part of a coordinated strategy for next year’s midterm elections.”
“These trends have alarmed Democrats at all levels — from the White House, where Biden recently delivered his first major speech on fighting crime; to voters, who are rallying behind crime-focused candidates in early primaries; to U.S. House members who are bluntly warning liberal colleagues to tone down their attacks on law enforcement.”
Politico: “Democrats have gained control of state legislatures and governorships that have long been in charge of drawing new maps — only to cede that authority, often to independent commissions tasked with drawing political boundaries free of partisan interference.”
“Supporters of these initiatives say it’s good governance to bar politicians from drawing districts for themselves and their party. But exasperated Democrats counter that it has left them hamstrung in the battle to hold the House, by diluting or negating their ability to gerrymander in the way Republicans plan to do in many red states. And with the House so closely divided, Democrats will need every last advantage to cling to their majority in 2022.”
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