What Is The Republican Party Doing?

WASHINGTON — Republicans, newly empowered with a House majority, are demanding spending cuts as a price for lifting the debt ceiling and averting a catastrophic default on U.S. debt.

But they’re struggling to identify what to cut, complicating Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s task of passing a bill with his narrow majority.

“There’s gotta be cuts in spending. That has to happen,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., an ally of McCarthy, R-Calif., and the far right.

But she declined to get specific when she was asked what should be cut.

“I haven’t really formulated an exact list,” she said.

Republicans are divided over whether Medicare and Social Security spending should be on the chopping block. They’re split over whether military funding should be on the table. They’re firmly opposed to new tax revenues to reduce the debt. They say they’re willing to cut domestic non-defense spending, but that’s a limited slice of the budget pie that wouldn't fulfill many conservatives’ demands to balance the budget.

The looming June 5 deadline set by the Treasury Department presents a potentially career-defining challenge for McCarthy, who must balance a series of competing interests in his slim House majority with the need to ultimately pass a bill through the Democratic-led Senate and gain President Joe Biden’s signature to avert dire economic consequences.

“The first question is what can get out of there with 218 Republican votes,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., who served with McCarthy in the House. “And that’s Kevin’s challenge.

“We’ll see what they can come up with. The burden of governing — the weight of that burden is starting to be felt by people over there,” Cramer said. “But at the end of the day, we’d rather have our fingerprint on a success than failure. That’s my hope. And I think Kevin should be given a lot of time and room to do that.”

Failure to act in time could mean a stock market crash and a recession, a weaker dollar and higher interest rates and a government forced to make grueling choices, like whether to pay creditors or fund the Defense Department and send out Social Security checks.

House GOP hard-liners, including those who withheld their votes to make McCarthy speaker until they won a series of concessions and promises, are demanding fiscal discipline in the abstract.

“I have said since I first ran that I would not vote for a debt ceiling increase apart from the cuts in spending that would put us on a path to fiscal responsibility,” said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., who declined to elaborate on what specifically that would look like.

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., who landed a seat on the powerful Rules Committee, said he wants to see “a downward trajectory” in long-term spending as part of any increase in the debt ceiling.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., another of the 20 initial McCarthy holdouts, said a debt limit bill should have an amendment to balance the budget over 10 years to win her vote.

Luna said she wants to do it without tax increases or Social Security or Medicare cuts. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she said.

Experts say that if those programs, as well as Pentagon spending — a sacred cow for many Republicans — are untouched, it becomes practically impossible to balance the budget in a decade.

Republican Representative Jim Jordan should consider himself "schooled" by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, according to legal analyst Glenn Kirschner.

Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor, said during an episode of his Justice Matters podcast on Thursday that Jordan had been "put in his place" by Bragg's response to a demand that he testify in a House GOP probe of his New York criminal investigation of former President Donald Trump.

Jordan and several other top House Republicans asked for Bragg's testimony in a letter earlier this week. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy ordered the House investigation into Bragg's office after Trump wrongly predicted he would be indicted and arrested in New York on Tuesday.

"District Attorney Bragg just sent Jim Jordan his reply, and boy did he put Jim Jordan in his place," Kirschner said, while citing an Axios report on the letter from Bragg's office, which was drafted by the district attorney's general counsel Leslie Dubeck.

Kirschner read portions of Dubeck's letter, noting that he would be including "snarky editorial comments" on its contents. He highlighted a section of the letter that points out the House GOP was seeking "non-public information about a pending criminal investigation, which is confidential under state law."

"In other words: You know, Jim, you might not care about complying with the law," said Kirschner. "But we here in New York we do care, and we intend to comply with our laws."

Kirschner said that his "interpretation" of the letter was that Dubeck was saying "in your face, Jim" and telling the congressman he could put his request for testimony "where the sun don't shine."

"She goes on to basically say ... Jim, let me school you on the Constitution and the relevant Supreme Court precedent," Kirschner said. "The Constitution limits Congress's power to those specifically enumerated, and the 10th Amendment ensures that any unenumerated powers are reserved to the states."

"It is therefore generally understood, Jim, that a congressional committee may not inquire into matters which are reserved to the states," he continued. "In summary, these requests are unconstitutional. Consider yourself schooled, Jim."

Kirschner went on to say that Dubeck's letter had "everything right" in a legal sense, while exposing Jordan "as someone who was willing to violate the Constitution to try to protect a criminal former president of the United States."

Jordan responded to the letter from Bragg's office through his Twitter account earlier on Thursday. The House Judiciary Committee, which Jordan chairs, also tweeted a response.

"The Manhattan DA's case against President Trump is relying, in part, on matters stemming from the Mueller investigation," tweeted Jordan. "Democrats will never give that up!"

"Alvin Bragg should focus on prosecuting actual criminals in New York City rather than harassing a political opponent in another state," the House Judiciary GOP tweeted. "Make Manhattan Safe Again!"

In addition to Jordan, the letter demanding testimony from Bragg, which was sent on Monday, was signed by House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil and House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer.

Kirschner, a frequent critic of Trump, lashed out at the Republican lawmakers during Monday's Justice Matters for an alleged "gross abuse of power" in demanding that Bragg testify, calling the attempt "brazen in its lawlessness."

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung called Kirschner "a notorious trafficker of wild conspiracy theories" and a "clout-chasing MSNBC contributor who has been shunned by the legal community at large" earlier this week in response to Newsweek's request for comment on the legal analyst concluding that the former president was in "deep" legal trouble.

Newsweek has reached out via email to the office of Jordan for comment.

Pressure mounts for Gaetz congressional ethics report release

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, faced growing scrutiny from his fellow congressional Republicans on Thursday, with one saying he "absolutely" wants to review an unreleased report examining allegations of sexual misconduct.

A lawyer representing an alleged victim also called for the report to be made public.

Senator John Cornyn, who holds a top spot on the committee that will consider Gaetz's nomination next year, said he and other lawmakers should get access to the report by the House of Representatives Ethics Committee, which examined allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

"I don't want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate could consider," Cornyn told reporters. When asked if that means he wants to see the ethics report, he replied: “Absolutely.“

Gaetz, is one of a series of nominees tapped by Trump this week who lack the resumes normally seen in candidates for high-level jobs. He would need to be confirmed by the Senate -- where Republicans will have a majority of at least 52 of the 100 seats -- to get the job, and a handful of that number have expressed skepticism at the choice.

Gaetz, 42, resigned his House seat on Wednesday, which would end the Ethics Committee probe. He has denied wrongdoing. According to several news outlets, the panel had intended to release the report on Friday, and a source familiar with the committee's work said it is due to meet then. A committee spokesperson declined to comment.

Gaetz also was investigated by the Justice Department for nearly three years over sex trafficking allegations involving a 17-year-old girl. His office said in 2023 that he had been told by prosecutors that he would not face criminal charges.