All posts tagged "republican party"

GOP faces 'existential threat' with draft of post-midterm investigations: analysis

The Republican Party could face a slate of investigations should they lose the House or Senate after the midterm elections, an analyst claimed.

Whether the GOP loses control of both is yet to be seen, but one political analyst believes the party would be hit hard by the Democratic Party should the blue wave come. Writing in Newsweek, Jesus Mesa suggested that Donald Trump is keenly aware of what fate awaits him should his party fail to retain the House and Senate.

Mesa wrote, "Trump himself has acknowledged what could be coming. 'If we don't win the midterms, they'll find a reason to impeach me,' he told Republican lawmakers in January. What Democrats can actually do with power depends entirely on what they win.

"If they take only the House, they get subpoena authority and the ability to stage public hearings—powerful political theater with real consequences. But Republicans in the Senate can acquit every Cabinet official.

"Contempt citations can be challenged in court indefinitely. If Democrats win both chambers, that changes everything. The investigation machinery transforms from shadow preparation into an existential threat."

Mesa says that although there is a chance the GOP and the Trump cabinet could be investigated in the latter half of the president's term, it all depends on whether the Democratic Party holds a majority in the Senate.

"But none of this moves without the Senate," he wrote. "Ousted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem attracted 187 Democratic co-sponsors for impeachment articles—85 percent of the caucus.

"Before Democrats could move forward, Trump fired her, on March 5. Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi said it would 'be malpractice on the part of Democrats' not to impeach her anyway.

"[Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD)] said her handling of the deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis at the hands of federal agents 'is undoubtedly a high crime and a misdemeanor.' Yet with a Republican Senate, those articles likely die in the chamber."

GOP reps say they 'have no choice' over ICE funding headache: analysis

GOP representatives do not have long to pass a funding bill for ICE, and doing so may prove impossible, according to party members.

The Republican Party cannot muster the votes necessary to pass a funding bill for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with the Democratic Party standing in the way of a funding measure. The bill would see the Department of Homeland Security reopened after a record-breaking shutdown, though Republican representatives fear there will be no middle ground between the two parties.

Speaking to Politico, Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota claimed the GOP simply has no choice when it comes to securing ICE funding. Donald Trump previously issued a June 1 deadline for a bill that would fund the government agency.

Trump took to Truth Social earlier this week and posted, "We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us."

Sen. Hoeven believes it is not as easy as Trump portrays it, saying, "Democrats have put us where we are, and we have to deal with it. We don't have a choice."

Further complaints from the Democratic Party over funding of the Iran war will cause further issues for the GOP, with Sen. Chris Coons speaking of how he and his colleagues view the problems for the party in power.

Sen. Coons, the Democratic Party's senator for Delaware, said enacting funding through reconciliation "requires no compromise with the other party. And if that becomes the sole way we fund the core functions of government, that is a bad idea."

Even some Republicans aired their concern about a funding bill for the Iran war being backed by the Democratic Party. House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said, "I would prefer not to. We'll wait and see. A lot of that depends on what the Democrats want to do."

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) believes the Democrats' refusal to pass the Border Patrol and ICE funding bill would come back to haunt them. Collins warned it "sets a precedent that they may one day come to regret."

GOP 'running out of patience' with Trump's latest behavior: analysis

The Republican Party is running out of patience with Donald Trump because of his frequent cabinet firings, a political analyst has claimed.

Trump has cleaned house in recent weeks, firing Kristi Noem from her position as head of the Department of Homeland Security, and then removing Attorney General Pam Bondi from her post. The GOP, just months out from an election cycle that could see the party lose both the House and Senate, appears fed up with the constant changes to Trump's team.

Chris Stirewalt, writing in The Hill, believes Trump is aware of how fed up the party is with his firings, and that it may delay his push to confirm Todd Blanche as the new Attorney General formally.

"The new acting attorney general, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanche, can legally hold the post without Senate confirmation until the end of October," he wrote. "Whether the president opts to ride that one out for as long as he can or decides to kick off what could be a bruising confirmation fight with a Republican Senate majority that seems to be running out of patience with the president this election year.

"Whether it is Blanche or someone else, they will end up in the same place as Bondi as long as Trump demands results, control and absolute personal loyalty all at once."

Trump may be banking on Blanche as a success for the remainder of his term, as Stirewalt outlines exactly what the president wants from the person holding the Attorney General post.

He wrote, "What Bondi tried to offer Trump was what he lacked in the first administration: a blunt instrument with which to go after his enemies.

"Her February House Oversight and Government Reform Committee testimony, which was supposed to be about unanswered questions concerning the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, devolved into a circus because she was very obviously trying to prove to Trump that she could be the hammer he wants.

"Ultimately, no attorney general can be what the president wants them to be. Judges, grand juries, career DOJ employees and others stand in the way of the kind of enforcement Trump is looking for."

Republicans warned to anticipate 'absolute disaster' as core group abandons GOP: analyst

The Republican Party already has a fight on its hands for the 2028 election as a core voter group looks set to abandon the party.

Analysts warned the GOP that their security ahead of the next presidential election is unsure at best, with a major demographic set to drop out of voting for either party. While it may be unlikely that the Democratic Party sees a rise in voting numbers, it does mean the GOP will see a reduction in theirs, according to Hanna Rosin and Elaine Godfrey.

The pair, speaking for The Atlantic, suggested the podcast figureheads who backed Donald Trump at the 2024 election will abandon the party entirely by the next presidential election.

Godfrey explained, "No one thinks that the people who voted for Trump in 2024 are gonna be so p---ed, they vote Democrat, at least not en masse. The risk is they’re gonna stay home. They’re gonna be like, 'You know what? Whatever. This guy’s, just like all the other politicians. He’s lied so many times. Now we’re in another war.' They’re frustrated; they’re gonna stay at home."

"You have so many voices in his coalition saying, 'We’re disappointed in Trump. He’s betrayed us.' That isn’t gonna get people out to vote. It’s not gonna get people out to volunteer. So I think what could have been a pretty bad year for Republicans might be an absolute disaster for Republicans, thanks to this."

Godfrey went on to suggest even the wider MAGA portions of Trump and the GOP's support could be missing come the next presidential election.

"So the nonideological podcast guys and the hardcore MAGA guys—and women—have that in common," she explained. "So what you’ll see is different candidates trying to pick up this sort of fallen mantle of Trumpism and sort of take it to its conclusion, right?

"And that could mean different things, but I think there’s an opening now for someone to call themselves MAGA, call themselves a Trumpist, but actually not want to go to war with Iran and sort of truly be 'America First,' right — cut off funding to Ukraine, for example, and be also a fiscal conservative. I think there’s a lot of room there for someone to do that.

"Now, I think it’s really hard, at the same time, because if you’re gonna do that and win, I think you have to be charismatic. You have to sort of have the kind of juice that Trump has, which has allowed him to unite this complicated coalition. I don’t know that anyone has that at this point."

Calls for DHS to be shuttered permanently as agency's original aim has been lost: analysis

The Department of Homeland Security should be closed down permanently by the next president, a political analyst has argued.

The Senate and House have yet to strike a deal on reopening the DHS, which has so far been closed for 48 days. It marks the longest shutdown in the agency's history, and some political analysts are questioning whether it is needed at all. Faiza Patel, the senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, suggested the DHS had run its course.

She told Salon, "It [the DHS] actually does have a lot of oversight mechanisms built in, but they haven’t functioned particularly well, and they haven’t been able to meaningfully constrain law enforcement abuses over the course of the department’s history, but particularly so now, and the administration has pretty easily discarded them.

"They’ll put out these bulletins that are based on some random social media posts, and then create this kind of very threatening environment, which obviously would have consequences for how law enforcement on the ground would respond and from the fusion center side as well.

"There’s definitely been a huge flood of unverified, not high quality information coming into DHS. Whether or not that system actually provides any counterterrorism benefit, I think, is really, really questionable."

Further analysis from Patel and Salon columnist Russell Payne suggested the department had lost its way, and the original aims established during its founding were now overshadowed by matters of immigration.

Payne wrote, "Patel said that over the past 24 years, since DHS’s founding, its counterterrorism mission has been eclipsed by immigration enforcement and emergency response duties, in large part due to a lack of real terror threats against the United States.

"There are also valid questions, Patel said, about what the department’s countererror offices are even accomplishing." Further criticism of the DHS has been outlined by Chris Edwards, the Kilts Family Chair in Fiscal Studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, who argued that much of the workload could be outsourced to private companies.

"The model is the Canadian system, which is run by a nonprofit private organization,” Edwards said. “In most European airports and Canada. The screening is done by private companies that you know are hired, and they compete against each other for contracts, and they’re rated on their performance and that sort of thing.”

Calls for the next president to act against the DHS were made by David Perry, a University of Minnesota historian who believes segmenting the agency is the best course of action.

"Put bureaucracy with bureaucracy, put enforcement with enforcement, separate the [Federal Emergency Management Agency] and give it independence again," he said. "That’s three bullet points. I would like to see those three bullet points in the party platform. I think we can do it."

Payne added, "So far, Democrats have focused their criticisms around ICE and CBP, owing to their deadly and high-profile operation in Minnesota earlier this year. Perry believes, however, that now is the time for potential 2028 candidates to begin discussing what their plan for DHS is."

Trump preparing to 'send a message' GOP lawmakers don't want to hear: analysis

A surgeon general appointment could burst the Republican Party's bubble, according to an analyst suggesting Donald Trump may enrage many representatives.

Casey Means is the likely next surgeon general, with the White House reportedly telling the GOP to push through her nomination. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a statement regarding the potential appointment of Means to the post, with the Trump administration clearly backing the candidate.

Leavitt said, "Dr. Casey Means has spent her entire career as an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and researcher bringing attention to America’s chronic disease epidemic and how our healthcare system is failing the American people."

"The President stands by her and the Senate should move to quickly [confirm] Dr. Means as our next surgeon general without further delay."

But Mark Brewer, professor and chair of the department of political science at the University of Maine, believes the president is rushing through the appointment so he can continue his control over certain Republican Party reps, The Hill reported.

Brewer said of Casey, "She doesn’t have the appropriate qualifications. She doesn’t really have kind of any public health experience, per se. If she were to be installed as the surgeon general, I think it would send a message."

"And at least some senators are not interested, it appears, in the message that that would send." Brewer went on to suggest the appointment could come as a way of controlling three GOP reps Trump has, so far, struggled to reign in.

Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy (La.), the HELP Committee chair; Lisa Murkowski (Alaska); and Susan Collins (Maine) were singled out as "immune" to Trump's criticism.

Brewer explained, "He’s got less leverage over those three senators than maybe he would have over some other members of the Senate. He’s already kind of threatened Cassidy, right? And so, he’s already done what he can do there. Collins, he’s got to be careful with if he wants the Republicans to control the Senate."

"Murkowski has already proven that, you know, she’s got her own brand in Alaska, and that she isn’t necessarily reliant on even a party’s endorsement, right? I mean, she ran without that and won."

'Zero respect': GOP civil war erupts as House and Senate feud hits breaking point

The relationship between Republican Party representatives in the House and Senate has never been worse, according to various insiders.

Unnamed GOP lawmakers from both the House and Senate made their thoughts clear on the divisions currently undermining the party. A fix for the Department of Homeland Security freeze pitched by the Senate was trashed by the House, with a boiling point reached, according to NOTUS. Insiders say the divide has only worsened over the last few months, with reps from the upper and lower chambers making clear their thoughts on the tension.

An anonymous House Republican said, "The Senate clearly, like transparently, has zero respect for the House at all. There’s this idea that they are far superior to us intellectually, that they understand issues better than we do. The Senate sees the House as a bunch of sort of barbarians or Philistines, and they’re the enlightened ones."

A separate, senior GOP aide added, "The Senate is still acting like the Senate, which is why the House hates it. It’s sort of ignoring the House’s plight. I think leadership’s trying to be sensitive to that, but members aren’t.

"Even if the relationships are not at an all-time low, the functioning is at an all-time low." Even House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune reportedly do not "respect or trust" one another.

Johnson's aide alleged there was no battle between House and Senate at the moment, and that the GOP is focused solely on pushing through potential divisions.

"Johnson has consistently emphasized the importance of House and Senate Republicans working closely together as one team, and he has worked hard to ensure it," the unnamed senior aide said.

"That cooperation and trust have been the reasons for the landmark achievements of the 119th Congress, in spite of our historically small margins. The stakes are too high to allow any division to develop now."

GOP falls into disarray as some reps already regret newly proposed DHS shutdown bill

The Republican Party has been left in disarray over a recently proposed bill to finally end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) has warned that some GOP Senate lawmakers are unhappy with the recently proposed bill, outlining what could be a future regret for the party. Speaking on ABC's This Week, Scalise said, "Well we actually read their bill and, frankly, a number of senators have expressed buyer’s remorse with what they did at 3 in the morning.

"So we looked at it. One of the things that we had real concerns with is that it actually defunds over 25 percent of the baseline operations at DHS.

"We sent a bill that was short-term. It’s not exactly what we want, but at least it allows everybody to get paid — all the agencies, TSA, everybody — while we negotiate our differences. We have very big differences between the House and the Senate."

While Democrats in the House expressed their support for the newly written bill, Politico reported, it is still up to the Senate to pass it through.

Scalise said, "The House stayed later than we were scheduled to stay to take up a bill to fully fund the department and sent it back over to the Senate. So the bill is over in the Senate. The Senate’s got options. They’ve got to come back and deal with it."

Right now, the House has before them still the bill from the Senate. They could continue on,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) told host Jake Tapper on CNN’s "State of the Union," "Instead, Speaker Johnson again chose to leave town and not actually take up the bill that could get passed through."

Fellow Republican Party Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) was left embarrassed earlier today after speaking about details of the funding bill.

The South Carolina Republican was sitting on a State of the Union panel with Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) when the CNN host asked her about the competing funding bills between the House and the Senate.

'Dynamite': James Carville makes shock prediction — and warns of terrifying Trump reaction

A wildcard strategy from Donald Trump in the lead-up to the midterm elections will not work, according to political strategist James Carville.

Carville, who has worked as a longtime Democratic Party strategist, believes Trump will likely ruin what little chance the Republican Party has of maintaining its majority in the House of Representatives. Not only will the Democratic Party win the House and Senate, according to Carville, but the GOP will have a disastrous time at the polls.

Speaking to The Daily Beast, Carville said he believes the Dems will find themselves with major gains over the GOP. "I mean, I’m talking about eight Senate seats or something like that. But if you look at where we are at this moment, I don’t know how a person could honestly draw another conclusion… Right now, all of the evidence would have pointed to 55.”

Whether the Democratic Party turns out so well come November is yet to be seen, but Carville believes there is reason to be confident.

But he warned Trump knows it, and is likely to react furiously in an effort to stop it — possibly seizing ballots and putting federal forces on the streets.

"He’s just literally playing with more than dynamite here," he said. "He’s playing with napalm. And what really keeps me up at night is that he tries this, and then there’s some flashpoint, there’s some incident.

"And the next thing you know—and of course that’s exactly what he wants—so then he can claim, ‘It’s too violent out there, I’m playing harsh.’”

Trump's tactics leading up to the election could be bolstered by close ally Steve Bannon, with Carville suggesting the former White House Chief Strategist is sounding out possible strategies involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at polling booths.

He said, "Bannon knows—and even Trump in his own primitive way knows—the Republican Party will get slaughtered in November. So he’s trying to lay the groundwork to have something like this.

"What they do know, what scares me, is they can’t have a free and fair election. That is a disaster for them. They know that. They’re going to do everything they can to stop it... That’s where we are. And expect the worst. Expect the worst.”

Dems crack GOP midterm strategy with telling appearance from Trump ally: analyst

The Democratic Party seems to have connected the dots with the Republican Party's midterm election strategy, a political analyst has claimed.

A series of special election shortcomings for the GOP may have served as a sign of things to come, but there are a few clues CNN analyst Zachary B. Wolf says that Dem strategists have picked up on. One major giveaway could be the appearance of a Donald Trump ally at the scene of an FBI electoral ballot seizure.

Wolf wrote, "There is also the strange appearance of Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard at the FBI’s seizure of old 2020 ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, in January.

"She has been much more vocal in rehashing the 2020 election and playing to Trump’s belief, not based on fact, that he was the victim of fraud, than she has been on telling Americans about whatever intelligence may have justified Trump’s war on Iran.

"The Washington Post reported in February on a draft executive order written by Trump allies. It envisions Trump seizing on the idea that China interfered in the 2020 election to exert unprecedented emergency control over the coming election."

Other dots were seemingly connected by the party in the lead-up to the midterm elections, with Trump at the center of the strategy. Despite a dwindling approval rating, some Dem reps believe the president is pushing to keep the GOP in contention at the elections.

"Some Democrats see a master plan by Trump to guarantee power for Republicans despite his own flagging approval ratings," Wolf wrote.

"I think these are all tools of how the president is trying to think about a much larger plan, which is if you cannot hold on to power through democratic elections, then adjust democratic elections,” Maryland’s Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, told CNN’s Dana Bash this week.