Based on Capitol Hill, Matt Laslo has been covering campaigns and every aspect of federal policy since 2006. In addition to his reporting for Raw Story, Matt has been a contributor at WIRED, VICE News, VICE News Tonight, The Daily Beast, Rolling Stone, and Playboy. He also contributes reports to NPR and more than 40 of its affiliates and numerous other publications, including The Atlantic and Billboard. He also has the The LCB — or Laslo Congressional Bureau — a Washington-based wire service. Since 2009, he’s sat on the board at the Regional Reporters Association, and in 2011, he graduated cum laude from The Johns Hopkins University MA in Government and Public Policy program. He now teaches there as an adjunct political communications professor, as well as teaching communications and/or journalism at George Washington University, Boston University and the University of Maryland.
WASHINGTON — It’s not just President Donald Trump’s cabinet; Congressional Republicans are also giddy about booting roughly 5 million Americans off of what used to be called food stamps.
"Have you heard from constituents on these SNAP cuts?" Raw Story asked Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS).
"None," Marshall, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told Raw Story at the Capitol. "I haven't had one constituent ask me about losing SNAP."
On Tuesday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins turned heads when she bragged about Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ cutting off millions of Americans from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, but she’s got a cheering section with Republicans in Congress.
“Have you heard from any constituents who've been hurt by these SNAP benefit cuts or no?” Raw Story asked new Senate Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-WI).
“No. Personally, no,” Johnson replied. “We get hundreds of calls to our offices every day, so I would say that's not popping up as a top issue in the report I see daily.”
“Do you think the reforms you guys made in the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ are working?” Raw Story pressed.
“Absolutely, they're weeding out people that are not eligible for those benefits so that we can make sure we have the dollars available to people who are eligible for the benefits,” Johnson said. “The purpose is not to cut benefits. The purpose is to make sure we only provide them to people who are truly eligible.”
“And do you think that's happening?” Raw Story pushed. “You trust that poor people aren't being punished?”
“Listen, we're very generous in America,” Johnson said. “And we try and take care of people who really need help.”
The Republican-led Senate Agriculture Committee is prepared to move ahead with its Thursday morning markup of the sweeping Farm Bill, which also includes SNAP benefits.
Coupled with the more than $700 billion in “savings” congressional Republicans included in Trump’s "One Big Beautiful Bill," Democrats on the Agriculture Committee are begging for relief for their state’s most vulnerable families.
"Are you hearing from families?" Raw Story asked Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO).
"Absolutely,” Bennet replied. “Look, when you combine the Medicaid cuts and the cuts to SNAP, what they're doing is, basically, savaging what's left of the safety net in this country, and that's not a road we should be going down."
WASHINGTON — A Republican civil war is emerging over President Donald Trump’s stalled attorney general nominee, Todd Blanche.
President Donald Trump is now threatening to pull Blanche’s nomination until next year after retiring Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) continue to demand to see in writing Blanche’s promise that the Justice Department’s $1.8 billion weaponization fund is dead.
The back-and-forth has some rank-and-file Republicans starting to vent publicly after the Senate Judiciary Committee canceled its nomination vote on Blanche, scheduled for Thursday morning.
“Trump was saying maybe Cornyn’s mad at him?” Raw Story pressed.
“I’m sure he is. Cornyn’s been up here long enough. You know, been up here that long, you need to go home,” Tuberville said. “But at the end of the day, some of these people need to learn that it's time to pack your bags and go back to normal life and reap what you sowed.”
The frustration’s palpable, even if few GOP senators are willing to go as far as Tuberville — publicly, at least.
In Blanche’s more than a day-long grilling of a nomination hearing earlier this month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the acting attorney general promised the special fund to pay the president’s aggrieved allies — like the Jan. 6, 2021 felons the president pardoned — was dead, which was good enough for most Republicans, just not Cornyn and Tillis.
“He looked us in the eye and said that that was dead, so I don't know what their hang-up is right now,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) told Raw Story.
Marshall says now’s no time to derail the Republican Party priorities that the DOJ’s been tasked with.
“We're calling for a special counsel to investigate the origin of COVID, to investigate what's going on with this. All the whistleblowers that [Dr. Anthony] Fauci was able to squelch. I mean, that's about one example,” Marshall said. “In this country, fraud is so rampant. We need an attorney general out there throwing bad people in jail.”
“And do you think this is sour grapes because the president didn’t back them?” Raw Story asked.
“Look, you know, we're all human beings,” Marshall said. “We all have some emotional baggage going with us, but I think they're sincere, too. I think that they're sincere people and they're good people.”
“But now that they're on their way out and making a stink, is that annoying?” Raw Story pressed.
“Look, we gotta stay together. Whatever it takes for us to stay together as a team. The last thing we need is any type of Republican on Republican violence going on,” Marshall said. “I don't know if this rises to the level of violence, but it's not helpful.”
Cornyn and Tillis are retiring at the end of this year, which seems to have loosened them both up. But they deny they’re on a vengeance tour against Trump.
“Some of your Republican colleagues say this is just sour grapes,” Raw Story asked Tillis. “What do you make of that?”
“You're probably talking to a very small percentage of people here whose opinions I could care less about,” Tillis told Raw Story.
When asked if Blanche would have a better chance of being confirmed as attorney general next year when they’re gone, Tillis demurred.
“I've said, I'm not a no. I'm still working on getting this done,” Tillis said. “And I'm still optimistic that we will.”
This Republican-controlled Senate has already confirmed Blanche once, just not to a Cabinet-level position, which is why Tillis and Cornyn say they’re not trying to derail his nomination. They just want to see Blanche’s promises enshrined in text.
“Blanche is going to continue to be the deputy attorney general, because he's been Senate confirmed,” Cornyn told a scrum of congressional reporters Thursday. “But I'd like to get this put behind us and move on to other things.”
To Tuberville, Cornyn risks tarnishing his 24-year career as a U.S. senator by holding up President Trump’s agenda as he heads for the exit.
“It's a bad look. A bad look for John. You don't go out that way. He'll be looked at as somebody that just doesn't like the guy that didn't endorse him,” Tuberville said. “I mean, you still got to vote for your state. My God.”
When it comes to the so-called weaponization fund, Tuberville’s fine with his fellow Republicans opposing it, but the Alabama gubernatorial candidate says that’s no reason to block the Senate from proceeding with Blanche’s nomination.
“Don't hold that against someone. I mean, just vote against it,” Tuberville said. “That just goes to show you when they have sour grapes, and they said, ‘we're not going to do this if we don't get that,’ it's like a bunch of kids.”
WASHINGTON — America’s in the midst of its worst measles outbreak in 35 years, but you wouldn’t know that from watching Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee rip into Dr. Anthony Fauci Wednesday over America’s COVID response.
“You lied to hundreds of millions of people amid the worst public health crisis in a century,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Fauci. “You forced people to watch their loved ones die alone over the phone.”
“Who the f--- do you think you were for doing that?” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) asked Fauci. “It is a total disgrace what you did to this country.”
“You were so focused on getting every award and every drop of cash that you could,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Fauci. “All because you wanted to be on TV, you wanted to be the sun god of science.”
To Democrats, the Republican rhetoric is the problem as it slowly undermines Americans’ trust in vaccines and medical expertise.
“There's an undermining of science,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) told Raw Story. “It's sowing distrust in public servants and scientists and researchers and medical professionals.”
On the right, Republicans seem as afraid of their constituents as they are angry at Fauci.
Republican rhetoric is far from the problem, according to Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chair Rand Paul (R-KY), who’s threatening to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress after the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times.
“Do you worry at all that bringing up all the COVID vaccine [criticisms] that it could increase skepticism in the measles vaccine and others?” Raw Story asked.
“No,” Paul told Raw Story after the hearing. “I think, really, a lot of the hesitancy on getting vaccinated is when people are told something that's dishonest.”
Paul, a Duke-trained ophthalmologist, says Republican fearmongering on C-SPAN isn’t the problem. Fauci is.
“If they tell you your six-month-old needs to get a COVID vaccine, and yet you've seen all the evidence that healthy six-month-olds don't die from COVID and then you've seen evidence that some young people that are healthy get a heart inflammation, myocarditis,” Paul continued. “You're thinking, ‘well, gosh, if they're telling me that my six-month-old needs it, maybe they're lying to me about the other vaccine.’”
Fauci served under both Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, but Paul lays blame for today’s historic measles outbreak solely at the feet of those on the left.
“So I think they have caused the vaccine hesitancy through dishonesty,” Paul told Raw Story. “I'm out there saying that the COVID vaccine should be given to those who are at risk, and that's really kind of where it's shifted now.”
While America hasn’t endured a measles outbreak of this magnitude since 1991, Senate Republicans are acting as if it’s medical business as usual.
“I don't know anything about measles,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) told Raw Story.
“Are you worried with all this rhetoric that's influencing people taking or not taking the measles vaccine?” Raw Story asked Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV).
“I hadn't really thought about it like that,” Capito told Raw Story.
“What do you tell constituents if they call and ask about the measles vaccine?” Raw Story asked Florida Sen. Rick Scott.
“No one does,” Scott told Raw Story. “There wasn't a vaccine when I was growing up. We intentionally got measles. If one person in the neighborhood got measles, we all got measles intentionally. The same with mumps and chickenpox. So I had all that stuff as a kid.”
Still, Scott isn’t promoting herd immunity as the solution.
“Are you worried about how many people are afraid of those vaccines?” Raw Story pressed.
“Oh, yeah,” Scott continued. “But the other side of it, I think the positive is, if you like, if you talk to [Health and Human Services Secretary] Bobby Kennedy. You know, he's not anti-vaccine. He's giving you good information.”
Many medical experts disagree.
Still, other Republicans admit they avoid giving their constituents vaccine information these days.
“If people call your office now and ask you about it, do you send them to a certain website?” Raw Story pressed. “Or do you just listen to them?”
“Just listen. A lot of people are skeptical from a lot of different avenues. Everyone has to make the decisions that are right for their own family,” Ernst said. “I believe in vaccinations, especially something that has been proven over time — like the measles [vaccine] — but that's me. It's my personal preference. Every family, like I said, has to make their own decision.”
“Is there a role for the government in combating some of this measles skepticism or vaccine skepticism?” Raw Story pressed. “Or does the government mess it up?”
“We have to tread very carefully in that arena when telling individuals what they should and shouldn't do,” Ernst said.
“And that's because of Fauci?” Raw Story asked.
“Yeah,” Ernst said. “So we're in a really difficult time right now. And our citizens will have to figure out a way to — actually, let's put the impetus on the federal government: We're going to have to earn the people's trust.”
WASHINGTON — It’s now been more than 40 days since Sen. Mitch McConnell’s given any legislative signs of life — at least believable enough ones to satiate his online critics, many of his Kentucky constituents and governor — but that’s par for the course in the senior-friendly confines of the U.S. Senate.
“What do you make of his extended absence?” Raw Story asked the second most powerful Democrat in the Senate.
“He explained it,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), an octogenarian like McConnell, told Raw Story. “For me, this makes sense.”
Welcome to the United States Senate, where an elderly colleague falling, being rendered “briefly unconscious” — according to the paper-thin statement McConnell’s staff was pressured into releasing in recent weeks — and then effectively disappearing for well over a month has been normalized.
It’s nothing new.
In the past year, the former Senate majority leader slowly started relying on his security detail to keep him steady. Then the agents became McConnell’s personal crutches, before it became routine to see him pushed through the Capitol’s marble halls in a wheelchair.
Mitch McConnell's security detail help him into the underground tram car that whisks through the Capitol on Feb 20, 2025. (Photo: Matt Laslo for Raw Story)
While many of McConnell’s fellow senators continue to shrug off his extended absence, it’s a different story with lawmakers on the other side of the Capitol.
“If he can't give us an update, he should resign. Absolutely,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told congressional reporters Thursday. “It's been very clear to people across Kentucky that his update was not sufficient.”
Sufficient or not, McConnell’s absence has hardly upended today’s United States Senate, even if he’s held up the appointments of some of President Donald Trump’s nominees, like acting-Attorney General Todd Blanche.
McConnell’s refusal to budge
Two years ago, McConnell stepped aside and passed his leadership suite and title to the current Senate majority leader, John Thune (R-SD). Publicly, at least.
Privately — or at least far away from cable news cameras — McConnell’s achieved almost omnipresent status in the Senate from his perch as chair of the little-known, if seemingly all-powerful, Committee on Rules and Administration.
Filibuster reform? If a lawmaker, like President Donald Trump, wants to upend long-standing Senate precedent and lower the threshold to pass legislation from 60 senators to a simple majority of 51, you’ve got to go through McConnell.
McConnell’s refused to budge.
Federal election reform?
Quietly stymied by McConnell. Or, at the very least, his team.
The Library of Congress?
Last spring, before Trump’s former personal lawyer was tapped to be attorney general, Todd Blanche was put forward to be the nation’s top librarian. That was a step too far even for this Republican-controlled Congress, especially for McConnell who, according to the Washington Post, “quietly” worked in the shadows to derail the executive branch’s incursion into long-established legislative branch turf.
Even the Smithsonian Institution and its 21 museums, 14 research centers, 21 libraries, one National Zoo and the roughly 157 million items entrusted to its care quietly falls under the jurisdiction of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and its chair, Mitch McConnell.
McConnell may not be majority leader anymore, but that doesn’t mean he’s no longer one of the most powerful people in the nation.
In recent years, McConnell’s, basically, transitioned to GOP puppet master, and current Senate leaders know it.
“When's the last time you talked to McConnell?” Raw Story asked the Senate Republican whip.
“Last week,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) told Raw Story. “Or a week before.”
“Is he doing alright?” Raw Story inquired.
“Completely in control of all the facts,” Barrasso continued. “And the facts that I hadn't even known.”
Barrasso didn’t recount any of those new facts, even as he kissed what’s left of McConnell’s proverbial ring.
Kentucky’s other U.S. senator, libertarian-leaning Rand Paul, has never been counted as an ally of McConnell. If anything, over his three terms in the Senate, he’s been a proud wrench in McConnell and other establishment Republicans’ works.
But when it comes to Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) telling Katie Couric he’s “gotten two calls from different agencies, not state agencies, suggesting he'd passed," Paul scoffs.
“All I know is what's been reported publicly,” Paul said.
“Do you think the governor is playing politics with his health?” Raw Story pressed.
“Of course,” Paul said.
It’s not just Republicans. It’s the Senate.
"My staff talk to the staff”
What’s it take to be a senator anyway? On the campaign trail, contemporary politicians employ cunning teams, cutting comms operations and stout fundraising machines.
But, in contemporary Washington, each senator’s propped up by a like-minded staff, which is why McConnell’s extended absence hasn’t sent massive ripples through the chamber.
“Have you had any talks with McConnell?” Raw Story asked the senator's counterpart, the top Democrat on the Rules and Administration Committee.
“No,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) told Raw Story.
“Do you know what's up with his health?”
“No,” Padilla said, “My staff talk to the staff. I haven't talked to them.”
“Is the committee running at all?” Raw Story pressed.
“Yeah,” Padilla said.
“Just staff to staff?” Raw Story asked.
“Yeah,” Padilla said.
Padilla’s far from alone.
“I don't work with his office too much,” Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) told Raw Story.
“Yeah?” Raw Story asked. “But aren't you on the committee?”
“Committee members can vote by proxy,” Lujan said matter-of-factly.
“I guess this is how the U.S. Senate is?” Raw Story asked.
Lujan shrugged.
“Republicans are having a hard time”
Contemporary Senate practice aside, McConnell’s absence is being felt, if on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue.
“[Acting Attorney General Todd] Blanche’s nomination has been held up, because there weren't enough votes,” Lujan said. “So yeah, Republicans are having a hard time.”
Medical emergencies are nothing new to Lujan who suffered a stroke at 49, but who also tried to be as transparent as possible through his recovery.
“Sometimes people need to get better,” Lujan said. “When I had my stroke, I was forthright with people about what happened to me. We had a press conference within days and I shared with folks where I was.”
While Lujan doesn’t defend McConnell, he does sympathize with his colleagues’ health issues.
“I was criticized for not having a press conference for three days, but we were waiting for the doctors to tell me what was going on so we could share that with everyone,” Lujan said. “And then when I did a press conference, I had my doctors with me, and they were explaining the technical aspects of it as well to all the people back home and I think we owe that to people.”
Lujan isn’t giving McConnell and his team a pass for their old school, close-lipped comms strategy.
“I mean, everyone has to make their own decisions,” Lujan said. “But people should have to share information, you know?”
The patience of Senate Democrats is lost on their counterparts on the other side of the Capitol.
“We have a responsibility to the American people”
Ocasio-Cortez isn’t extending McConnell much grace. She says the senior Kentucky senator owes it to his voters and the nation to be more forward than merely holding up a copy of the newspaper.
“I don't know if he has a conversation with a journalist, I don't know if he has a conversation with the governor, I don't know what his staff is doing, but we have a responsibility to the American people,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
With razor-thin margins on both sides of the Capitol, Ocasio-Cortez says McConnell and his team owe America more than their lackluster proof of life attempts thus far.
“We're seeing, increasingly, these votes are being decided by a one or two vote margin, and if you're not capable of doing the job presently, we need to know if you're capable of doing the job for the foreseeable future,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And that, I think, is tremendously important.”
WASHINGTON — In the wake of an inconclusive independent autopsy, Mississippi’s only Black U.S. Congressman says the FBI should get involved in the investigation into 18-year-old Nolan Wells’ mysterious death on the Fourth of July.
“Given Mississippi's history, it's very suspicious,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told Raw Story. “For a young Black boy to, basically, be with all white kids who are friends of his and come up missing and the fact that he was left on an island by the same people who went with him, it's just not adding up.”
Wells went missing July 4 during s boat trip to Mississippi's Horn Island and his body was found two days later, facedown near the shoreline. Wells appeared to be the only Black man in the friend group photographed that day, fueling speculation and racial tension around his death.
A private, independent autopsy found the cause and manner of death "undetermined," with the pathologist unable to rule out injury to the neck as a contributing factor, describing “discoloration in the soft tissue of the back of the head, the occipital region" — leaving the case unresolved as the official state autopsy remains pending.
Like Wells' family, Thompson says he currently has more questions than answers.
“We need to find out exactly what it is. There's some concerns based on the second autopsy that some of the things that have been outlined were not outlined in the first autopsy, which creates additional suspicion,” the dean of the Mississippi delegation and only Black representative of the state said. “I feel sorry for the family.”
Local authorities have treated the death as an accidental drowning, but the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office has yet to release its autopsy as officials await a toxicology report.
“The authorities need to release more information,” Thompson said. “The family is not satisfied, nor has there been any public effort to collect information that I'm aware of.”
“Do you trust local officials in Mississippi?” Raw Story pressed. “Or do we need the feds as a part of this?”
“Well, I would hope that the feds have been called,” Thompson, who chaired the Select Jan. 6 Committee, said. “They should be.”
It’s not just Mississippi’s history that concerns Thompson.
“Sometimes our local authorities don't have the capacity to conduct those kinds of investigations,” Thompson continued.
The FBI’s reportedly assisting with out-of-state threats that have targeted some of Wells’ surviving friends, but they don’t appear to be actively investigating the 18-year-old’s death.
Thompson said that should change.
“I'd recommend it,” he said.
The ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee says the family deserves answers, and, now that the case has garnered national attention, so do concerned African Americans coast to coast.
“They need not just clarity on what happened but, I think, this whole country deserves it,” Thompson told Raw Story. “This was not a traditional young person. This was somebody going to school and just out for a July Fourth celebration and came up dead.”
Washington, D.C. — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) came out swinging at Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) as Republican leaders were embarrassingly forced to pull a bipartisan veterans bill from the floor Thursday after another revolt from Johnson’s rightward flank.
“Yet again, another reckless Republican bill went down to defeat on the floor of the House of Representatives. House Democrats are in the minority but continue to control the floor, as if we were in the majority,” Jeffries told the congressional press corps Thursday.
It’s not just the veterans measure. Jeffries also pointed to the Affordable Care Act tax credits Democrats fought for and won earlier this year, along with an Iran War Powers Resolution Democrats pushed and passed recently.
But even in hyper-partisan eras, legislative proposals aimed at veterans have historically brought the two parties together, which is why Jeffries is doing a victory lap.
“Perhaps for the first time in the history of the United States of America, the majority party was forced to pull a bill relating to veterans because House Democrats, led by [Ranking Member] Mark Takano, have made clear all week that this bill doesn't benefit hard-working veterans in the United States of America,” Jeffries said. “It would actually hurt them.”
The heart of the veterans' measure is the Major Richard Star Act, which would hike retirement payouts for roughly 50,000 veterans injured in combat.
The measure’s $13 billion price tag has kept the effort in limbo, especially because advocacy organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans oppose the bill's approach of paying for new benefits by reclassifying disability ratings for ailments like sleep apnea and tinnitus.
Democrats forced Johnson to hold the veterans’ vote open for roughly 30 minutes as he and other GOP leaders lobbied the far-right to get on board.
In the end, Republicans mustered the bare minimum 211-210 vote to defeat the Democrats’ Motion to Recommit — a procedural gambit the minority party always offers in the House as a way to trip up the majority party — which would have forced a drastic overhaul of the measure.
Speaker Johnson blamed the defeat on “misinformation” and has now punted the bill until the fall, after Congress returns from its annual August recess — a recess Johnson hoped would be filled with talk of Republicans helping veterans.
Johnson wasn’t the only GOP leader Jeffries dunked on Thursday.
Ahead of President Donald Trump’s primetime address on election security, Jeffries lit into the commander-in-chief.
“In advance of Donald Trump's speech, let me also be clear about one thing: Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. Something's really wrong with this guy. I think he actually needs to be checked out,” Jeffries replied when asked about Trump trying to relitigate the 2020 election. “Why does he continue to focus on a conspiracy theory related to a 2020 presidential election that every rational person in the United States of America knows he lost?”
To Jeffries, 2020 is in the rearview, as he’s focused solely on winning November’s midterms.
“House Democrats are committed to making sure that we have a free and fair election in November, and when that occurs, we're confident that we're going to take back control of the United States House of Representatives,” Jeffries said.
Jeffries contrasted Democrats’ focus on affordability with the president’s war in Iran, which he says is a betrayal of the president’s own “America First” mantra.
“What Republicans are doing, since they were once again neutered on the floor of the House of Representatives, is to advance an America Last budget resolution that will actually provide $60 billion in additional taxpayer money for Donald Trump's reckless and costly war of choice in the Middle East that has left Iran in a stronger position than they were in before this reckless war started,” Jeffries said. “And the American people in a weaker position economically as a result of high gas prices.”
WASHINGTON — The 2020 election just won’t go away, and not just because of President Donald Trump and his primetime address Thursday evening.
Some of the president’s prominent allies on Capitol Hill are eagerly fanning the flames ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
“Who won the 2020 election?” Raw Story asked Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) at the Capitol this week.
“Donald Trump,” the Alabama gubernatorial candidate told Raw Story.
“Are you joking?” Raw Story pressed. “Or are you for real?”
“Well, he legitimately won it,” Tuberville said. “Now, they cheated him.”
While Trump’s pick to replace Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, turned heads Wednesday for refusing to say Joe Biden won the 2020 election — “Joe Biden was certified as the president of the United States,” Clayton testified — that opinion is more common than most think in Washington.
That’s especially the case at the U.S. Capitol.
“Who won in 2020?” Raw Story asked Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI).
“Joe Biden was president for four years,” the former chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee told Raw Story. “I think it's kind of obvious, isn't it?”
“But a lot of these nominees won't say he won it legitimately,” Raw Story pressed. “They kind of use language like you.”
“He became president,” Johnson replied. “That's all you need to know.”
“Are the results still a question mark?” Raw Story asked.
“There are all kinds of irregularities in the 2020 election that have not been adequately investigated. There's no doubt about that,” Johnson said. “We have not adequately investigated all the irregularities, whether it's in Wisconsin, whether it's Georgia or whether it's Arizona. We really should.”
It’s the same on the House side of the Capitol.
“The 2020 election — is it settled?” Raw Story asked Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-MD). “Do you still have questions?”
“There are many questions about the 2020 election, whether there were illegitimate mail-in ballots counted,” Harris told Raw Story.
“Do you think Biden was legitimate?” Raw Story pressed.
“Uh, probably,” Harris said after a pause. “But I think there's still questions about mail-in ballots. I think the president is absolutely right. They’re subject to a lot of fraud. More mail-in ballots than we've ever had in Maryland. We indiscriminately mailed out mail-in ballots to everyone, including people who had been dead, who had moved, etc.”
After he faced off on C-SPAN with DNI nominee Clayton Wednesday, Raw Story caught up with Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) to get his perspective on the Trump administration beating the 2020 election denial drum louder and louder these days.
“It's a classic characteristic of a personalist authoritarian structure that admission to the inner circle requires self-effacing recitation of a known lie,” Ossoff told Raw Story.
The 2020 election is in the rearview mirror for most of us, but it’s increasingly becoming a centerpiece of this administration.
After sending former DNI Tulsi Gabbard to oversee the FBI raid of the Fulton County election HQ in January, in recent weeks FBI Director Kash Patel’s reassigned 260 FBI agents who he’s tasked with reinvestigating the 2020 presidential election. That comes on the heels of Patel firing agents previously tasked with investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Now, as the midterms near and with President Trump reshuffling his top advisors, Democrats fear their GOP counterparts are preparing to propel election deniers to the top levels of government.
“What do you make of the inability of some of these nominees to say, or the refusal to say, who won the 2020 election?” Raw Story asked.
“The Trump dictate, the Trump mantra will not accept anyone saying he lost the 2020 election,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said. “It's worrying, because it shows their total lack of independence.”
As for Trump’s primetime address Thursday night, Blumenthal says it’s more about depressing turnout this November than it is about rewriting the historical record.
“He's trying to suppress the vote,” Blumenthal said.
Sowing such discord into the heart of the American experiment — free and fair elections — goes beyond the everyday hyper-partisanship now common in the nation’s capital.
“This is a terrible disservice. We literally have the president of the United States at war with our democracy,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) told Raw Story. “He’s using 2020 as a pretext to attack the 2026 midterms, because he knows he's a loser.”
WASHINGTON — Progressives in Maine may be feeling duped as the state’s Democratic Party scrambles to replace former U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, but nine-term Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree says that doesn’t mean the state party needs help from the political class.
"Now they all want to weigh in on the next round of candidates, and I'm just sort of like, 'Leave us the hell alone!'" Pingree told Raw Story.
That’s unlikely to happen any time soon, especially because Maine Democratic Party leaders just approved a 600-person convention to replace Platner ahead of the state’s July 27th deadline.
While Pingree was late to come around to Platner — her personal rule is to stay out of primary battles — like most Maine Democrats, she heartily endorsed the lobster fisherman after he won the Democratic primary last month.
"I was a cheerleader for him. I did an event with him a few weeks ago," Pingree told Raw Story. "We're a big tent and a small crowd in Maine, so we're all on the same stage together and everything else. This is my state. We're all Democrats, and we’re all in.”
“Do you feel personally lied to or deceived by him?” Raw Story asked.
“I spent time talking to him and said, ‘Should I expect anything else?’” Pingree said after the New York Times wrote in June that several women who dated him reported "unsettling behavior."
“Yeah. I'm not the only person who asked that question,” Pingree said. “And he said, ‘No.’”
“So does that make him a liar to you?" Raw Story pressed.
“I don't know if he was a liar or if he was delusional,” Pingree said. “We're talking about men and how they interpret things here. I mean, did he think he didn't do something wrong? I don't know. At this point, it doesn't matter to me anymore.”
Pingree’s serving her 18th year on Congress but, unlike many of her veteran Democratic colleagues, she didn’t get primaried in this anti-establishment year. Progressive candidates have delivered shock results, and toppled incumbent Democrats in New York City and Denver.
In fact, even with this year’s revolutionary energy — "there is definitely something in the air,” Pingree conceded — there are two Pingree’s on the ballot in Maine this year: The Congresswoman and her 49-year-old daughter, Hannah, who won the Democratic primary in this year’s race to replace the outgoing governor.
While the progressive congresswoman welcomes revenue from vacationing tourists, she’s got a message for all the Washingtonians flooding her state of late.
"My number one pitch to people is just, like, would you — and I'm sorry, I don't mean to, you know, pick on you — but, like D.C. people and out-of-staters, could you just leave us alone for a while?" Pingree said. "Because part of the problem is that this race attracted so much attention, and every consultant, every reporter, I mean, everybody's been in our state, you know, turning this into a very complicated race."
Across cable networks, the focus has been on whether Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democratic leaders will interfere in the race now that Platner’s out.
Pingree claims that’s all made-for-TV myths.
"It's funny because outsiders tell us about Schumer, and, you know, like, 'don't let Schumer put his thumb on the scale' and all that, but really what Mainers are more like is, just like all the reporters and consultants annoy them," Pingree said.
It's not just D.C. consultants and pundits, Pingree says. She and her neighbors don’t need her fellow progressives, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), turning the state into their stumping grounds.
"The progressives, even like Bernie and Ro, I mean, like, we don't need you guys. Like, I'm a progressive. I'm fine. I like those guys. But it's like, we don't need you in Maine to put your thumb on the scale here," Pingree said. "I don't picture those guys necessarily coming to Maine to campaign. Bernie likes to come into Maine and Ro is building his base. So those guys show up because it's about them.”
So far, seven Democrats have tossed their hats in the ring to replace Platner.
“Former gubernatorial candidates Shenna Bellows, Troy Jackson and Nirav Shah,” reports the Maine Morning Star. “Former congressional candidate Paige Loud; and former Senate candidates Dan Kleban, David Costello and Jordan Wood.”
Pingree isn’t running to be a convention delegate, and she’s not worried about who her fellow Democrats nominate.
“We've got a good bench, though, and I think, you know, the people who become delegates to the convention will do a good job trying to pick somebody that they think can win,” Pingree said.
Pingree’s just hoping whoever wins is energized and ready for the battle ahead.
"This is a state where people expect you to show up at, you know, the Lincoln County Lobster Bake and go to the Lobster Festival Parade and be in the Moxie Day Parade," Pingree said. “You know, you just got to do the stuff where people see you in their hometown. We’re a lot of little towns."
The only problem is that incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins has been using the same hyper-local playbook since first being sent to Washington in 1997.
“Are you worried now, though, that the seat’s more at risk?” Raw Story asked after Platner was pushed out of the race.
“Yeah,” Pingree said. “Of course.”
Pingree knows Susan Collins is formidable from personal experience.
In 2002, Collins defeated then-State Senator Pingree 58.4% to 41.6%.
“I've been there, done that. She’s a tough person to beat,” Pingree told Raw Story. “Obviously, Sen. Collins is vulnerable with her association with Donald Trump, but that said, you could be the best rock star on Earth and have you run a four-month campaign, it's just not an easy thing. We all know that, and starting from scratch on the first of August is just not going to be easy for anybody.”
While Democrats are now scrambling to pick a new Senate candidate, Collins and the GOP are blanketing the airwaves with ads showcasing her powerful perch as chair of the Senate Appropriations — or spending — Committee.
“If you were up here, you'd be watching ads all day long about the, you know, incredible number of earmarks she’s supported to every small town in Maine,” Pingree said. “You needed a fire station or a, you know, a new water treatment plant or an addition to their school or something.
“I don't think there's anyone who underestimates how difficult this campaign is,” Pingree said. “The reverse of it is, you know, no one — no one — wants to be a Republican right now. No one wants to be tied to Trump.”
While Collins tries to distance herself from Trump, Pingree and other Maine progressives are prepared to tie the two together at the hip ahead of November’s midterm election.
"I've been talking to a lot of people over the last few days and yeah, they're disappointed about the end of Platner, but the next thing they say is, 'But I really want to win. I really want to win,’” Pingree told Raw Story. “So it's not an election people are going to sit on their hands.”
Visitors watch an empty ferris wheel. (Matt Laslo/Raw Story)
WASHINGTON — Ever throw a party only to have no one show up? Awkward. Lonely. Embarrassing.
Welcome to President Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair, where even the baptism pool was empty in Friday’s 100-degree heat as two men waved large flags to a crowd of two and a half — a little boy danced to soulless piano playing to the massive “revival” tent’s eight rows of empty chairs.
America may be back according to MAGA bumper stickers, but if Trump’s fair is any barometer, the nation’s surely seen better days.
At this lightly attended spectacle, even hologram Abraham Lincoln was left addressing an audience of one in the air-conditioned Illinois exhibit.
But it was not just dead presidents getting a cool reception. Even America’s living U.S. trade representative Ambassador Jamison Greer’s panel commemorating Horespower of America — Thursday’s official theme at this state fair — was only attracting a crowd some 15 people when Raw Story visited, not including his three-person, suit-donning security detail and a handful of event staff.
It seems pigs are more popular than politicians, though.
Thursday morning’s youth livestock exhibition featured pigs. The live display attracted a rotating cast of some 20 people on one grandstand — even as the other rodeo stand remained empty throughout the porky presentation — which was far more interest than Trump’s trade rep garnered.
“I guess, technically, that’s a rodeo,” an older man told his unimpressed partner as they passed the day’s sparsely attended youth livestock show (Thursday’s afternoon “rodeo” was later canceled, apparently due to the heat).
In the stifling temperatures, grumblings were heard amongst attendees when they reached exhibits, only to be turned away by event staff, like the temporarily shuttered Virginia and Texas exhibits.
“Oh no,” one lady exclaimed. “I just wanted to get out of the heat.”
Other makeshift fan-waving visitors peeked their heads into exhibits just for a second as they hunted for hydration that was cooler than the lukewarm-to-hot bottles of water passed out for free.
“There’s no water,” one female scout yelled to her small group huddled outside the Maryland exhibit.
Other visitors were surprised to see their home state’s packed like sardines in exhibit halls, like the one small temporary building dedicated to Rhode Island, Vermont and — because they have so much in common — Kentucky.
“I don’t know why they have Vermont and Rhode Island in here, too,” one man complained through a southern drawl.
“Kinda weird,” his female companion agreed.
One of the more popular exhibits seemed to be the South Carolina one, as older visitors found respite in the state’s six large white rocking chairs.
Another popular exhibit was Florida’s, but folks waiting in the 40-some-odd-people-long line weren’t quite sure why there was a line, let alone why they were waiting in it.
“Is this the line for Florida?” Raw Story asked as Lynyrd Skynyrd's “Free Bird” wailed over the loudspeakers. “What’s in there that’s so good?”
“Yeah,” a family at the end of the line said just about in unison.
“We were wondering the same thing,” a lady chimed in.
“A little puppy,” an Asian tourist mimed with her hands.
“Oh, okay,” the lady replied. “Like a little stuffed animal.”
While there was some MAGA gear spotted throughout the crowd, one visitor’ proudly wore an “all of us are immigrants” shirt.
“Sometimes the possibilities of good trouble present themselves,” Bob, who was in town with his wife from Pennsylvania, told Raw Story. “I’m a provocateur.”
Though Bob gave credit where credit was due.
“It’s also a Steve Earle song called ‘City of Immigrants,’” Bob went out of his way to confess to Raw Story later in the afternoon.
While the administration has refused calls to publicly disclose all of the fair’s financial backers, corporate logos are prominent in Trump’s America.
What’s more American than the military-industrial complex? To the chagrin of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, everywhere you looked throughout the fair you could spot a logo of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, SpaceX, GE Aerospace and other contractors.
The Pentagon and other agencies also got in on the action, as they turned their exhibition space into recruiting centers as Air Force Thunderbirds buzzed the National Mall outside.
The Department of Homeland Security even passed out FEMA-emblazoned crayons, coloring books and Pedro the Penguin maps of hazards across all 50 states for kids to color.\
Silicon Valley’s finest also flexed their corporate might throughout the event, including Oracle, Uber, Micron Technologies, Mosaic, and Chime.
Signs for Phorm Energy — a caffeine-spiked drink company co-owned by UFC president Dana White and Anheuser-Busch — were also hard to miss.
Traditional American companies like Wrangler, Tractor Supply and Scott’s Miracle-Gro are also sponsors. And, of course, oil and gas conglomerates like Chevron were hard to miss.
“It’s interesting seeing all the corporate sponsors,” Hannah, a recent college graduate who got her first job working for a senator on Capitol Hill, told Raw Story.
Corporations are as American as mass-produced apple pies, her and other guests were reminded.
“It’s like, ‘Oh yeah!’” Hannah laughed. “I was on a run, and I was like, ‘Wait, I might as well peek in.’”
Her review?
“Not too much of a fan, personally, because I grew up with my grandma telling me how awesome the bicentennial was,” Hannah told Raw Story. “So I was kind of looking forward to that, and it’s definitely a little more politicized than I think the celebration should be.”
"We need to put a bed sheet over the Statue of Liberty for ten years," Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) exclusively told Raw Story at the Capitol. "Moratorium. Ten years. Until we can figure out what the hell is going on in this country. Who's even here? How many are here?"
Nehls has previously pushed ten-year immigration bans for migrants coming from Somalia and Venezuela, but he says an all-out ban on legal immigration to America is now needed, in part, because some migrants have been critical of President Trump and his immigration crackdown.
"They are abusing the freedoms and liberties that we have. They are,” Nehls said. “They come over here, they say they're trying to escape oppression and all that other stuff, but then they come over here, and you get a lot of them; they don't even like us. They don't respect the culture. They don't respect the President of the United States.”
Without providing any evidence, Nehls decried legal immigration as a key part of the Democrats’ plan.
“You've even got some Democrats, a majority of Democrats, saying they're not even proud to be an American — then what the hell are you doing here?” Nehls continued. “So the birthright citizenship, the idea that women from China can come over, have a baby, and now that little baby is an American citizen and affect our elections in the future, that's what the Democrats want.”
In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, Trump’s Justice Department vowed it’s “committed to tackling illegal birth tourism schemes by working diligently with U.S. Attorneys across the country to uphold the law.”
“Actors seeking to exploit loopholes to obtain automatic citizenship for their children pose a national security threat and will be brought to justice,” reads the DOJ statement.
Nehls wants to go a step further and devote more federal dollars to this new DOJ effort.
“Let's double up the attorney general's office in the states and go after and look with a fine-tooth comb, look at all the people that are here on visas and how many of them have overstayed. And if you have overstayed your visa, you're out of here. You're out of here,” Nehls told Raw Story. “A big bed sheet over the Statue of Liberty for ten years.”
WASHINGTON — Capitalist or (democratic) socialist? That’s the question starting to drive a wedge between the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party.
Democratic Party leaders say there’s nothing to see here, even after the three progressives New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed won their primaries earlier this week, which has the party’s leftward flank all but dancing in the streets.
“What we are seeing is a shift into a new era of American governance that for the first time is starting to not be governed by that baby boomer generation,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told congressional reporters Thursday. “I do think that we're starting to see a new time.”
On the other side of the political coin, Republican pundits and members of Congress alike are now giddy going into the midterms as they prepare to paint the entire Democratic Party as far-left whackos.
“It’s indicative of where the Democrats are going,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) told Raw Story. “Their party's more radical.”
The pledge dividing Democrats
Democratic leaders are trying to downplay their party’s differences, but it’s undeniable that there’s a debate raging amongst Democrats over whether (democratic) socialism is the proper response to two terms of President Donald Trump and the broader MAGA movement.
Even before this week’s New York City primary returns, moderate Democratic Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Adam Gray (D-CA) signed onto a new Promise to America pledge that declares: “we are capitalist, not socialist.”
The pledge itself is dividing Democrats.
“I don't even know what that is. I think it's a made-up thing,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) told Raw Story. “I honestly have heard zero about this. I have heard zero about it. I do not take it as a serious anything.”
Pocan, a chair emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, dismisses this latest effort by moderate Democrats.
“If someone is actually coming up with an idea like that, they have so much extra time that they need to either learn how to knit or something else constructive,” Pocan said.
The idea’s real, alright. At last check, there are now 15 signatories to that Promise to America pledge.
Ten signatories are current Democratic members of the House, while the others are candidates running in battleground districts in Arizona, Colorado, Texas and two in North Carolina.
Democratic Party leaders may not want to admit the growing divide in their ranks, but they’re also doing all they can to avoid the “socialist” labels being lobbed from the right.
“I'm a capitalist,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, told Raw Story at the Capitol.
“So you're not worried about these wins in New York?” Raw Story pressed.
“I'm not,” Aguilar said before he explained Democrats’ strategy to regain control of the House by capturing 218 seats nationwide this fall. “Look, our path to 218 didn't have anything to do with, like, those races, so our ability to get the majority is, you know, the same today as it was before New York and so we just got to go win. My assumption is they're going to be members who support the Democratic agenda here.”
“Socialists sliding right into communists”
Because the three progressives won primaries in solidly blue districts, this week’s New York returns aren’t changing Democratic leaders’ math ahead of November, but it’s a different story on the other side of the aisle.
“A wake-up call. We're at the precipice of a movement that has never worked in the history of this country or the world,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) told Raw Story. “People need to realize votes have consequences. They're going to destroy New York as California's been destroyed.”
While Democratic leaders deny a far-left shift for the party, Republicans argue that having more progressives in Congress will surely impact the party’s agenda should they win this fall.
“Socialists sliding right into communists, depending on your political worldview,” Donalds said. “People are saying how this town doesn't work. Well, with people like that coming here, it's going to work even less.”
Donalds is running for Florida governor, but he’s still been following the redistricting battles nationwide and says the GOP is well situated going into this fall’s midterms.
“I'm feeling good about November,” Donalds said.
“Why?” Raw Story asked.
“Well, I mean, are Democrats motivated? Yeah, they are,” Donalds said. “But I also think that, you know, for Republican voters, you know, we largely accomplished a good chunk of what the president set out to do when he ran two years ago.”
Like most card-carrying Republicans, Donalds is banking on his party being buoyed at the polls by Trump’s migration crackdown and economic growth. But he’s smiling.
“I think voters want to have common sense in their government,” Donalds said. “We'll be fine.”
More moderate Republicans who are perennial targets of Democrats aren’t so bullish, though.
“Your thoughts on the Democratic Socialists who won up in New York?” Raw Story asked. “Does that help you and other more moderate Republicans out?”
“That's between the voters and the candidates. I mean, they made their choice,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) told Raw Story. “Certainly not an ideology I subscribe to, that's for sure, but I respect the democratic process and that's who was selected.”
“We're starting to see a new time”
With seven incumbents having now been ousted by primary voters on both sides of the aisle, this year’s midterms are “already above the postwar historical average” for incumbent losses, according to the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
Sensing voter anger with the Washington establishment, a record-breaking 76 incumbents are leaving Congress at the end of the year.
In more than 20 states and a handful of U.S. territories, primary voters have yet to weigh in this cycle, but change is surely in the air coast to coast.
“I do think that we're starting to see a new time,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters on the Capitol steps. “It's normal to see these developments happen. I think this is part of that process. And again, I think this is about ideas.”
To Ocasio-Cortez and her progressive “Squad,” this electoral upheaval is long overdue.
“This is about fighting for not just any change, but actual substantive change that people are going to feel in their lives,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And so I think what people want to see is, you know, while there may be personalities, I think what they want to see is policy.”
The laundry list of demands from progressive voters is long, which is why AOC says the Democratic Party can’t take the energy and enthusiasm from their party’s far-left base for granted.
“Are we fighting to guarantee health care for every American? Are we trying to raise wages? Are we tackling corporations that are, you know, price gouging us, building out AI data centers and poisoning people's water wells? Are they going to see us actually take these people on?” Ocasio-Cortez asked. “Or are they going to see us take their money and look the other way?”
To Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow progressives, no matter the label, their mandate is clear.
“What we are seeing is people want us to take a vigorous approach in taking on big money,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) made clear Thursday that the alleged vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a subject President Donald Trump has fixated on for days, is nowhere on his list of priorities.
Asked whether his committee would hold hearings into the "reflecting pool vandals," Comer said no. "We're going after billions of dollars in fraud," he said, explaining that the panel is focused on Medicare and Medicaid fraud and the Epstein investigation. "There's only so many hearings you can have."
Pressed on whether the vandals even exist, Comer delivered a blunt response: "I would assume. I spent zero amount of minutes thinking about the reflecting pool, to be honest with you."
The shrug stands in contrast to Trump, who has repeatedly claimed without evidence that the pool was deliberately sabotaged. The president has alleged that someone cut a gash of up to 350 feet into the lining with a knife and said multiple people have been arrested.
Independent experts have cast doubt on the account.
Aquatic ecologists told NPR the pool's green tint came from a natural, non-toxic algae bloom, and the White House has provided no evidence of vandalism. The only widely reported arrest is a 67-year-old former Olympian charged with a misdemeanor after touching a loose piece of paint, which he denies damaging.
WASHINGTON — Work in the U.S. House of Representatives has, once again, been ground to a halt by the far right wing of the Republican Party, as the Freedom Caucus joined President Donald Trump’s demand that no legislation moves until Senate Republicans pass his sweeping election reform measure, the SAVE America Act.
“The Senate sucks,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) told congressional reporters at a Thursday morning press conference.
Freedom Caucus members are raising dire warnings if the measure isn’t passed before November, including a socialist takeover of America.
“We all know where this road leads. We saw it happen..two days ago in New York. We’ve seen it happen in California. The radical far left, anti-American socialists are taking over the Democratic Party, and they can’t do anything about it” Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) said. “If we do not secure our elections, that is the direction the whole country will take.”
While Capitol Hill was prepared for a rare bipartisan bill signing on Wednesday, the president canceled the event and instead tripled down on his threat to bring Washington to a standstill until the national voter ID measure passes.
“This is something that the president of the United States wants to see accomplished by virtue of his actions yesterday with respect to the housing bill, but also in his messaging. He's been very clear about this,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who was instrumental in crafting the bill, said.
There’s a problem, though: Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) says he doesn’t have the votes to pass the election measure, let alone the votes needed to overhaul the Senate’s longstanding 60-vote filibuster, as the president has demanded.
“The only question before us right now is whether the Senate will put America first or continue to put the Senate first. That's what the question is,” Roy said. “We're trying to say that the Senate needs to move forward and to force this through, using all of the tools at their disposal, and to stop hiding behind fake thresholds that the Senate itself has put in place. There is no constitutional requirement for sixty votes.”
There’s another problem now: The Senate voted late into the night last evening, canceled today’s previously planned votes, started its two-week-long July Fourth recess early and isn’t scheduled to be back in town until July 13th.
“I personally think we should not have any more legislation until the Senate comes back in session,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) said. “And they're out for two weeks, ironically.”
The House was out last week, while the Senate was in session. Still, House Republicans have had enough.
“We are absolutely fed up with the Senate and their leadership,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is heading to the White House this afternoon for a 2 pm meeting with the president. The speaker’s expected to try and get the president to relent from his SAVE America Act demands.
If the president refuses, then the House will remain at a halt by the far right wing of the speaker’s own party. If that happens, political watchers expect the speaker to gavel the House out of session, cancel next week’s planned House session and join their Senate colleagues on an extended Fourth of July vacation.
WASHINGTON — White House aides tend to shield President Donald Trump from opinions that diverge from his own worldview, but this afternoon, he got chewed out by one of his fellow Republicans at the U.S. Capitol.
After four Senate Republicans bucked the president last night and voted to limit his ability to wage war against Iran without congressional approval, the president aired his frustration with members of his own party at today’s Senate Republican Party lunch at the Capitol.
But Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) — one of the Republicans who sent Trump a harsh rebuke last night — was having none of it, especially after Trump reportedly told him to sit down.
“I stood and said, ‘You have not told the American people what's going on. It's lasted four months. Our original objectives have not been achieved, and I want to know what's going on,’” Cassidy told congressional reporters after the heated exchange.
Cassidy said he’d heard it all before from Trump.
“The president just kind of talked and talked and talked and talked and talked,” Cassidy bemoaned.
“I lost my temper,” Cassidy admitted, before quipping, “It’s the Irish in me.”
But it seems to be more than the Irish in the retiring senator who recently lost a primary challenge to Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA), a more MAGA-aligned lawmaker who had the backing of President Trump.
According to Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), Trump was “mad as a murder hornet about the war power vote.”
But when facing the congressional press corps after the closed-door meeting, the president put on a happy face for the cameras.
“I think we had a really great meeting, and we’re very proud of the party,” Trump told the congressional press corps after the meeting. “And we like the leader, we like everybody — really in the room, I don’t like a few people, but that’s okay, I think you know who they are. I’ll give you that information someday.”
Few to no Republican Senators were buying what the president was selling this time.
“It was not a good discussion,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) told reporters after the meeting. “But you know, sometimes two guys just have to get it off their chest.”
WASHINGTON — While President Donald Trump plans to make history this weekend when he hosts the UFC at the White House, Mixed Martial Arts history has already been made in Washington in recent years.
At the start of this 119th Congress, there were two former MMA fighters in Congress before one, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), became Department of Homeland Security Secretary in March.
Now, Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS) holds the title of MMA champion of Capitol Hill. Before coming to Congress, she boasted a 5–1 win–loss amateur record and a 1–1 professional fighting record.
Still, Davids says she’s skipping the Octagon on the White House lawn.
Asked if she planned to attend, Davids told Raw Story, “No, I’m not.”
“We're hosting the World Cup in Kansas City. I’d rather be there,” she said.
“Are you tempted to go to the White House?” Raw Story pressed.
“No,” Davids said without hesitation.
The congresswoman looked a tad perplexed, almost as if it were the first time she even thought about Sunday’s cage match on Trump’s 80th birthday.
“I want to be in Kansas City!” Davids said through a dismissive laugh, which may be because the first KC World Cup match isn’t until Tuesday the 16th, when Argentina takes on Algeria.
While the only elected MMA fighter in Washington is skipping Sunday’s prime-time affair, the UFC and the White House continue hyping the estimated $60 million event.
“This is a very unique experience for everybody,” UFC President and CEO Dana White told TNT earlier this week. “We’re expecting Super Bowl-type numbers for this fight.”
The UFC reports there could be as many as 125,000 spectators, which is why they’ve also got 494 port-a-potties at the ready on the National Mall.
The UFC’s hype machine also got an assist from the FBI this week.
“This is a great partnership with the UFC,” FBI Director Kash Patel said from a UFC training facility in a video posted this week. “We’ve seen about 300 agents come through and learn these amazing tactics so they can safeguard American lives.”
MMA’s only grown in popularity recently in America, but boxing and politics have a storied history.
While there have been bench-clearing brawls in the U.S. Capitol as recently as 1995, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was a middleweight amateur boxer before coming to Congress.
Former Congressman John Morrissey (1831–1878) Wikipedia page, meanwhile, says: “Morrissey, also known as Old Smoke, was an Irish American politician, bare-knuckle boxing champion, and criminal.”
Mitch McConnell's security detail help him into the underground tram car that whisks through the Capitol on Feb 20, 2025. (Photo: Matt Laslo for Raw Story)
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