President Donald Trump is making changes at the Justice Department, nominating acting attorney general Todd Blanche as its permanent director. Blanche replaced Pam Bondi after her firing and since then has notably investigated several of Trump’s perceived enemies.
Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky voted with 211 Democrats to approve the resolution.
The lower chamber of Congress passed a measure that seeks to halt further military action, in a vote seen as largely symbolic.
Republican strategist Rina Shah says there are very clear reasons President Donald Trump got dunked by his own party on Wednesday, and he has no one to blame but himself.House Republicans, for the first time in months, failed to block a Democratic effort to halt the Iran war. The four Republican defectors who joined Democrats in tanking the GOP shutout are the latest sign that members of the president’s own party are willing to buck him on key policies.The Wednesday loss, the latest in Trump’s recent losing streak, was made possible by swing district Republicans Tom Barrett of Michigan, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Warren Davidson of Ohio, joined by Tom Massie (R-Ky.), who Trump got tossed from a GOP primary by endorsing his Republican rival. The 215-208 bipartisan vote is mostly symbolic, considering Trump will likely veto legislation that restricts his authority. However, the message the vote sends to the White House is likely coming in loud and clear.When Burnett asked Shah if Trump’s coalition is finally falling apart Shah answered “I think so, and it's because the G cubed: gas, groceries, geopolitics.”“To me, it's the war that's done it completely,” added Shah. “Trump promised no more wars, no more endless wars. And there's an entire swath of the Republican Party that is keeping mum and just saying, ‘we could take it all, the ballroom, even a slush fund, even J6 …. But when you start to talk democracy, you lose people, especially Republican voters. So you have to talk hard costs. The hard costs of this conflict have been tremendous.”“And what we saw on Monday, the reports out of that call with [Israeli leader] Netanyahu, have been really shocking to members of congress who are Republicans,” said Shah, citing an irate phone conversation with Trump dressing down Netanyahu for aggravating violence in southern Lebanon as Trump desperately seeks an offramp to his Iran war disaster.“Independent Americans Podcast” host Paul Rieckhoff agreed that the Republican vote shaving Trump’s power on Tuesday is a result of a convergence of U.S. voter anger.“This is really, really an important crossroads for America in a new phase of what could be a new forever war, because it's bigger than Iran,” said Rieckhoff. “But, but this has been amazing in that it's unified America against Trump. Republicans, Democrats, everybody in between, especially Independents, are deeply opposed to the Iran war. It's unauthorized, it's unwise, and it's deeply unpopular. And I think the politicians are actually behind the country on this. … The problem is that Trump has been all gas and no brakes, and nothing has stopped him until now.” - YouTube www.youtube.com
Former Vice President Mike Pence weighed in on the latest Cabinet pick by President Donald Trump, suggesting there will be “issues” around the Director of National Intelligence […]
President Donald Trump on Thursday ripped four “bad” Republicans who joined Democrats in passing legislation that effectively forces the president to end American military operations in Iran. The House passed legislation to “remove U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities against Iran unless explicitly authorized” by Congress, delivering a high-profile foreign policy defeat to the president. The […]
Todd Blanche has been serving as the acting attorney general. A formal nomination to the post would be the president’s latest move to place loyalists in top government jobs.
President Trump will formally nominate acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to lead the Justice Department, with the paperwork expected Thursday.Why it matters: Confirmation would keep the Justice Department in the hands of Trump's former criminal defense attorney, who has used his tenure to fight judges, indict former FBI director James Comey and dismiss critics of the department's handling of the Epstein files.The latest: The president revealed the pick in a video that deputy White House chief of staff Dan Scavino posted to X late Wednesday. "We are going to make him permanent attorney general," Trump said in the video, vowing to start the process the next day.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The intrigue: Trump is elevating Blanche days after his most public setback. The acting AG spent weeks defending a nearly $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund, a taxpayer payout to people who say they were wrongly targeted by the government. It was born of the DOJ's settlement of Trump's own lawsuit against the IRS.After Senate Republicans balked, especially at the prospect of payouts to Jan. 6 rioters, he killed the fund Tuesday.Still, Blanche said the department will keep the settlement's provisions prohibiting the IRS from auditing Trump's past returns.Trump has demurred, continuing to call the fund a "beautiful thing" to CNN and saying he doesn't know if it's dead.Catch up quick: Blanche was Trump's criminal defense attorney, who steered him through his 2024 hush money conviction and the two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith that never reached trial. He's run the DOJ on an acting basis since Trump pushed out Pam Bondi in April, frustrated she hadn't delivered prosecutions of his enemies, Axios previously reported.As deputy attorney general, Blanche had publicly declared a "war" on judges and state bar associations.What's next: Blanche cleared the Senate as deputy AG last year 52-46, on a party line vote.That was before the revolt over the fund, and before Trump spent the primary season ending the careers of Republicans he deemed insufficiently loyal.
Pence is entitled to oppose compensating victims of lawfare. What he is not entitled to do is pretend he had no role in creating them.