Republican U.S. Senator Bob Corker on Wednesday said he was still undecided on whether to support his party's tax legislation even as congressional Republicans announced a deal on a final plan.
Corker, whose party has a slim majority in the Senate and can only afford to lose two votes, told reporters: "My deficit concerns have not been alleviated, so like in many tough votes around here, you've got to make a decision."
(Reporting by David Morgan; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Eric Walsh)
Donald Trump unleashed mockery on former RNC chief Ronna McDaniel Tuesday after she was let go by NBC News just days after the network offered her a political contributor gig.
"Wow! Ronna McDaniel got fired by Fake News NBC," Trump posted on TruthSocial. "She only lasted two days, and this after McDaniel went out of her way to say what they wanted to hear."
Trump then made it sound as though McDaniel was lost on a mythical island in a J. M. Barrie novel.
"It leaves her in a very strange place, it’s called NEVER NEVERLAND, and it’s not a place you want to be," reads the post.
"These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY, and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK. They were BROKEN and EMBARRASSED by LOW RATINGS, HIGHLY OVERPAID, “TALENT.” BRING BACK FREE AND FAIR PRESS - MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN 2024!"
Having faced a near uprising among high-profile staffers and viewers after hiring McDaniel, on Tuesday NBC bowed to the pressure and cut ties with her.
Many, including some who voiced their displeasure on the air, were furious that she would be hired despite having backed Trump's rigged election theories. She had been ousted from her role at the RNC earlier in March, as Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump and ally Michael Whatley took over.
“No organization, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned. Over the last few days, it has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal,” Conde stated. But he said the network remained committed to centering “voices that represent different parts of the political spectrum.”
NBC had announced McDaniel would join as a contributor on Friday as the heated presidential election neared.
Over the weekend, former “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd broke ranks on-air Sunday to take aim at the hire.
Delay isn't an option when it comes to Donald Trump's defense in the upcoming criminal hush money case, an expert warned Tuesday.
The former president's oft-used courtroom delay tactic, which has been successful in other jurisdictions, likely won't work in the Big Apple, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig said on CNN.
The legal analyst warned that the gag order imposed on Trump is going to stick and, even if he tries to appeal it, he expects the trial's scheduled date of April 15 won't move.
"One important point on the appeal — if Donald Trump tries to appeal this gag order he will lose," said Honig during an appearance on CNN's AC 360. "It will not delay the start of this trial."
Trump is facing charges that he fudged business records at the Trump Organization to approve payments to adult movie star Stormy Daniels to prevent damaging details of an alleged affair leaking weeks before the 2016 election.
His former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen, who will be called as a witness in the case, filed the payments as legal services, the charges claim.
New York Judge Juan Merchan issued a gag order to preemptively stop Trump from discussing and possibly denigrating witnesses, court workers and jurors, and cited his behavior in previous legal cases as a reason to put it in place.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung blasted the judge's move as "unconstitutional" and added that it prevents Trump from "engaging in core political speech, which is entitled to the highest level of protection under the First Amendment."
Honig's confident that any appeal effort on Trump's behalf won't win out, saying, "I think it's going to survive if he appeals, I think it's absolutely going to survive because what this gag order protects is the jurors, the witnesses, and the staff — they are the most vulnerable people.
"They're the people who need to be protected; they are off-limits, [while] everybody else, he's free to talk about."
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tore into House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on the right-wing Real America's Voice streaming channel Tuesday, calling the funding bill to keep the government open "horrific" and "shameful."
Her attack came shortly after she threatened to call a motion to vacate Johnson from the speakership — the same procedure that toppled Kevin McCarthy last year.
"We have a Speaker of the House right now, with Mike Johnson, that is supporting Joe Biden's policies," said Greene. "He just funded a brand new FBI building for the FBI that invaded Mar-a-Lago.
"Mike Johnson just funded the Department of Justice that is weaponized, going after Donald Trump, and going after and arresting new January 6 defendants every single day. Mike Johnson is funding the wide open border, funding the invasion of America, and funding the murder of 300 Americans every single day from fentanyl."
"We have got to have a unified Republican conference next Congress, if we're lucky enough to even win the House, because let's be real, the work that has happened here under House Republicans, this vote that just happened, passing this government funding ... this is exactly what we cannot have under President Trump's next administration," she added.
This is the latest in a long string of complaints Greene has made against the leadership of Johnson, a right-wing Christian nationalist hardliner who was voted in after weeks of chaos following the McCarthy ouster, but who has been forced to work with Biden as a reality of governing.
Earlier this month, after another funding bill was passed, Greene raged that Johnson has "led us to a complete catastrophe."