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He promises not to let that happen again, insisting he will “actively look for quality candidates” to promote in the 2024 primaries. “In the other states, Trump’s support was so significant — we could have spent a lot of money, maybe trying to come up with a different candidate and maybe not succeeding,” he said. And yet, it's Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. — not McConnell — who's radiating confidence about winning the majority in 2024. He also spent large parts of 2022 feuding over strategy with Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the GOP Senate campaign chief. Then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and then President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol, on Oct. 24, 2017.

So yeah, I’m proud of it,” McConnell said, hailing it as an “extremely important” win for conservatives. He said it’ll mean they no longer “pay a ransom on the domestic side” in order to secure hefty military spending. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill.. said he’s “disappointed” in the unequal spending levels but argued that the Kentucky Republican was using his leverage. Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks alongside Sens. Democrats say McConnell was pushing for deals due to the rising support in the Democratic Party in recent years to end the filibuster.

☆ Democrats fret as Biden tries to bolster re-election case touting legislative wins
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Peter Nicholas | Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Carol-Lee-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

WASHINGTON — As 2022 draws to a close, President Joe Biden plans to give an upbeat national address Thursday afternoon with a unifying message. Biden would be traveling the country touting reduced insulin prices and new road projects, while House Republicans hold hearings into obscure conspiracy theories. The first is Biden runs and loses, perhaps to a younger Republican opponent who eclipses Trump as the new GOP favorite. His top aides have been meeting privately with left-leaning interest groups urging them to go out and showcase Biden’s record. “President Biden became the first president since FDR in 1934 to not lose a single incumbent United States Senate seat” in the midterms, Donilon wrote.

☆ Florida GOP to hold no-confidence vote in RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Marc Caputo | Marc Caputo Is A Senior National Political Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

The Florida GOP plans to hold a no-confidence vote in Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel next month, a crucial test of the embattled leader’s strength just days before her own re-election. He issued the petition in response to Republican Party of Florida Chairman Joe Gruters sending out a letter Tuesday endorsing McDaniel. The messy race for national chair reflects broader troubles in the Republican Party. The two candidates vying to succeed Gruters as Republican Party of Florida chair, Leon County Chair Evan Power and Sarasota County Chair Christian Ziegler, both told NBC News they support Dhillon. "This is about who is best to be RNC chair, and that's Ronna."

President Joe Biden will announce six new judicial nominees in his final batch of selections in 2022, a White House official told NBC News, as it looks to two more years of reshaping the federal courts under an expanded Democratic Senate majority. The nominees are for federal district courts — one in Indiana, two in New Jersey and three in California. The White House said they’ll be among the first nominees sent to the Senate early in the new year, when another session begins. Democrats gained a seat in the 2022 election and may have an easier time processing judges in 2023 and 2024. The new round will bring Biden’s total announced judicial nominees to 150, the White House said.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to make six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns public — potentially ending years of speculation about what they might reveal about his business dealings and personal wealth. Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., said the vote will make public the tax returns and a separate report about Trump's tax information. It is the power to embarrass, harass or destroy a private citizen through disclosure of their tax returns," Brady said. Trump was the first president to refuse to make his tax returns public since the 1970s. In order to fairly make that determination, we must obtain President Trump’s tax returns and review whether the IRS is carrying out its responsibilities," Neal said in a statement in April 2019.

WASHINGTON — The $1.7 trillion government funding bill released Tuesday includes extra money for the Justice Department to prosecute Jan. 6 cases. One source involved in the Jan. 6 criminal investigation said Tuesday they were “sincerely grateful” for the boost in funding under the omnibus bill. Proponents of fulfilling DOJ's request have long seen this funding bill as their last opportunity to secure the money, fearing that a Republican-controlled House would block the request early in the new year. Last week, the FBI re-arrested Jan. 6 defendant Edward Kelley for allegedly plotting to kill FBI special agents involved in his investigation. “The Senate should pass this bill,” he said.

☆ A Texas superintendent ordered school librarians to remove LGBTQ books. Now the federal government is investigating.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms | Mike Hixenbaugh | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +11 min

The U.S. Education Department’s civil rights enforcement arm has launched an investigation into a North Texas school district whose superintendent was secretly recorded ordering librarians to remove LGBTQ-themed library books. The comments, combined with the district’s subsequent decision to remove dozens of library books pending a review, fostered a “pervasively hostile” environment for LGBTQ students, the ACLU wrote in its complaint. Last year, voters in Granbury elected a pair of school board members who campaigned against LGBTQ-affirming school curricula and library books. “These comments, combined with the book removals, really send a message to LGBTQ students in the districts that: ‘You don’t belong here. Lou Whiting, a student at Granbury High School, becomes emotional after speaking against the removal of LGBTQ books at a Granbury school board meeting in March.

It could be the last major bill that passes this year before Republicans seize control of the House on Jan. 3. He has pressured GOP lawmakers to vote against it, forcing Democrats to supply most of the votes to pass it in the House. Capitol Hill leaders decided to attach the election bill and Ukraine aid to ease the process of passage, on the belief that the combined package has the votes to pass. For Republicans, one incentive to pass the bill now is that it funds the military at a higher level than the nondefense budget. “This is a strong outcome for Republicans,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, arguing that the GOP persuaded Democrats to back down on their long-standing demand for “parity” between the two pots of money.

☆ The man behind Trump World’s myth of rigged voting machines
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +32 min

He publicly announced his purchase of Montgomery’s data in August at a gathering in Missouri of hundreds of his followers. “I own it,” Lindell said of Montgomery’s data, touting it as irrefutable proof Trump was cheated. On Nov. 9, far-right podcaster Joe Oltmann linked Montgomery’s Hammer and Scorecard claims to a parallel conspiracy theory: that widely used voting machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems were rigged to flip votes from Trump to Biden. Powell amended her complaint a few days later and dropped the expert’s declaration and the references to Montgomery’s claims. But the government said in a recent court filing that the order has nothing to do with election data.

☆ Jan. 6 committee summary: Ivanka Trump not 'forthcoming'; Giuliani changed tone on stolen election during deposition
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Sahil-Kapur-Headshot.Jpg | Sahil Kapur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

In some cases, the committee said the purported memory lapses were not credible and appeared to be an attempt to conceal information. Yet the panel suggests that she knew more than she was letting on, contrary to others, like then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone. That appeared to be the case with Ornato,” according to the executive summary. The committee says it has “significant concerns about the credibility of this testimony,” according to the executive summary, and says it will release the transcript of his November interview. The panel alleges Trump also reached out to witnesses, without naming names: “The Select Committee is aware of multiple efforts by President Trump to contact Select Committee witnesses.

☆ Schumer reflects on how Senate Democrats went from infighting to big policy wins and a larger majority
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Sahil-Kapur-Headshot.Jpg | Sahil Kapur | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

The 50-50 majority, which has been unkind to Senate leaders in the past, seemed to be slipping from his grasp. “Everyone said Democrats are gonna lose a whole ton of seats,” Schumer said during a wide-ranging interview in his Capitol Hill office. Democrats may have held the Senate, but they narrowly lost the House majority to Republicans, which could spell the end of the party’s biggest legislative goals. And despite Schumer’s confidence that he’ll hold the Senate majority again in 2024, the map presents enormous challenges. Schumer said he isn’t giving up on working with moderate House Republicans, including some who won swing districts in his home state of New York.

☆ 'How dare he?' New Hampshire seethes at Biden's planned changes to the 2024 Democratic presidential primaries
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( Natasha Korecki | Natasha Korecki Is A Senior National Political Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +9 min

“How dare he?” Laurie Jasper, a member of the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women, said. Salting the wound was the revelation that South Carolina hadn’t even asked to be first, and officials there contend they were as surprised as anyone to be handed the spot. In South Carolina, the majority of Democratic primary voters are African American. “North Carolina is more diverse than South Carolina. Democrats say they aren’t about to retreat behind South Carolina and anyway, they can’t.

The committee obtained six years' worth of Trump's tax returns in November, following a years-long court fight for documents that other presidents have routinely made public since the 1970s. The meeting in "consideration" of the Trump documents comes just before Republicans are set to reclaim control of the House — and the committee — next month. While tax returns are confidential under federal law, there are some exceptions — including if the chair of the Ways and Means committee requests them. “No one believes that Chairman Neal requested President Trump’s tax returns so he can study legislation about IRS audits. Every president since Richard Nixon has made their tax returns public.

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Thursday to pass a one-week stopgap bill to temporarily avert a government shutdown as congressional leaders finish work on a full-year government funding package. Just nine House Republicans joined a unanimous Democratic caucus to vote for the measure, an indication of the narrow margins House Democrats will face in trying to pass the full-year funding bill. On Tuesday, Capitol Hill leaders reached agreement on a bipartisan framework for a massive government funding bill to address modern needs and prevent federal agencies from functioning on autopilot, as they have for months awaiting congressional action. To become law, the bill requires a simple majority in the House and at least 10 Republicans to break a filibuster in the Democratic-led Senate. His leadership team was also encouraging GOP members to vote the stopgap bill down this week.

☆ Biden releases most JFK assassination records — but withholds thousands
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Marc Caputo | Marc Caputo Is A Senior National Political Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +9 min

“We’re 59 years after President John Kennedy was killed and there’s just no justification for this,” said Judge John H. Tunheim, who from 1994-98 chaired the Assassination Records Review Board that was established Under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which Biden voted for when it passed Congress unanimously. Many of those Joannides records were never put in the National Archives' JFK collection, according to the foundation's lawsuit, so the lion's share of the suspected records were not released Thursday. CIA officials dispute the number of Joannides records in their possession, but they confirmed two were scheduled to be released Thursday. Under the JFK records act, all documents related to the assassination were supposed to be released by 2017. His poll also showed that 71% of voters thought Biden should release all of the JFK records, regardless of agency opposition.

Joe Biden beat Donald Trump once, and Democrats are crafting a strategy to try to beat him again in 2024 — even if his name isn’t on the ballot. But Democrats interviewed about the emerging 2024 strategy said they plan to make sure this particular comment isn’t soon forgotten. (Trump issued another statement on his Truth Social platform insisting he hadn’t said he wanted to “terminate” the Constitution.) A Trump ally, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, said he doesn’t believe Trump will suffer a backlash over his comment about the Constitution. Trump’s comment “is very serious,” said longtime Biden confidant Ted Kaufman, a former U.S. senator from Delaware.

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, beaming with confidence after having proved his doubters wrong and expanded his majority in the midterm elections, vowed without hesitation that the Democratic Party will keep control again in two years. Democrats are defending three seats in the Republican-leaning states of West Virginia, Montana and Ohio. To get there, Schumer promised that Democrats will govern and campaign over the next two years as pragmatists, not ideologues. Schumer pointed to the newly conservative Supreme Court, which rolled back abortion rights and expanded the right to carry guns this year. Instead, Democrats expanded their Senate majority from 50 to 51 seats.

WASHINGTON — Democrats are grappling with how to handle a potential re-election bid by newly minted independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in 2024, fearing that a three-way battle could split their voters and throw the race to Republicans in Arizona. Asked how the DSCC should handle a possible Sinema 2024 run, Sinema's Arizona colleague, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, “I haven’t given that any thought." Schumer said he has granted Sinema’s request to preserve her committee assignments through the Democratic Party, meaning the 51-49 partisan organization of the chamber won’t change. She wouldn’t say if Democrats should back her but said her working relationship with Sinema won’t change. Prior to her party switch, Sinema had stronger relationships with Republican senators than just about any Democrat.

☆ Ron DeSantis outflanks Trump on the right with his call for Covid vaccine probe
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Marc Caputo | Marc Caputo Is A Senior National Political Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

Ron DeSantis was positioning himself to get to the right of the former president over the issue of Covid vaccines. DeSantis, who is mulling whether to challenge Trump in the 2024 Republican primary for president, deepened those suspicions Tuesday. That’s his record,” said Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to Trump and an outspoken critic of DeSantis. The poll also showed DeSantis ahead of President Joe Biden in a theoretical general election matchup by 47%-43%, but Biden topped Trump 47%-40%. “So the only option for DeSantis to pose a challenge to Trump is to attack him on the vaccine.

“Nearly every single state in the nation has passed at least one significant gun safety law since Sandy Hook,” concluded the report, first obtained by NBC News. Gun violence has gone from being a political third rail to a kitchen table topic in just ten years. Nearly every American will know a victim of gun violence in their lifetime.”Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., hugs Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., at the Giffords Gun Violence Memorial in front of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., on June 7. Still, gun safety advocates face tall hurdles to achieving other goals, like banning semi-automatic assault-style weapons and large-capacity ammunition. Republicans just won control of the House, almost certainly ending hopes for stricter gun laws for the foreseeable future.

And now, this law requires an interracial marriage and same-sex marriage must be recognized as legal in every state in the nation.”Video Ad Feedback Don Lemon and fiancé react to Biden signing same-sex marriage into law 02:24 - Source: CNNThe new law officially voids the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. It mandates that states honor the validity of out-of-state marriage licenses, including same-sex and interracial unions. The bill signing Tuesday amounted to the culmination of his transformation on the issue. It’s about – it’s about marriage – same-sex marriage. Among the guests invited to the bill signing at the White House Tuesday were prominent members of the LGBTQ community and activists.

☆ NASA chief: SpaceX leader says Elon Musk’s Twitter drama is ‘nothing to worry about’
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Marc Caputo | Marc Caputo Is A Senior National Political Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

“Tell me that the distraction that Elon might have on Twitter is not going to affect SpaceX,” Nelson, recalling the conversation, said he asked Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and CEO. She’s running SpaceX,” Nelson said. Asked whether he has any concerns about SpaceX, Nelson said, “No, I don’t." NASA pays billions to SpaceX to shuttle astronauts and cargo to and from the International Space Station. “Look at what SpaceX is delivering in crew and cargo to the space station.”

The fate of the bill is also linked to an election overhaul measure to avoid another Jan. 6, which Senate leaders hope to attach to it. The two parties are about $26 billion apart on domestic spending, Shelby said, which isn’t much considering the omnibus package would likely be more than $1.5 trillion. Although they control both chambers, they still need at least 10 Senate GOP votes to defeat a filibuster on a funding bill. The government funding bill is likely the last train leaving the station in the current session of Congress, and a number of other provisions could ride along. Senators have struck a deal on a bill that cleared committee on a bipartisan vote of 14-1 in September.

☆ Republicans struggle in the Southwest as Latino voters stick with Democrats
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( Natasha Korecki | Natasha Korecki Is A Senior National Political Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +10 min

It belies a conventional narrative that Democrats were universally ceding Latino voters to the Republican Party, a story line repeated throughout the run-up to the Nov. 8 midterms. Instead, indicators show the GOP in danger of losing Latino voters in this region, a prospect that could mean being boxed out of the Southwest for the long term. In New Mexico, the state with the most residents identifying as Hispanic or Latino in the country, Latino Democrats won nearly every statewide race. Even with some Latino voters staying home, NBC News exit polling showed that Cortez Masto won more than 60% of that vote. Still, there’s plenty of danger signs for Democrats when it comes to Latino voters, particularly among men.

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