Support Our Journalism

Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Politics National News World Economy Lifestyle Store

Tag: mike lee

Trump Cabinet Nominee Withdraws Over (Sane) January 6 Comments

Kathleen Sgamma, President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Bureau of Land Management, sent shockwaves throughout Washington, D.C., on Thursday after withdrawing her name just hours before her confirmation hearing.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah announced Sgamma’s withdrawal at the start of the hearing, but Politico reported that her decision came after investigative outlet Documented published a 2021 memo where the oil and gas lobbyist condemned Trump’s role in spreading misinformation about the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

“I am disgusted by the violence I witnessed yesterday and President Trump’s role in spreading misinformation that incited it. I’m disgusted he discredited all the good work he did reorienting the judiciary back toward respect for the rule of law and constitution by dishonoring the vote of the People and the rulings of those very same judges on his numerous challenges,” the memo quotes Sgamma saying.

Sgamma likely withdrew her nomination not because she’s still upset with Trump, but because the leak of her past comments is embarrassing for both of them. After all, she knew about the Capitol attack when she was nominated and seemed totally on board with Trump’s energy agenda at the time.

While her comments about the insurrection were out of step with today’s GOP, they reflected the outrage that many Republicans shared in the immediate aftermath. And though Sgamma distanced herself from Trump at that time, she’s certainly no liberal—she even contributed to Project 2025.

Trump has continued defending the insurrectionists, calling them “patriots” and even pardoning them on Day 1 of his second term. He’s since doubled down on his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, insisting that anyone who refuses to spread his lies is the real problem. And it seems that Sgamma has now bought into Trump’s propaganda.

“Unfortunately, at this time, I need to withdraw my nomination. I will continue to support President Trump and fight for his agenda to Unleash American Energy in the private sector,” Sgamma said in her resignation statement.

While some Republican senators told Politico they weren’t given a heads-up about the withdrawal, some Trump allies, including former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, suggested that Sgamma’s withdrawal was inevitable.

“Individuals who know their views don’t align with the president… cause needless harm and conflict, hindering the president’s agenda,” he wrote on X.

Sgamma’s resignation marks the third Trump cabinet pick to either withdraw or have their nomination pulled.

Earlier, the White House backed off nominating Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York for United Nations ambassador, fearing losing a reliable GOP vote in their razor-thin House majority. Similarly, David Weldon’s nomination to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was pulled once it became clear he didn’t have the votes to get confirmed.

With the Bureau of Land Management overseeing energy production on federally owned lands—a key part of Trump’s second-term priorities—it remains to be seen whether his energy agenda will take another hit following Sgamma’s withdrawal.

While her decision may have been political, it also highlights the ongoing consequences of the insurrection, raising questions about whether there’s truly a divide between Trump and those who refuse to embrace his false election claims.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Mike Lee Ripped For Spreading Lie About Biden 'Medical Emergency'

On Friday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) amplified a baseless, debunked claim that President Joe Biden was experiencing a medical episode on board Air Force One. Now, the senator is getting roasted for his tweet by both journalists and commentators.

At 7:41 PM Eastern Time Saturday, far-right activist Laura Loomer tweeted: "Joe Biden is reportedly having a medical emergency on Air Force One right now" and that "press access has been removed." However, this was quickly debunked by X/Twitter's Community Notes function, which read that Biden "did NOT have a medical emergency on Air Force One following the Wisconsin rally and was perfectly fine throughout...and exited on his own after touching down in Delaware."

In response, Lee tweeted: "If Biden is having a medical emergency at this moment — on board Air Force One or otherwise — that raises ... a lot of questions." That tweet, which was posted at 8:09 PM Eastern Time last night, is still currently up on his official account.

White House pool reporter Sophie Hills of the Christian Science Monitorshed additional light on the president's health at the time of Loomer's initial tweet, writing that he stepped off of Air Force One at 7:34 PM and left with his motorcade afterward, before stopping at his home in Wilmington, Delaware at 7:50. This means Biden was already at home roughly 20 minutes before Lee sent his tweetl

Former Trump administration official Monica Crowley also tweeted Loomer's lie, only to backtrack and later tweet that there were "conflicting reports about Biden on AF1 but appears to be untrue."

Lee's amplification of Loomer's fictitious "medical emergency" resulted in harsh pushback on social media. Civil rights lawyer Leslie Proll called the Utah Republican's tweet "unconscionable." Biden campaign advisor James Singer accused him of "s—posting lies." And Joe Perticone – a contributor to never-Trump conservative website the Bulwark, noted the absurdity of a sitting U.S. senator relying on disinformation artists for news.

"The most concerning thing about a US senator’s judgment and intelligence is that he believes he’d first be hearing something as important as this from… Monica Crowley and Laura Loomer," Perticone wrote.

Former WGN reporter Jennifer Schulze also sharply criticized Lee and urged news outlets to "take a moment to cover this story about a sitting US Senator spreading malicious lies about the President."

"I know it's business as usual for republicans but it's still newsworthy," she tweeted.

Journalist Jamie Dupree noted the time difference between Lee's tweet and the time in the pool report when Biden was picked up by the presidential motorcade and driven home.

"Sen. Mike Lee R-UT tweeting out baseless medical rumors about Biden tonight. In fact, Biden was already back home (lid at 7:56 pm) by the time Lee was pressing the send button," Dupree posted.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Raging Battles Over Trump And Debt Ceiling Split GOP Senate Leadership

Percolating behind the scenes of the spectacular House Republican train wreck is a Senate Republican battle royal over leadership of the conference that promises to drag out over the next couple of years.

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who already lost one bid last November to unseat Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, plans to continue nipping at the longtime leader's heels despite only garnering 10 votes to McConnell's 37 last fall.

Echoing Donald Trump's perennial criticism of McConnell, Scott told The Hill he's "tired of caving" on raising the debt limit and plans to lobby against McConnell making a deal with Democrats to avert a GOP-manufactured economic meltdown.

“I’m not going to back down,” Scott told The Hill.

Scott's declaration comes in the wake of news that McConnell ousted him and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah from their powerful positions on the Senate Commerce Committee, where they have sought to block agreement on fundamental congressional business—such as keeping the government's lights on. Specifically, Scott took aim at the $1.7 trillion year-end spending package that funds the federal government through September and ultimately passed with 18 votes from Senate Republicans.

Lee tried to torpedo the $1.7 trillion bill by offering an anti-migrant poison pill amendment aimed at reinstating Title 42. Trump also jumped into the fray, releasing a video urging "every single Republican" to vote against the spending package.

McConnell eventually hailed the passage of the bill as a win for Republicans because it increased defense spending above the rate of inflation while nondefense, non-veteran spending increased below that rate of inflation.

Scott and Lee are both part of a pro-Trump Senate GOP group that is promising to dog McConnell throughout the coming cycle. Ejecting them from the Commerce Committee sends a clear signal to other Senate MAGA enthusiasts—Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Braun of Indiana, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina—that kicking up too much dust will come with consequences.

On the other hand, Scott and Lee have very little to lose now by becoming perpetual thorns in McConnell's side—which, frankly, they would have been anyway.

In April 2021, Scott pushed a policy through the Senate Republican Conference stating their opposition to any debt-ceiling increases unless they were accompanied by "cuts in federal spending of an equal or greater amount" or otherwise "meaningful structural reform.”

Last month, Scott and Lee spearheaded a letter to President Biden signed by a total of 24 Senate Republicans who pledged to stick by that Senate GOP policy.

Scott, at the urging of Trump, spent much of the 2022 cycle attempting to poke holes in McConnell's armor. While boosting his fundraising network as chief of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Scott also released an 11-point plan promising to raise taxes on tens of millions while sunsetting Social Security and Medicare. It was a polling disaster, and McConnell devoted a lot of energy to shooting the plan down so it wouldn't kneecap Senate Republicans' effort to retake the upper chamber.

Now it's clear that the McConnell-Scott skirmish is anything but settled in what will continue to be the biggest challenge to McConnell’s leadership position since he assumed the post in 2007.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Mike Lee Vowed To 'Get Rid Of' Social Security -- And Now Lies About It

Fox News host Sean Hannity has to know better than to ever start a sentence with what Republicans would never do. They’ve already proven, they’ll do anything, say anything, to get elected. Before Hannity could even form his mouth to allege on his show Tuesday that “not a single Republican” has ever said “they want to take away your Social Security and Medicare and cut it,” a video of Sen. Mike Lee of Utah saying exactly that in his 2010 campaign had already emerged on social media.

“It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it,” Lee said in the video. "People who advise me politically always tell me that's dangerous, and I tell them, in that case, it's not worth my running. That's why I'm doing this, to get rid of that. Medicare and Medicaid are of the same sort and need to be pulled up.”

When The Daily Herald gave Lee the opportunity to clarify the statement, he relied on the ever-popular criminal defense of "I don't recall."

\u201cHannity: Not a single Republican has ever said they want to take away your Social Security.. \nMike Lee: It will be my objective to phase out Social Security. To pull it up by the roots and get rid of it.\u201d
— Acyn (@Acyn) 1667457877

“So I don’t, I don’t recall ever having advocated for dismantling those—that’s sensitive stuff,” Lee told the Utah newspaper. “And I don’t I don’t recall advocating for dismantling them. I vaguely remember a time in 2010 when we were talking about a bunch of things.”

Lee rambled on in an attempt to defend himself, but the more he talked, the more assurance he seemed to give voters that he meant those words uttered more than a decade ago.

Lee claimed he was talking about a “need to end” what he dubbed a “pattern of the federal government occupying space that it wasn’t intended to occupy and spending too much money.”

“Perhaps that was close in time and in proximity to another conversation about Social Security, but I don’t remember ever in any time since I first became a candidate for the Senate ever saying, ‘No, we just have to end Social Security and uproot all the expectations of those who’ve paid into it,’” Lee said. “Quite to the contrary. As far as I can remember, every time I’ve spoken, I’ve said, ‘We do have problems with that,’ in part because, when it was created in the 1930s, it was sold to the American people as something that would be their property, it’s theirs. They have it, it’s just held, like in trust, in an account, by the government, in their name. It would always be their money.”

Lee said a “weird issue” arose when the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the 1937 Helvering v. Davis decision that Social Security “was a tax and therefore not private property.”

The decision Lee referenced maintains that Congress has the right to spend in the interest of “general welfare” without violating the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, which limits federal authority.

He claimed that his issues with the decision aside, "it’s a commitment that we’ve made to people who’ve paid into the system" and “in the case of those who were retirees” or “within a couple of decades even of retiring, you can’t pull that away.”

Lee conveniently left out of his statement any promise to uphold that commitment for those not quite as near retirement age.

He also advocated for increasing the retirement age. “You can’t create an abrupt adjustment to that without creating a lot of problems, but I’ve established a very slow transition toward increasing the retirement age and having it hover based on life expectancy at the time,” he told The Daily Herald.

Problem is, Lee has already proven to be a liar.

\u201chttps://t.co/0xjC1llxnW\u201d
— Evan McMullin \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@Evan McMullin \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8) 1667402973

At long last, the 2022 midterms are almost here! With the battle for the House front and center, we give you a window into the key races on a final pre-election episode of The Downballot. We discuss a wide range of contests that will offer insight into how the night is going, including top GOP pickup opportunities, second-tier Republican targets, and the seats where Democrats are on offense. And with many vote tallies likely to stretch on for some time, we also identify several bellwether races in states that count quickly.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Shop our Store

Headlines

Editor's Blog

Corona Virus

World

        About The National Memo
    
The National Memo is a political newsletter and website that combines the spirit of investigative journalism with new technology and ideas. We cover campaigns, elections, the White House, Congress, and the world with a fresh outlook. Our own journalism — as well as our selections of the smartest stories available every day — reflects a clear and strong perspective, without the kind of propaganda, ultra-partisanship and overwrought ideology that burden so much of our political discourse.
TAGS

Created By

RebelMouse

About Masthead Terms of Service Privacy Statement Advertise Contact

Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Trump Cabinet Nominee Withdraws Over (Sane) January 6 Comments

Mike Lee Ripped For Spreading Lie About Biden 'Medical Emergency'

Raging Battles Over Trump And Debt Ceiling Split GOP Senate Leadership

Shop our Store

Constitution Cork Coaster

Democracy Mug

Make America Think Again Hat

Constitution Rocks Glass

Headlines

'Money, Lies And God': Fateful 1995 Meeting Linked Authoritarians In US And Russia

Danziger Draws