Rep. Nancy Mace (R-NY) picked a fight Monday with a newly elected congresswoman headed to the U.S. Capitol for the 119th United States Congress, but one former Donald Trump aide wasn't having it.
During "Hot Topics" on "The View" Tuesday, former Trump communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin slammed Mace over a planned resolution that would prevent incoming Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), who is a transgender woman, from using a women's bathroom in the Capitol. Mace has said it "jeopardizes the safety and dignity" of female lawmakers to use the bathroom in a stall next to a transgender woman.
"That's not what it is," Griffin said of McBride's bathroom privileges.
"The View" welcomed McBride onto their show where she "talked about pocketbook issues and sat at our table, and said, 'I'm not a spokesperson for my community.' I'm running to deliver for Delaware.'"
What Mace has done, Griffin claimed is "goad her into a fight she did not sign up to be part of."
"You have to be this culture warrior to make this your identity because Nancy Mace doesn't like how she chooses to exist," said Griffin. "It's gross and is unserious."
Joy Behar said Mace was "just using it," something Griffin agreed with.
"She wants the clicks," the former Republican staffer said.
Whoopi Goldberg pointed out that transgender Americans are less than 1% of the population and that there are many more important issues that lawmakers aren't dealing with.
"I worry about people going to be able to get medical insurance, are people — all this stuff that we've been talking about. Feeding their kids, you know, taking care of business. I don't understand why this is her welcome to someone who is coming to make a difference in the country," said Goldberg.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) slammed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-GA) conspiracy theory that Jewish space lasers ignited forest fires in California.
During a House Oversight Committee hearing Thursday, Moskowitz said he agreed with the decision to dismiss an employee of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, after she suggested that homes displaying support for President-elect Donald Trump should be avoided while providing hurricane relief.
"Disaster aid should never be declined based on support of any political candidate," Moskowitz insisted. "As the world is becoming more partisan, the world is becoming more divided. You're seeing it here in the country."
Moskowitz argued that Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, should focus on the size of the Department of Homeland Security when making improvements.
"But the last two Trump [FEMA] administrators will tell you, previous administrators will tell you when they leave the job, is that Homeland has become too big," he explained. "FEMA can't make the changes you want them to make... Homeland won't let them."
"So for the people at DOGE, if Vivek [Ramaswamy] and Elon [Musk] are listening, you need to look at Homeland," he continued. "And so what I'm saying is that don't look at [FEMA] Administrator [Deanne] Criswell or this FEMA administration or in this Biden administration."
"It is so important that we don't allow FEMA to become politicized and that we don't allow disaster aid to become politicized," he insisted. "Laser beams do not start fires in California. We cannot guide where hurricanes go."
Legal analysts are responding to the situation in New York where Donald Trump is still set to be sentenced for a jury's guilty verdict on 34 felony counts — even though the case looks likely to be indefinitely postponed.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg agreed to pause the sentencing in the hush money case, in which Trump was convicted of business fraud after he paid off a porn star to hide a relationship from voters in the 2016 election.
The DA supported the postponement Tuesday while Trump's team prepares a motion to dismiss it given "the people's decision" in the election, they said in a statement. The sentencing had been scheduled for Nov. 26.
Several legal analysts agree that the voters' decisions shouldn't have anything to do with what a jury decides in a trial.
"I think Judge Juan Merchan will probably go along with this [request for a postponement,] but it's just, you know, a delaying the inevitable," said Catherine Christian,MSNBC legal analyst and former assistant district attorney.
"Now, it will be President Trump because we are at the end of November already. So, it will be interesting if Judge Merchan says I agree and I'm just going to go along with both sides."
Former SDNY Criminal Division Deputy Chief Kristy Greenberg told MSNBC that Trump remains a "convicted felon" — and delaying his sentencing does nothing to change that.
"All the D.A.'s office is saying is we will defend the jury's verdict finding him guilty of 34 felonies and not backing away from that," Greenberg continued. "There is nothing in the law that says there is no immunity for unofficial acts. That is what we who sat through weeks of this trial learned."
"I expect that this verdict will continue to be upheld. This will not be dismissed. But, there is not going to be a sentence before he takes office. And there is not going to be a sentence handed down while he is in office."
Former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Diane Kiesel told MSNBC that she doesn't know of any "legal precedent or argument that says that because someone who is going to be president was convicted of a crime prior to being president for a crime that occurred before he became president should somehow not have to face the consequences."
She also reinforced the idea that Merchan can do whatever he wants, including issuing Trump a suspended sentence or even a probation, and Trump can then appeal to the higher court.
"I see two major takeaways from this filing we just got from the D.A.," he continued. "First of all, the d.a. is okay with adjourning the sentencing indefinitely, which means it will not happen before he takes office... But the second thing that really jumps out at me is the D.A. in this letter says ... about immunity, that it doesn't necessarily cover post-trial proceedings."
He said the D.A. might be considering trying to push the sentencing to 2029 after Trump is finished being president. He confessed that he found that "a preposterous suggestion. "Just as a practical matter, you can't put off a sentence for four-plus years," he said.
"I think Donald Trump would have a very strong argument when this day comes, when he's 82 years old and finishing up his second term, that that's just too long to wait. But again, this is all unknown."
Legal analysts had previously suggested that Merchan could issue a suspended sentence that would be enacted immediately following Trump's presidency.
A furious Democrat lawmaker on Tuesday delivered what he felt to be dark truths about President-elect Donald Trump, his would-be Cabinet, lawmakers willing to serve them, and the people they plan to serve.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), ranking member of the House Rules committee, delivered a lengthy screed against Trump and the Republicans ready to back him as he returns to the White House in 2025.
"The new administration is leaking plans to court-martial military officers who are not sufficiently loyal," McGovern said. "Isn't that usually how things go in an authoritarian dictatorship? Purge the military of anyone who might have a spine and refuse to obey an unlawful order? What the hell is going on here? And their Cabinet picks so far? These are like beyond insane."
McGovern made this declaration in the House of Representatives during an address to his "Republican friends" detailing his concerns about controversial policy and nominations.
"This is the dream team?" said McGovern. "Someone who sucks up to foreign dictators and has attracted major concern that they can't be trusted to protect America's secrets from our adversaries? Someone who paid hush money to cover up a sexual assault accusation? ...Someone who says that tap water turns kids gay?"
McGovern added, "Seriously, it would be funny if it weren't so sad."
Then, McGovern raised concerns about recent reports of policy Trump and his allies plan to pursue.
The bill under debate Tuesday was one that MSNBC analyst Ja'Han Jones described as a "gift to Trump;" H.R. 9495, which would allow the U.S. Treasury to yank tax-exempt status from nonprofits deemed “terrorist supporting organizations.”
McGovern described it as a bill that would grant Trump "a new power to unilaterally accuse an American group of terrorism and then shut them down."
The Massachusetts Democrat pleaded with his Republican colleagues not to interpret Trump's Election Day victory as a mandate to grant the president-elect absolute control, but a plea for cheaper groceries.
"They voted for their pocketbooks and frankly I don't blame them," he said. 'Beyond insane': Furious Dem lashes out at Trump Team on House floor"You know who I do blame? I blame the billionaires who have rigged our country against working people and spent the last four decades squeezing every penny they could out of people. I blame the politicians, including the incoming administration, who have abandoned workers and who have done nothing while the rich get richer and everyone else gets screwed."
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), a far-right lawmaker known for her confrontational style, clashed with CNN's Boris Sanchez on Tuesday, arguing that the House Ethics Committee should not release the report on allegations against former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) — and even attacking the integrity of Senate Republicans who want to see the report before voting on him for Donald Trump's attorney general.
"I want to get your response to this attorney for the two women who testified before the House Ethics Committee, saying that Gaetz paid them for sex over ten times during a two-year period, one of them alleging that Gaetz unknowingly had sex with an underage woman," said Sanchez.
Luna categorically stated she did not believe any of this, noting that the FBI declined to prosecute Gaetz directly for the scheme. "I really would appreciate it if networks would cover the fact that this was also tied to a $25 million extortion scheme against Matt Gaetz and his father, and to furthermore, you know, I find it interesting that these actual allegations come out at peculiar timing, while he's being nominated to be the attorney general," she said.
She then launched into an unprompted complaint about previous rumors swirling that she and Gaetz had been sexually involved, and called the entire ethics investigation a "smear campaign."
"Shouldn't the Senate, as it weighs this nomination, have access to the testimony of these women to see it for themselves, to gauge for themselves whether these accusations are credible?" Sanchez pushed back.
Luna disagreed. "If the DOJ and the FBI had issues and questions of credibility, then why would we then even allow that person to have a platform?" Then she reiterated that Gaetz was "extorted," accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of breaking the law — which she previously tried to force her caucus to arrest him for — said Gaetz will "weed out the corruption," and complained that "any Joe Schmoe" shouldn't be allowed to give testimony to the Senate.
"This isn't just — Congresswoman, respectfully, this isn't just any Joe Schmoe," said Sanchez, struggling to get the conversation back on track. "This is testimony that was given to the House Ethics Committee. This is a report, a bipartisan report that's been compiled, that Republican senators are now asking for. Should it not be released?"
"This is the same testimony that was, again, dropped by the DOJ and the FBI because these people were not credible," she repeated. "And I will say that for the senators that are coming forward and stating that they need to read this testimony, let's look into these people's stock portfolios and how they're becoming multimillionaires off of $175,000 a year."
After several more minutes of her complaining about the allegations, Sanchez said, "I do want to go back to something you said, Congresswoman, because these are Republicans, the Republicans asking for this House Ethics Report to be released. It's people like Senator John Cornyn of Texas. He — it would be hard to describe him as anything but aligned with MAGA. Are you suggesting that there's something in his stock portfolio that's questionable?"
"I'm suggesting that John Cornyn, to my knowledge, made statements that were actually anti-MAGA about President Trump," said Luna. "And same with the new elected Senate leader. But I will say that [newly-elected Senate majority leader John] Thune has since changed his tune. And it seems like he's more aligned with MAGA and President Trump."
Under further pressure, she continued to insist it was "unethical" for Senate Republicans to demand the report, adding, "those people from the get-go have not wanted Matt Gaetz to be the attorney general pick. So in my mind yes, it's absolutely a smear campaign ... I believe that Matt Gaetz is innocent."
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said that his team is ready to "plug right in" if President-elect Donald Trump picks him to head election security for the federal government.
In a recent interview with Wired, Lindell insisted that he was continuing his crusade to secure elections despite Trump's win in 2024.
"I've been trying to get rid of these electronic voting machine companies in the United States for four years," the pillow executive explained. "That's been my whole focus. And that doesn't stop, but hopefully it gets easier."
According to Wired, Lindell has spent $40 million of his own money while trying to prove the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Cybersecurity experts have said there was no evidence of widespread fraud in 2020.
"I haven't taken a break," Lindell insisted. "After the election, I went on my annual hunting trip with my sons and my nephew. That was two days, but I was actually working from the deer stand. I'm always working on my phone."
The election fraud crusader hoped Trump would establish a "bureau that's really focused on keeping our elections secure." And he said he would be willing to run the agency.
"Oh, absolutely, my team would plug right in," he insisted.
The federal government already runs the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is charged with securing elections.
After the 2024 election, CISA Director Jen Easterly said there was "no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure."
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) vowed that "every single agency" in the federal government would be ripped "to shreds" after Republicans take control of the House, Senate, and White House.
During a Tuesday appearance on the War Room podcast, Greene railed against funding for the defense of Ukraine.
"There is the biggest paper shredding, file deleting, dumpster fire burning going on in every single department, especially in the Pentagon and the State Department," she opined. "They are covering up as much as they possibly can."
"These people are plotting war against us like never before," Greene said of Democrats. "We know our enemy. We've been fighting them for too many years."
Host Steve Bannon asked Greene to advise his audience on "the best way to combat the resistance that's already building."
"And the attitude and mindset is you don't let off the gas, you push that gas pedal down harder," Greene insisted. "And we go in every single agency, and we are going to gut them and rip them to shreds."
"There is no apologies," she added. "There is no reset. There is no unity. There's no unity because they don't want unity with us."
"Right now they're trying to figure out, they're gaming out what they're going to do, but they're embedding their people in as tight as they can, as tight as they can, while they're trying to be like, play a little nicey-nice to people like me."
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) is introducing a binding resolution to ban transgender women from using women's restrooms in the House of Representatives, after Sarah McBride, a Democrat from Delaware became the first openly transgender American to be elected to Congress. If passed, Congresswoman Mace says, it would require the Sergeant at Arms to enforce it. Speaker Johnson appeared noncommittal but reports say he may support it as a rules change.
But just three years ago, a few months into her first term as a member of Congress, Mace co-sponsored the GOP alternative to the LGBTQ Equality Act.
“I strongly support LGBTQ rights and equality,” Mace told the Washington Examiner's Brad Polumbo. “No one should be discriminated against.”
"I have friends and family that identify as LGBTQ," she added. "Understanding how they feel and how they’ve been treated is important. Having been around gay, lesbian, and transgender people has informed my opinion over my lifetime."
"I feel like it’s my duty to speak up on these issues, and to sponsor legislation on these issues, because I want people on both sides of the aisle to know that there are Republicans that care," Mace continued. "That we are compassionate. There are many of us that want equality for everybody."
Congresswoman Mace ran on a platform that included highlighting that she was the first woman to graduate from The Citadel, a public senior military college.
She has often referred to that fact, as she did at the Republican National Convention in July.
NANCY MACE: "Twenty-five years ago, this high school dropout became the FIRST woman to graduate from the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina!"
"A college campus where we don't BURN American flags, we SALUTE them!" pic.twitter.com/M14PhEiBzi
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 17, 2024
And she has used her graduation from what was once a male-only institution to attack transgender women.
Women deserve to keeping having firsts, winning trophies, breaking records, and glass ceilings.
As the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel, I will always be a voice for women.
We don’t just identify as women—we are women. pic.twitter.com/4hDM9q4wGx
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) October 30, 2024
Mace's House resolution claims, "allowing biological males into single-sex facilities, such as restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms designed for women, jeopardizes the safety and dignity of Members, officers, and employees of the House who are female."
Late Tuesday morning Mace targeted McBride, telling reporters when asked, "Sarah McBride doesn't get a say in this. This is a biological man trying to force himself into women's spaces and I'm not going tolerate it. You have the radical left that are trying to erase women and erase women's rights. I'm the first woman to graduate from The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. If some guy in a skirt came by and said, no, that's my achievement, I'm gonna be there and standing in the way and saying, 'hell, no.' I'm not gonna allow men to erase women or women's rights, and I'm gonna be standing up here."
"This is about women, this is about girls, it is about our rights and being protected in our private spaces. I don't wanna see a man in a women's restroom. That's not a thing, and it's not going to be a thing up here. It's not gonna be a thing anywhere across the country either," she concluded, appearing to suggest she would try to make the ban national.
Over the past 24 hours Mace has also flooded her official government and personal social media accounts on X with dozens of her attacks on transgender women, including these:
"Biological men do not belong in private women’s spaces. Period. Full stop. End of story."
"Women's bathrooms are for biological women. Not men in a mini skirt."
"I don’t want people with penis’s [sic] showing them off in our locker room."
"The radical Left is calling me a 'threat.' You’re damn right I am. I am a threat to anyone who wants to strip women and girls of their rights," she also wrote. Mace previously had co-sponsored legislation stating that life begins at conception, which would effectively ban abortion. She also says she is "pro-life" and supports bans on abortion after an unspecified amount of time.
And she made clear that her resolution—which does not ban transgender men from men's restrooms—was drafted for one person, writing: "McBride, a biological male, does not get a say in women's private spaces."
Congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride on Monday evening appeared to respond to Mace's resolution, by taking the high road.
"Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness," she wrote.
But minutes later she added a more-direct response: "This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing. We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars. Delawareans sent me here to make the American dream more affordable and accessible and that’s what I’m focused on."
Critics are blasting Mace.
"Please note that Nancy Mace didn't do this until there was a specific Representative elected by the voters, a colleague to whom she hopes to deny basic human dignity. An awful, cowardly thing to do, but her desire for attention is a bottomless pit that can never be filled," charged Aaron Fritschner, Deputy Chief of Staff to U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA).
"Whatever your views on trans issues, Nancy Mace is doing what Nancy Mace does: trying to get attention. Every lawmaker—including Sarah McBride, the incoming trans rep—has a restroom in their office. This is a solution in search of a problem, because Mace is a performance artist," wrote Billy Binion a reporter for the libertarian magazine Reason. "Nancy Mace has passed one bill—a law that changed the name of a post office in Hilton Head. This is the same person who showed up to the Capitol wearing a scarlet letter so she could show off for the cameras. She spends taxpayer money performing & trying to get attention."
"For Nancy Mace," remarked Christina Reynolds of Emily's List, "the cruelty and exclusion is the point. I hope voters from her district will call her office and remind her that they expect her to work for them, not to attack their coworkers to score points with MAGA extremists."
Meanwhile, Tuesday morning, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested he was unwilling to discuss Mace's resolution, at least for now.
"I'm not going to address plans on that," he said when asked if he wanted to add Mace's resolution into the House rules package. "I’m not going to engage in this. We don't look down upon anyone."
Reporter: Do you plan on bringing Nancy Mace’s transgender bill and putting it into the rules package?
Johnson: I’m not going to engage in this. pic.twitter.com/YQIzQmgkBA
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 19, 2024
But Punchbowl News and NBC News' Melanie Zanona reports Johnson may have made a commitment to Mace to ban transgender women from women's restrooms on Capitol Hill:
"I’m told Speaker Mike Johnson has committed to Nancy Mace that he will not allow biological men in women’s bathrooms & locker rooms in the Capitol next year, by adding a provision in the House Rules package. Mace is still reserving the right to file it as privileged resolution or amend it if that doesn’t happen though."
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) accused the first transgender member of Congress of "physical assault" for using the bathroom corresponding to her gender.
After Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-DE) was elected, Greene appeared on Steve Bannon's War Room, where she misgendered the new member and made baseless claims of mental illness.
Greene said she attended a House Republican conference meeting and demanded Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) address the "war on women by mentally ill men pretending to be women."
"What are we going to do to keep him from coming in our bathrooms?" she said, misgendering McBride.
Greene insisted that McBride using the bathroom was "an assault."
Several studies have found no evidence to support claims that transgender people pose an increased safety threat in bathrooms.
"I'm not kidding you," Greene opined. "It is like a physical assault for a man to come in, charging into our private places, bathrooms, locker rooms, our gyms, places that are designated specifically for women only."
Greene revealed that Johnson planned to ban McBride from women's bathrooms.
"It's time for men in this country to defend women," she said. "I am so fed up with it, Steve."
McBride responded to anti-trans commentary on X Monday night.
"Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness," McBride wrote.
"We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars."
Former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross lashed out at one-time colleagues Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough after they met with President-elect Donald Trump.
In a Tuesday post on the Threads social media platform, Cross addressed the hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe after their trip to Mar-a-Lago.
"So after letting [Trump] call into their show routinely in 2016 and joking and laughing with him," she wrote, "they went to meet with him this week huh? They never face the consequences we do. It's all just cables fodder for them. They're propped up as the 'flagship show' like it's normal."
"We know better," she continued. "But sure. You guys keep watching them if you like."
Cross included a quote from her 2020 book "Say It Louder."
"With Trump, the networks were enjoying great gains in viewership thanks to lapses in judgement by people who treated intolerance, xenophobia, and misogyny as though it was something to be laughed at and not taken literally of seriously," the quote said.
Business leaders are nervous about the economic impact of two of Donald Trump's signature campaign promises — and some of them are hoping they can talk him out of going through with them, according to an analyst.
The president-elect has vowed to impose stiff tariffs on imported goods and deport millions of migrants, which economists say would likely increase inflation. MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire told "Morning Joe" that Wall Street is worried.
" Trump prizes the economy most of all," Lemire said. "That's his favorite metric whether or not his presidency is a success, and for both on this idea of deportation and the tariffs idea, they're linked here. There is some belief that business leaders and others will talk him out of it and say, 'Look, you'll ruin the economy if you do these things, it will damage your presidency.' That's possible."
However, there's no indication that Trump or his advisers are backing off their plans, which the president-elect confirmed could include declaring a national emergency and ordering the military to assist in the deportations.
"Maybe it will narrow, but at least right now they're talking big," Lemire said. "They're acting like they're going to go through it, and these are, again, the signature promises of his campaign. Maybe, yes, maybe he'll cut a deal, maybe he'll make it smaller. Maybe he'll take the win and move on to something else, but maybe not. A lot of people in this country are afraid he'll do exactly what he says."
The president-elect has also authorized tech billionaire Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to make drastic cuts to federal spending, which would likely cast millions of government workers out of their jobs, and MSNBC's Claire McCaskill said that poses deep threats to the economy.
"Elon Musk is talking about cutting two-thirds of the federal workforce," McCaskill said. "Well, by the way, does he know that two of the largest employers in the federal workforce are the Pentagon and Homeland Security? If you take those agencies and set them aside and cut the workforce, then we're talking about people who deliver payments to the American citizens. We're talking about the Medicare system that delivers payments on behalf of Americans.
"We're talking about Social Security that delivers payments on behalf of America. So there really is this disconnect between how realistic a mass deportation is in light of other things they say they're going to do and how it will look to America if they erect these large holding facilities with the money they take from the military, which, by the way, they tried with the wall. He declared a national emergency and diverted Pentagon funds to do, what, 20 miles, 100 miles? He didn't build it, but he built some of it."
"It really is a head-scratcher," McCaskill added. "They will be very savvy about using, deporting people who have been convicted of crimes or charged with crimes. They'll do really smart photo-ops with those folks, and there's about a million of those people in the country. Most of it's low-level crime, some of it is not. That's what they will do first and the big splashes they'll use to try to convince Americans that he's doing some mass deportation. But I think [to be determined] on the idea he could do a mass deportation, and I don't think the American public will stand for it."
Donald Trump has demanded that Republican senators step aside and allow his controversial Cabinet nominees to waltz into their positions unimpeded — but they're privately bristling at the challenge to their authority, according to a new report.
The president-elect wants both houses of Congress to call themselves into recess so he can appoint his Cabinet without confirmation hearings, but Axios correspondent Hans Nichols reported that GOP senators are not exactly eager to give up their advise-and-consent role — especially in the case of attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz.
"That's the open question, and I think, you know, all of us reporters, it's incumbent upon us to kind of get a sense of how intense this battle is," Nichols told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"It's an institutional battle between the Senate and the presidency, and the battle is joined. When the president of the United States starts personally calling senators, really leaning on them, there's no way out of that sort of showdown, and there is a lot that's interesting about this."
Senators are especially concerned about Gaetz, who resigned immediately upon his nomination last week and prevented the House Ethics Committee from releasing a report on its investigation into sex trafficking allegations against the Florida Republican.
"It's interesting Trump didn't apparently really call any senators before he made these nominations," Nichols said. "He's making these calls after he's already sent them, so not a whole lot of advising in the advise-and-consent part. Two, we have to see what the senators actually say when they get pressed and pushed by Donald Trump. We talked to Sen. [Kevin] Cramer (R-ND). He said Trump is very persuasive, but you know, everyone at the table knows senators don't like being told what to do."
"They like their prerogatives and they want to see the report, to see the contents of that ethics report," Nichols added, "and they say they want to give Gaetz a fair hearing, but they want to know what's actually in there, and it's pretty clear whether or not it's the entire report or just the contents of the report, that a lot of the details will come out and then it's just up to the senators. Are they willing to defy the president that just handed them the majority?"
Donald Trump has vowed to begin his mass deportations program on his first day in office, and confirmed early Monday morning he plans to declare a "national emergency" and use "military assets" to achieve his goal of removing "millions" of undocumented immigrants from the United States.
“On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out,” Trump told supporters during his infamous Madison Square Garden rally last month.
But deporting millions is not the president-elect's only anti-immigration goal.
Trump's incoming White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Stephen Miller, who is the architect of the "zero tolerance" family separation program in his first term, has bigger plans.
Miller, according The New York Times, has said that "military funds would be used to build 'vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers' for immigrants as their cases progressed and they waited to be flown to other countries."
The U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) would be in charge of the facilities, which The Times has called "camps."
"The Trump team believes that such camps could enable the government to accelerate deportations of undocumented people who fight their expulsion from the country. The idea is that more people would voluntarily accept removal instead of pursuing a long-shot effort to remain in the country if they had to stay locked up in the interim," according to The Times.
"Trump has said he would build 'vast holding facilities' — detention camps — to lock people up as their cases progress; end birthright citizenship, even though the Constitution protects it; and bring back a version of the travel ban from his first term, which barred visitors from several mostly Muslim countries. Another Trump promise, mass deportations, hasn’t been tried since the 1950s; now, polls show majority support for it, including among Latinos," The Times had reported over the summer.
"Self-deportation," or, "provoking immigrants to leave of their own volition," as The Times described it, "has gone out of fashion but the idea continues to lurk."
"This time, instead of directly pressuring undocumented adults to flee, some immigration opponents are threatening access to school for their children. It’s a nuclear option — requiring the reversal of a Supreme Court ruling that has been a linchpin of educational rights for four decades — that some of Trump’s allies on the right are quietly building support for."
The Times reports there are 600,000 undocumented children in the U.S., and "another 4.5 million have a parent who is here illegally."
Tom Homan, Trump's incoming "border czar," has said that rather than breaking up families, "families could be deported together," presumably even if some members are U.S. citizens:
Trump's team "also plans to expand a form of due-process-free expulsions known as expedited removal, which is currently used near the border for recent arrivals, to people living across the interior of the country who cannot prove they have been in the United States for more than two years."
And in another example of the Trump team appearing to want to make life in the United States unbearable for the undocumented, The Times reported Monday the Trump administration plans to "stop issuing citizenship-affirming documents, like passports and Social Security cards, to infants born on domestic soil to undocumented migrant parents in a bid to end birthright citizenship."
Constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis last week said, "Birthright citizenship is a foundational concept in American constitutional law. It is a betrayal of the 14th Amendment to suggest otherwise or that it can be discarded with ease. We settled any doubt about this in Wong Kim Ark in 1898. We should not budge one solitary inch."
But Trump himself has declared, "going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship."
That would, as Professor Kreis notes, directly contradicts the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which also bans Americans who "have engaged in insurrection" from holding office.
