Matt Laslo

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.”

WASHINGTON — Cracks in President Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the GOP — and the 119th Congress — went on full display at the U.S. Capitol this month as the House of Representatives sent the White House a defiant message.

Last week, 18 Republicans voted to approve a Ukraine aid package opposed by the White House. It came after four Republicans supported a measure calling for the removal of U.S. troops from Iran unless Congress votes to authorize that war.

The rare presidential rebukes revealed tension in the GOP, with Republicans now openly attacking other Republicans.

“To lessen the president's hand, I think, was inappropriate,” Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) told Raw Story at the Capitol. “I don't think they were thinking.”

Still, Democrats aren’t doing any end zone dances just yet.

Now that Israel and America have been at war with Iran for longer than 60 days, Trump and his allies are re-packaging it.

“Really, at this point, it’s a blockade, and more than anything, we are ensuring safe transit and making sure that there’s freedom of navigation,” Zinke, who served as Interior Secretary in Trump’s first term, told Raw Story.

Zinke shares the president’s frustration with the 226-195 vote reasserting congressional control of the conflict.

"It's tragic,” Zinke said.

“Do you think those Republicans who crossed over were looking at November?” Raw Story asked.

“I don't think they were thinking,” Zinke said of his GOP colleagues who crossed the aisle.

While Zinke says he agreed with the premise of the Iran measure — that Congress has the ultimate say on matters of war and peace — he says now isn’t the time for Congress to be tying the president’s hand.

"I agree with the underlying premise, but I also agree that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon," Zinke said. "They can't have an arsenal of destruction. They can't have nuclear material. So I'm giving the president a little latitude on this one."

Since Trump re-entered the White House last January, Republicans on Capitol Hill have given his administration broad leeway on everything from tearing down the White House's historic East Wing to letting Elon Musk and DOGE — Department of Government Efficiency — rescind billions of dollars Congress itself had approved.

While the Iran measure is largely symbolic, it did reveal growing unrest with the conflict.

“I guess, maybe, it’s just a little bit of frustration,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told Raw Story just off the House floor. “We had really good combat operations, but now we've had two months of, I don't know, it seems like a little bit of indecision being made.”

Bacon’s retiring at the end of this term and tends to be more moderate on many issues, but he actually voted with the president on Iran — though he’s not judging his GOP colleagues who bucked Trump.

“I think we grapple with this. I want to see us win. Iran's terrible. I would hate to tie the president's hands right now,” Bacon said. “But I understand the other side of the position, too.”

Ukraine’s a different story, though.

On Thursday last week, 18 Republicans — including Bacon — voted with Democrats to authorize $8 billion in loans to Ukraine and America’s NATO allies.

“It’s Congress saying, ‘hey, we’ve got a different opinion,’” Bacon said. “And, by the way, 70 percent of the American people want more support for Ukraine. I think it's important for him to hear that.”

The measure’s future is in doubt now that it’s been sent to the GOP-controlled Senate, but Trump’s growing number of congressional critics say this week was important because, if nothing else, it showed a restive American public that Congress is more than a rubber stamp, at least in theory.

“Do you think that raises awareness to the public?” Raw Story asked Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI).

“Some,” Dingell told Raw Story while walking to the Capitol this week. “Yeah.”

“They should be worried going into the election,” Dingell said. “People are unhappy right now with energy costs. Gasoline prices have risen dramatically.”

That’s why Democrats are glad Congress finally stood up to Trump.

“It's important for Congress to insert itself,” Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA) told Raw Story.

Still, with Trump’s success in recent GOP primary contests, Democrats aren’t expecting the president’s grip on congressional Republicans to let up ahead of this year’s midterms.

“He can ignore it. He can do whatever he wants,” Bera said. “A lot of my colleagues will echo what the president's saying.”

WASHINGTON — They don’t like it being called an “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” but some Republicans investigated by the select Jan. 6, 2021, committee are behind President Donald Trump’s effort to give taxpayer dollars to people claiming to be victims of the federal government’s investigations and prosecutions, including lawmakers themselves.

On Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified before Congress that the $1.8 billion fund was scrapped, but Wednesday, President Donald Trump breathed new life into it.

“I love it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he refused to declare the fund dead. “I’d have to ask the lawyers. I don’t know.”

While pressure from many of the GOP’s rank-and-file seemed to derail the special fund, a couple of Republicans who played prominent roles in the bipartisan Jan. 6 probe continue to support the White House effort.

“Being a victim of false accusations by the government, I mean, it's had a profound effect on me,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) — who the Select Jan. 6 Committee released video of giving a tour of the Capitol on the eve of the attack — told Raw Story. “But imagine what it's had on others.”

“Huge effect on me and my family”

Since Republicans reclaimed control of the House, Loudermilk issued an interim report on Jan. 6, 2021, on security failures in 2024. Then, in 2025, Republicans named him chair of a GOP select committee.

While Loudermilk says he opposes federal government payouts to anyone who attacked law enforcement, he’s open to payouts to others prosecuted for taking part in the riot.

“Do you think any members of Congress — not yourself, necessarily, but others who were wrapped up in that — may deserve it?” Raw Story asked. “Would that be something acceptable?”

“That's something that I think we're going to have to address going forward,” Loudermilk said. “Like, when I was falsely accused, it was a huge effect on me and my family. We had to have 24-hour security…most of the time we just had to go away from home.”

Even as Acting Attorney General Blanche testified this week that the special fund is now in the administration’s rearview mirror — “we’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” he told Congress this week — Loudermilk doesn’t want it to be.

“I looked into, ‘do I have a defamation suit?’ I talked to an attorney who said, ‘No, because of your position, you do not because you're a public official,’” Loudermilk said. “The bar is way too high.”

Last year, Senate Republicans approved a measure allowing GOP senators whose phone records or data were swept up in the Justice Department’s sprawling Jan. 6 investigation to sue the federal government for up to $500,000.

House Republicans later voted unanimously to kill the provision, but some Senate Republicans still support it, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), whose office was accused of helping facilitate the 2020 fake election scheme from the Wisconsin GOP.

“I disavowed ever pursuing that for myself,” Johnson, who’s worth tens of millions of dollars, told Raw Story. “I didn't have a problem with being able to sue to obtain disclosure and discovery, but I won’t avail myself of any damages on that stuff.”

Johnson says he hasn’t looked into the specifics of Trump’s “weaponization” fund, but, current politics aside, he’s on board with the effort.

“I'm totally supportive. It’s been around since 1957,” Johnson said of the Judgment Fund Congress approved in 1956. “If the government abuses its citizens, those citizens ought to have a cause of action to be able to get compensated from that Judgment Fund.”

Last month, Johnson’s constituent James Troupis filed a $3.2 million claim against the federal government even after he was indicted on a felony conspiracy charge for his role in Wisconsin’s 2020 fake elector scheme.

“I do hope that the Judgment Funds will be available to people like Judge Troupis in Wisconsin, who has just been destroyed — this is a really good man, a person of utmost integrity — who has a couple million dollars in legal fees because of the weaponization of the Biden administration,” Johnson said.

“I oppose that”

Johnson says he’s got a red line, though.

“What do you make of the provision that Trump and his family can't be sued again or indicted again on tax stuff?” Raw Story pressed on other provisions of DOJ’s deal with Trump.

“When you settle with the IRS, you generally settle past claims. That's perfectly appropriate,” Johnson said. “But do you do something in the future? That's what Biden did with his son. I oppose that.

“I oppose some future, you know, immunity as just being wrong. You just don't do that stuff. I mean, it's just, it's a moral hazard that you just incentivize people to do wrong.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: Raw Story writer Matt Laslo's congressional bureau, The LCB, has been credentialed by the Radio-Television Correspondents' Association (RTCA) since 2012.

WASHINGTON — America's most powerful TV networks have been handing out coveted congressional press credentials to people Congress has strictly barred from eligibility. They include a man arrested by the FBI on child pornography charges, Trump's own lawyer, Turning Point USA operatives, political activists and press secretaries — all in apparent violation of congressional statute.

That's the finding of a Raw Story investigation into the Radio-Television Correspondents' Association (RTCA), the little-known, congressionally-empowered body that plays an outsized role over who in Washington gets access to the halls of power — and who doesn't.

Under the Standing Rules of the Senate, only people whose chief work — and at least half their income — comes from gathering or reporting broadcast news qualify for an RTCA credential. Applicants must also declare they're not employed by any government agency.

The names of those approved for admission are then printed in the official Congressional Directory; the latest available version is for the 118th Congress (2023-2024).

Besides those broad regulations, Congress largely lets the press write its own rules and police itself — and the cops have apparently been asleep.

The stakes are real: when Congress-issued press credentials go to political operatives, lobbyists and activists instead of being reserved for journalists, it corrupts the pipeline of information flowing to the public — and hands partisan actors the same privileged access as reporters tasked with holding power to account.

Let's start with the incomprehensible. After the FBI raided reporter James Meek's home in 2022, he resigned in disgrace from ABC News.

The following year, two months before new credentials are issued each spring, FBI agents arrested Meek "for transporting images of child sexual abuse," according to the Justice Department. He was later convicted and imprisoned.

RTCA — run by a small committee of network broadcasters and a handful of permanent staffers — approved a 2023–2024 congressional press credential for him anyway.

ABC News’ representative at the Capitol has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

Christina Bobb didn't just leave journalism — she became one of the most politically active figures in Trump's orbit.

In April 2021, Bobb and OAN White House Correspondent Chanel Rion raised upwards of $600,000 through a personal nonprofit aimed at overturning the 2020 election, according to the Arizona Mirror — an open violation of RTCA's anti-activism rules. She was on Trump's legal team after the 2020 election.

Despite having left OAN in March 2022, RTCA approved her for a 2023–2024 OAN congressional press credential. In the lead-up to the 2024 election, Bobb was tapped to lead the Republican National Committee's election integrity program, which critics called a voter suppression effort.

In April 2024 — while approved for an official congressional hard pass — a grand jury indicted Bobb and 17 others on nine counts of forgery, fraud and conspiracy.

One America News is in a league of its own. Six of the 22 credentials OAN was approved for — 27.3 percent — appear to violate RTCA bylaws.

Pizzagate conspiracy peddler Jack Posobiec left OAN in May 2021 to join Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, yet was still approved for RTCA credentials for the 118th Congress.

Caitlin Sinclair left OAN December 2023 to become TPUSA's spokeswoman before running social media for the pro-Trump MAGA INC Super-PAC during the election. She’s listed as approved for credentials, too, despite RTCA having until April 25, 2024 to correct the official Congressional Directory.

Separately, Fox News requested — and RTCA approved — a credential for Turning Point USA Chief Marketing Officer Marina Minas after she left the network, according to her LinkedIn.

Screengrab on Marinia Minas' Twitter account.

After she departed OAN for Newsmax in 2021, RTCA also okayed OAN credentials for Jennifer Pellegrino throughout the last Congress. She has since left media entirely and is now chief spokesperson for the America First Policy Institute.

The RTCA Executive Committee — the body that approves credentials — is made up of broadcasters elected by their credentialed peers. They’re the gatekeepers.

Lilly Broadcasting submitted just two credential requests for 2023–2024. One of them went to Matthew Knoedler, who left journalism in 2021 to become press secretary for Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA).

During the 2024 election, Knoedler served as communications director for Kelly's Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump — all while approved for a credential he was categorically ineligible for.

Fox News also credentialed Tucker Carlson throughout the same period — even though the network's own lawyers had already convinced a federal court that Carlson is "a commentator prone to rhetorical hyperbole," not a journalist.

Mike Mastrian has been director of the Senate Radio-Television Gallery since 2005. He reports to the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms, but he's also tasked with administering the will of the RTCA Executive Committee.

Currently, Nate Reed of Scripps chairs the committee and also served on it in 2023-2024. He's joined by Vice Chair Frank Thorp V of NBC, Kevin Frey of MS Now and Rachel Knapp of Lilly Broadcasting.

Throughout the 118th Congress, it was led by Fox Radio's Jared Halpern (2023) and NBC's Ryan Nobles (2024). Last year, it was led by Allie Pecorin of Disney-owned ABC.

Multiple requests for comment to each current RTCA Executive Committee member and several former chairs have gone unanswered.

RTCA conducts its business largely in secret. Member meetings are off the record. Credentialing criteria is rarely written down, thus ever-evolving depending on who’s applying.

RTCA maintains four separate public websites — Senate, House, RTCA Cap Hill and RTCA Capitol Hill — that flatly contradict each other at points, including on membership requirements and its own governing constitution.

Across those four sites, RTCA claims to have "over 3,000," "over 3,600," "over 3,700" and "more than 4,000" members. At $40 per credential, the difference between 3,000 and 4,000 members is $40,000 in annual dues.

Screengrab ‘RTCA membership screengrab collage’ in GDoc

While the House site lists three membership tiers — “Active,” “Temporary” and “Non-Voting Gallery Membership“ — rtcacaphill.org claims RTCA’s Constitution established an “Honorary” tier reserved for those who “have rendered outstanding service to the objects of this Association.”

Those listed in the Congressional Directory aren’t differentiated by membership tier.

RTCA credentialing data for the 119th Congress isn't publicly available yet and likely won't be until after this year's midterms.

RTCA didn't respond to Raw Story's questions.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) are leading the charge to eradicate state artificial intelligence laws that Silicon Valley entrepreneurs say are stifling, but there’s a problem: There’s still no federal AI law to replace local tough-on-AI measures.

As Senate Commerce Committee chair, throughout this Congress, Cruz has preached the business-friendly gospel of preemption — a legal doctrine that makes state-passed laws subservient to federal statutes — around Washington.

“It certainly is one element that is an important priority of the president,” Cruz told Raw Story at the Capitol recently. “We'll see where the votes are in Congress.”

On the other side of the aisle, Democrats are baffled that Cruz is fighting robust local AI statutes passed by local elected officials in California, Utah, Colorado and 35 other states when there’s no federal measure to replace these state laws with.

“Oh, yeah, he would like Congress to not have any say in this,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) told Raw Story. “In the absence of federal protections with things, you know, states certainly have a right to protect its citizens from whatever it happens to be.”

“Do you think we can afford, with AI, to go the laissez-faire route?” Raw Story asked.

“No, I think we need guardrails,” Kelly said. “The range of possibilities of how this technology is going to turn out is pretty broad. We've got to narrow it down to a place where it's a win for the American people and workers.”

As of now, the AI boom — and boon — has surely been a win for tech companies and their soaring stock prices, but lawmakers in both parties are now fighting to make sure average Americans become casualties of today’s AI revolution.

“Advances in AI continue to be exponential”

Most members of Congress are clueless when it comes to AI.

Few lawmakers had even heard of deepfakes — AI-generated content that mimics before distorting reality — before a deepfaked robocall of President Joe Biden was blasted to thousands of New Hampshire primary voters in 2024.

In the Senate, where the average age is about 64 years old, lawmakers were so behind on the technology sweeping the globe that then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made the rare decision to close the chamber’s doors to the public for three all-senator AI briefings and nine AI Insight Forums during the 118th Congress.

Many of the AI advances senators were briefed on last Congress are now obsolete. And the tech isn’t slowing down.

While there hasn’t been much attention paid to AI on Capitol Hill since those closed-door Senate briefings, news of Anthropic's new Claude Mythos AI model has awoken the sleeping giant that is Congress in recent months.

The company refuses to release its Mythos model publicly, because executives say it’s too powerful and dangerous for the public.

That’s, in part, because the company says it’s expert at exploiting security vulnerabilities in the internet as we know it, i.e. blowing through firewalls and making mincemeat out of today’s cyber security measures.

That’s why Anthropic alerted the federal government of its surprising advancements and is only making the Mythos model available to a handful of cyber security companies enrolled in its new Project Glasswing.

“There's no doubt the advances in AI continue to be exponential,” Sen. Cruz said. “And that has both enormous productivity gains but also very real downside risks.”

While next-generation artificial intelligence is here, Congress is still debating what to even debate.

“Do you see a sweeping package or more targeted bills?” Raw Story asked the Commerce Committee chair.

“We're in the process of figuring that out and seeing which elements would have the maximum positive impact and at the same time command sufficient support to be able to pass,” Cruz said.

Top of Cruz and Trump’s list is preemption — where state AI laws are forced to play second fiddle to the feds — despite there being no federal AI law, just executive orders and enforcement actions at federal agencies.

The federal preemption effort has had a cooling effect on local legislatures.

In March 2024, Utah was one of the first states out of the gates with its Artificial Intelligence Policy Act — a forward-looking artificial intelligence measure aimed at extending consumer protections to the AI-era while also instituting some narrow disclosure requirements on tech companies.

But in 2025, under pressure from Silicon Valley firms, Utah lawmakers wound some of the law’s disclosure requirements back.

Same in California, New York and Colorado, which were all quick to heap new disclosure, governance and transparency requirements on AI, only to then wind some of their own new regulations back in the face of Silicon Valley backlash.

“I'm normally a states' rights girl”

With Washington gridlocked, state legislatures have, once again, been ground zero for new AI regulations — with AI proposals now introduced in all 50 state capitals and passed in 38 of them — but all their work may be for naught.

“I'm normally a states' rights girl,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) told Raw Story. “But on this, I get the point that there needs to be a certain base level of protection for artificial intelligence.”

Lummis, who was a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus when she served in the House, says artificial intelligence is an interstate commerce issue, “so the federal government has jurisdiction.”

“Correct me if I'm wrong,” Raw Story pushed. “But I don't really see a big AI bill coming or even a small one?”

“Well, therein lies the challenge,” Lummis said. “So even for those of us who agree that it's appropriate to have some base level of federal preemption, the question becomes what's the level? Where is the level? And that is not easy, and it's not really all that agreed upon.”

Not even within her own Republican Party, where critics of the nation’s technology class are up in arms over efforts to let Silicon Valley “regulate” itself.

Yesterday’s artificial intelligence anxiety is now today's AI reality.

“It's here,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story. “It's here.”

While the AI revolution continues upending industry — with an estimated 85,000 job cuts due to AI so far in 2026 alone — Congress keeps dithering.

“There needs to be legislation on this,” Hawley said.

For his part, Hawley’s teamed up with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) to introduce the GUARD Act — which is aimed at shielding children from chatbots — and the Artificial Intelligence Risk Evaluation Act, which would “establish an Advanced Artificial Intelligence Evaluation Program within the Department of Energy for assessing AI risks and informing federal oversight.”

“It's pretty modest, our bill is, honestly,” Hawley admitted. “But we need something here to make sure that we're tracking the national security risks, because that's a big one.”

For now, it’s up to AI companies like Anthropic to police themselves and their ever-evolving new AI models.

While that’s good enough for Trump and Commerce Chair Cruz, Silicon Valley self-policing just won’t do with AI.

“I'm not sure every AI company would have been this responsible in terms of timing of release,” Sen. Mark Warner said. “For me, it raises a huge amount of questions about, you know, who can we rely on before this gets released into the wild?”

“And yet here on the other side of the aisle,” Raw Story pushed, “they're still talking about preemption of state laws with a federal bill.”

“Over a long term basis, I've always said, you know, well, preemption makes sense, but only if you've got strong guardrails,” Warner said.

“We don't even have a federal law yet,” Raw Story pushed.

“We don't have a federal law on privacy!” Warner bemoaned. “We don’t have a federal law on social media.”

Without even basic guardrails on technology firms, many are braced for disaster, especially when it comes to the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“I don't trust him with this technology,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) told Raw Story. “Well, then the question is, well then what? And that's what we need to answer.”

“What are we actually trying to accomplish?”

The contemporary Congress has mastered new media, at least when it comes to their reelection efforts, but that’s about it.

“I worry that, you know, we've just consistently seen Congress fall short of actually tackling cutting-edge technology,” Kim lamented.

Kim says history’s now repeating itself with AI.

“I've been here in the Senate now about a year and a half, you know, we've yet to really have that type of depth and understanding of what we should be doing when it comes to AI,” Kim said. “So that's really the first and foremost that we need to do.”

While the White House and Trump’s allies on the Hill are fighting efforts to place guardrails around AI, Kim says they’re missing the mark, because there is no mark.

“We have to have a sense of, what are we actually trying to accomplish?” Kim said. “Then we can sort of figure out what the right level of government is and what interaction it is.”

WASHINGTON — It’s an election year, and impeachment’s in the air in the nation’s capital.

After 187 Democrats signed onto the effort to impeach now-former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, restive Democrats have now turned their attention to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Recently, a group of Democrats led by Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) — an Iranian American — dropped six different articles of impeachment against Hegseth, ranging from the “reckless endangerment of United States servicemembers” to allegedly demonstrating “a willful disregard for the Constitution.”

Republicans say they’re braced for the onslaught.

“I assume we'll have all kinds of impeachments if the Democrats have the speakership,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) told Raw Story.

The more progressive wing of the Democratic Party is eager to oblige.

“Pete Hegseth broke his oath to the Constitution, put U.S. troops at grave risk through the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, engaged in abuse of office and conduct beneath the dignity of his office, and carried out unlawful military actions despite his obligation to refuse—including strikes on civilians and a girls’ school in Minab, Iran,” Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) said when she introduced her impeachment measure in mid-April.

“Hegseth’s conduct meets the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors and warrants immediate removal by Congress,” Ansari — who’s already attracted more than a dozen co-sponsors in just the past two weeks — said.

But not all Democrats are on board.

In fact, even as they regularly decry Hegseth, not a single Democratic congressional leader has signed onto the effort to oust the secretary.

“Where are you in this effort to impeach Hegseth?” Raw Story asked House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA).

“We are evaluating,” Clark replied.

“Do you worry that all this impeachment talk could be bad for your party in November?” Raw Story pressed.

“No, no, no. We are, as House Democrats, we are keeping the focus on the rising cost for people and the connection to this war and Pete Hegseth — in gasoline going up, impacting the cost of groceries, housing,” Clark said. “It's a continuation of no explanation of this war but asking Americans to foot the bill."

Impeachments are rare. Or at least they used to be.

For their part, Republicans have also been whipping up impeachment talk in this 119th Congress.

While a few MAGA-faithful have sponsored efforts to expunge the two impeachments President Donald Trump racked up in his first term, others have gone on the offensive and targeted eight federal judges with articles of impeachment for ruling key parts of Trump’s agenda unconstitutional.

Besides Hegseth, Democrats have also introduced articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr., though that’s only attracted one co-sponsor since being introduced in December.

There was also an effort afoot to oust former Attorney General Pam Bondi, though it only attracted seven Democratic co-sponsors before Trump booted her.

And, of course, three Democrats have filed separate articles of impeachment against Trump, including 13 articles of impeachment introduced by Rep. John Larson (D-CT) alone.

That’s what Democrats are doing when they’re locked in the seemingly powerless minority on Capitol Hill.

And that’s why Republicans expect a flood of attacks on the president and his Cabinet if Democrats regain control of the House in November.

“Is it not a sign of things to come?” Wicker told Raw Story. “Then you have to have a trial.”

It’s not even summer yet, and campaigns tend to pick up steam in the fall, but across the Capitol, Republicans sense an impeachment onslaught just over the horizon.

“We're, unfortunately, going to see probably a lot more of this,” Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) told Raw Story.

While impeachment efforts are easy wins with the two parties’ respective bases, they tend to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of many of today’s increasingly tribalistic political class.

For many in the GOP, the Hegseth attacks are particularly unpatriotic because the cries to impeach him are growing louder as the Defense Secretary continues to wage war with Iran.

“It's frustrating that in the middle of, you know, the latest conflict against someone we've been, quite frankly, at war with for 47 years, they're going after our Secretary of War,” Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, said.

Still, Sheehy’s a fighter, and he gets the calculus of his Democratic counterparts.

“It's good for them. I think the reality is, politically for them it's good. It motivates their base. That's what the Democrat base wants right now, is they want unbridled aggression in any form,” Sheehy said. “And they feel not only justified, but that it's good. And, I think it’s just a political calculation they're making that this is what their base wants.”

And what the base wants, the base gets in contemporary Washington. Just ask Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and red meat-waving GOP leaders.

In the midst of the 2024 presidential election, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas received the dubious title of being only the second Cabinet member in U.S. history to be impeached.

House Republicans passed the measure along party lines, with three Republicans crossing the aisle to join Democrats in opposing the effort.

Then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) used a procedural trick to avoid a full Senate trial. In the end, Senate Democrats ruled the articles of impeachment out of order, because the charges fell short of the constitutional impeachment requirement that "conduct that rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor.

Republican senators say they’re ready to follow Schumer's lead and reject any impeachment charges as being out of order, and they’re fully expecting Democrats to move to impeach Trump for a third historic time.

“Oh, you don't think if they get the majority they're not going to impeach [Trump]?” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Raw Story through a laugh. “That’d kind of make our day. We'll just dismiss it like Schumer dismissed the Mayorkas one.”

Republicans may be the only ones laughing, but they also seem to have an ally in at least one Senate Democrat who doesn’t like seeing his colleagues abuse the impeachment process.

“Is that a losing strategy for your party?” Raw Story asked of the effort to impeach Hegseth.

“You could describe him as incompetent, but incompetent is not an unlawful thing,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) told Raw Story.

So while House Democrats rush to impeach, Fetterman believes they’ve tasked themselves with a fool's errand.

“So yeah, like, Mayorkas was a disaster — absolute disaster! — but you can't impeach him for just being incompetent,” Fetterman said. “It's not what impeachment is designed for.”

Senate Democrats are mostly mum on matters of “high crimes and misdemeanors” these days, even though the progressive wing of the party supports many of these impeachment efforts, especially against Hegseth.

“It's totally understandable,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) told Raw Story. “But it's not something that can succeed.”

“Is that a distraction ahead of the midterms?” Raw Story pressed. “Or something you support?”:

“It’s understandable. I mean, he's a terrible leader,” Welch said. “But can it work? And I think we have to focus on a constructive agenda that gives people a sense that we're about them.”

Other Senate Democrats agree.

“Is this a distraction for your party or is that good?” Raw Story asked.

“It's neither,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) told Raw Story after voting on the Senate floor. “Over here there's not that same push.”

“Is that just because you Senators are realistic?” Raw Story pressed.

“Well, no. I think it's because impeachment initially, you know, starts in the House, and if they take the House, they will likely have the votes for some of those things,” Schatz said. “And then it would come to us and we would likely not have the votes. I think it's a function of the Constitution.”

“Do you think it would be good, though?” Raw Story inquired. “Like, for a few months — if you guys do take over — doing an impeachment for Hegseth or Trump?”

“The first thing we should do is focus on the cost of living,” Schatz — who’s rumored to be a replacement in waiting should Schumer retire or lose — said. “And the second thing we should do is focus on the cost of living, and if there's any room on the legislative timetable, we can consider other things.”

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), a close ally of President Donald Trump's, threw cold water on the president's latest attempt to prosecute one of his political foes in an exclusive interview with Raw Story

Raw Story caught up with Johnson on Capitol Hill on Wednesday and asked him about the indictment that Trump's Department of Justice returned against former FBI Director James Comey. Johnson went along with the idea, although he acknowledged that it was unlikely to yield any substantive results.

"I don't think there will be a conviction," Johnson told Raw Story.

The three-page indictment against Comey stems from a picture he posted on his Instagram page of seashells arranged to read "86 47," a phrase that some people on the right have said is a veiled threat. The indictment charges Comey with two felonies, one for threatening the president's life and the other for interstate communication violations. Comey has denied all wrongdoing.

Even though Johnson said there likely won't be a conviction, he added that Comey should pay an "enormous legal price."

"The harm of what he did is almost incalculable," Johnson said about Comey's post. "They should pay an enormous legal price."

"They put this country through the kind of political turmoil, investigations, and impeachments that Russia and China could only dream of," Johnson said. "What's the legal price they gotta pay for that harm?"

WASHINGTON — The American people disapprove of this Republican-controlled Congress, with a record-tying 86 percent of the public disapproving, according to a new Gallup survey. That ties this 119th Congress with the 112th Congress (2011-2012) as the least popular in contemporary American history.

While most Democrats are embarrassed by the new findings, most Republicans are in disbelief, with many blaming the mainstream media for their own party's poor showing as they prepare to change nothing before strutting into this fall's midterms.

"The only thing that needs to be retooled is the legacy media that consistently and intentionally reports falsehoods about the Republican Party or ignores our wins," Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) told Raw Story. "That's what needs to be retooled. They're terrible. Really."

While this Congress has achieved new lows, many Republicans say the public's dissatisfied with the unpopular institution, not them personally (even if their party currently controls the House of Representatives, Senate and White House).

"You mean public opinion? Buddy, we've been lower than whale [expletive] for decades," Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) told Raw Story.

The GOP's plummeting popularity is doing little to change the party's all-out embrace of its influencer-in-chief.

If anything, the more MAGA wing of the GOP argues congressional Republican leaders need to embrace Trump even more by ramming his agenda — from the SAVE Act's new voter ID requirements to the president's demand for a blank check in his war against Iran — through the narrowly divided Senate.

"I would retool [our agenda] to follow the leader of our party, Donald J. Trump," Nehls said. "That's what we should do."

That has Democrats scoffing that the GOP has become insular and out of touch.

"They're still largely avoiding town halls," Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) told Raw Story. "This is a complete disconnect with what's going on on the ground."

And this fall's midterms will be won or lost by the all-important ground games each party's able to muster in divided districts from coast to coast.

"Democrats have always been cheats"

While tax day's in the rearview, most congressional Republicans won't stop talking about it.

"On average, the American public — individually and by family — got back thousands and thousands of dollars," Van Orden of Wisconsin claimed. "You know why? Because of the One Big Beautiful Bill."

Democrats decry the GOP-only measure, arguing it cuts taxes for the wealthiest Americans while boosting ICE's budget by some $75 billion. Most Republicans say the "Big, Beautiful Bill" ought to be the party's rallying cry.

"Look, I just think we need to be talking about the stuff we've done, and I think we need to talk about the things Democrats are blocking," Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) told Raw Story. "It's pretty simple. I mean, we've delivered a number of very important reforms."

Roy's proud to have helped usher Trump's agenda through the Capitol, and now he's painting Democrats as obstructionists.

"We've passed a lot of them, but some of them have been blocked by Democrats, including funding for DHS, ICE and Border Patrol," Roy said. "So I don't think it's that complex. You've just gotta message what we've done."

Still, many House Republicans get the unrest, because they, too, are upset at the slow pace of the Senate.

"You got to look at when you say 'Congress,' it's both chambers," Nehls maintained. "But it's not really the House. We're not the ones that are screwing around with the football. It's the Senate, because of that damn thing called the filibuster — there's no mention of the filibuster in the Constitution. Nuke the filibuster!"

Nehls is a part of the record-breaking 58 House members — 37 Republicans and 21 Democrats, according to the Associated Press — who've announced they're retiring from Congress.

"They just screwed it up in Virginia. The Democrats have always been cheats. They like to cheat," Nehls said.

"It's funny because the dishonest media is talking about, you know, the redistricting and the victory, but they seem to leave out that they took it from six [Democrats], five [Republicans] to 10[Dems], one [Republican]. Because the average American would say 10 to one, that's a little extreme, but that's what the Democrats do. They're far left. They're controlled by the far left nut jobs."

"Dishonest media" aside, even some of Nehls' Republican colleagues are starting to see the light.

"Resist, resist, resist"

The remaining moderate Republicans in Congress are humming a different tune than the MAGA faithful like Nehls.

"Look, I think the American people want to see Congress function," Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) told Raw Story. "They want to see it work."

It's lonely in the middle of today's more tribalistic Congress, as Lawler knows more than most.

"What we've seen is there's only a handful of seats that are actually competitive, which means that both parties are getting more and more polarized," Lawler said. "Which obviously makes it a challenge."

From his perch in the moderate middle, Lawler said Democrats are unified, but they also risk being painted as unserious obstructionists.

"The Democrats refuse to negotiate on hardly anything," Lawler said. "Their whole objective is just resist, resist, resist. That's not a winning strategy either. I think the American people are tired of that approach. You know, from my vantage point, there are a lot of things we should be focused on and trying to find bipartisan solutions on whether it's housing, energy, health care or immigration."

Solutions are a hard sell in the contemporary political environment where both parties have all but perfected the art of the attack.

With America now engaged in a war with Iran, Republicans say not to put too much stock in polls right now.

"We're in the middle of a war," Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) told Raw Story. "People are frustrated when it affects them in gas prices. That's what's affected them more."

"So you're not worried yet?" Raw Story asked the Palmetto State gubernatorial candidate.

"No. Not yet," Norman said. "And about the prices, they're going to come down with the war."

Other Republicans point to their party's ever-shrinking House majority — which currently sits at 217 Republicans to 212 Democrats — in this 119th Congress, which they say also shares much of the blame.

"I understand. Hey, and particularly when you have a one or two vote majority, it's going to give an appearance of confusion," Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) told Raw Story. "I'm not saying I fully understand people saying or thinking that, but it's gridlock — well, it's close to a gridlock, but it's not because of the members. It's the numbers."

For many Democrats, especially those on the more progressive end of the spectrum, their GOP counterparts are delusional these days.

They say there's little to nothing in today's GOP to latch onto, especially as Trump and his Republican allies demonize the neediest in their communities.

"It's very hyper-partisan, but also, it's attacking working-class people and the poor. They're constantly attacking them," Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) — a member of AOC's so-called Squad — told Raw Story. "And many of them are supporters, voters of theirs."

Without a presidential contest this year, political analysts expect millions of Americans to sit out this year's elections, as they do every midterm election. But Tlaib senses even more electoral discontent than usual.

"And that's why I think a lot of people are not going to come out because they're not inspired," Tlaib said. "Because nothing's changed."

And nothing's changing, for now at least.

"I get why people are leaving"

And that includes the mass exodus of elected Republicans.

"Like, I get why people are leaving, right? Because what's the point?" Pocan of Wisconsin told Raw Story. "If you went through all the work to be in the majority and you're not able to govern, what is the advantage of being here? Frequent flyer miles aren't worth it."

Pocan accused the GOP of losing touch with average Americans.

That's been on display nationwide, Pocan argued, as Democrats keep racking up special election wins in blue, purple and even red districts, as the party did yet again in Virginia's redistricting referendum earlier this week.

The record-tying dissatisfaction mirrors the unprecedented levels of unrest that have taken root in the electorate, which is why progressives have said they had to relearn the art of shutting up and listening to their disgruntled neighbors.

While Pocan and his party have promised voters change if they win in November, the six-term congressman has also enjoyed watching Trump and his MAGA-spray-painted GOP implode on their own.

"That's why we're doing so well in all these special elections, why we did well in Virginia the other day," Pocan said. "But hey, as far as I'm concerned, keep it up!"

WASHINGTON — The Senate may have done its part, but House Republicans made clear Thursday they will not rubber-stamp a Department of Homeland Security funding deal they say leaves agencies out in the cold that are tasked with immigration enforcement.

The Senate passed a $70 billion budget resolution to fund ICE and Border Patrol through reconciliation, the result of an overnight vote-a-rama, while a separate appropriations bill funding DHS other than ICE and Border Patrol stalls in the House. Hardline House Republicans have demanded funding for those two entities as well.

Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) warned that the partial funding approach is dead on arrival.

"People don't understand when you are going to cut out ICE and CBP, I don't think that is going to pass in the House because people are trying to run past that and talk about some reconciliation. But that is still an issue when you have zeros that zero out ICE and Border Patrol. That's an issue," said Self.

Self went further, pushing back on what he called a "skinny reconciliation" strategy, a move he said breaks apart appropriations bills in ways that undermine the process.

"That is not the way to do business. Don't chop up your appropriations bills," he said flatly.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) was more measured but equally pessimistic about a quick resolution, blaming Democratic obstruction for the gridlock.

"The House is trying to get consensus on it. It's just a tough, tough thing to do. Anything up here is hard, particularly as it relates to, you know, no Democrats helping on anything. The Senate did their job in a small way. We'll come to some agreement," Norman said.

DHS has faced a record-breaking partial shutdown as Senate Democrats have refused to fund the department unless major policy changes were made to immigration enforcement. Trump and Republican congressional leaders have blessed the two-part approach, making Self's resistance a direct challenge to his own party's leadership.

When Self was asked whether he was breaking with the president on the bill, he deflected with a pointed reminder of where power lives: "I am dealing with the House. The House is Article One. We are trying to figure this out in the House of Representatives."

WASHINGTON — "Weak sauce." "A joke." "A performance artist." That's how a West Point grad and Army vet on the Armed Services Committee described Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, who is running the Department of Defense in the middle of a war.

Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) didn't mince words Wednesday after Hegseth fired Navy Secretary John Phelan, effective immediately, with no explanation given, while U.S. warships actively blockaded Iranian ports.

“It's more score settling. The revenge tour. In the middle of a war. In the middle of a naval blockade," he lamented to Raw Story.

Ryan added, "He pretends to be tough but has the thinnest skin and is weak sauce. He knows he's in — and this is true, I'm not just saying — he knows, like, every military officer and senior leader knows he's a joke and he's a performance artist. So they all do not take him seriously."

Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), a former Army Ranger who served with the 82nd Airborne in Iraq and the elite 75th Ranger Regiment in Afghanistan Serve America, piled on, noting the Armed Services Committee got zero heads-up.

"So it's very disturbing. We're going to obviously be pressing to get information about why this is happening and what is the basis for these firings," Crow told Raw Story.

Since Trump's return to office, the chair of the Joint Chiefs, the chief of naval operations, the Coast Guard commandant, and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency have all been shown the door.

Just three weeks before Phelan's ouster, Hegseth fired Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George mid-war. Phelan himself, a billionaire and major Trump campaign donor, had clashed repeatedly with Hegseth before Wednesday's ax fell after 13 tumultuous months at the Pentagon.

Hegseth sent Phelan a message telling him to resign or be fired, but Phelan didn't believe Trump was aware and began phoning White House officials asking whether the president even knew.

Ryan put it more colorfully.

"So Hegseth calls Phelan, tells him to resign or be fired. Phelan doesn't believe Hegseth, so he goes — literally, physically himself — goes to the White House to say, basically, like 'mommy and Daddy, is this true?' And Trump's like, 'yeah, no it's true.'"

Ryan concluded that with half a trillion in new defense spending demanded and the Pentagon failing audits, the ones paying the price are "our troops in theater — and literally every American at the gas pump."