Rep. David Joyce (R-OH) — a member of the Ethics subcommittee that produced the report linking campaign cash to Botox, an OnlyFans account and shopping sprees — shared his disbelief on CNN as he discussed the historic vote with anchor John Berman Friday morning.
"He had ripped off other members," Joyce said. "If that is not enough to convince the members to remove him from office, I don't know what they are waiting for."
Berman quizzed Joyce about Johnson's decision to vote against the resolution to expel Santos from the House of Representatives, but the Republican couldn't come up with an explanation other than he believed it the right thing to do.
"He said to vote our conscience," said Joyce. "And that is what his conscience told him to do."
Joyce believes the tipping point for those who did vote to oust Santos was a Friday morning message from Rep. Max Miller accusing Santos of victimizing him and his mother.
“He used the campaign as though it is a scam," Joyce said. "For me, it is a simple case."
CNN's Kate Bolduan on Friday schooled Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) over her decision to vote against the expulsion of scandal-plagued Rep. George Santos (R-NY) after a damning House Ethics Committee report found that he spent campaign donors' money on Botox and online pornography.
At the start of the segment, Spartz acknowledged that serious allegations had been made against Santos, but said that he had not yet been convicted in a court of law, which she said should be the standard for expulsion.
Bolduan, however, interjected to note that the United States Constitution does not explicitly say that a member must be convicted in a court of law to warrant expulsion.
"Here is what it says in the Constitution with regard to expulsion: 'Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member,'" Bolduan said. "The Ethics Committee the way they concluded it was that Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit. Why do you want someone like that to be one of your colleagues in voting with you in the House?"
"This is a serious allegation but we have to have a level of proceedings before we go to conviction to expel," Spartz replied. "This should be a last resort. It's only been done when people were convicted in the court of law in crimes or treason."
Rep. George Santos (R-NY) could be expelled from Congress by the end of the day, and a reporter told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" the embattled lawmaker could have a bright future in reality television once his criminal case is resolved.
The New York Republican has been charged with 23 counts, including money laundering and wire fraud, and the House Ethics Committee issued a scathing 56-report detailing his alleged crimes, and Washington Post reporter Jacqueline Alemany compared him to a notorious con artist who posed as a wealthy heiress.
"George Santos is very much a question mark," Alemany said. "This is someone who I think thinks he was Kim Kardashian, but in reality is more of an Anna Delvey, in terms of the criminal conduct."
Delvey was convicted of grand larceny and other charges after posing as an heiress to gain access to the New York City art and social scenes a decade ago in a story that was dramatized in the Netflix film "Inventing Anna," and Alemany said she thinks Santos will wind up on TV himself, one way or another.
"A lot of people are asking, what is he doing next?" Alemany said. "Is there some dating show for people in prison he can maybe go on? Some reality show, that is a serious question people have been asking him, but it remains to be seen whether or not he's actually going to get expelled today. The House Freedom Caucus has come out against it. One, they find the Ethics Committee biased, which is, by the way, equally comprised of Democrats and Republicans. Republicans on the committee unanimously voted to expel him, found him guilty."
And at one point questioned whether he was up to the task.
“I’m praying,” he confided to Perry, who would soon introduce Clark days later to meet the commander in chief, according to The Washington Post. “And wonder if I’m worthy or ready.”
Perry assured him it was God's will.
“You are the man. I have confirmed it," he explained. “God does what he does for a reason.”
"If God chose lawyers, God would never choose Jeffrey Clark, the indicted lawyer," said O'Donnell on his MSNBC show "The Last Word." "There is ample proof of that in the details of how Jeffrey Clark became an indicted co-defendant of Donald Trump's in Georgia."
"Jeffrey Clark was correct to quote, 'I wonder if I am worthy or ready?' He wasn't."
He goes on: "Jeffrey Clark wasn't worthy and was never going to be ready to become Acting Attorney General or to advise a president of United States about anything involving the law at anytime."
A mishap occurred in the brief unsealing of an unredacted version of a 51-page opinion on Wednesday by a federal appeals court in D.C. showcased that the exchange between the two main players suspected of being involved in attempts to subvert the election results.
The document remained viable on the public docket for "several hours" until it was put under seal by the court again, according to the Post.
While Clark is defending himself in Fulton County, Perry has yet to be charged with any crime.
Alice Stewart, former communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) presidential bid, appeared on CNN to weigh in on the 45th president's clash with then Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the days following the Jan. 6 riots.
"Given all that Kevin McCarthy has done to support Donald Trump and going down there to Mar-a-Lago when he supposedly couldn't eat after he lost — Donald Trump certainly should have had his back."
When McCarthy was against the ropes in the lead to his historic Oct. 3 ouster as House speaker, Trump reportedly refused to pull off the Republican mutiny led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and others to remove him from the perch, according to anonymous sources who spoke to The Washington Post.
The two were on a phone call where Trump allegedly dressed down McCarthy for failing to hold off two impeachments and withholding his endorsement of his 2024 presidential campaign, the sources told the publication.
Stewart saw the lack of Trump's reciprocation as predictable.
"This is a classic case of loyalty; with Donald Trump it's a one-way street," she said.
She believes that McCarthy was "loyal" to Trump, but "he did not return the favor."
"He encouraged Matt Gaetz to oust him from being Speaker, and he didn't do anything to help him win," she noted. "The votes were mounting up against him."
In fact, Stewart believes the F-bomb should have been one of many untoward things to be said toward Trump.
"I would have dropped the F-bomb and a lot more," she added. "His campaign says he didn't say that, says they have a good relationship, work well together, talk often, they've agreed and disagreed in the past."
Stewart suspects the fact that they made nice after the confrontation is proof that the incident wasn't as big of deal as is being made, but that isn't as sexy of a storyline."
She said: "It's much better to talk about the f bomb than Kumbaya."
2023 Donald Trump isn't the same as 2016 Donald Trump.
Ex-White House staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin appearing on CNN's "Anderson 360°" said she believes Father Time isn't being kind to the 45th president who at 77-years-old is vying for a second term in the nation's highest office.
"It's interesting, because I think a big part of what his campaign has been saying is 'Look at slow Joe Biden!' and 'Look at how Joe Biden who has been diminished in his old age!'"
Griffin sees the MAGA leader as depleted and lacking the vigor of his former self from a few years back, calling him an "unhinged person."
"If you watch Donald Trump of today and compare it to 2016 — it's not the same person; and I had my own criticisms of him in 2016."
"He is somebody who can't focus on things, he can't remember who's the current president, he can't remember that World War II has already happened. He would be concerned about World War III if he is making a prediction."
Griffin laid out her eyeball assessment of the former president who was quoted standing outside of his $250 million civil fraud tossing verbal digs at state Justice Engoron and his legal clerk last month.
"This rogue judge. A Trump hater. The only one that hates Trump more is his associate up there (pointing with his thumb). Person that works with him. She's screaming into his ear every time we ask a question."
"It's as disgrace you want to know the truth? It's a disgrace."
Griffin called Trump's constant offensives and counteroffensives "just exhausting."
And when he's trying to tear down the judge and his clerk to constantly denying he lost the 2020 election to Biden — all proof that he's slipping, she then suggested.
"This is classic Donald Trump," she said. "It's the unhinged ramblings of a man who believes he can't grapple the fact that he lost his last election, he is coming back and the wealth he is spoken of having and that's being challenged in the court of public opinion and in the actual court."
"It's turned into this unhinged person that we're seeing."
Republicans are incapable of choosing leadership that will not run cover for former President Donald Trump's lies and propaganda — a situation exemplified by their selection of far-right Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) to succeed ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
That's the view of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who broke down the current state of the Republican Party on Thursday's edition of MSNBC's "The ReidOut."
"What do you make of the fact that, I mean, some of the key architects of the attempts to overthrow the election have been rewarded with more power?" said anchor Joy Reid. "The current Speaker of the House was one of the main people, if not the main person pushing the Big Lie, trying to get people to sign on to overthrow the election. Scott Perry, who sought a pardon, according to Cassidy Hutchinson. None of these people have paid a price. The people who have paid a price are people like Liz Cheney, who is out of power and out of office."
"Indeed, when you look at the effort to replace McCarthy, Thomas Emmer, who was eminently qualified, was essentially disqualified because he wasn't a proponent of the Big Lie," Schiff continued. "And what we found out in that speakership fight was the prerequisite to being the leader of the Republican Party in Congress is you must be willing to lie for Donald Trump. You must be willing to undermine our democracy. If you're not, you're not qualified to run this conference. We did end up with a speaker who was very involved in the litigation to overturn this election and we still have a Judiciary Committee chairman who ignored subpoenas of the January 6th Committee and was also one of the architects in the House of overturning the election. The only ones who did pay a political price were Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, those who lived up to their oath of office."
"I think history will reflect very well on them," added Schiff. "But it has been a bitter shock to me and many others that the Lizes and Adams have been so few in number. That the vast, vast majority of Republicans cared far more about holding their office than they ever did about the oath of office. Or anything else."
Far-right Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) was exposed in a report this week to have had far closer ties to indicted former Trump Justice Department official Jeff Clark during the plots to overturn the 2020 presidential election than were previously reported.
This is astonishing, said former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann on MSNBC Thursday — and highly unusual.
"I'm curious, would it be the normal process to go from executive to Congress back to executive to get emergency security clearance like this?" asked anchor Ari Melber, himself an attorney. "And if not, what might that tell you with an investigative lens as you look at all this?"
"Well, of course it's not at all commonplace, and it's also not commonplace to be doing this with respect to somebody who was in the civil division, and part of that was the head of the environmental division," said Weissmann, who previously worked in the Robert Mueller investigation of Russia. "It had nothing to do with the Department of Justice looking at potential voter fraud. That's not his purview, as has been very, very clear. So this is really because they wanted Jeff Clark to issue a letter that was false on the part of the Department of Justice saying they were looking at fraud allegations."
"In fact, the D.C. indictment [of Trump] refers to Jeff Clark going further than that and saying — drafting a memo saying he actually found indications of fraud," Weissman continued. "It reminds me very much of what the former president did with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy. He wanted a foreign country to say that they were investigating his political rival. So to me it's exactly of a piece, which is using a trumped-up claim of a prosecutor looking into wrongdoing to say, ah, see, there's wrongdoing there with respect to either the election or to a political adversary."
"But to me, it also goes to the idea that we now have not just information from Senator Grassley being complicit," added Weissmann. "We now have information, as you referred to, with respect to [Congressman] Perry being complicit. And these are the key people who enable what Donald Trump is doing. And it's sort of shocking that they're sitting members of Congress."
U.S. Rep. George Santos said Thursday he would not stoop to smear the reputations of fellow House Republicans hoping to see him expelled, moments after he called one of them an accused “woman-beater.”
Miller had just broken with House protocol to address Santos directly, saying “You, sir, are a crook.”
“The same colleague was accused of being a woman-beater,” Santos, addressing the chair, replied. “We all have pasts.”
Miller in 2021 was accused of domestic abuse by a former White House staffer whom
he later sued for defamation, according to reports. Miller denied his ex-partner’s claims, which she stood by.
Santos then went on to condemn those calling for his ouster, arguing he was above personal insult.
"I can go and read about all my colleagues," Santos said, glancing down at a sheet of paper he held in his hand. "I'm not going to stand here to smear them...I refuse to stoop to that level."
Video of the encounter went viral on X with viewers sharing what the exchange did to their faith in members of the House of Representatives.
"The Republican Party ladies and gentlemen," wrote
@Tommy_W1587.
"George Santos—Stands there and says terrible things about his colleagues," added
Feminist Wild. "Also George Santos—“I’m not going to stand here and say terrible things about my colleagues.”
Steven B. Rogers said of Miller, "Dude looks like the bad guy from an 80s movie with a Peter Cetera soundtrack amirite?"
The winner of the public relations battle appears to be a man seated behind Santos who quietly expressed his surprise.
As one user described his expression, "This is the look of enjoyment that can only come from watching Maury."
The Justice Department uncovered more evidence of Rep. Scott Perry's (R-PA) involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S Capitol and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, according to court filings revealed this week.
Speaking to MSNBC on Thursday, former House Select Committee investigator Tim Heaphy explained that they were able to obtain a lot of information on Perry through other sources, but that the lawmaker fought cooperating. He explained that there was no choice but to simply move forward. Perry was called, but so was Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who also refused. Others, such as Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows were accused of contempt of Congress.
Under the power of the DOJ, however, special counsel Jack Smith has been able to go beyond the info and obtain damning information about the sitting lawmaker.
"There is direct evidence of what we found circumstantially — that Scott Perry was right in the middle of the effort to install an acting attorney general who was prepared to take action without basis in fact or law," Heaphy explained. "There are some texts from Perry to Meadows which we received from Mark Meadows. So, we were aware of his involvement in this single prong of the multipronged plan to disrupt the transfer of power by using the Justice Department."
He was "dictating messages to the president from Jeffrey Clark," Heaphy explained. "It puts the president himself in the middle of this misguided plan and shows that Perry was the orchestrator. So, I think it's very significant. And it shows that the Justice Department has tools that we didn't have. They can get Scott Perry's phone. They imaged it. They found these texts. We subpoenaed Scott Perry, and he said I'm not coming."
"The special counsel, however, obtained it through a subpoena. So, Jack Smith is using a tool at his disposal to get additional information beyond the circumstantial evidence that we found, not just about Scott Perry, but about a lot of things."
Heaphy explained that Smith and the prosecutors will likely use what they've uncovered to get Perry to cooperate as a witness. At the very least, Smith can use the story to show that the former president had direct knowledge of the plot to overthrow the Justice Department.
"Jack Smith has to prove that the president specifically intended to disrupt the joint session," he continued. Trump's "use of the Justice Department and contemplation of personnel change, Jeff Clark, remember, was prepared to send a letter to state legislatures essentially asking them to hold special sessions and put forth these alternate fake slates of electors, and publicly declare that the Justice Department had serious concerns about election integrity without factual foundation."
Despite many Republican lawmakers saying that there was no basis for the federal government to get involved in the scheme, it nearly happened because Clark and Perry were working together with Trump, Heaphy recalled. It was stopped because the entire Justice Department threatened to resign.
"It bears directly on the president's intent, and that's why it's important evidence for the special counsel," he closed.
As Congress kicked up debate on a new resolution to expel scandal-plagued Rep. George Santos (R-NY) over his serial fabulism, federal fraud indictments, and damning ethics report, disabled veteran Richard Osthoff took to CNN to call on Republicans to oust him.
Osthoff became nationally famous after it emerged that Santos allegedly tried to steal $3,000 from a medical crowdfunding campaign for Osthoff's service dog, Sapphire, who shortly after died of cancer.
"Richard, as somebody who was directly swindled and your dog died — you're a veteran and had a service dog," said anchor Jake Tapper. "What's your message to members of the House deciding how they are going to vote tomorrow? What do you want them to know, if there are any wavering members of Congress? Like for instance, probably a compelling argument for some might be he hasn't been convicted of anything yet, I don't want to set as precedent. What do you say to that?"
"He's convicted in the court of public opinion, if nothing else," said Osthoff. "He's got to go. He should have been gone as soon as they found this out in January. It's a disgrace he won't step down. He's just being a defiant child at this point. Everybody wants him gone. He's not done anything for his constituents, his constituents want him gone. They didn't send him to Washington. They sent somebody else to Washington. And you know, he's up for expulsion. George, if you're expelled tomorrow, are you going to reapply for unemployment insurance again, like you did with your $20,000 you stole? Are you going to reapply again?"
"Richard, did you ever get another dog?" asked Tapper.
"I have three dogs now," said Osthoff, visibly choking up. "I still miss my Sapphire. She was different. It would take three now to fill the hole in my heart. I just got another one when all this went down in January and February. The Animal League got ahold me and got me my little boy. He's about a year old now."
Georgia state Sen. Colton Moore (R) detailed what he called a "foolproof" plan to have charges against Donald Trump and others for an alleged conspiracy to overturn the state's 2020 presidential election dropped.
During an interview with right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon on Thursday, Moore explained how Republicans in Georgia could scuttle the charges against Trump and 19 others.
"I'm working on a piece of legislation called the Stop Political Persecutions Act. This thing is going to be foolproof," Moore said.
"[The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] in the state of Georgia does not have a monetary component like most states do. Some say if we added a monetary component to Georgia's RICO, well, you know, Trump and everybody's been indicted on election stuff, not monetary stuff."
"You know, if that doesn't work, because some people could argue that maybe Trump was trying to make money by getting elected," he continued, "we are going to list out every single charge that these people have been indicted with and just say those charges are not going to be associated with RICO anymore. And therefore, that would retroactively drop the charges."
Moore insisted that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis "would be done" if he could pass his legislation.
"All we need is 29 votes of 33 Republicans, and we could get this done, and we would set Trump free," he said.
Moore has previously
warned of civil war if the prosecution against Trump moves forward.
"We need to be taking action right now," he explained to Bannon earlier this year. "Because if we don't, our constituencies are going to be fighting it in the streets. Do you want a civil war? I don't want a civil war. I don't want to have to draw my rifle. I want to make this problem go away with my legislative means of doing so."
It's being called a "revamp," an "overhaul," and a "shakeup," but media critics, journalists, and journalism experts are expressing outrage at MSNBC for its decision to cancel the weekend show anchored by Medhi Hasan, who many see as an important voice against authoritarianism and the far-right.
Calling Hasan an "outspoken opinion host," and "a cult favorite online for his tough interview style and impassioned monologues," Semafor's Max Tani reported MSNBC "privately announced" the cancellation of Hasan's show Thursday morning. Hasan "will become an on-camera analyst and fill-in host. The network plans to expand host Ayman Mohyeldin’s weekend program to two hours to replace Hasan’s show."
MSNBC is also moving Jonathan Capehart’s show to 6 PM on Saturdays and Sundays, and is cancelling Yasmin Vossoughian’s weekend show.
The cable network will launch a new weekend show, "The Weekend," which Mediaite reports "is billed as a politics and Washington-focused program. It will be hosted from Washington D.C. by MSNBC anchors Alicia Menendez, Symone Sanders-Townsend and Michael Steele on Saturdays and Sundays from 8 to 10 a.m. ET. Both Sanders-Townsend and Menendez will be leaving their weekend programs to join the new show.
"Hasan has come under fire recently over his coverage of the Gaza war, specifically from conservative critics angry over his pro-Palestinian stance," The Daily Beast adds. "Last month, Semafor reported that Hasan was one of three Muslim broadcasters who had been quietly pulled from the anchor’s desk following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack. A network official vehemently denied Semafor’s reporting that Hasan and others had been sidelined."
"The same criticism Hasan has received over Israel-Hamas coverage from media rivals, however, has also followed fellow Muslim-American colleagues Velshi and Mohyeldin, who have retained their shows and even seen their roles expanded. Furthermore, as Confider reported in September, the revamped weekend lineup was already being hashed out prior to the start of the conflict in Gaza."
Many, including those who have been critical of some of Hasan's views, are expressing anger and outrage over the cancellation of his show, and concern for the direction of corporate media in general.
"This is an outrage," declared journalist and media critic Dan Froomkin.
"As the warning signs for authoritarianism are going off, why demote a journalist who is really good on this topic?" asked Don Moynihan, professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Wesley Lowery, now an associate professor of investigative journalism at American University, wrote on social media that Hasan "is the best on-camera newsmaker interviewer in journalism." He suggested, "someone give him a livelier version of what Charlie Rose once did. If you vow to measure the impact of your investment based on the quality of the journalism, not ratings or clicks, I'll EP the first season."
"Without a doubt," wrote former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob, who writes a newsletter on politics and the media, Hasan "has been one of the most incisive anchors on MSNBC. The cancellation of his show is an outrage — and yet another example of how major media are failing us."
"They still have a Republican former congressman hosting a show for like six hours every morning though right?" snarked political strategist, writer, and former Media Maters executive vice president Jamison Foser.
"Wow," exclaimed Max Burns, a Democratic strategist and columnist. Hasan "is easily one of the sharpest, toughest, best-researched interviewers working today. His back-and-forths with politicians both left and right should be models for how to do the job effectively. What a ridiculous decision."
Burns continued, writing: "I look at bizarre news like this and think to myself, if this industry is tossing aside singular forces of journalism like Mehdi, what hope is there for anyone? Clearly doing the job well isn't protection from corporate decisions.
Sherrilyn Ifill, the civil rights attorney, professor of law and former Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), wrote that Hasan "has shown over and over again that he is so good at his craft. His is the journalistic rigor we need in this age of misinformation, lies, and wanna be celebrities masquerading as public servants. I cannot imagine not wanting to elevate his platform."
"Oh no," declared David Rothkopf, the foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator, calling Hasan a "vital voice."
"This is MSNBC’s loss. This is a cowardly move," wrote conservative and former GOP congressman Joe Walsh, who said he and Hasan "disagree on plenty, especially with what’s happening in the Middle East. But Mehdi is an important and valuable voice. And he’s damn good at what he does. It’s so important that ALL viewpoints get heard. Bad move."
In September Hasan "grilled" GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Watch that interview below or at this link.
