Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) did not let the ongoing government shutdown prevent him from holding a birthday party for his dog in a Senate office building.
Correspondent Daniella Diaz confirmed that the party for Babydog Justice took place in the Hart Senate Office Building on Wednesday.
An invitation to the event promised cake and "belly rub diplomacy." The 6-year-old English Bulldog has been a fixture on Capitol Hill since Justice took office. The dog also appeared on stage at the Republican National Convention in 2024.
A long line of people was seen at the Hart Office Building waiting to get into the party.
Vice President JD Vance faulted "scumbag" reporters for leaking text messages from leaders of Young Republican groups that praised Adolf Hitler, used the N-word, joked about putting political opponents in gas chambers, and praised rape.
While appearing on the Charlie Kirk Show on Wednesday, Vance was asked about a report on thousands of text messages obtained by Politico. Prominent leaders of various Young Republican groups across the country sent the messages. Vance, however, called them "a bunch of kids."
"The stupid things that I did when I was a teenager and a young adult, they're not on the internet," the vice president explained. "Like, I'm going to tell my kids, especially my boys, don't put things on the internet. Like, be careful with what you post."
"If you put something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is going to leak it in an effort to try to cause you harm or cause your family harm," he continued. "But the reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes."
"We're not going to allow the worst moment in a 21-year-old group chat to ruin a kid's life for the rest of time. That's just not okay."
Vance accused Politico's report of "canceling kids."
"We're all going to have to say, you know what? No, no, no. We're not doing this," he remarked. "And if I have to be the person who carries that message forward, I'm fine with it."
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson clashed with a Louisiana lawyer during oral arguments on Wednesday when the court heard Louisiana v. Callais, a case on whether a majority-minority district in Louisiana discriminated against white people.
Those advocating against the district frequently argued that the plaintiffs in the case demanded a second majority-minority district, but Jackson explained that this is not the case's focus and does not constitute a retrial.
"Where in section two [of the Voting Rights Act] does it mandate another minority district?" asked Jackson. "My understanding, as I explored with Ms. Nelson, is that sectiontwo is the mechanism by which we determine equal electoral opportunity is not being provided for a certain minority group. And we've interpreted in Gingles, we've given some flesh to how one goes about identifying that set of circumstances. But I thought that's the end of it in terms of the court's announcement under section two. And then the court turns to the state and says, 'How do you want to remedy this?'"
She explained that sometimes that means adding another majority minority district, and sometimes it does not.
"Your answer to Justice Barrett was, well, everybody just knows that's the automatic remedy. So, can you help me figure out that disconnect?" Jackson asked Benjamin Aguiñaga, Louisiana solicitor general.
"Justice Jackson, I think there's a reason why this court's voting precedents, going all the way back to Shaw 1, are so tied up with race, it is because the remedy as parties and the courts have understood section two to operate is almost always going to be race," said Aguiñaga.
"They're so tied up with race because that's the initial problem, right? That is the beginning," said Jackson, explaining how the cases were brought. "The beginning is the claim that a person makes under section two, because of their race, they are not being afforded equal electoral opportunity. It is a separate question as to how we go about remedying that..."
Aguiñaga agreed and attempted to continue going on with his statement, but was stopped in his tracks.
"Wait, why is that not a compelling interest to identify areas [where] the problem is occurring?" she asked.
Aguiñaga cited a case that allowed states to remedy the problem, but Jackson paused him again, noting that it isn't the question.
"I'm not talking about the remedy. I'm talking about identify — alright? So, if I'm right, that section two is about identifying the problem and then requiring some remedy," said Jackson. "I don't understand why your answer to Justice Kagan's question about, 'is this a compelling state interest' is 'no.' The answer is obviously yes. That you have an interest in remedying the ills of all discrimination that we identify using this tool, when you go too far in your remedy, is another issue, right?"
That's when things took a more confrontational tone.
Aguiñaga claimed that "step zero" was that the plaintiffs came in and said that they wanted another majority-minority district.
"I thought they came in and said we're not receiving equal electoral opportunity because our votes are being diluted," Jackson shot back.
Aguiñaga claimed it's saying the same thing as saying "we deserve" another district.
"It's not," Jackson shot back. "Trust me on this. Because the second district is a remedy that one could offer for a problem that we have identified. And the whole Robinson litigation was about identifying the problem. Is it really happening?"
In most cases, she said, the court says "you're fine" and "go away. In this case, the court said, I see. I'm looking at the factors. I appreciate what you're saying. You've proven that we have this problem. And so, the next question is how do we go about remedying it?"
Aguiñaga again brought up "intentional discrimination," but Jackson questioned why it even needed to be discussed, as it was not the question before them.
Madiba K. Dennie, who writes for "Balls and Strikes" called the exchange "striking."
"To me, Louisiana was basically like 'here come these Black people always asking for more' and Justice Jackson was like, 'that's not what the f--- they're asking for, they're saying: stop discriminating against us,'" Dennie wrote on Bluesky.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is drawing flak online after accusing Democrats of attacking a Capitol Police officer in what he alleged was a political stunt.
The crowd chanted "swear her in," speaking of Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), who was elected a few weeks ago in a special election. Her vote will be the final signature necessary to force a vote on releasing the investigation files of Jeffrey Epstein.
"Congress passed a law to require the hanging of a plaque to commemorate the officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, which Mike Johnson has since declined to give direction to do," wrote CNN senior reporter Edward-Isaac Dover. He added, "However," and then posted the video of Johnson from Wednesday morning's press conference.
Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) questioned, "Oh really." She added a screen capture of the headline: 'A Betrayal, a Mockery': Police Express Outrage Over Trump's Jan. 6 Pardons.
"Sorry, what were you saying, Mike?" questioned journalist Dan Przygoda. He posted a clip of the Jan. 6 attack on the officers and attempted to breach the police line guarding the Capitol.
"For the 8,000th time, I’m forced to respond with ……. Like this?" asked business owner Ron Shillman, including a photo of the crowd pushing the bike racks against the police to try and break the line.
Megan Coyne, a former White House staffer, wrote, "Google 'Capitol police officer assaulted' to learn more."
Policy associate Scott Moore at the Searchlight Institute made the same point, "Look up Capitol police officer violence to learn more!"
"I think this is much worse," MSNBCcontributor Rotimi Adeoye said, posting a photo of one of the officers with blood in his mouth being smashed in a revolving door.
A video of a Chicago woman who was dragged out of her car and wrestled to the ground by ICE agents while she sat at a school pick-up line, only to be released later, infuriated an MSNBC panel on Wednesday morning.
The viral clip, posted to Instagram by Eryn McCallum, who can be heard yelling at the agents, set off a wave of angry criticism from three “Morning Joe“ hosts.
With co-host Mika Brzezinski reading a statement about that ICE assault from DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, where she claimed “ICE is not going to schools to make arrests of children. Criminals are no longer able to hide in America's schools to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense,” Brzezinski added on, “Joe [Scarborough], that shouldn't be even happening anywhere, let alone near a school.”
Co-host Scarborough then launched a furious rant
"And who thinks this is good politics? Who thinks this is good policy? They go into school pick-up lines, attack people like, according to this video, like, brutalize them and then release them!”
“Who is telling Republicans this is a good idea?” he shouted. “Not only is this thuggish, but who's telling Republicans, ‘Hey, this will really help you out in the midterms. This will help you out politically.’”
“What, 32 percent of sick people are they playing to who want to see people improperly taken out — they were released later, we are told,” he continued.
“This is crazy,” co-host Brzezinski interjected. “Who's telling the speaker [Mike Johnson] this is good politics?” Scarborough continued. “They can run around screaming illegal immigration. Americans want a secure border. Americans want people to get here legally. And at the same time: two truths. You can hold them in your hands. They don't want to see that. They don't want to see that happening in a school pick-up line.”
A grim-faced Jonathan Lemire later added, "Deeply un-American. And in that video, you can hear the screams, just like the screams in that video that the DHS shot in Chicago a couple of weeks ago during when they raided an apartment in the middle of the night with helicopters and pulled children out of their bedsbeds."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) praised Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) after a judge issued a restraining order against him under Florida's "dating violence" law.
At a Wednesday press conference, Johnson feigned ignorance after multiple reporters asked him about the restraining order.
"A judge in Florida issued a restraining order against Cory Mills for threatening, harassing behavior from an ex-girlfriend," the reporter noted. "And according to these court documents, he also instructed a congressional staffer to reach out to her after that initial temporary restraining order was found."
"Do you think this is an ethical violation, and do you think any disciplinary action is warranted?"
"I have not heard or looked into any details of that," Johnson insisted. "We have a House Ethics Committee; if it warrants that, I'm sure they'll look into that."
"Mr. Speaker, it's been reported for a while," a second reporter observed. "Cory Mills was accused of beating a girlfriend in his D.C. apartment. He was accused of stolen valor by the people that he claimed to have saved on the battlefield that have been on the record said that he did not save them."
"I mean, this has been happening since the beginning of the year," she added. "Are you concerned about these allegations against Cory Mills?"
"Look, you have to ask Representative Mills about that," Johnson shrugged. "I mean, he's been a faithful colleague here. I know his work on the Hill."
"I mean, I don't know all the details of all the individual allegations and what he's doing in his outside life," he remarked. "You have to ask him about that. Let's talk about the things that are really serious."
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) gave his morning press conference, where he accused Democrats of attacking a Capitol Police officer.
Democrats didn't steal their equipment and hurt them with it or shoot them with bear spray, Johnson said that a Democrat yelled.
"Last night, they played some games. They stormed my office. I saw some of the video online. They themselves shared, or someone did. They berated a Capitol police officer, screamed at him. He was merely standing his post. It shows, again, their disdain for law enforcement, as we see all around the country, the Democrats, in that party, screaming, assaulting ICE officers. They did it right here in the Capitol last night."
Johnson claimed, "A few members of Congress went into the little foyer of my office and tore down a sign that I had up and just engaged in all sorts of political stunts and antics. They've been doing that every day now and it shows their desperation. It also shows a very strongcontrast between the party thatis working for the people andtrying to keep the governmentopen and do the right thing inthe party that is engaged in allthis nonsense."
Johnson announced earlier this year that he would not "second-guess" the pardons of the Jan. 6, 2021, attackers who severely injured Capitol Police and Metro PD officers.
Johnson later said, "We've always stood with Capitol police and law enforcement. We've shown that in word and deed."
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted tariffs were not a tax, but instead likened them to a "surcharge" or a "fee."
During a Wednesday press conference, Jon Decker of Gray Television noted that the U.S. Supreme Court was set to decide whether President Donald Trump had the authority to impose widespread tariffs.
"Why are the President's tariffs not taxes on imported goods?" Decker wondered.
"Well, that's easy, because tariffs are a surcharge, not a tax," Bessent replied. "They could be paid by the exporter, they could be paid by the country. When you go and get your driver's license, you pay a fee. Is that a tax?"
"I'm asking you the question, sir," Decker said. "And I just appreciate the answer to it."
"And if we, well, I'm giving you an answer that maybe you don't like," Bessent shot back.
The U.S. International Trade Administration defines a tariff as "a tax levied by governments on the value including freight and insurance of imported products."
Conservative radio host and frequent free speech advocate Dennis Kneal declared he didn’t want certain critics of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk to “have free speech” during an appearance on Newsmax Wednesday.
Kneel’s comments came amid a discussion on the Trump administration having revoked at least six visas from individuals who made disparaging comments about Kirk in the wake of his killing last month. Those visa revocations came in the wake of Attorney General Pam Bondi vowing to prosecute Americans over “hate speech,” remarks that saw significant pushback from legal experts and MAGA faithful alike.
Another guest on the panel was Andrew Craft, a journalist with Fox News, who noted that the Trump administration’s revocation of visas over comments may spark “an interesting free speech case” should “those six foreigners contest it in court.”
Kneal, who’s repeatedly championed free speech and has complained about free speech being eroded in the United States, didn’t mince words when making his position on the visa revocations clear.
“On one hand, I’m all for free speech,” Kneal said. “But if someone’s coming here and undermining the country and wants to topple our government, then to heck with them, I don’t want them to have free speech! Especially if they are here as our guests.”
Kneal, who once declared “free speech” to be “everything,” was largely agreed with on the panel, with Newsmax host Sharla McBride voicing concerns that migrants who criticized Kirk in the wake of his killing “could have violent tendencies.”
“It’s really concerning when you have people who are here illegally to begin with, but then they're praising someone’s death, they’re celebrating a murder in broad daylight,” McBride said, despite the legal status of the visa holders still unknown. “So yeah, I think many of us here would agree that at least revoking those visas is a good idea because these people could have violent tendencies.”
The Trump administration has championed its targeting of Kirk’s critics, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio declaring that migrants critical of Kirk were “not welcome in this country.”
"If you are here on a visa and cheering on the public assassination of a political figure, prepare to be deported," Rubio said.
Conservative radio host @denniskneale speaks on the recent Visa revocations for those who made negative comoments about Charlie Kirk:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to keep reporters out of the Pentagon, unless media organizations agree to an excessively stringent set of rules that would restrict what they can report on, is doomed to fail.
That is according to long-time Washington D.C. observer John Heilemann who told a “Morning Joe” panel that the end effect of the ban that goes into effect on Wednesday will only heighten scrutiny of what the embattled Donald Trump appointee tries to pull off behind closed doors.
With even Hegseth’s previous employer, conservative Fox News, balking at the move and releasing a statement saying, “The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections," Heilemann predicted the new rules — should they survive the firestorm they have set off — will blow up in the Pentagon chief’s face.
With MSNBC host Joe Scarborough calling Hegseth’s plan “boneheaded,” and pointing out, “I've never heard of anything like this before in American history,” Heilemann contributed, “But here's what makes it even crazier, is it's it's going to be futile. It will not work because anybody who covers, whether it's the White House or the Defense Department, knows the reporters are not going to stop digging for scoops and not going to stop holding the Pentagon's feet to the fire.”
“It's not going to stop calling sources and looking for the $900 toilet seat, or looking for the Pentagon Papers,” he pointed out. “They're just going to do it from outside the building. And every reporter who covers it is going to be like, you know, ‘This is a pain in the a--. I can't go to the Pentagon briefing anymore, and I can't sit with my sources in the Pentagon cafeteria, but I'm still going to talk to him. I'm going to talk to him off campus. I'm going to talk to him on chat. I'm going to talk to him on the phone. I'm going to talk to him on email."
“It's not going to work!" he asserted. “Apart from the fact that it's profoundly wrong, it's not going to have anything like the effect that Pete Hegseth thinks it's going to have.”
“There's another part of this too,” Scarborough interjected. “And that is Pete Hegseth is trying to stop the president of the United States from getting information that may not reflect well on him. How many times have we read throughout history the president of the United States reading the newspaper wherever he is and saying, ‘Wait. What's going on at the Pentagon? What's going on at Treasury? What's going on?'"
The chairman of the Republican National Committee dished out disgusting details about President Donald Trump's fast food fixation.
RNC chair Joe Gruters, who's also a Florida state senator, appeared on a local government podcast and was asked to comment on one of the funniest things that had happened to him on the campaign trail, and he recounted the president's "unique" order from McDonald's, which The Daily Beast described as "a hideous Franken-burger."
“The amount, and what the president eats," Gruters told the Chambers, Changes, & Conversations. “He had hot fries waiting for him from McDonald’s. Then he had a Filet-O-Fish, a Quarter Pounder, and a Big Mac, and I think he combined two of them."
Gruters didn't say which two of the sandwiches the president jammed together, but he added that Trump ordered an orange soda to wash down the glutounous amalgamation.
“I’m thinking to myself, how does the guy that’s as senior as him get away with eating all this McDonald’s on a consistent basis?” Gruters said.
The president's order, according to McDonald’s own nutrition guide, tallies up to a whopping 2,372 calories, well above the 2,000 calories older adult men are advised to consume in a day, and Gruters said eating just two of the eatery's sandwiches made him "sick as a dog."
“Yeah, he loves McDonald’s brand," Gruters said. "McDonald’s should be paying that guy – no kidding.”
The president famously staged a photo opportunity last year at a McDonald's restaurant in Pennsylvania, where he dunked fries into oil and answered reporters' questions through the drive-through window.
The notorious germaphobe expressed amazement during that stunt that he didn't have to touch the fries with his hands, and biographer Michael Wolff wrote 2018 book "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" that Trump likes eating at McDonald's because, in his view, food made in advance is less vulnerable to tampering.
CNN's Abby Phillip clashed with GOP strategist Kristen Davison and MAGA podcast host Ben Ferguson on Tuesday night over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's new press policy, which nearly every media outlet that covers the Department of Defense has refused to adopt.
The new policy, which goes into effect on Wednesday, requires media outlets not to publish information that hasn't been cleared by the Department of Defense and to turn over their press badges within 24 hours. Davison and Ferguson argued that the media has been unfair to conservatives recently, thus requiring the department to make a change.
Davison claimed that people in the media had intentionally misrepresented the importance of Trump's deal with Israel and Hamas.
Phillip shot back, arguing that journalists correct their work when errors are made.
"Peoplein the media don't say thatwe're infallible," Phillip said. "We're notgod. We makemistakesand we correct them. That isactually how journalism works."
Ferguson claimed that there are too many journalists who spread propaganda for Democrats.
"Conservatives don't have anyproblem with people masqueradingas journalists and batting forone team," Phillip said. "That happensevery single day, and you aretotally fine with it. So I spareme on that part."
Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) was stunned into silence on Tuesday night after a CNN anchor confronted him with Energy Secretary Chris Wright's comments about the government shutdown.
Sheehy joined CNN's Kaitlan Collins on "The Source" to discuss the impact of the government shutdown on his community. Collins brought up that the Department of Energy recently nixed a $1 billion hydrogen production development that Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, had previously praised for its potential to create jobs.
The senator demurred and tried to blame the government shutdown on Democrats, specifically Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Senate minority leader.
Collins then told Sheehy that she had recently asked Wright about the project, and Wright said he planned to cancel the funding before the government shutdown.
Sheehy sat silently for several seconds.
"Well, that's unfortunate that we're still shut down," Sheehy said. "We shouldn't be."
