'A disgraceful display of political arrogance': Editorial buries GOP over new speaker

'A disgraceful display of political arrogance': Editorial buries GOP over new speaker
(CSPAN screenshot)

The editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch dropped the hammer on House Republicans for making Rep. Michael Johnson (R-LA) the new speaker, pointing out that his attempts to help Donald Trump subvert the 2020 presidential election should disqualify him from public office.

In a biting editorial published on Friday, the board pointed to a post-speaker election press availability when a raucous assemblage of far-right House colleagues shouted down a reporter's question about Johnson's part in trying to undercut the will of the voters and keep Donald Trump in office.

As the editors noted, they disagree with Johnson's stand on just about everything — but that shouldn't be disqualifying.

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What is disqualifying, they wrote, was his attempt to undermine democracy by taking the lead in the House in a plot to steal the election.

Calling the press conference where Rep. Virginia Fox (R-NC) repeatedly shouted "shut up" at the reporter "a disgraceful display of political arrogance," the editors added it was "a reminder that most of the GOP House majority still doesn’t get it."

"The entire attempt to overturn the 2020 election was an illegitimate, arguably criminal, demonstrably dangerous attack on Americans’ fundamental right to have their votes counted. Any involvement in it at all should be politically disqualifying. Instead, one of democracy’s assailants now has one of America’s biggest gavels," they accused.

"True conservatives, who traditionally care about rule of law and fealty to the Constitution, should consider that the House is now led by a man who assertively attempted to disenfranchise millions of voters at the behest of a president determined to hold onto power despite having been voted out of office," they continued before concluding, "That is not conservative at all. And it should give pause to anyone, of any party or political philosophy, who values democracy."

You can watch a clip of the "disgraceful' press conference below.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) tells reporter to 'shut up' youtu.be

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President Donald Trump has shown a revolting side of his personality as he's crisscrossed the country stumping for Republicans ahead of the midterms, according to a new analysis.

Trump promised the GOP that he would spend the last 30 days leading up to the midterms holding rallies to gin up support for Republicans. Those rallies are happening at a time when the president has one of the lowest approval ratings in modern presidential history, causing some Republicans to distance themselves by removing mentions of Trump from their campaign materials.

David Smith, the Washington bureau chief for The Guardian, wrote in a new analysis that Trump's rallies also seem to have brought out a side of him that seems to speak to the racism that has driven the Make America Great Again outrage machine for the last decade.

"Has any president’s closing message ever been so Islamophobic, misogynistic, and racist, not to mention downright deranged and bizarre?" Smith wrote. "It is like watching a man vomit up bigotry that has been poisoning his soul for decades. Just when you think Trump has hit rock bottom, he produces a jackhammer and starts tunneling to a new nadir of nastiness."

Smith pointed to Trump's repeated references to former President Barack Obama's full name, Barack Hussein Obama, and Trump's comments about Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed as evidence of his new nastiness.

"Trump is on an Islamophobic tear," Smith wrote.

These episodes also seem to point to what the next two years could be like after the midterms, according to Smith.

"His rantings and ravings are a grim omen as he enters the Apocalypse Now phase of his presidency. Like Col Kurtz, he is a god to a fanatical but shrinking band of followers. Like Col Kurtz, he may be on a final descent into madness. Two more years? The horror, the horror," he wrote.

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Veteran “60 Minutes” journalist Scott Pelley described unprecedented corporate pressure to make CBS News coverage more favorable to President Donald Trump, drawing a stunning comparison to Fox News from one of its former anchors.

“I had never seen anything like this,” Pelley said Wednesday during a panel discussion organized by Speak Up For Justice, according to The Guardian’s media reporter Jeremy Barr.

“In my experience, and having talked to my colleagues as well, there was an imperative to move our coverage in the direction of the president. To put a thumb on the scale, if you will, in terms of the president's viewpoint,” Pelley said.

The longtime CBS journalist went on to describe what he characterized as an extraordinary intrusion into the newsroom.

“This was corporate influence coming into the news division saying, 'We want you to report stories with this particular bent, in terms of politics’” Pelley said.

“It was anathema to all of us who had worked at ’60 Minutes’ for so many years, and we fought the battle against it,” he said. “We pushed back against it.”

Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson, who also participated in the panel, couldn’t help but make a striking comparison.

“When I was listening to Scott talk ... I was thinking to myself, 'Wow, what he's describing sounds like Fox News.' That's the way opinion TV works,” Carlson said.

According to Barr’s reporting, Pelley also predicted a “huge consolidation” between CBS News and CNN, questioning whether the networks would continue operating separate Washington and London bureaus.

“With $80 billion in debt, those two news organizations are going to get conflated into one – I’m quite certain,” he concluded.

Republican Rep. Mike Lawler faced a wave of ridicule Wednesday after CNN’s John Berman confronted him over rising gas prices and President Donald Trump’s war with Iran.

“Did Kathy Hochul start the war with Iran?” Berman asked after Lawler blamed New York’s Democratic governor for high energy costs.

Lawler paused for several seconds before pivoting to utility costs, as Berman quickly pointed out that national gas prices had soared from $2.98 per gallon before the war to $4.24 Wednesday morning.

“There’s no question. The war in Iran has had an impact on oil markets,” the MAGA congressman eventually admitted, before shifting blame back to Democrats.

The awkward exchange sparked a swift wave of mockery on social media, including from the New York governor.

Hochul’s press office responded on X with one word: “No.”

Serafina J. Chitika, Hochul’s communications director, blasted Lawler and Rep. Bruce Blakeman (R-NY) as “two spineless Trump puppets who will say literally anything to defend Donald Trump's record-high gas prices.”

“6 days out from the election, their closing message is clear: the GOP is bad for your wallet,” she added Wednesday.

House Majority PAC also had blistering words for Lawler after the awkward CNN exchange, writing that Lawler “also said gas prices would be below $3.00 by now.”

“That was a lie too,” the Democratic super PAC wrote on X.

Democratic strategist Mike Nellis called the exchange “brutal,” while author John Long told his followers the interview was “just painful.”

Long later called Lawler a “Trump toadie" who will “now face the consequences.”

“This is so beautiful,” Heidi MacDonald, editor-in-chief of ComicsBeat, joked in a social media post.

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