| | | | Can Capitol Hill's fragile sense of togetherness hold? | | The Congressional Baseball Game is on -- it's tonight at 7 p.m. ET and you can watch it live. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise remains hospitalized in critical condition, and both Republicans and Democrats are keeping up their well-wishes for his recovery.
But bipartisan unity in the wake of yesterday's shooting -- the sense on Capitol Hill that Congress is one big family -- might already be fracturing.
Tempers are flaring over the blame game that started within hours of the shooting. (Some examples: Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King said he would "put some of this at the feet of Barack Obama" -- that is, blame for the shooting that targeted House Republicans at an early morning baseball practice -- because Obama "contributed mightily to dividing us. He focused on our differences rather than our things that unify us. And this is some of the fruits of that labor." Rep. Rodney Davis yesterday called it "political rhetorical terrorism." Newt Gingrich blamed "an increasing intensity of hostility on the left.")
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi absolutely went off on Republicans over that criticism today. Here's what she said: "I think that the comments made by my Republican colleagues are outrageous, beneath the dignity of the job that they hold, beneath the dignity of the respect that we would like Congress to command. How dare they say such thing? How dare they? ... I don't even want to go into the President of the United States. But in terms of some of the language that he has used."
That's basically the view from the left: 1) Republicans have ignored pleas to act from victims of mass shootings for years, and 2) President Donald Trump, who mocked his opponents' masculinity, height, face and wife's appearance, called for the jailing of his political opponent and discussed his own penis size on the campaign trail, after years of leading the "birther" movement to delegitimize Obama, is responsible, more than anyone else, for the degraded political discourse in the country. The New York Times' Glenn Thrush gets at this view: | | | The view from the right -- backed up by conservative mouthpieces like Fox News' Jesse Watters -- is that the shooting was the natural conclusion of an intense backlash against Trump's presidency unlike anything seen on America's political left in decades. The shooter was, after all, a Bernie Sanders supporter, though Sanders immediately disavowed him in harsh terms when that became clear yesterday. | | It's been an unavoidable part of the GOP's response: A condemnation of rhetoric that Democrats, especially outside Washington, see as a perfectly reasonable response to a bombastic President and to congressional Republicans' advancing a health care bill that they fear will literally lead to deaths and bankruptcies. (More on that a little lower.)
What it all boils down to is this: Republicans are furious with Democrats and a media they believe is fomenting a backlash that is making governing -- even with the White House and Congress under their control -- all but impossible. Democrats see the GOP's actions since taking power as an affront to all that they hold dear. And Pelosi's comments show why, if anything, the negativity in Washington might actually get worse.
Still, there are plenty of thoughtful responses. One from a major Sanders backer, former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, to McClatchy's Alex Roarty: "People have to stop making this about Trump as a human being, as hard as that might be for some people, and just be hard as hell on the issues." | | | Speaking of the return of bitter partisanship -- here's Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz encouraging Democrats to "light up the phones" of Republicans working behind closed doors to craft a Senate bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act: | | | And here's a thread from Ezra Levin, a leader of the Indivisible movement, detailing how Senate Democrats could file literally tens of thousands of amendments to try to drag out deliberations on the Senate bill past the 2018 midterms (grinding everything to a complete halt in the process): | | "It's been much more difficult than people even thought at that time. He's in some trouble."
| | | Trump: Mueller's obstruction probe a 'WITCH HUNT' | | | On Wednesday, President Donald Trump called for political reconciliation and visited the family of Rep. Steve Scalise in the hospital. But Thursday morning, he woke up with Robert Mueller -- the special counsel in the Russia investigation, who The Washington Post reports is investigating Trump for obstruction of justice -- on his mind: | | | This was still on his mind at 3:43 p.m.: | | Trump's Mueller-bashing made Republicans uncomfortable. "I have a lot of confidence in Mueller," said Senate intelligence Chairman Richard Burr. "I personally think everyone is served by, the less said, the better," Rep. Tom Cole told CNN's Ryan Nobles. "I think the best thing that could happen for the President is a full and complete investigation which is fair and impartial, and reveals everything," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told CNN's Manu Raju. Rep. David Schweikert said in a radio interview Thursday that Trump might lack the language discipline to avoid giving the appearance of interfering in an investigation.
A key Senate panel is steering clear of the question of obstruction. "Obstruction is criminal -- there's a criminal aspect to that," Burr told Manu. "It's never been part of our" investigation. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the Democratic vice chairman, told CNN: "The criminal piece of the investigation will be handled by the special counsel, but if we find facts we can turn this over to the special counsel" and "report them" to Mueller's office. | | | Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull -- who had a reportedly heated exchange with Donald Trump in January -- mocked Trump in a speech Wednesday night, complete with his own comedic impression of the American President. | | Senate passes Russia bill, pushing back against Trump | | | The Senate was nearly unanimous passing a bill that would slap Russia with new sanctions and give Congress the power to review any White House attempts to roll them back. The Senate approved the bill 98-2, with Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky and independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont voting against the measure. More from CNN's Jeremy Herb. | | | Recently released North Korea detainee Otto Warmbier has suffered severe neurological damage and his family flatly rejects the regime's explanation for his condition, reporters were told in his Ohio hometown. ... Amid the ongoing diplomatic crisis between Qatar and a number of its Gulf neighbors, the United States has agreed to sell $12 billion worth of American F-15 fighters to the country. ... President Donald Trump will travel to a predominantly Cuban neighborhood of Miami on Friday to announce his plan to cool the warming relations between the United States and Cuba. | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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