The Democratic Party delivered a brutal putdown to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Saturday over his continued refusal to swear in Adelita Grijalva, despite her election victory in Arizona 40 days ago – the longest delay on record between a congressional candidate’s win and their swearing in.

Johnson has faced allegations that his hesitancy to swear Grijalva in stems from his fear of a discharge petition, a legislative tool introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to compel the Justice Department to release files on Jeffrey Epstein. The petition remains just one signature short of having garnered enough support to force a vote on the matter, and Grijalva has pledged to support it.

“It’s been 40 days since [Grijalva] was elected by her constituents,” wrote the Democrat Party on its official X account to its more than 2.4 million followers. “Mike Johnson: Stop protecting pedophiles, swear in Adelita Grijalva, and release the Epstein files.”

Grijalva accused Johnson of delaying her swearing in to prevent a vote on Massie’s discharge petition as early as Oct. 6, and now, nearly a month later, pressure against the speaker continues to rise. Johnson has insisted he was unable to swear in Grijalva until the government re-opens, having been shut down since Oct. 1.

Johnson has also been confronted by survivors of Epstein – who died in 2019 under mysterious circumstances while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges – who last week sent him a letter calling on him to stop obstructing Grijalva’s swearing in.

“Grijalva was duly elected and certified to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives," the letter reads, signed by several Epstein survivors. "Her constituents have spoken, and their voice deserves representation without further delay. The continued refusal to seat her is an unacceptable breach of democratic norms and a disservice to the American people.”

New York Times editor Kathleen Kingsbury wrote Saturday that a small minority of Republicans attempted to block President Donald Trump’s unilateral tariffs on Brazil — and that action said a lot about what they haven't done.

While the votes were not enough to successfully stymie Trump’s tariff — thanks to Republican leaders’ curtailing the power of that vote — Kingsbury said the move indicated the party’s first meager effort to control their party’s leader and his authoritarian-style push for more power.

Many Republicans oppose Trump’s brazen attempt to punish Brazil, likely based on little more than that nation’s prosecution of Trump’s friend, Jair Bolsonaro, for attempting his own Jan. 6-style overthrow of Brazil’s democracy. But they do so in silence, despite the law being on their side, Kingsbury wrote.

“The president doesn’t really have the power to declare tariffs. Trump made it happen by declaring a national emergency over the summer,” Kingsbury wrote.

“What do you think of when you think of an emergency? You think of a war, a tornado, a famine. You don’t think of trade policy,” argued Sen. Rand Paul, (R-KY), who was one of the voices voting to curtail Trump.

But Kingsbury said what was remarkable about the Senate vote was how close it came to making a difference with its a razor thin 52-to-48 vote.

“That means five Republicans joined the Democrats to block Trump’s tariffs, which makes you wonder: If these Republicans can stand up to Trump’s tariffs, why aren’t they showing backbone on preventing millions of Americans from going hungry?” asked Kingsbury, referring to the threat of millions of Americans losing vital SNAP benefits and Trump’s health care budget threatening to spike healthcare costs for 20 million Americans by an average of 75 percent.

They could also stop the military from carrying out illegal international acts of blowing up Venezuelan boats and killing people without Congressional approval, said Kingbury, and they could use their power of oversight to prevent abuse by federal agencies as federal agents harass and descend upon Halloween parades in Chicago.

“The answer can only be that congressional Republicans are OK with such things, because they have the power to stop them and they just aren’t doing it,” wrote Kingsbury. “Remember, the founders gave Congress some of the most important powers of government, including the power of the purse, the power of war and the power to regulate foreign commerce. They wanted Congress to be the most dominant branch. Today, it’s the weakest.”

But it’s their choice, Kingbury argued, as a whole branch of government, under the thrall of one political party, surrenders its power.

“The fact that the Senate found enough of a spine to block Trump’s tariffs only shows how little they’ve done over the last nine months,” Kingsbury said. “It’s true that what we’re seeing from the executive branch can be shocking, but what we’re not seeing from Congress should be just as terrifying.”

President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Friday that he's asking "the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible," after a federal judge ordered his administration to continue funding the program during the shutdown.

But Trump already knows how to shuffle money, says the New York Times Editorial Board. He’s already been funneling it wherever he wants for months, regardless of rules.

“President Trump has played fast and loose with federal law during the current government shutdown to fund the things he considers important,” the Board said. “He has found ways to pay military service members and F.B.I. agents. He has distributed tariff revenues to women with small children and arranged billions of dollars in financial support for Argentina. He has even ordered the Interior Department to keep federal lands open for hunting.”

But what Trump has refused to fund is as equally telling, wrote the editors.

“As the shutdown enters its second month, the president still will not agree to an extension of the federal tax credits that allow millions of Americans to afford health insurance,” the wrote. And up until Friday, the Trump administration declared it would stop distributing food stamps to more than 40 million lower-income families, declining to tap the program’s emergency reserve fund.

The government shutdown is causing Americans pain on many fronts, with more than a million federal workers going unpaid and the Small Business Administration not making loans. Additionally, regulators are not conducting many routine safety inspections of food processing plants.

Trump praises himself as the force behind the Art of the Deal, but the editorial board said he and his congressional allies “could end all of this by doing what they should have done months ago: making a deal.”

“Under current Senate rules, Republicans manifestly do not have enough votes to pass a funding bill on their own, and it is absurd that they continue to insist that Democrats should simply acquiesce. The hard work of governing in a democracy is hammering out a compromise."

Instead, the editors said Trump has sought to heap pressure on Democrats to concede without compromise by suspending funding for projects in blue states, including the important Hudson River train tunnel between New Jersey and New York, and he has targeted mass transit in Chicago for cuts and rescissions.

His most recent ploy to raise the stakes by suspending the distribution of food stamps “is unconscionable,” said the editorial board, however passionately he claims in his Truth Social post that “I do NOT want Americans to go hungry.”

“Republicans say their party has become the party of the American working class. But many working families rely on the tax credits to afford health insurance. And many of those same families rely on food stamps to put enough food on the table,” wrote the editors. “Mr. Trump can serve their needs by demonstrating his skills as a negotiator. It’s time to make a deal.”

Read the New York Times editorial at this link.