Joe Biden is now POTUS
- Thread starter Spectrum
- Start date
People dying of Covid but their slow economy has to keep moving so they can't shutdown. Presidents Executive orders will hold strong against any state. Presidents have perform thousands of executive orders. Roosevelt performed 3728 executive orders. George Washington performed the first 8. Unconstitutional my ass. Fucking South Dakota, Biden should give them the middle finger on Twitter.
House Impeachment Managers' Video Compilation of January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol
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<iframe width=512 height=330 src='https://www.c-span.org/video/standa...video-compilation-january-6-attack-us-capitol' allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' frameborder=0></iframe>
Bitch it's too late! Fuck that you are an adult and own your responsibilities. Stupid ass hoe!
Yeah when the dust is settling these people are trying to cop pleas all over the place.
GOP rats slowly jumping shiphttps://www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/poli...igan-state-senate-leader-apologize/index.html
She can tell her story in jail
His apology was asinine.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/poli...igan-state-senate-leader-apologize/index.html
She told the crowd at the National Action Network convention that such a generational attitude was the “underpinning” of a list of policies that include health care for all, free public college -- and reparations to black Americans for slavery.
Ocasio-Cortez calls for ‘agenda of reparations’ as 2020 Dems get on board
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., called Friday for “examining and pursuing an agenda of reparations” as part of a lengthy list of proposals delivered before an Al Sharpton-sponsored conference in New York -- touting a controversial policy that's increasingly gained support from the 2020...www.foxnews.com
Some context for her tweet.
Yeah like own your fuck ups.....I hate when motherfuckers don't own what they believe in....Living in a world full of cowards....I would respect her more if she said I fucked up and I will accept any consequences that come my way...
Very good point......CACs want to do dumb shit but don’t want to take responsibility for doing that dumb shit...Even when you have that dumb shit on video
I seriously think that's why they are delaying Merrick Garland.Wonder how many GOP Congressmen/women and Senators are worrying about when the Alphabet boys are going to come knocking for their part in the Coupand you know its coming.
Lady G is worrying about it I know thatWonder how many GOP Congressmen/women and Senators are worrying about when the Alphabet boys are going to come knocking for their part in the Coup
Michigan GOP candidate for governor is a Black man who wants to cancel Black History Month
Michigan's “deeply conservative” 2022 gubernatorial hopeful Austin Chenge — a Black Army veteran and businessman and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's first Republican challenger — announced that...
“I will cancel #BlackHistoryMonth in #Michigan,” Chenge announced in an Instagram post. “It's offensive, unfair, maybe illegal... Americans from all backgrounds deserve a revered history. I'll declare American History Month.”
Some critics of Black History Month, which has been celebrated since 1970, say that appreciation of Black history should occupy more space and time than just the month of February — including actor Morgan Freeman, who called the monthlong celebration “ridiculous” and suggested that Black history is American history during a 2005 60 Minutes interview.
But Chenge's argument to include all Americans plays directly to former President Donald Trump's MAGA base, as well as the "All Lives Matter" response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement. Black history deserves special consideration in light of our country's sordid history of slavery, systemic racism, and racial injustices — as well as an opportunity to celebrate Black accomplishments.
But Chenge knows exactly what he's doing, as it was reported last year that more than 87% of U.S. Republicans believe all lives matter, compared to 63% of Democrats who believe Black lives matter.
Since posting his hot take on Black History Month on Monday, Chenge's post has garnered more than 700 likes and a handful of comments that support the move to abolish the nationally recognized month of education and remembrance that serves as a reminder as to all the work that has yet to be done to ensure a safe, fair, and equal future for Black Americans."
Both sides thoughMichigan GOP candidate for governor is a Black man who wants to cancel Black History Month
Michigan's “deeply conservative” 2022 gubernatorial hopeful Austin Chenge — a Black Army veteran and businessman and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's first Republican challenger — announced that...www.metrotimes.com
“I will cancel #BlackHistoryMonth in #Michigan,” Chenge announced in an Instagram post. “It's offensive, unfair, maybe illegal... Americans from all backgrounds deserve a revered history. I'll declare American History Month.”
Some critics of Black History Month, which has been celebrated since 1970, say that appreciation of Black history should occupy more space and time than just the month of February — including actor Morgan Freeman, who called the monthlong celebration “ridiculous” and suggested that Black history is American history during a 2005 60 Minutes interview.
But Chenge's argument to include all Americans plays directly to former President Donald Trump's MAGA base, as well as the "All Lives Matter" response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement. Black history deserves special consideration in light of our country's sordid history of slavery, systemic racism, and racial injustices — as well as an opportunity to celebrate Black accomplishments.
But Chenge knows exactly what he's doing, as it was reported last year that more than 87% of U.S. Republicans believe all lives matter, compared to 63% of Democrats who believe Black lives matter.
Since posting his hot take on Black History Month on Monday, Chenge's post has garnered more than 700 likes and a handful of comments that support the move to abolish the nationally recognized month of education and remembrance that serves as a reminder as to all the work that has yet to be done to ensure a safe, fair, and equal future for Black Americans."
Political Gary Coleman won't win it.
Dude is an absolute clown.Michigan GOP candidate for governor is a Black man who wants to cancel Black History Month
Michigan's “deeply conservative” 2022 gubernatorial hopeful Austin Chenge — a Black Army veteran and businessman and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's first Republican challenger — announced that...
“I will cancel #BlackHistoryMonth in #Michigan,” Chenge announced in an Instagram post. “It's offensive, unfair, maybe illegal... Americans from all backgrounds deserve a revered history. I'll declare American History Month.”
Some critics of Black History Month, which has been celebrated since 1970, say that appreciation of Black history should occupy more space and time than just the month of February — including actor Morgan Freeman, who called the monthlong celebration “ridiculous” and suggested that Black history is American history during a 2005 60 Minutes interview.
But Chenge's argument to include all Americans plays directly to former President Donald Trump's MAGA base, as well as the "All Lives Matter" response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement. Black history deserves special consideration in light of our country's sordid history of slavery, systemic racism, and racial injustices — as well as an opportunity to celebrate Black accomplishments.
But Chenge knows exactly what he's doing, as it was reported last year that more than 87% of U.S. Republicans believe all lives matter, compared to 63% of Democrats who believe Black lives matter.
Since posting his hot take on Black History Month on Monday, Chenge's post has garnered more than 700 likes and a handful of comments that support the move to abolish the nationally recognized month of education and remembrance that serves as a reminder as to all the work that has yet to be done to ensure a safe, fair, and equal future for Black Americans."
they absolutely have kompromat on that bitch.
What you need to know
- Democratic House managers will commence their opening arguments on Wednesday afternoon
- On Tuesday, six Republican Senators joined the Democrats affirming that the impeachment trial was constitutional
- The Senate is unlikely to achieve the two-thirds vote required to convict Trump, according to news outlets
Trump impeachment defense team scrambling to make new videos to bolster case
President Donald Trump's legal team is scrambling to collect and produce more videos to bolster their impeachment trial arguments after a rambling debut performance that enraged the former president and dismayed Republicans, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
www.cnn.com
Trump impeachment defense team scrambling to make new videos to bolster case
By Dana Bash, Pamela Brown and Kevin Liptak, CNN
Updated 12:26 PM ET, Wed February 10, 2021
(CNN)President Donald Trump's legal team is scrambling to collect and produce more videos to bolster their impeachment trial arguments after a rambling debut performance that enraged the former president and dismayed Republicans, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
The move to use more videotape -- and lean away from in-person arguments -- amounts to a tacit acknowledgment that the lawyers Trump has enlisted to defend him during his second impeachment trial are failing to inspire confidence.
Among the tape Trump's team is now scrambling to assemble are clips of Democrats who also lost elections but declined to immediately concede. The former president's legal team hopes to argue Trump was doing something similar when he cast doubt on the 2020 election results using false claims of voter fraud.
The videos could also help expedite the proceedings; after Tuesday's meandering and widely panned performance, Trump and some of his fellow Republicans are hoping more than ever to conclude the trial as quickly as possible. With few Republicans signaling a willingness to change their minds on the case, he is widely expected to be acquitted.
Content by Rosetta Stone
Make road-tripping fun - and safe - again
Start your search with RVshare, the largest peer-to-peer RV rental marketplace on the planet.
WHAT WE EXPECT TODAY
- This is the second day of Trump's second impeachment trial
- House impeachment managers have up to 8 hours to make their case today and tomorrow
- Democrats plan to use video to press their argument and retell the harrowing attack on the Capitol
The disorganized condition of Trump's legal defense sent the former president into rage as he watched the proceedings unfold from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Amid his frustration, advisers told Trump he could hardly expect more from his legal team after more competent lawyers were dissuaded from participating, either because of his reputation for not paying or because Trump pushed them to use false or misleading claims.
close dialog
Bruce Castor, the lawyer who spoke first in a digressive opening bid, caused Trump to vent at his television set because he felt the performance was ineffective and embarrassing. He was more tempered in his reaction to David Schoen, who spoke after Castor.
Trump's advisers now hope to make Schoen the face of the legal team, including by booking him on Sean Hannity's Fox News program on Tuesday evening.
But Schoen has said he will not work on the Sabbath, leading to questions of who will represent Trump during Saturday's trial proceedings. Castor is an option, even though he caused consternation and head-shaking from Republican senators.
Another could be Michael van der Veen, another member of the legal team. But his appearance would be complicated by the participation in a lawsuit last year against Trump, claiming he was suppressing mail voting.
The botched opening of Trump's impeachment defense on Monday came as something of a surprise to both the former president and his team, even though Democrats had signaled for weeks they planned to utilize video of the insurrection attempt on January 6 to take the case for Trump's guilt.
Castor even acknowledged the effectiveness of the House managers' presentation in his own remarks.
"I'll be quite frank with you," Castor said. "We changed what we were going to do on account that we thought that the House managers' presentation was well done."
He called the Democrats "brilliant speakers" and said he "loved listening to them."
The former president's allies appeared to acknowledge as much. In its coverage of the trial, the conservative Newsmax channel cut away from Castor to scathing criticism from Alan Dershowitz, one of Trump's attorneys from his first impeachment trial.
"I have no idea what he's doing. I have no idea why he's saying what he's saying," Derschowitz said.
That caused consternation among some on Trump's team.
"The rebuke from Dersch and the first impeachment team really stung," one person familiar with the discussions said.
Seriously boy this is really bad for Trump and the RepublicansTrump impeachment defense team scrambling to make new videos to bolster case
President Donald Trump's legal team is scrambling to collect and produce more videos to bolster their impeachment trial arguments after a rambling debut performance that enraged the former president and dismayed Republicans, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
Trump impeachment defense team scrambling to make new videos to bolster case
By Dana Bash, Pamela Brown and Kevin Liptak, CNN
Updated 12:26 PM ET, Wed February 10, 2021
(CNN)President Donald Trump's legal team is scrambling to collect and produce more videos to bolster their impeachment trial arguments after a rambling debut performance that enraged the former president and dismayed Republicans, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
The move to use more videotape -- and lean away from in-person arguments -- amounts to a tacit acknowledgment that the lawyers Trump has enlisted to defend him during his second impeachment trial are failing to inspire confidence.
Among the tape Trump's team is now scrambling to assemble are clips of Democrats who also lost elections but declined to immediately concede. The former president's legal team hopes to argue Trump was doing something similar when he cast doubt on the 2020 election results using false claims of voter fraud.
The videos could also help expedite the proceedings; after Tuesday's meandering and widely panned performance, Trump and some of his fellow Republicans are hoping more than ever to conclude the trial as quickly as possible. With few Republicans signaling a willingness to change their minds on the case, he is widely expected to be acquitted.
Content by Rosetta Stone
Make road-tripping fun - and safe - again
Start your search with RVshare, the largest peer-to-peer RV rental marketplace on the planet.
WHAT WE EXPECT TODAY
- This is the second day of Trump's second impeachment trial
- House impeachment managers have up to 8 hours to make their case today and tomorrow
- Democrats plan to use video to press their argument and retell the harrowing attack on the Capitol
The disorganized condition of Trump's legal defense sent the former president into rage as he watched the proceedings unfold from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Amid his frustration, advisers told Trump he could hardly expect more from his legal team after more competent lawyers were dissuaded from participating, either because of his reputation for not paying or because Trump pushed them to use false or misleading claims.
close dialog
Bruce Castor, the lawyer who spoke first in a digressive opening bid, caused Trump to vent at his television set because he felt the performance was ineffective and embarrassing. He was more tempered in his reaction to David Schoen, who spoke after Castor.
Trump's advisers now hope to make Schoen the face of the legal team, including by booking him on Sean Hannity's Fox News program on Tuesday evening.
But Schoen has said he will not work on the Sabbath, leading to questions of who will represent Trump during Saturday's trial proceedings. Castor is an option, even though he caused consternation and head-shaking from Republican senators.
Another could be Michael van der Veen, another member of the legal team. But his appearance would be complicated by the participation in a lawsuit last year against Trump, claiming he was suppressing mail voting.
The botched opening of Trump's impeachment defense on Monday came as something of a surprise to both the former president and his team, even though Democrats had signaled for weeks they planned to utilize video of the insurrection attempt on January 6 to take the case for Trump's guilt.
Castor even acknowledged the effectiveness of the House managers' presentation in his own remarks.
"I'll be quite frank with you," Castor said. "We changed what we were going to do on account that we thought that the House managers' presentation was well done."
He called the Democrats "brilliant speakers" and said he "loved listening to them."
The former president's allies appeared to acknowledge as much. In its coverage of the trial, the conservative Newsmax channel cut away from Castor to scathing criticism from Alan Dershowitz, one of Trump's attorneys from his first impeachment trial.
"I have no idea what he's doing. I have no idea why he's saying what he's saying," Derschowitz said.
That caused consternation among some on Trump's team.
"The rebuke from Dersch and the first impeachment team really stung," one person familiar with the discussions said.
Inside Republicans' plans for a House takeover
The National Republican Congressional Committee has identified 47 House Democrats it intends to challenge, though the district maps won't be known for months.
www.politico.com
they got plans....
Inside Republicans' plans for a House takeover
The National Republican Congressional Committee has identified 47 House Democrats it intends to challenge, though the district maps won't be known for months.
NRCC Chair Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) is now in his second stint leading the House GOP’s campaign arm. | Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
By ALLY MUTNICK and MELANIE ZANONA
02/10/2021 05:01 AM EST
Updated: 02/10/2021 09:20 AM EST
House Republicans surprised nearly everyone last November when they almost captured the majority.
Then they spent January roiled by the deadly attack on the Capitol, confronting a second impeachment of then-President Donald Trump and answering for a whirlwind of offensive conspiracy theories from a firebrand freshman GOP congresswoman.
But the National Republican Congressional Committee has landed on a plan to regain the momentum with which it ended 2020: Ignore all that.
“We're gonna talk about all the stuff that matters to people,” said NRCC Chair Tom Emmer, citing school reopenings and job security. “We'll follow through on a game plan. Hopefully, people will allow us to operate under the radar again because they won't believe us. And we can surprise all of you again two years from now."
And Emmer — now in his second stint leading the House GOP’s campaign arm — brushed aside Democrats’ new strategy to link the whole party to QAnon: “My colleague down the street might think that some fringe extremist theory is something that people care about,” he said in reference to Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But fewer people believe in QAnon, Emmer said, than think the moon landing was faked.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and congressional Republicans are just five seats away from seizing back the House, following an unexpectedly successful election cycle, when they netted a dozen seats. The GOP also controls the redistricting process in several key states, giving them the ability to draw favorable new maps. And further fueling hopes of a Republican takeover, the president's party has lost an average of 22 House seats in midterms going back over the past 40 years.
In an exclusive interview with POLITICO on Tuesday, Emmer charted out his road map for the 2022 midterms, which includes a list of 47 Democratic seats to target and a messaging blueprint: Tag Democrats as jobs-killing socialists and stress the GOP’s commitment to reopening schools and protecting the gas and energy sector.
BY MERIDITH MCGRAW AND GABBY ORR
But GOP leaders, while quietly confident that history is on their side, know there are still plenty of landmines ahead — especially with the potential for Jan. 6 to leave a lingering black mark on the party and the coronavirus still threatening to scramble the political terrain.
“In the end, I’m optimistic Republicans take the House and McCarthy becomes speaker,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who is close with GOP leadership. “But there are a number of pitfalls along the way. And the playing field is far more complicated than it was in 2010.”
Among those potential X-factors: Some corporate donors have paused their PAC dollars to Republicans, while Democrats are promising to go after vulnerable lawmakers who voted to overturn the election. Emmer himself voted to certify the results and also was quick to condemn the violence, which could inoculate the campaign arm from some of those attacks and help with fundraising. By contrast, Senate Republicans' campaign arm came under fire after Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the National Republican Senatorial Committee chair, voted to reject the election results from Pennsylvania.
There’s also some precedent for voters favoring political stability in the wake of disaster. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then-President George W. Bush and the GOP defied historical expectations to pick up House seats in the 2002 midterms.
“During the cycle, we might run into some unexpected things, much like you do in a game when somebody gets hurt,” said Emmer, a former hockey player and coach from Minnesota. “You might have to make minor adjustments.”
The NRCC outlined three buckets of pickup opportunities in its initial 2022 memo, which was shared first with POLITICO. The first group is composed of 29 Democrats who hold districts that featured tight races last cycle at the congressional and presidential level.
That includes Democrats from once-Republican suburban areas where the GOP has suffered in the Trump era, like Reps. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Ga.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.); lawmakers in more GOP-friendly white, working-class regions, such as Reps. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), Ron Kind (D-Wis.) and Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.); and members in heavily Latino districts along the Texas-Mexico border where Trump saw a surprising surge, like Reps. Filemón Vela, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez.
Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) is one of several Democrats whose district Republicans are paying special attention ahead of the 2022 elections. | Erin Scott/Pool via AP
In the second tier of targets are eight Democrats who are less vulnerable but won by fewer than 10 points or underperformed Biden in their districts, including Reps. Colin Allred (D-Texas), Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) and Katie Porter (D-Calif.), who currently hold suburban seats that turned most sharply against Trump but retain some Republican DNA.
The final tier is made of 10 members whose seats could change significantly during the upcoming redistricting, including Reps. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.), John Garamendi (D-Calif.), Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) and Maloney in New York's Hudson Valley.
If House Republicans can knock Democrats out of power — something that could happen through redistricting alone, based on the states where the GOP controls the process — it would mark the second time since the 1950s that the majority changed hands that quickly.
“I would much rather be us than them,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said of his Democratic colleagues. “With history on our side, the opportunity has never been stronger to win back the House.”
But, he added: “We’re not going to slow down or take anything for granted.”
Other elements of the NRCC’s strategy have begun to take shape: Emmer will tap Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.Va.) to serve as his recruitment chair and build upon the party’s record-breaking efforts to elect more women to Congress — a key part of their 2020 success. Nearly all of the House GOP’s most recent gains came from women and minority candidates.
The GOP is particularly bullish on Texas, which is set to gain three seats during reapportionment, though the numbers won't be announced until April. In 2020, Democrats set their sights on the rapidly diversifying suburbs, only to see their party lose ground in rural, Latino areas. Now, Republicans are targeting three once deep-blue seats in the Rio Grande Valley that Joe Biden nearly lost in 2020.
And in a sign of how much Republicans view the state as fertile ground, McCarthy — the House GOP's most prolific fundraiser — already swung through the state twice in the last two weeks. He’s also made multiple stops in Florida, with Scalise headed there next week.
POLITICO DISPATCH: FEBRUARY 10
Donald Trump talked with Vladimir Putin on the phone at least a dozen times during his presidency. Now, Biden’s team is trying to piece together whether those conversations could come back to haunt them.
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For now, party strategists are trudging along, fundraising and recruiting and hoping that the messiness that consumed the start of the cycle will fade by the time voters finally head to the polls.
“Today's headlines, whatever they are, are not likely to be at this range remotely relevant to what's going to happen almost two years from now,” said Rep. Tom Cole, (R-Okla.), a former NRCC chair.
But the party has been engulfed in conflict since Jan. 6, with no signs that the fractures are healing any time soon. Capitol Hill was consumed Tuesday with the start of Trump’s second impeachment trial, which displayed gripping footage of when rioters overtook the building, spliced together with Trump’s own words urging his supporters to “fight like hell.”
Democrats have seized on the turmoil, launching a $550,000 ad campaign linking vulnerable incumbents to QAnon, the rioters and controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Eleven Republicans joined a unanimous Democratic caucus in stripping Greene of her committee assignments last week after McCarthy declined to do so himself.
“If we get in a circular firing squad like we've been doing, it's gonna hurt us,” said Rep. Don Bacon, a moderate Republican who won reelection in a Nebraska seat that Biden won by 6 points. “If we can heal, it should be a good election cycle.”
Trump’s tone, Bacon said, was toxic for the GOP in some suburban areas. “Personality defeated the policy,” he said, describing the party’s loss of the two Georgia Senate seats — and the upper chamber — last month.
Yet McCarthy trekked down to Florida two weeks ago to make amends with the former president. After the Mar-a-Lago meeting, the California Republican made clear Trump would be an integral part of the GOP’s efforts to reclaim the House. McCarthy’s campaign had still been using an old fundraising website with the domain name: “Trump’s majority,” though the name was recently updated.
Democrats have seized on the renewed connection.
“McCarthy reminded the country that he was too weak to stand up to the dangerous QAnon conspiracists taking over his party and calling for mob violence on the streets,” said Cole Leiter, a DCCC spokesperson. “That’s a contrast American voters will not forget.”
Emmer made it clear that he is not running away from Trump’s populist brand of politics, which he believes swept new voters into the party. But he deflected on whether or not Trump would be a presence on the campaign trail. “It's up to the former president as to how much he wants to do and where.”
And the NRCC will continue its longstanding policy of staying out of primaries — a stance that allows them to remain conveniently neutral as pro-Trump forces mobilize against the 10 Republicans that voted to impeach him last month. Yet Emmer praised two of those members, Reps. John Katko (R-N.Y.) and David Valadao (R-Calif.), for their ability to win districts that Trump lost handily.
Republicans are also readying to play some defense. The committee credits its Patriot Program for endangered incumbents for its 2020 performance, Emmer said, when every incumbent Republican who sought reelection won, including some veteran members who had to run tough races for the first time in years. Emmer has elevated John Billings, who was in charge of incumbent protection last cycle, to serve as the NRCC’s executive director in 2022.
The party made notable gains in fundraising last cycle, finally launching a digital platform, WinRed, to compete with Democrats’ online fundraising mammoth, ActBlue. But some Republicans have acknowledged the events surrounding Jan. 6 could complicate the GOP’s ability to raise cash, especially in the next few months when emotions are still running high.
But party leaders also argued it will be easier to fundraise this cycle than in 2020, when the House majority looked out of reach and higher offices took precedence in GOP money circles.
“I spent the last two years traveling the country and hearing more often than not, ‘Well, Tom, you know, I think the game is in the Senate,’” Emmer recalled. But now, “they're more than willing to help us going forward,” he said.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has identified 47 House Democrats it intends to challenge, though the district maps won't be known for months.
NRCC Chair Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) is now in his second stint leading the House GOP’s campaign arm. | Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
By ALLY MUTNICK and MELANIE ZANONA
02/10/2021 05:01 AM EST
Updated: 02/10/2021 09:20 AM EST
House Republicans surprised nearly everyone last November when they almost captured the majority.
Then they spent January roiled by the deadly attack on the Capitol, confronting a second impeachment of then-President Donald Trump and answering for a whirlwind of offensive conspiracy theories from a firebrand freshman GOP congresswoman.
But the National Republican Congressional Committee has landed on a plan to regain the momentum with which it ended 2020: Ignore all that.
“We're gonna talk about all the stuff that matters to people,” said NRCC Chair Tom Emmer, citing school reopenings and job security. “We'll follow through on a game plan. Hopefully, people will allow us to operate under the radar again because they won't believe us. And we can surprise all of you again two years from now."
And Emmer — now in his second stint leading the House GOP’s campaign arm — brushed aside Democrats’ new strategy to link the whole party to QAnon: “My colleague down the street might think that some fringe extremist theory is something that people care about,” he said in reference to Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But fewer people believe in QAnon, Emmer said, than think the moon landing was faked.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and congressional Republicans are just five seats away from seizing back the House, following an unexpectedly successful election cycle, when they netted a dozen seats. The GOP also controls the redistricting process in several key states, giving them the ability to draw favorable new maps. And further fueling hopes of a Republican takeover, the president's party has lost an average of 22 House seats in midterms going back over the past 40 years.
In an exclusive interview with POLITICO on Tuesday, Emmer charted out his road map for the 2022 midterms, which includes a list of 47 Democratic seats to target and a messaging blueprint: Tag Democrats as jobs-killing socialists and stress the GOP’s commitment to reopening schools and protecting the gas and energy sector.
BY MERIDITH MCGRAW AND GABBY ORR
But GOP leaders, while quietly confident that history is on their side, know there are still plenty of landmines ahead — especially with the potential for Jan. 6 to leave a lingering black mark on the party and the coronavirus still threatening to scramble the political terrain.
“In the end, I’m optimistic Republicans take the House and McCarthy becomes speaker,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who is close with GOP leadership. “But there are a number of pitfalls along the way. And the playing field is far more complicated than it was in 2010.”
Among those potential X-factors: Some corporate donors have paused their PAC dollars to Republicans, while Democrats are promising to go after vulnerable lawmakers who voted to overturn the election. Emmer himself voted to certify the results and also was quick to condemn the violence, which could inoculate the campaign arm from some of those attacks and help with fundraising. By contrast, Senate Republicans' campaign arm came under fire after Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the National Republican Senatorial Committee chair, voted to reject the election results from Pennsylvania.
There’s also some precedent for voters favoring political stability in the wake of disaster. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then-President George W. Bush and the GOP defied historical expectations to pick up House seats in the 2002 midterms.
“During the cycle, we might run into some unexpected things, much like you do in a game when somebody gets hurt,” said Emmer, a former hockey player and coach from Minnesota. “You might have to make minor adjustments.”
The NRCC outlined three buckets of pickup opportunities in its initial 2022 memo, which was shared first with POLITICO. The first group is composed of 29 Democrats who hold districts that featured tight races last cycle at the congressional and presidential level.
That includes Democrats from once-Republican suburban areas where the GOP has suffered in the Trump era, like Reps. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Ga.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.); lawmakers in more GOP-friendly white, working-class regions, such as Reps. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), Ron Kind (D-Wis.) and Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.); and members in heavily Latino districts along the Texas-Mexico border where Trump saw a surprising surge, like Reps. Filemón Vela, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez.
Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) is one of several Democrats whose district Republicans are paying special attention ahead of the 2022 elections. | Erin Scott/Pool via AP
In the second tier of targets are eight Democrats who are less vulnerable but won by fewer than 10 points or underperformed Biden in their districts, including Reps. Colin Allred (D-Texas), Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) and Katie Porter (D-Calif.), who currently hold suburban seats that turned most sharply against Trump but retain some Republican DNA.
The final tier is made of 10 members whose seats could change significantly during the upcoming redistricting, including Reps. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.), John Garamendi (D-Calif.), Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) and Maloney in New York's Hudson Valley.
If House Republicans can knock Democrats out of power — something that could happen through redistricting alone, based on the states where the GOP controls the process — it would mark the second time since the 1950s that the majority changed hands that quickly.
“I would much rather be us than them,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said of his Democratic colleagues. “With history on our side, the opportunity has never been stronger to win back the House.”
But, he added: “We’re not going to slow down or take anything for granted.”
Other elements of the NRCC’s strategy have begun to take shape: Emmer will tap Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.Va.) to serve as his recruitment chair and build upon the party’s record-breaking efforts to elect more women to Congress — a key part of their 2020 success. Nearly all of the House GOP’s most recent gains came from women and minority candidates.
The GOP is particularly bullish on Texas, which is set to gain three seats during reapportionment, though the numbers won't be announced until April. In 2020, Democrats set their sights on the rapidly diversifying suburbs, only to see their party lose ground in rural, Latino areas. Now, Republicans are targeting three once deep-blue seats in the Rio Grande Valley that Joe Biden nearly lost in 2020.
And in a sign of how much Republicans view the state as fertile ground, McCarthy — the House GOP's most prolific fundraiser — already swung through the state twice in the last two weeks. He’s also made multiple stops in Florida, with Scalise headed there next week.
POLITICO DISPATCH: FEBRUARY 10
Donald Trump talked with Vladimir Putin on the phone at least a dozen times during his presidency. Now, Biden’s team is trying to piece together whether those conversations could come back to haunt them.
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For now, party strategists are trudging along, fundraising and recruiting and hoping that the messiness that consumed the start of the cycle will fade by the time voters finally head to the polls.
“Today's headlines, whatever they are, are not likely to be at this range remotely relevant to what's going to happen almost two years from now,” said Rep. Tom Cole, (R-Okla.), a former NRCC chair.
But the party has been engulfed in conflict since Jan. 6, with no signs that the fractures are healing any time soon. Capitol Hill was consumed Tuesday with the start of Trump’s second impeachment trial, which displayed gripping footage of when rioters overtook the building, spliced together with Trump’s own words urging his supporters to “fight like hell.”
Democrats have seized on the turmoil, launching a $550,000 ad campaign linking vulnerable incumbents to QAnon, the rioters and controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Eleven Republicans joined a unanimous Democratic caucus in stripping Greene of her committee assignments last week after McCarthy declined to do so himself.
“If we get in a circular firing squad like we've been doing, it's gonna hurt us,” said Rep. Don Bacon, a moderate Republican who won reelection in a Nebraska seat that Biden won by 6 points. “If we can heal, it should be a good election cycle.”
Trump’s tone, Bacon said, was toxic for the GOP in some suburban areas. “Personality defeated the policy,” he said, describing the party’s loss of the two Georgia Senate seats — and the upper chamber — last month.
Yet McCarthy trekked down to Florida two weeks ago to make amends with the former president. After the Mar-a-Lago meeting, the California Republican made clear Trump would be an integral part of the GOP’s efforts to reclaim the House. McCarthy’s campaign had still been using an old fundraising website with the domain name: “Trump’s majority,” though the name was recently updated.
Democrats have seized on the renewed connection.
“McCarthy reminded the country that he was too weak to stand up to the dangerous QAnon conspiracists taking over his party and calling for mob violence on the streets,” said Cole Leiter, a DCCC spokesperson. “That’s a contrast American voters will not forget.”
Emmer made it clear that he is not running away from Trump’s populist brand of politics, which he believes swept new voters into the party. But he deflected on whether or not Trump would be a presence on the campaign trail. “It's up to the former president as to how much he wants to do and where.”
And the NRCC will continue its longstanding policy of staying out of primaries — a stance that allows them to remain conveniently neutral as pro-Trump forces mobilize against the 10 Republicans that voted to impeach him last month. Yet Emmer praised two of those members, Reps. John Katko (R-N.Y.) and David Valadao (R-Calif.), for their ability to win districts that Trump lost handily.
Republicans are also readying to play some defense. The committee credits its Patriot Program for endangered incumbents for its 2020 performance, Emmer said, when every incumbent Republican who sought reelection won, including some veteran members who had to run tough races for the first time in years. Emmer has elevated John Billings, who was in charge of incumbent protection last cycle, to serve as the NRCC’s executive director in 2022.
The party made notable gains in fundraising last cycle, finally launching a digital platform, WinRed, to compete with Democrats’ online fundraising mammoth, ActBlue. But some Republicans have acknowledged the events surrounding Jan. 6 could complicate the GOP’s ability to raise cash, especially in the next few months when emotions are still running high.
But party leaders also argued it will be easier to fundraise this cycle than in 2020, when the House majority looked out of reach and higher offices took precedence in GOP money circles.
“I spent the last two years traveling the country and hearing more often than not, ‘Well, Tom, you know, I think the game is in the Senate,’” Emmer recalled. But now, “they're more than willing to help us going forward,” he said.
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It's a scary fact that they might be able to pull this off but if the Dems are smart they would be playing up all the bad shit 45 and his repub cohorts have done and stay on top of all the thing they campaigned on that helped them win. They really need to kick start the DOJ to get Republican politicians who were part of the coup tried and convicted and out of office cause these are the ones who are getting millions in donor money preaching the bible of 45. We all need to keep eyes on all these GOP retirements and who will fill them.
Yooooo is there an impeachment thread?? Dems are cooking Trump today. They are savaging this nigga lol
it’s crazy that the Senate Republicans will not convict him regardless smh
it’s crazy that the Senate Republicans will not convict him regardless smh
Ok this is BGOL, Stacey Plaskett could get it!