The '24 Seven - 3/12/24
The top seven stories shaping the race for the White House
Hello, and welcome to The ‘24 Seven – 24sight’s daily roundup of the top seven stories shaping the race for the White House. If you see something we missed or have suggestions, drop us a note - tom@24sight.news and warren@24sight.news.
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1 Tick, Tock
Cracking down on social media phenomenon TikTok as a proxy of China’s influence in the U.S. used to be a rare bastion of bipartisanism in Washington – not so much any more.
A bill to mandate TikTok cut ties with Beijing-based ByteDance did indeed win unanimous support from the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, and House Republican leaders are pushing forward with plans to approve the measure and send it to the Senate, the New York Times reports.
But presumptive Republican nominee and former president, Donald Trump, is trying to derail the measure – flipping in his opposition to the social media giant in an interview with CNBC Monday. As in so many things Trump, reports suggest a financial incentive here.
Longtime Trump adviser and veteran GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway is reportedly lobbying against the divestiture, and top Trump mega-donor Jeff Yass, who owns a $30-billion stake in the company through one of his hedge funds, has been talking with Trump recently. (Yass helped Trump bury the hatchet with conservative mega-money group the Club for Growth at the start of the month, as 24sight reported.) Veteran foreign policy writer Josh Rogin writes in The Washington Post that all signs point to Trump and his stance on China being for sale.
President Joe Biden has taken some heat on the issue as well, after banning use of the app on government owned devices but having his campaign launch on the platform to reach young voters.
2 Them’s the brakes
With Trump critics like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell ceding power and former GOP presidential nominee Sen. Mitt Romney retiring rather than sticking around for a second term, it’s clear that power dynamics are changing in the Senate.
And what do the most MAGA-aligned members of the chamber plan to do now that the old guard is falling away?
Nothing, apparently.
“I think we’d be far better off if we never passed another piece of legislation,” Sen. Ron Johnson told a right-wing outlet of his governing plan. The Wisconsin Republican is one of a handful of conservatives who abhor bipartisanship and have been trying to lock in a leadership-bucking voting bloc a la the combative House Freedom Caucus to thwart McConnell at every turn.
Their reluctance to reach across the aisle now makes sense as they work to regain control of the Senate and usher Trump back into the White House. But if divided government remains intact come January 2025, saying “no” to everything doesn’t bode well for getting anything done.
3 Punishing House GOP rebels
Some senior House Republicans aren’t waiting around to see if Trump manages to pull off his comeback bid, opting to retire rather than keep serving in the wildly dysfunctional chamber.
And while defections by high-profile women like Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger provide growth opportunities for ambitious colleagues, at least one institutional gatekeeper wants to make sure troublemakers don’t wind up getting rewarded for their bad behavior.
Republican Steering Committee member Rep. Max Miller, who has been very critical of the conservative hardliners who ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last fall, told Bloomberg that promotions should go to those who “play by the rules.”
“I have always been a proponent of, you know, discipline and structure and organization,” the freshman Ohio Republican said of his desire to hold members accountable for their actions. If other grudge holders agree with him, McCarthy foils like Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Eli Crane of Arizona may find it hard to keep climbing the congressional ladder.
4 The Israel split
Across the aisle, Democrats are wrestling with their varying degrees of support for the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and seven Democratic colleagues petitioned President Joe Biden to stop arming Israel until humanitarian aid is allowed into Gaza.
“We urge you to make it clear to the Netanyahu government that failure to immediately and dramatically expand humanitarian access and facilitate safe aid deliveries throughout Gaza will lead to serious consequences, as specified under existing U.S. law,” the Senate lawmakers wrote.
Sen. John Fetterman remains at odds with Sanders and others about this, arguing that Israel is justified in defending itself.
“Hamas deliberately harms and hides behind civilians, not Israel,” the freshman Pennsylvania Democrat wrote online, adding that he wouldn’t support Biden administration efforts to add any strings to war-time aid for Israel.
5 Trump’s Georgia case looms large
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who was appointed to the post just last year, is expected to rule later this week on whether one of Trump’s swirling criminal cases can proceed.
The Washington Post profiles the 34-year-old judge tasked with deciding whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ multi-year probe into 2020 election tampering in Georgia rolls on in the coming months – and more specifically, before the 2024 election – or grinds to an immediate halt and possibly fades away forever.
6 Showing their work
Special counsel Robert Hur, who led the investigation of Biden for retaining classified documents after leaving the White House as vice president, testified this morning before the House Judiciary Committee about his findings in a probe which amounted to a double-edged sword for Biden and Republicans.
While declining to prosecute Biden, Hur’s findings that Biden’s mental acuity seemed to be lacking poured fuel on the fire of questions about the incumbent’s age.
Meanwhile, after federal Judge Aileen Cannon floated the idea of releasing the names of the witnesses in Trump’s classified documents case – which alleges in part that Trump obstructed justice by repeatedly directing his aides to move boxes and boxes of classified documents while federal investigators searched for the missing intelligence – spurred one witness to say “the hell with it” and come forward on CNN with damning testimony about Trump’s efforts.
7 Equal Pay Day rage
Red state.
Blue state.
Women from all across the political spectrum are rightfully apoplectic that in the year of our lord 2024 they’re still being shortchanged (less than $0.80 on the dollar, in some cases) for the work they do compared to higher earning male counterparts.