ROMNEY on GOP Reps threatening to protest electoral college vote: “This is madness. We have a process, recounts are appropriate, going to the court is approp & pursuing every legal avenue is appropriate, but trying to get electors not to do what the people voted to do is madness”
Awesome moment: Jon Stewart embraces a crying John Feal, the 9/11 first responder who led the organization pushing for the full extension of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, just after the bill passed in the Senate 97-2:
SCHUMER on invoking the 25th amendment: "Speaker Pelosi & I tried to call the VP this morning to tell him to do this, they kept us on hold for 25 mins and then said the VP wouldn't come on the phone. So we are making this call public because he should do it and do it right away."
TRUMP on Oct 3rd: "I spoke to (McConnell)...he said, 'That was the most innocent phone call that I've read.'"
MCCONNELL today: "I don't recall any conversations with the President about that phone call."
GOP
@SenJohnKennedy
:
Q: Do you think a military parade is a good idea?
KENNEDY: “No.”
Q: Why not?
KENNEDY: "I think confidence is silent and insecurity is loud.”
Q: Why did you tear up the speech?
PELOSI: “Because it was the courteous thing to do.”
PELOSI: “It was the courteous thing to do considering the alternative.”
LISTEN: As Pres Trump’s entourage entered Speaker Ryan’s office in the Capitol, someone on the other side of the Capitol rotunda yelled: “Mr. President, F—k you!!” (He entered about 15 seconds later):
FAUCI to Rand Paul: "Senator Paul, you do not know what you're talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially. You do not know what you're talking about."
Freshmen Reps picked their offices today after the office lottery, and guess who
@Ocasio2018
just realized is now two doors down from her:
@NancyPelosi
With newborn daughter Maile Pearl in tow,
@SenDuckworth
arrives at the US Capitol for her first vote since giving birth (and her first vote since the Senate rules were changed to allow her to bring her baby on to the floor during votes):
Flag: McConnell just stopped abruptly during his opening statement during the gop leadership presser and appeared to be unable to restart talking. He then stepped away and walked away with Barrasso:
Sen
@BenSasse
on Trump’s comments RE: terminating the Constitution: “Well, obviously nobody's terminating the Constitution. What's going on here is a clown is trying to sell tickets to his circus.”
MCCONNELL: “This is so important, the most important thing going on in the world is to beat the Russians in Ukraine. Fortunately they have a leader that everyone can look up to & admire & also it's nice to have something here at the end of the year that we all actually agree on.”
Also arrested at this climate change protest blocking the road outside the Capitol: Law & Order actor Sam Waterston, who says this is his first time being arrested:
MANCHIN asked by
@AriNatter
whether an energy company he founded is a conflict of interest as he negotiates reconciliation:
MANCHIN: "I've been in a blind trust for 20 years, I have no idea what they're doing.
Ari: You're still getting dividends.
MANCHIN: "You got a problem?"
Sen FETTERMAN says “hell yea!” when asked if he’d support a primary challenge of Sen Menendez
“The last time there was a guy in New Jersey with this much cash in his house was Tony Soprano,” he said.
Sen
@timkaine
just tried to pass a bill to re-open the government by unanimous consent on the Senate floor.
As expected,
@senatemajldr
McConnell objected.
Just absolutely gut wrenching to see Officer Billy Evans' children standing at the top of the steps of the East front of the Capitol holding teddy bears as they watch their father's casket being carried to the rotunda so he can lay in honor:
PELOSI on the backlash to mask mandates: "That's the purview of the Capitol physician...nothing to say except we honor it."
Q:
@GOPLeader
McCarthy says it's against the science.
PELOSI: "He's such a moron."
MCCONNELL: "Here's the political reality: if you think the fall of Afghanistan was bad, the fall of a European capital like Kyiv to Russian troops will be unimaginably worse, and if stalled American assistance makes that outcome possible, there's no question...where the blame…
Sen FETTERMAN calls on the Senate to vote to expel Sen Menendez following new charges.
Fetterman: “We cannot have an alleged foreign agent in the United States Senate.
“This is not a close call.”
Expulsion required 2/3rds majority.
A couple hundred protesters have lined the hallway outside
@SenJohnThune
’s office where Judge Kavanaugh is expected to arrive for a meeting with the Senator. They’re being silent and many are holding up a fist—>
McCain on Vietnam: “We drafted the lowest income level of America, and the highest income level found a doctor that would say that they had a bone spur. That is wrong...”
Remember that lectern seen being carried around the Capitol by a rioter (who was later arrested)? Well it’s back and it’s gonna be used for a press event for Pelosi to speak after the House votes to impeach the President a second time:
NEW:
@JeffFlake
says he will not vote to advance any of of the 21 judicial nominees pending in the judicial committee, or vote to confirm the 32 judges awaiting confirmation on the Senate floor until the Mueller protection bill is brought up for a full vote on the Senate floor.
Sen
@JeffFlake
says he won’t be supporting or endorsing Roy Moore: “A guy who says that a Muslim member of Congress shouldn’t be able to serve, that’s not right.”
#ALSen
BREAKING: A spokeswoman for Capitol Police says Capitol Police Chief Sund is resigning effective January 16, 2021.
Resignation comes after yesterday’s botched response to the riot in the Capitol, and a call from
@SpeakerPelosi
for him to resign.
ROMNEY: "It would be saying, 'Look, let's not follow the vote of the people, let's instead do it what we want, that would not be the way a democratic republic ought to work."
Q: Are you very confident that anything like that would be rejected here.
ROMNEY: "Yes."
@AriNatter
More from
@AriNatter
RE: the energy company Manchin founded: Your son still owns it, doesn't he?
MANCHIN: "You'd do best to change the subject."
Capital Gazette staff writer on CNN just now; “Thanks for your prayers, but I couldn’t give a f—k about them if there’s nothing else.” (The ‘—‘ was not censored when on television)
Sen
@MittRomney
on the doctor who has made anti-vaccine comments in the past testifying before Senate Homeland Security Cmte as a GOP witness: “I think it's nuts to bring that into the Senate.”
Personal note: I cannot express how proud I am of the amazing job
@HallieJackson
did moderating the
#DemDebate
while 8.5 months pregnant and battling a nasty case of laryngitis. She’s an amazing woman, and the best partner. She and the entire team did such a great job.
A spox for Sen BOOKER says that when VP Harris came to preside over the confirmation vote for Judge Jackson, she gave Booker a blank sheet of Vice Presidential letterhead, and the VP encouraged Sen. Booker to write a letter to a Black girl reflecting on this historic day.
Q: What do you say to progressives who are frustrated they don’t know where you are?
SINEMA: “I’m in the Senate.”
Q: There are progressives in the Senate that are also frustrated they don’t know where your are either.
SINEMA: “I’m clearly right in front of the elevator.”
BREAKING - PENCE DECLARES: “The whole number of electors appointed to vote for President of the US is 538, of which a majority is 270....Joseph R Biden, of the state of Delaware received for President of the US, 306 votes. Donald J Trump of the state of Florida has received 232.”
MURKOWSKI on protesters: "I don’t know what you were doing when those voices were shouting and the screams--and I’m sure tears--but I was closing my eyes and praying, praying for them, and praying for us, and praying for the country. We need prayers, we need healing, we just do.”
SCHUMER after reading the whistleblower complaint: “Having read the documents in there I’m even more worried about what happened than I was when I read the memorandum of the conversation. There are so many facts have to be examined.”
The Senate just PASSED by unanimous consent a bill to extend protections from the Supreme Court Police to the immediate family members of Supreme Court Justices.
Per historian's office, prior to Scott Garret's failed nomination vote in the Sen Banking Cmte today, the last time a nom was voted down by a cmte where the majority was the same party as the President was June, 5 1986.
Q: That nom?
A: Jeff Sessions to be a US District Judge
NEWS: Murkowski, entering the Capitol “on the way to talk to her colleagues,” said she supports
@JeffFlake
proposal for a one week delay and an investigation.
CORKER calls Trump’s South Africa tweet “a base stimulator”
Q: What do you mean? What is his base that would be stimulated?
CORKER:“Well, there are portions of those who support the president that are—I’m sure that generates excitement. I mean, it’s—you know what I’m saying...”
I have asked Secretary of State
@SecPompeo
to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. “South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.”
@TuckerCarlson
@FoxNews
PELOSI says she has yet to hear from the Chief of the Capitol Police, Steven Sund, since yesterday's events in the Capitol. She says she is calling for his resignation.
MCCONNELL in KY asked for his midterm projections: "I think there's probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different, they're statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome."
.
@SenJohnMcCain
friend Rick Davis offered thanks on behalf of the McCAIN family in August. “The combined efforts of the Trump administration, the White House, Sec. Mattis and the Department of Defense, especially and the Military District of Washington...” (1/2)
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale is testifying before Senate Foreign Relations:
Q: Was the Kremlin's interference in the 2016 election a hoax?
HALE: "No."
Q: Are you aware of any evidence that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US election?
HALE: "I am not."
BREAKING: A Capitol Police Officer has died after being injured by a protester in the Capitol on Jan 6
Per spox: Officer Sicknick was responding to the riots on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol and was injured while physically engaging with protesters.
BREAKING: McConnell says that after the electoral college voted yesterday: "Our country has officially a president-elect and a vice-president elect."
"I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden," McConnell says.
WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to reporters on Capitol Hill: “You guys with all your masks you look different than you used to.”
@JakeSherman
: “We’re trying not to die.”
Just asked
@BenSasse
how he squares his previous (intense) criticisms about Pres Trump in 2016 with accepting his endorsement for reelection, and he said, “I don’t have anything for you right now.”
Sen Fetterman puts out a Stmt: “If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week.”
More MURKOWSKI: “If the decision is going the way that the draft that has been revealed is actually the case, it was not—it was not the direction that I believed that the court would take based on statements that have been made about Roe being settled and being precedent.”
Asked about Trump’s tweet RE: Gillibrand,
@BobCorker
says he hasn’t seen it.
*Reporter offers to show him.*
Corker: “I don’t know that I want you to show it to me, I can’t respond if I don’t know anything about it.”
Everyone told me meeting your child for the first time was going to be an amazing experience, but watching
@HallieJackson
bring our daughter into the world with just an insane amount of strength and confidence was indescribably awesome. We’re so so excited to show Ro the world!
SCHUMER responds: "I heard the Republican leader come forward and decry any attempt to change the rules. He's not a good one to give advice. Leader McConnell has shown that he will change the rules when it suits his purposes and defend the rules when it suits his purposes."
CORKER: “Mitch is on the phone with Paul now, so....” *corker starts laughing*
Q: Why are you laughing?
Corker: “Well, why not?”
///
Corker: “Ya’ll have fun! I may not see ya’ll again for a while...”
Q: You’re not going to come back from TN for votes?
Corker: “I doubt it.”
Roy Moore says he was duped by Sacha Baron Cohen for his new CBS/Showtime series & threatens legal action "If Showtime airs a defamatory attack on my character..."
President Trump:
Feb 24: "I love the First Amendment, nobody loves it more than me."
Today: “It is frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write"