US President Joe Biden has signed his administration's new budget legislation, which includes billions more in aid for Ukraine.
The budget approved by both chambers of Congress comes to a total of $1.7 trillion.
About half of the budget signed off by Biden on Thursday - almost $858 billion - is for defence spending. About $45 billion of this is earmarked for assistance to Ukraine.
The passage of the budget bill is a success for Biden's Democrats. The budget provides slightly more support for Ukraine than the president had originally requested from the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Last Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an impassioned speech in person to Congress in Washington to appeal for more support.
Included in the money for Ukraine is about $9 billion earmarked for military aid and nearly $16 billion for economic and humanitarian aid.
In addition, $12 billion is planned to replenish the US military's ammunition stocks and warehouses following its deliveries to Ukraine.
Another $7 billion is earmarked for additional spending by US troops in Europe.
According to Reuters, Congressional Republicans who have already requested documents from the White House to initiate investigations and hearings have been denied access to those documents from President Joe Biden's special attorney.
The document requests covered a series of subjects, from the withdrawal from Afghanistan to the Hunter Biden investigation. The attorney, Richard Sauber, separately informed Republican representatives James Comer from Kentucky and Jim Jordan from Ohio via two letters that their requests do not hold validity since the Republicans currently do not control the Congressional oversight process.
Both Comer and Jordan are front runners to control leading oversight committee positions starting in January, but Sauber let the duo know that they had to wait until then to submit and complete their document requests from the newly Republican-controlled Congress, not as individual requests. Comer and Jordan have publicly stated that a denial of their individual requests would resort in legal actions.
Although Republicans are set to officially take over as the majority in the House of Representatives next week, the party for weeks has been engulfed in chaos and infighting surrounding the endangered Speaker bid of GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
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Republican congresspersons who represent districts that President Joe Biden won in the 2020 election are throwing down the gauntlet at opponents of Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
In a letter flagged by Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, 15 GOP lawmakers informed their intransigent Republican colleagues that they will not be happy with what happens if they are successful in blocking McCarthy from becoming Speaker of the House.
"Let us be clear: we are not only supporting Kevin McCarthy for Speaker, but are not open to any so-called shadow 'consensus candidate' -- regardless of how many votes it takes to elect Speaker-designate McCarthy," they wrote. "There is no other conservative candidate that can garner the support of 218 Republicans for Speaker -- period."
The Republicans go on to point out that McCarthy has made a number of concessions to hardliners in the hopes of securing their votes that they are willing to go along with only if Republicans make McCarthy Speaker.
They also warn that a "protracted floor fight over the Speakership" will do significant damage to the party's image in terms of being able to govern.
Despite all this, there has so far been no indication that any of the Republicans who are against McCarthy are willing to budge, leaving him short of the 218 votes he will need to assume leadership in the House of Representatives.
Read the full letter below.
As the public learns more from the deep dives from witness interviews hosted by the Jan. 6 investigative committee, a closer look into the psyche of former President Donald Trump during the tense transition period after his November defeat and prior to the inauguration continues to be revealed. Trump's attitude extended all the way through Inauguration Day, with White House personnel being the victims of his harsh manner.
According to Axios, former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham testified to the Jan. 6 committee that Trump became incensed when he learned that the White House Chief Usher, Timothy Harleth, a former employee of the Trump Organization, went above and beyond his responsibilities to communicate with President Joe Biden's transition team to assist with the logistics for the Bidens move into the White House.
It is common knowledge that the outgoing White House administration and staff work with the incoming White House administration and staff to make the transition as easy as possible, in what is expected and supposed to be a politics-free process. Trump wanted his administration and staff to blatantly ignore this tradition, especially the employees that he had ties to prior to serving as President.
In Grisham's interview, upon learning about Harleth's actions, Trump, along with then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, wanted to fire Harleth immediately, no questions asked. According to Grisham, former First Lady Melania Trump intervened and demanded her husband not to fire Harleth. Melania had personal interest in the situation, as she had appointed Harleth to the position upon entering the White House in 2017.
According to the New York Times, Harleth was fired three weeks later on Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
The lack of a Chief Usher meant that, when the Bidens arrived at the White House for the first time, there was no designated personnel to have the White House doors open, so they arrived to a closed set of doors.
Donald Trump says he’d never cut Social Security and would protect “the three exceptions” for abortion were he to get into the White House again, according to an interview released this week at Breitbart.com.
Trump predictably used the interview to attack Republican foes and failed candidates, but he struck a moderate tone – channeling his liberal-ish persona on Howard Stern decades ago – in lecturing the Right on the need to change its electoral strategy. Trump blamed fellow Republicans for “falling into Democrat traps” in the midterm elections.
“We’re not cutting Social Security,” Trump told Breitbart. “It’s very simple. It’s a simple answer. We’re not cutting Social Security.”
Trump criticized Republicans for promising to tackle “entitlement reform” after the midterms as it gave President Joe Biden an issue to exploit in the runup to the election, Breitbart reported.
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“They fell into the Democrat trap,” Trump said. “I heard that. A couple guys were talking about it, and I said, ‘that’s the end of his career.’ But it isn’t a question of the career."
“It’s a contract with the people. They go in. They work and they do. They put their blood, sweat, and tears into Social Security and then you have a guy like a Paul Ryan or others that want to destroy it. We have a contract.”
Noting that Ryan was now a board member of Fox News’ parent company, the Breitbart piece attacked Ryan for again promoting cuts to Social Security, which it said had “caused irreparable harm to the Republican Party.” Trump agreed.
“Paul’s a loser,” Trump told Breitbart News in response. “Paul has always been a loser.”
RELATED: Mary Trump lays out reasons why 'the doors' may finally be 'closing in' on her uncle in 2023
Trump also criticized Republicans who made unwavering opposition to all abortions a part of their campaign. Here’s Breitbart’s reporting on that:
“Trump argued that Republicans must support what he called “the three exceptions”—for rape, incest, and the life of the mother—to any measures banning abortion, or else they face electoral elimination in most of America. Trump specifically singled out Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon and Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, both of whom lost their respective races this year after taking hardline positions without such exceptions.
“Now, I think a lot of Republicans didn’t handle the abortion question properly,” Trump told Breitbart News. “I think if you don’t have the three exceptions, it’s almost impossible in most parts of the country to win. If you don’t have three exceptions—I said to a very nice man running for governor of Pennsylvania, ‘If you don’t have the three exceptions, you can’t win.’ Same thing with Tudor. She didn’t have the three exceptions. I say this to the Republican Party: If you don’t have the three exceptions, because you know the Democrats are radical and they’ll kill the baby at nine months or they’ll kill the baby after the baby is born. Okay? That’s more radical. But you know a 15- or 16-week period of time, but you have to have the three exceptions. If you don’t have the three exceptions, you’re destined to doom.”
Law enforcement officers would've used deadlier force against the January 6, 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol if the rioters had been predominantly Black, House Sergeant-at-Arms William Walker told the congressional January 6 panel in recently unearthed testimony.
“I’m African-American. Child of the Sixties. I think it would have been a vastly different response if those were African Americans trying to breach the Capitol,” Walker told the panel in his April testimony.
“I think the response would have been different, a lot more heavy-handed response to, I think there would have been a lot more bloodshed,” Walker said. “You know, as a law enforcement officer, there were — I saw enough to where I would have probably been using deadly force.”
The rioters that day were predominantly white. Not only was there a stunning lack of law enforcement and military officials protecting the Capitol on that day, but the officials who were present largely played defensive roles and even, in some cases, allowed rioters access to the building, standing by while they ransacked the place (largely to protect themselves from mob violence).
In his testimony, Walker compared the police response to the white Capitol rioters to the police response to Black racial justice protesters following the police murder of Black Minneapolis resident George Floyd. In the latter case, police used tear gas and less lethal munitions (like bean bag rounds), made arrests, and took sometimes actions that escalated the protests into uprisings.
Walker also said that the lack of law enforcement officers on January 6, 2021 was surprising because anyone could have predicted that the congressional certification of then-President-elect Joe Biden's victory was going to be chaotic, especially since Trump and his followers had planned to converge on the Capitol that day under false pretenses of voter fraud.
"I'm an intelligence officer ... to me, the intelligence was there that this was going to be a big deal," he said. "You don't need intelligence. I mean, everybody knew that people were directed to come there by the president."
NBC News notes, "The D.C. National Guard was not authorized to assist at the Capitol on Jan. 6 until after a delay of 3 hours and 19 minutes that the House committee's report pins on a 'likely miscommunication between members of the civilian leadership in the Department of Defense.'"
Donald Trump offered a convoluted explanation to claim the 2020 election had been stolen from him in a Thursday morning rant.
The former president misrepresented internal deliberations at Twitter about a decision to block users from sharing an October 2020 New York Post story containing material from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, which Trump and his allies claim was requested by the FBI, but so far no evidence has emerged of any government involvement in that decision.
"So, if the FBI illegally suppressed all of the really bad information on the Biden family (laptop!) at a level never seen before, ('it was Russian disinformation,' they said), while at the same time not letting the many positive things accomplished by 'Trump' get out to the public, but would instead put out 'bad stuff,' that would be the very definition of the Government’s RIGGING of an Election," Trump posted on his Truth Social website. "Pollsters projected this Scam made a difference of Millions of votes. What are the CONSEQUENCES?"
Google search results from October 2020 show that interest in the Hunter Biden story increased after social media companies restricted reports about the materials apparently hacked from his laptop, but it's impossible to know with any certainty whether additional reporting would have cut into Joe Biden's vote totals -- despite the findings of a conservative polling outfit.
The Media Research Center published a poll just after Trump's loss claiming that “full awareness of the Hunter Biden scandal would have led 9.4% of Biden voters to abandon the Democratic candidate, flipping all six of the swing states he won to Trump, giving the President 311 electoral votes.”
But those findings were based on a misleading and highly tendentious question that assumes baseless claims about Trump-pushed conspiracy theory are, in fact, true: “At the time you cast your vote for president, were you aware that evidence exists, including bank transactions the FBI is currently investigating, that directly links Joe Biden and his family to a corrupt financial arrangement between a Chinese company with connections to the Chinese Communist Party that was secretly intended to provide the Biden family with tens of millions of dollars in profits?”
It's not clear what policy successes Trump believes were suppressed by media outlets before his election loss.
With only three days remaining in 2022, the Gun Violence Archive has counted 6,054 gun-related injuries and deaths among U.S. children aged 17 and younger this year so far. The count includes gun assault deaths, suicide deaths by firearm, deaths due to accidental firearm discharge, legal intervention leading to firearm death, and firearm deaths from undetermined causes.
As of Wednesday, 307 children under age 12 were killed by guns and 670 were injured nationwide this year. Among children ages 12-17, 1,331 were killed and 3,734 were injured this year.
The 6,054 kids harmed in 2022 represent a 5.7 percent increase over the 2021 total (5,708) and a 14.7 percent increase over the 2020 total (5,160).
In 2020, firearms became the leading cause of death among children ages 19 and below, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) wrote in an October 2022 report. Firearm-related death rates were highest amongst Black and American Indian and Alaska Native youth, KFF found. While school shootings account for only a small number of child injuries and death, the number of firearm-related suicides among youth has increased steadily since 2011, the report added.
A 2019 report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security found that a majority of the guns used by young people come from the homes of parents or close relatives. Only 23 states and Washington, D.C., have laws requiring gun owners to lock their guns away, out of the reach of children.
It's quite rare for parents to face criminal charges when their children harm themselves or others using their firearms. That's because the laws aimed at preventing children from accessing guns aren't always enforced by local prosecutors, legal experts told NPR.
President Joe Biden (D) signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in June 2022. The legislation strengthened background checks for young adults and reduced gun access for individuals with histories of domestic violence. The legislation also expanded school-based mental health services for providing trauma care to students in need.
However, it remains to be seen whether the Republican-led House will pass additional gun control measures when they take control of the lower congressional chamber in 2023.
The so-called Republican "Red Wave" ultimately looked a little more like a red mud puddle once the dust settled on the 2022 midterm election. Donors are now starting to ask questions about where their money disappeared to when it comes to Republican Party investments.
The New York Times explained that GOP chairperson Ronna Romney McDaniel was put into her office by Donald Trump, but now she's in the fight of her political life as she has to justify her success as a party leader. Bubbling under the surface of that issue, however, is the larger problem the party is facing: they're losing swing voters and there's no plan to get them back.
Since Trump took over the party, they've suffered at the ballot box. They lost the House in 2018. They lost the White House and Senate in 2020 and this year was what the Times called a "history-defying disappointment." Instead of blaming Trump, however, they're looking at McDaniel to blame.
"Those Republicans, whose voices have grown louder in the wake of the party’s weak November showing, see any hopes of wooing swing voters and moderates back to the G.O.P. as imperiled by Mr. Trump’s endless harping on his own grievances, the taint surrounding his efforts to remain in power after his 2020 defeat, and the continuing dramas around purloined classified documents, his company’s tax fraud conviction and his insistence on trying to make a political comeback," said the report.
IN OTHER NEWS: GOP is in a state of 'pure chaos' and is even flopping at political theater: columnist
Her challenge isn't coming from the middle, however, it's coming from the far-right like pillow magnate Mike Lindell, Trump loyalist Harmeet Dhillon, Fox host Tucker Carlson and even Charlie Kirk.
“There may be many reasons for the various losses over the last several years, but what they all have in common is that they occurred under the current leadership, which has promised to change exactly nothing in the next two years,” Dhillon told the Times. “The most unifying thing that Ronna could do would be to move on to new challenges, and allow us to unite around a vision that includes much-needed reforms, improvements, and investments in a winning future.”
According to McDaniel, Dhillon is an election denier who ran a "scorched-earth campaign" against her.
“It’s been a very vitriolic campaign,” McDaniel said in an interview, adding: “I’m all for scorched earth against Democrats. I don’t think it’s the right thing to do against other Republicans.”
Lindell is obviously a strong advocate of the election conspiracy, but McDaniel still refuses to agree that President Joe Biden won fairly in 2020. Ironically, Lindell is now saying that Trump's rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) cheated in his re-election.
RNC committee member Bill Palatucci agrees that the Trumpism that has taken over the GOP has "done so much damage to this country and to this party."
“We have to acknowledge that 2022 was a disaster, and we need to do things differently,” he said. “I would prefer and still hope there would be a different option.”
While Dhillon is making calls to try and get rid of McDaniel, it's working against her among many of those who have been closely allied to the chair over her six years in the office.
“Consultants are running the building at the R.N.C.,” Dhillon told Steve Bannon while at the Talking Points conference. The crowd cheered. “Those consultants get paid whether we win or lose.”
A message on an internal RNC listserv from Jeff Kent, another RNC committee member, said Dhillon “does not have the right to go on national television and defame the character of the R.N.C. members who have chosen not to support her.”
McDaniel is pointing to voters who came out in 2022 as her success.
“We don’t pick the candidate,” she said of the RNC. “We do not do the messaging for the candidates, right? They pick consultants, and their own pollsters. So what does the RNC do? We build the infrastructure. We do the voter registration.”
The vote for the RNC chair will happen at the Jan. 25 meeting.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., criticized former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard — now a Fox News host —for giving embattled GOP Rep.-elect George Santos "zero grace" in a recent interview during which Gabbard questioned Santos' integrity over extensive fabrications on his résumé.
Gabbard was filling in for Tucker Carlson on his Fox News primetime show when she interviewed Santos after he admitted to falsifying multiple aspects of his biography, including his educational and professional background and his alleged Jewish ancestry.
"If I were one of those in New York's 3rd District right now, now that the election is over, and I'm finding out all of these lies that you've told, not just one little lie or one little embellishment — these are blatant lies — my question is, do you have no shame?" Gabbard asked Santos Tuesday evening. "Do you have no shame? And the people ... you're asking to trust you to go and be their voice for them, their families and their kids in Washington?"
Santos, who emerged after days of silence following a major investigative report in the New York Times and several subsequent articles highlighting multiple discrepancies in his biography, deflected the question and instead pointed to Democrats.
"Tulsi, I can say the same thing about the Democrats," Santos responded. "Look at Joe Biden. Joe Biden has been lying to the American people for 40 years. He's the president of the United States. Democrats resoundingly support him. Do they have no shame?"
Greene posted the interview clip on her Twitter Tuesday night along with a thread attacking Gabbard's legislative history and called for Republicans to give Santos another chance.
"I do appreciate that Tulsi says words that sound conservative now even though she can't take action to back them up," Greene said. "I am glad she, like George, realized she made mistakes and was wrong every time she voted to support killing the unborn, taking away our gun rights, and legislated to kill America's energy independence and the fossil fuel industry."
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During the interview, Gabbard also questioned Santos about representing himself as an "American Jew" and saying that he had "been to Israel numerous times for educational, business and leisurely trips."
To which Santos responded: "My heritage is Jewish. I've always identified as Jewish. I was raised as a practicing Catholic," Santos said. "Not being raised a practicing Jew, I've always joked with friends and circles, even within the campaign, I'd say, guys, I'm 'Jew-ish.' Remember, I was raised Catholic."
In a previous campaign video, Santos had said that his "grandparents survived the Holocaust" and included on his campaign website that his "grandparents fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during WWII." But after several reports cast doubt on his story and more reporting revealed that his family shows no evidence of Jewish ancestry and no plausible connections to the Holocaust in Europe, Santos has awkwardly backed away from those claims without exactly admitting they were false.
"So, look, I understand everybody wants to nitpick at me," The New York Republican said. "I'm gonna reassure this once and for all. I'm not a facade. I'm not a persona. I have an extensive career that I worked really hard to achieve. And I'm going to deliver from my experience because I remain committed in delivering results for the American people."
But Gabbard continued the interview in a similar vein, emphasizing that "a lie is not an embellishment on a résumé," and suggesting that Santos' false claims about his educational and professional background call his integrity into question.
"Congressman-elect Santos, we've given you a lot of time. I think the time that is owed is to the people of New York's 3rd. It's hard to imagine how they could possibly trust your explanations when you're not really even willing to admit the depth of your deception to them," Gabbard said.
While multiple Democrats have called for Santos to resign over his résumé fictions, Greene continued to defend him in her Twitter thread, convincing her Republican colleagues to give Santos a second chance.
"I hope Tulsi is sincere, just like I hope George is sincere. I think we Republicans should give George Santos a chance and see how he legislates and votes, not treat him the same as the left is."
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called for bombing raids in Mexico to curtail illegal drug trafficking.
The Georgia Republican revived a plan floated by Donald Trump, based on accounts written in books by former defense secretary Mark Esper and New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, to conduct targeted missile strikes against Mexican drug cartels.
"President Trump was right," Greene tweeted. "We should bomb the cartel’s because they are an international criminal organization murdering our people by lacing deadly fentanyl from China in drugs they illegally sell across our border to US citizens.Not Mexico or it’s [sic] great people, the cartels."
Greene offered a possible preview of the incoming Republican majority's legislative priorities in a series of tweets blaming President Joe Biden and his son Hunter for the explosion in fentanyl use that began during Trump's presidency.
IN OTHER NEWS: Republican desperately tries to downplay his involvement in Jan. 6: ‘Time is not important’
"The Biden admin and US Congress has invested $111+ BILLION taxpayer’s dollars in a war defending the borders & people of Ukraine," Greene tweeted. "The same admin & congress ignore our own daily border invasion and the record high number of Mexican Cartel fentanyl murders of Americans."
"Washington always has a lust for war," she added. "If that’s the case, they need to turn their lust towards a war that actually defends America’s borders and the American people’s lives. But Joe Biden is the best business partner the cartels have ever had and Joe keeps the drugs flowing."
Greene then falsely claimed that fentanyl deaths among Americans age 18 to 45 exceeded all other causes of death combined, and launched a pair of ugly smears against Biden, his daughter Ashley and son Hunter.
"Young Americans, teens to 45, are dying of fentanyl more than covid, cancer, heart disease, and all other deaths combined," Greene tweeted. "Joe doesn’t seem to mind drug abuse bc he campaigned for POTUS while his daughter Ashley was in drug rehab writing about inappropriate showers w/ Dad."
Drug overdoses became the leading cause for Americans age 18 to 49, and about two-thirds of those involve fentanyl, but those fatalities do not exceed all other causes of death, and the FBI found no evidence of the showering allegation in a diary stolen from the president's daughter.
"And we all know the depravity of Hunter’s drug habit, unfortunately we all had to see it on his laptop from hell," Greene tweeted, referring to material hacked from Hunter Biden's computer and discussed by him in interviews. "But just bc Joe Biden doesn’t care how many Americans die from fentanyl, why don’t the rest of the Democrats care? And some Republicans Senators?"
President Joe Biden departed Tuesday for the US Virgin Islands, exchanging a deadly snowstorm for a Caribbean vacation -- and an expected New Year's resolution to seek re-election in 2024.
He took flack from early morning Fox News hosts for being "ready to go have a good time" while Americans confront the blizzard.
However, Biden headed to the island of St Croix with a successful 2022 behind him and momentum building for him to declare, at the unprecedented age of 80, that he wants another four years in the White House.
If nothing else, the week's holiday in the sun will be a welcome break for a president whose first two years in office featured an incredible series of crises -- most of them inherited when he took over at the already record age of 78.
The first half of his term saw the peak and ebb of the Covid pandemic, a humiliating exit from the two-decades-old Afghanistan war, 40-year-high inflation, and the continuing fallout from his Republican predecessor Donald Trump's attempt to upend US democracy.
The Democrat's planned New Year's getaway in Puerto Rico last December was canceled at the last minute because of the Covid Omicron surge.
Today, though, Biden is ready for the beach.
At home, his party scored a string of 2022 legislative victories, rounded off with December's bill protecting same-sex marriage. Once soaring gasoline prices -- the most politically damaging line item in any inflation spreadsheet -- are almost back to normal.
Abroad, Biden is on a strong roll, leading a Western coalition in support for Ukraine's battle against Russia, while ramping up an aggressive renewal of US commitment to Asian allies facing China.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are in disarray as they prepare to take over the House of Representatives in January, and Trump, still the party's dominant leader, faces multiple legal threats.
No wonder Biden oozed holiday cheer in an op-ed published by Yahoo News just before Christmas.
"As we look back on 2022 -- and look forward to what lies ahead -- I have never been more confident about what the American people and the American economy can achieve," he wrote.
White House incumbents nearly always run again -- and generally win.
Just three presidents who served full first terms decided to quit without taking a second shot. Trump is on the short list of presidents whose re-election bids failed.
However, precedent goes out the window when it comes to Biden's age.
He would be 82 at his second inauguration and 86 by the time he left office -- almost a decade older than the previous record-holder for old age in the White House, Ronald Reagan, who finished his second term at 77.
Whether age matters is a matter of debate, often brutal.
Republicans try to portray Biden as senile. They point to his periodic verbal stumbles, his shuffling gait, and moments when he gives the appearance of being confused or forgetful.
Backers say that Biden, whose gaffes and stuttering were a feature throughout his career, shows daily that he is in command of the complex job and that many of his qualities come to the fore when he is off-camera at high-stakes White House meetings.
Kevin O'Connor, Biden's physician, concluded in his annual report a year ago that apart from relatively minor signs of old age, the president was in excellent health and "fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency."
A new physical is expected to be completed shortly and O'Connor's fresh evaluation will be intensely scrutinized.
As for Biden, he wants Americans to judge him on his results, effectively saying age is just a number. "Watch me," he likes to say.
A decision to run will set in motion an all-consuming battle, potentially ending in a rematch against Trump, who has already declared his own campaign. Should Biden step aside, Vice President Kamala Harris would be the obvious replacement on the ticket, but she could face challengers, potentially sparking internal Democratic turmoil.
Whatever gets decided in the Caribbean will initially remain a closely held secret. However, Chief of Staff Ron Klain says that the announcement is only a matter of time.
"The president will make that decision, I expect, shortly after the holidays," Klain said this month. "I expect the decision will be to do it."
© Agence France-Presse
Every airline has experienced disruptions during Winter Storm Elliott, the dangerous nationwide cold snap that began just days before Christmas. But while other major carriers have largely recovered, Southwest continues to struggle, canceling roughly two-thirds of its flights on Tuesday. United, Delta, American, and JetBlue, by contrast, all reported flight cancellation rates of 2% or less on Tuesday.
While Southwest chief operating officer Andrew Watterson said in a memo sent to employees on Monday night that the company's current systems have been "overmatched" by extreme weather, the union representing Southwest flight attendants attributes ongoing operational failures and maltreatment of workers to the corporation's yearslong refusal to invest in much-needed technological upgrades.
"The way Southwest Airlines has treated its flight crews can only be termed 'despicable.'"
"The way Southwest Airlines has treated its flight crews can only be termed 'despicable,'" Lyn Montgomery, a Dallas-based flight attendant and president of Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 556, said Monday in a statement.
"We know the demands of holiday travel. We know winter storms. And believe me, we know about stepping up and putting in long work hours when we are called to do so; we are flight attendants," said Montgomery. "But at this point, the many years of failure by management, despite many unions' demands to modernize, has left flight attendants fatigued, stranded, hungry, and cold—on Christmas! This impacts lives and threatens safety for all."
According to TWU Local 556, thousands of Southwest crew members have been "stranded across the country, some forced to sleep on cots in airports, some in hotels without power or water, and far too many working long hours well past acceptable duty days, and more."
"Trying to get home for Christmas seems like a dream to flight attendants who are struggling with the nightmare of simply trying to secure appropriate shelter, food, and rest," the union added.
Other Southwest employees have also been subjected to abuse. According to a leaked memo from last Wednesday, Southwest's vice president for ground operations, Chris Johnson, told ramp agents at Denver International Airport (DIA) that they will be terminated if they refuse to work mandatory overtime or take a sick day without providing a doctor's note immediately upon their return.
\u201cThe leaked memo from #southwest VP stated that #denver gate agents & staff will be fired if they deny overtime demands. This breaks @coloradogov labor laws. \nThis is a nightmare for corporate leadership, but learn from it. Take a financial hit. Hire more staff. #PeopleOverProfit\u201d
— Ruth, MDiv (@Ruth, MDiv) 1672027971
Like other corporations, Southwest benefited from billions of dollars in federal aid during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although there have been no noticeable improvements in conditions for workers or consumers, chief executive officer Bob Jordan saw his annual compensation package increase to $9.1 million in 2022.
\u201c.@SouthwestAir took $3.7B in federal aid from 2020-21.\n\nIt\u2019s CEO got a pay raise to a $9.1M package in 2022.\n\nYet Southwest employees are working 16 hour shifts & threatened w/termination if they refuse overtime or call in sick.\n\nSocialism for the wealthy. Capitalism for workers.\u201d
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@Qasim Rashid, Esq.) 1672162847
Meanwhile, thousands of Southwest customers have been stranded in airports around the country in recent days, with little knowledge of where their luggage is or when they will be able to reach their destination.
Although the company said Monday in a statement that its agents are trying to re-accommodate as many passengers as possible, it also announced that it will "continue operating a reduced schedule by flying roughly one-third of our schedule for the next several days."
"The plan was to get out of here by now," Amenit Alvarez, who is trying to travel from DIA, told CBS News Colorado on Monday. "I was supposed to be home for Christmas."
According to the outlet: "After two canceled flights since Thursday, Alvarez decided to wait and try rebooking later in the week. While she has friends to stay with, she knows other travelers don't have the same luxury."
\u201c#SOUTHWEST NIGHTMARE: All flights leaving San Diego tonight are canceled, announcement just now over the intercom says the airline is \u201cfrozen and not able to assist with rebooking.\u201d People are told find their bags in these piles. Several are in tears. @10News\u201d
— Laura Acevedo (@Laura Acevedo) 1672110148
In a Tuesday statement, Democratic Sens. Ed Markey (Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) called on Southwest to compensate customers for avoidable holiday flight cancellations.
"Southwest Airlines is failing consumers during the most important travel week of the year," said Markey and Blumenthal. "Instead of a holiday spent celebrating with family and friends, passengers are sleeping in airports or desperately trying to reach customer service agents."
"For those travelers whose holidays have been ruined, there is no real way for Southwest to make this right," the pair continued. "But the company can start by fairly compensating passengers whose flights were canceled, including not only rebooked tickets, ticket refunds, and hotel, meal, and transportation reimbursement, but significant monetary compensation for the disruption to their holiday plans."
"Southwest is planning to issue a $428 million dividend next year," the lawmakers added. "The company can afford to do right by the consumers it has harmed. Southwest should focus first on its customers stranded at airports and stuck on interminable hold."
As Bloomberg reported Tuesday:
The chaos will prove costly to the airline, with Citi analysts estimating it could shave 3% to 5% from Southwest's fourth-quarter earnings. There's a reputational cost as well, with angry travelers stranded over the holiday season and the airline having to apologize, much as it did in a similar collapse after storms in October 2021.
[...]
Dallas-based Southwest's shares declined as much as 6.3% Tuesday and were down 4.8% at 12:53 pm, while United rose and American and Delta declined less than 1%.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) said late Monday that it "is concerned by Southwest's unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays and reports of lack of prompt customer service." The agency announced that it "will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan."
Without naming Southwest, U.S. President Joe Biden wrote Tuesday on Twitter that "our administration is working to ensure airlines are held accountable" and pointed consumers to a DOT dashboard where they can see if they are entitled to compensation.
U.S. Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.) welcomed the DOT's probe of Southwest, arguing that what the company's CEO calls a "tough day" is better understood as a manifestation of "corporate greed."
\u201cThe CEO called it a \u201ctough day.\u201d\n\nI call it corporate greed.\n\n@SouthwestAir underinvested in operations, canceled thousands of flights, and created a nightmare for customers and employees. \n\nI support the @USDOT investigation of Southwest.https://t.co/nZ8r1Oe7st\u201d
— Congressman Chuy Garc\u00eda (@Congressman Chuy Garc\u00eda) 1672160011
Southwest "hurt itself with an aggressive schedule and by underinvesting in its operations," CNN reported Tuesday. "Stranded customers have been unable to get through to Southwest's customer service lines to rebook flights or find lost baggage. Employees also said they have not been able to communicate with the airline."
Montgomery, the president of TWU Local 556, told the outlet that "the phone system the company uses is just not working."
"They're just not manned with enough manpower in order to give the scheduling changes to flight attendants, and that's created a ripple effect that is creating chaos throughout the nation," she added.
Southwest's current issues have been brewing for a long time, according to captain Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association.
"Southwest is planning to issue a $428 million dividend next year. The company can afford to do right by the consumers it has harmed."
"We've been having these issues for the past 20 months," he told CNN. "We've seen these sorts of meltdowns occur on a much more regular basis and it really just has to do with outdated processes and outdated IT."
"It's phones, it's computers, it's processing power, it's the programs used to connect us to airplanes—that's where the problem lies, and it's systemic throughout the whole airline,” said Murray.
Southwest CEO Jordan, in a memo to employees obtained by CNN, acknowledged many of Murray's concerns and pledged to invest in better systems.
"Part of what we're suffering is a lack of tools," Jordan told employees. "We've talked an awful lot about modernizing the operation, and the need to do that."
Markey and Blumenthal argued that "Southwest cannot avoid compensating passengers by claiming these flight cancellations were caused by recent winter storms."
"As Southwest executives have acknowledged," the airline's recent mass cancellations have been "largely due to the failure of its own internal systems," said the lawmakers. "As such, those cancellations should be categorized as 'controllable,' and Southwest should compensate passengers accordingly."
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