Playbook: "For months, Senate Republicans have operated on the assumption that McConnell's successor would be one of the "three Johns" close with the current leader: Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD), former Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) or Conference Chair John Barrasso (R-WY)"
"But Trump allies are itching for a dark-horse candidate to shake things up, quietly complaining that any of those three would lead to more of the same. Multiple GOP senators and aides tell Playbook that a group of about a dozen McConnell antagonists in the Senate might band together and use their numbers — along with public pressure — to install a leader more to their liking."
Said one GOP ally of the rebels: "The idea that it's just between the 'Three Johns' is an outdated narrative from a year ago. There will be somebody else — and possibly a scenario where none of the 'Johns' can get consensus, so it takes another candidate to step in."
"Mitch McConnell will be remembered for many things, but two stand out above all others: His decision to block a Supreme Court appointment and his decision to acquit Donald Trump in the wake of the Capitol riot," Semafor reports.
"The first cemented his legacy within the party while the second now threatens to destroy it."
Politico: "Mitch McConnell went to extraordinary lengths to transform the federal judiciary. But did he win the day for conservatism or for Trump?"
"Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell never said the words 'Donald Trump' in announcing his decision Wednesday to step down as GOP leader following the November elections," Punchbowl News reports.
"But it was clear that the former president's influence on his party — and inside the Senate GOP Conference — was top-of-mind for the 82-year-old Kentucky Republican."
Said McConnell: "Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults — misunderstanding politics is not one of them."
"The big question now is what role Trump will have in picking the next GOP leader. Trump is the wild card here, the unpredictable element that could tilt the decision one way or the other. That's the case with pretty much anything in the Republican Party these days."
Axios: Trump looms large in McConnell successor race.
Jonathan Martin: "These have not been happy days for McConnell. There was the tragic loss of his sister-in-law, which he alluded to in his speech, and his own infirmities. Yet just as torturous for McConnell has been this season of his political misfortunes… In private this year, McConnell has said this is the worst Congress he's ever served in, according to Republicans who've heard the lament."
"Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) Democratic adversaries are shuddering at his retirement as GOP leader more than celebrating it," Axios reports.
"McConnell is the bulwark of a dying breed of old-guard Republicans being systematically replaced with right-wing hardliners."
Said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI): "As frustrated as we have been with him at times, he — at moments — seemed committed to governing. It can definitely get worse."
Washington Post: "Every Senate leadership election is the most personal of transactions — sometimes a vote comes down to some political act done a decade or two ago, sometimes it comes from a key legislative favor offered years ago — but this race is shaping up to test those traditions more than ever."
Axios reports that Democrats "are shuddering" at Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) retirement "more than celebrating it." That's because McConnell is supposedly "the bulwark of a dying breed of old-guard Republicans being systematically replaced with right-wing hardliners."
It's true that McConnell was a master of the legislative intricacies of the Senate, but let's take a look at his real legacy:
- He undermined every effort at campaign finance reform and is singularly responsible for the flood of "dark money" in politics today.
- He quite literally stole a seat on the Supreme Court by refusing to even hold hearings on Merrick Garland.
- He threatened Barack Obama to keep Russian election interference secret in 2016.
- He wouldn't admit that Joe Biden won the the 2020 election for weeks.
- He refused to hold Donald Trump accountable for the January 6 insurrection which allowed him to run again in 2024.
If you're concerned about the authoritarian influence of the Trump wing of the Republican party, there's no one more responsible for nurturing it and keeping it alive than Mitch McConnell. There's no reason for Democrats to get nostalgic about McConnell's tenure as the Senate GOP leader.
"We've now 86'd: McCarthy, McDaniel, McConnell. Better days are ahead for the Republican Party." — Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), on X.
New York Times: "By deciding to take up Mr. Trump's claim that presidents enjoy almost total immunity from prosecution for any official action while in office — a legal theory rejected by two lower courts and one that few experts think has any basis in the Constitution — the justices bought the former president at least several months before a trial on the election interference charges can start."
"It is not out of the question that Mr. Trump could still face a jury in the case, in Federal District Court in Washington, before Election Day. At this point, the legal calendar suggests that if the justices issue a ruling by the end of the Supreme Court's term in June and find that Mr. Trump is not immune from prosecution, the trial could still start by late September or October."
"But with each delay, the odds increase that voters will not get a chance to hear the evidence that Mr. Trump sought to subvert the last election before they decide whether to back him in the current one."
"As voters cast ballots this fall to decide whether Donald Trump should win another presidential election, a federal jury may be weighing whether he attempted to steal the last one," Politico reports.
"That's one of the plausible outcomes of Wednesday's decision by the Supreme Court to take up Trump's claim that he's immune from prosecution for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election."
"In fact, by taking up the immunity question and keeping the case on hold in the meantime, the justices have all but guaranteed that Trump cannot stand trial on the federal election charges until the waning weeks of campaign season, at the earliest."
Rick Hasen: "If the Supreme Court does not issue an opinion until late June, are we really going to see the trial court put Trump on trial during the general election season (or even during the RNC convention)? I find this very hard to believe."
"Early on, I called this federal election subversion case potentially the most important case in this nation's history. And not it may not happen because of timing, timing that is completely in the Supreme Court's control. After all, this is the second time the Court has not expedited things to hear this case.
"This could well be game over."
"Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) blocked passage Wednesday of a bill to protect access to in-vitro fertilization nationwide — the first federal clash in the roiling debate over fertility care that an Alabama court sparked earlier this month by granting legal personhood to frozen embryos," Politico reports.
"In the wake of the scuttled vote, Democrats are more eager than ever to tie Republicans to the threat to IVF — part of their ongoing campaign to make the fallout of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade a top issue in the presidential and congressional election."
"Alabama lawmakers on Wednesday raced to protect the routine practice of in vitro fertilization, moving to assuage families and fertility clinics alarmed by a recent State Supreme Court ruling that found that frozen embryos should be considered children," the New York Times reports.
"The lawmakers' urgency underscores the bind for Republicans, who have long maintained that life begins at conception — a tenet of their opposition to abortion — but must now reconcile that stance with the realities of how I.V.F. is practiced and the broad public support for it."
A judge in Illinois ruled Wednesday that Donald Trump's name should be struck from the March 19 Illinois Republican primary ballot because he engaged in insurrection in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and is disqualified from holding the office of president, the Chicago Tribune reports.
"At least 70 people were killed in a strike early Thursday on a crowd of Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza City, bringing the total number killed since the start of the Israel-Hamas war to more than 30,000, Gaza's Health Ministry said," the AP reports.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told the New York Times that he thought a number of Democrats would save Speaker Mike Johnson from a potential motion to vacate if he took the plunge to pass Ukraine aid.
Russian President Vladimir Putin "said the West faced the prospect of nuclear conflict if it intervened more directly in the war in Ukraine, using an annual speech to the nation on Thursday to escalate his threats against Europe and the United States," the New York Times reports.
Putin said Western countries that are helping Ukraine strike Russian territory "must, in the end, understand" that "all this truly threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and therefore the destruction of civilization."
He added: "We also have weapons that can strike targets on their territory. Do they not understand this?"
"Arizona Republicans want to let ranchers in southern Arizona legally shoot and kill undocumented immigrants who cross their land," the Arizona Mirror reports.
"A bill moving through the state House of Representatives would make changes to the state's existing 'Castle Doctrine' law, which permits Arizonans to use deadly force against people who are trespassing or breaking into their home."
"Donald Trump dubbed himself the 'King of Debt' when boasting about how his business empire survived hard times, but a pair of big trial court losses this year are putting that moniker to the test," Bloomberg reports.
"The former president owes about $540 million from two recent verdicts, a number that exceeds even some of the biggest loans he's taken out for his real estate empire. Trump is now a so-called judgment debtor, leaving him few options for avoiding or delaying those payments while he challenges them in court."
Wall Street Journal: "More than three-quarters of the factory and mining investments will go to congressional districts held by Republicans, according to data on green-economy announcements. On a statewide basis, $112 billion in investment would go to Republican or Republican-leaning states."
"Big winners include Georgia, which has seen $26 billion in investments announced in a little more than two years. In all, around $106 billion in factories and mines are under construction across the country, $91 billion of which have been launched in the wake of the climate laws."
Sarah Matthews said she did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016 before going on to work in his White House as deputy press secretary, the HuffPost reports.
Said Matthews: "I think I knew full well what kind of man he was when I went to go work for him. And I didn't necessarily agree with everything he said or did, but I knew that he needed people of good character to staff his administration, and so that's why I agreed to join."
"Multiple fire trucks and men in hazmat suits were spotted outside Donald Trump Jr.'s home in Jupiter, Florida, on Monday evening after he received a letter containing an unidentified white powder inside of it," the Daily Beast reports.
"Trump Jr., the eldest son of former President Donald Trump, received the letter and opened the envelope—causing the white powder to fly out."
People: "In American Woman, Rogers writes that Melania consumed plenty of news at the White House and paid close attention to how the media covered her. Like her husband, she was critical of journalists who were critical of her, according to the book — but unlike her husband, she had a different go-to cable news channel, watching CNN 'voraciously' as Donald watched Fox News."
"The couple's opposing media consumption habits became an issue for the then-president, however, in July 2018. That's when, Rogers says, Donald became 'incensed that his wife's television was tuned to CNN aboard Air Force One during an overseas trip.' He ordered that all TVs on Air Force One — and in their individual hotel suites — be turned to Fox News moving forward."
"Australia's domestic spy chief has revealed a foreign regime recruited a former lawmaker as part of a plan to access classified information via high profile figures, including a member of a prime minister's family," Bloomberg reports.
"A delegation of the U.S. Congressional Progressive Caucus traveled to Cuba last week in a trip that has not previously been disclosed by the legislators nor reported in Cuban state media," the Miami Herald reports.
"The group of about a dozen people was led by Democratic U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal of the state of Washington and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota."
New York Times: "Initially, there were regional concerns that the tit-for-tat violence would lead to an escalation of the Middle East conflict. But since the Feb. 2 U.S. strikes, American officials say, there have been no attacks by Iran-backed militias on American bases in Iraq and only two minor ones in Syria. Before then, the U.S. military logged at least 170 attacks against American troops in four months, Pentagon officials said."
"The relative quiet reflects decisions by both sides and suggests that Iran does have some level of control over the militias."
Wall Street Journal: "Particularly troubling, security experts say, is how sure-footed Kim Jong Un looks, despite widespread food shortages, a more confrontational South Korean administration and a U.S. that is rotating nuclear assets into the region more often."
"There's no doubt President Emmanuel Macron wants to take on a mantle of global leadership and reverse faltering Western support for Ukraine, but French politics will make that a hard role for him to pull off," Politico reports.
"All French opposition forces have already rounded on him. Marine Le Pen, on the far right, has pilloried his assertion that Western troops in Ukraine 'shouldn't be ruled out' as toying with 'the lives of France's children,' while far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said it was 'madness' to pitch 'one nuclear power against another nuclear power.' More mainstream forces, such as the Socialist Party and the conservative Les Républicains, also condemned the French president's muscle-flexing."
"Those are arguments that resonate strongly with voters in France — at a time when Macron's centrist liberal party is polling far beneath the far left and far right ahead of June's European election."
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