NEW: In his virtual meeting with the January 6th Select Committee today, Jared Kushner was cooperative and very friendly, according to a source in the room. The meeting went for more than six hours and Kushner had a lot to say.
.
@SpeakerPelosi
on the Yovanovitch hearing so far: “We’ve been very busy but all the reaction we’ve heard has been very positive. We’re very proud of Adam Schiff and the courage of the witness.”
More on Kushner meeting: This person in the room doesn’t think Kushner invoked privilege at any point. Kushner did the talking, as opposed to lawyers doing it for him, according to this source.
There are rallies across the country today organized by
@MomsDemand
and
@Everytown
demanding that the U.S. Senate pass legislation to require background checks on all gun sales along with a Red Flag law. A march in Baltimore just started.
.
@SenMikeShirkey
just arrived at Reagan Airport and was immediately surrounded by protestors chanting “Certify the results!” Shirkey and other Michigan GOP lawmakers are expected to meet with
@realDonaldTrump
today.
CIA Director William Burns is in the Capitol this evening. He was being escorted by House Intel Ranking Member Turner.
Speaker Pelosi, Intel Chair Schiff and Leader McCarthy all went to the same location in the Capitol as Burns.
When the 118th Congress convenes tomorrow at noon, the first action for the House will be electing the new Speaker. For 100 years, the majority party has elected their nominee on the first ballot.
This year could make history. THREAD:
This morning,
@NBCNews
asked Leader McCarthy's office specifically if McCarthy said he would push President Trump to resign.
"No he did not," his spokesperson responded.
There's the audio - from
@jmartNYT
and
@alexburnsNYT
's book--
Kevin McCarthy: "The only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign."
@maddow
229-203: The House has PASSED the Presidential Election Reform Act to reform the Electoral Count Act.
NINE Republicans voted in support. None of those nine are returning to Congress next year, either because they lost primaries or are retiring.
Asked about proxy voting during a GOP presser today,
@RepStefanik
said "we believe in in-person voting."
Stefanik has filed 14 letters to vote by proxy, including last week when she voted by proxy while attending a fundraiser with former President Trump in Mar a Lago.
Speaker Mike Johnson was asked if he supports additional Ukraine aid.
“We all do…we are going to have conditions on that so we’re working through,” he said.
“We want accountability and we want objectives that are clear from the White House.“
.
@RepDanGoldman
and
@RepRitchie
filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee about
@Santos4Congress
, and then hand delivered it to his office.
Santos was in his office when this happened, in the back by the windows.
NEW: Jan. 6 Chair
@BennieGThompson
says the committee will hold its final public meeting MONDAY DEC 19, where they will approve referrals and final report.
The final report will be released on WED. DEC 21.
I am so excited to announce I have joined the
@NBCNews
Capitol Hill team as an associate producer! I am grateful for the opportunity to continue growing as a journalist and honored to work in the halls of Congress.
Sen. Lee said this "was probably the worst briefing I've seen, at least on a military issue, in the nine years I've served in the United States Senate.”
BREAKING: Sen. Lee, Republican from Utah, heavily criticizes Trump admin.'s briefing for senators today on Iran, saying officials expect Senate to be "good little boys and girls" and not debate in public.
.
@RepMTG
has been fined $88,000 in total for not wearing a mask on the House floor, according to documents shared by her office with NBC News.
w/
@haleytalbotnbc
2. The House has to choose a Speaker before moving to any other business. If McCarthy does not win on the first vote, the House will continue voting until McCarthy or someone else does receive a majority.
The last time it took multiple ballots was 1923 ... 100 years ago.
The line to get into today’s “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks” Commitment March on Washington stretches way down Constitution Ave
#MarchOnWashington
@NBCNews
Though this could be someone else’s office by tomorrow.
McCarthy and staff moved into the speaker’s office, which is tradition, but would need to vacate if he’s not elected.
3. Members vote VIVA VOICE meaning when their name is called by a clerk, they verbally announce who they are voting for. Members can vote for anyone (even people who are not part of the House), vote present or choose not to vote at all.
9. Tomorrow, Kevin McCarthy could be elected Speaker on the first ballot and continue the tradition that has lasted 100 years. Or a historic second ballot - and maybe even more - will be needed until the House chooses the new Speaker.
4. The math can change. Members voting present or not voting decreases the 218 #. Since 1913, there have been SIX instances when a Speaker candidate won without 218 votes.
In 2015, Boehner was elected with 216 votes. In 2021, Pelosi was elected with 216 votes.
.
@RepDavid
Schweikert (R-AZ), a House Freedom Caucus founding member, is leaving the group, his spokesperson confirmed to NBC.
@PunchbowlNews
reported it first this morning.
NEWS from
@BennieGThompson
tonight: “Even though Mr. Clark previously had the opportunity to make these claims on the record, the Select Committee will provide him another chance to do so. I have informed Mr. Clark’s attorney that I am willing to convene another deposition…
1. To become Speaker, Kevin McCarthy needs a majority of members present to vote for him – which makes the magic number 218. That # can fluctuate if any members vote present or don't vote at all.
5. There have been 14 instances where it took multiple ballots to choose a new Speaker. Thirteen of these were before the Civil War. The last occurrence was 1923. Parties are much stronger now than they were pre-Civil War.
NEW: Members of the Coronavirus Task Force during the Trump admin expressed concern with each other about “misinformation” being shared with the president, according to emails obtained by
@COVIDOversight
and shared with
@NBCNews
.
6. Electing a Speaker can take a while. It took 133 ballots over the course of two months in 1855-56 to elect the Speaker.
In 1923, it took nine ballots after a group of Progressive Republicans refused to support the GOP nominee until certain rules changes were made.
7. On two occasions, the House voted to change the rules and elect the Speaker by a plurality instead of a majority. This happened in 1849 and 1856 - both times because members feared they would never be able to elect a Speaker by a majority vote.
Asked by
@alivitali
why no one else spoke out against the expulsion, Rep. George Santos said: "I didn’t ask anybody to."
He criticized the NY Republicans who are pushing the expulsion, saying "coming from who it’s coming from, it’s almost laughable.”
8. Historically the House has only held a few ballots each day. So if there are three or four unsuccessful attempts, the House could adjourn. Party leaders would then try to strike deals or whip votes off the floor.
.
@IlhanMN
responds to the “send her back” chants. “This is not about me. This is about fighting for what this country truly should be and deserves to be.”
“Cipollone has corroborated almost everything that we’ve learned from the prior hearings,”
@RepRaskin
said in an exclusive interview ahead of the next Jan. 6 hearing this afternoon.
w/
@alivitali
@haleytalbotnbc
Arriving back to the Capitol after her meeting with
@POTUS
,
@SpeakerPelosi
says “we are on schedule, let's put it that way.” She adds “we're calm, and everybody's good and our work’s almost done.”
NEW from Chair Thompson on upcoming Jan 6 Cmte hearings:
- 8 hearings
- some prime time + some regular
- they’ll “tell the story about what happened”
- combo of witnesses+exhibits
- they’ll “give public benefit of what more than years worth of investigation has gone to the Cmte”
As far as I know this has never happened mid-session.
The closest equivalent is the 72nd Congress when GOP had a small majority after election day 1930 but then 14 members-elect died before opening day and balance shifted to a slim Dem majority.
“We're not winding down right now,”
@AdamKinzinger
tells reporters of the Jan. 6 cmte. “Because this is kind of a first tranche of hearings, we reserve the right to do more hearings. I'm sure we may.”
JEFFRIES asked by
@JulieNBCNews
if Sen. Menendez should resign:
“At the end of the day, his fate will be decided by a jury of his peers. Yet it's hard for me to see how the senator can effectively at this moment represent the people he's ably served for decades in New Jersey.”
.
@GarrettHaake
asked
@SpeakerMcCarthy
why he gave Jan 6 security footage to Tucker Carlson.
MCCARTHY: “Have you ever had an exclusive? Because I see it on your networks all the time. So he'll have an exclusive, then I'll give it out to the entire country.”
Scoop via
@alivitali
: Survivors and parents of victims of the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings will testify before the House Oversight Committee next week.
The House has PASSED the Respect for Marriage Act, 258-169-1. There were 39 Republicans who voted in favor, fewer than the 47 who voted in support back in July.
Loud applause broke out in the chamber when
@SpeakerPelosi
gaveled out the vote.
NEW:
@MayorBowser
announces that the default speed limit on local roads in Washington, D.C. will drop to 20 MPH starting June 1st. Bowser says this will be a permanent change.
I'm excited to share that I’ll be joining the
@NBCNews
D.C. Bureau as the Tim Russert Fellow! I'm looking forward to working with and learning from the great journalists at
@MeetThePress
and
@NBCPolitics
.
“I’m ready to vote all night, all week, all month and never for that person,” Matt Gaetz said as he left the room where Kevin McCarthy is meeting with several Republican members and leadership.
Spent the past few weeks reading and researching the history of Speaker of the House elections.
Here's how the House elects its speaker, and why Tuesday's vote could make history. w/
@haleytalbotnbc
.
@RepJayapal
also said: “Today, I'm allowing myself to feel a little bit of hope. And let's see if we can get this done because it would be life changing for so many people across our country and across the world.”
.
@RepJayapal
gives a thumbs up to Schumer-Manchin deal: "If it's all true ... it’s a huge victory for the American people. It's a really important set of investments in people's health care, keeping costs down, extending the subsidies, and climate change." (via
@KyleAlexStewart
)
“Why would I punch somebody? Why would I kidney punch somebody?”
@SpeakerMcCarthy
says of incident with
@timburchett
.
“If I’d kidney punched him, he’d be on the ground.”
Odd moment this morning when former Speaker McCarthy appeared to bump into Rep. Burchett as they left conference.
"He’s just a bully with $17 million and a security detail,"
@timburchett
told me. Here's what happened:
Former members retain the privilege of accessing the House floor unless they fall under one of these categories.
Santos would need to be convicted in court to be barred from the floor.
Former Rep. George Santos is returning to Capitol Hill tonight for the first time since his expulsion to attend President Biden’s State of the Union address, one source familiar told me
Confirming
@kadiagoba
Jim Henson was born on this day in 1936. Fun fact: Henson's Muppets were first featured in his show "Sam and Friends," filmed in the WRC-TV Studio A, which also happens to be the same studio
@MeetThePress
still uses.
NEW: Every presidential administration since the '80s has mishandled classified documents, the National Archives told the House Intel Committee in March.
.
@RepGallagher
shows off the cookie cake GOP leadership gave him after his TikTok bill passed this morning. It’s a
@SteveScalise
tradition to give these out.
Happening now:
@BlackVotersMtr
is leading “Brothers Day of Action on Capitol Hill” in support of voting rights. They are calling for the passage of The For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
JUST NOW: The House has expelled Rep. George Santos from Congress on a vote of 311-114, with two voting present.
Santos became just the sixth member of the House ever to be expelled and the first in more than 20 years.
The House voted 223-207 to censure
@RepGosar
and remove him from the Oversight and Natural Resources committees. GOP Reps Cheney and Kinzinger voted yes on the resolution.
GOP Rep. David Joyce voted present.
@BennieGThompson
"There is no such thing in America as the privileges of the crown,"
@RepLizCheney
said on the House floor. "Every citizen has a duty to comply with a subpoena."
NEW: Dr. Deborah Birx, who served as Covid response coordinator under former President Trump, will testify publicly for the first time about her time in the Trump administration. Birx is scheduled to provide testimony on June 23 to
@COVIDOversight
.
"As a new mom, it is heart wrenching to watch the video that President Zelenskyy just played, in terms of the bombing of maternity wards and the war crimes that are being committed,"
@RepStefanik
said as she left the Zelenskyy address.
The House adjourned Tuesday without electing a speaker. So, what comes next? Here’s what to expect, using history as a guide:
1. The House will reconvene at noon, starting with a prayer and the pledge of allegiance before the clerk will move to a 4th ballot.
After
@AdamKinzinger
disclosed a letter sent to his home that threatened to kill his family, we asked
@CapitolPolice
for the latest data on threats to Congress. There was a 144% increase in cases from 2017 to 2021.
After being interrupted by sounds from Democrats, Leader McCarthy remarked how Speaker Pelosi likes to remove members for not acting properly.
AOC yelled that it was for "inciting violence." She then left the chamber.
NEW: Mick Mulvaney arrived for his closed-door deposition with the Jan. 6 committee. I asked what he plans to tell the committee. “The truth. How about that for a start.”
Mulvaney said he was asked to come in.
@NBCNews