(WASHINGTON) — Congressional leaders on Tuesday announced a deal that would avert a default of the nation’s credit by allowing Democrats to raise the debt ceiling in the Senate without any Republican support.
The U.S. is just days away from economic disaster, with the Treasury estimating the government will run out of money on Dec. 15, leaving the country unable to pay its bills.
Real-world consequences of the U.S. defaulting could include delays to Social Security payments and checks to service members, a suspension of veterans’ benefits and rising interest rates on credit cards, car loans and mortgages.
The House approved the measure along party lines in a late-night 222-212 vote on Tuesday.
The legislation sets up a procedure that would allow the Senate to pass the final bill to raise the debt limit with a simple majority by suspending filibuster rules for a debt ceiling increase by a month.
Under this process, 10 Republican senators will still need to support the legislation setting up the agreement.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell seemed confident Tuesday that he had the votes locked in.
“I think this is in the best interest of the country to avoid default,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday during a news conference.
“The red line is intact. The red line is that you have simple majority party line vote on the debt ceiling. That’s exactly where we’ll end up,” he said.
McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spent weeks huddling behind closed doors to strike an agreement. The deal comes months after bitter partisan bickering over the matter, after Republicans insisted on Democrats raising the debt limit without any GOP support.
“We Democrats were always willing to carry the burden. That’s what’s going to happen,” Schumer said Tuesday.
“Our number one goal to get this done — get it done with just Democratic votes, without a convoluted, risky process — is what we’re on the verge of achieving,” Schumer said.
The language regarding the debt ceiling process is attached to a separate provision that will avert impending Medicare cuts, which are set to take effect early next year.
“Once the Senate has passed the legislation lifting the debt limit, the House will take up that bill and send it to the President,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in a letter addressed to colleagues Tuesday.
“Let us remember that addressing the debt limit is not about future spending. This is about meeting obligations that the government has already incurred, largely during the Trump Administration. Only three percent of the current debt has been accrued under President Biden,” she said in the letter.
(NEW YORK) — For Julieta Larsen, elections are bittersweet.
Hailing from Argentina, Larsen moved to New York City after meeting her husband, a firefighter with the FDNY. Now, seven years and two children later, she works as a community engagement coordinator at Queens Community House, a multi-service settlement home.
Larsen says she’s a politics lover, devoting her days to advocating for local legislation and setting up election and voter information sessions.
But come election season, there’s always one question she asks but never likes to answer: “Have you voted yet?”
Though living in New York City for almost a decade and devoting her days to political organizing, Larsen is still a green card holder, making her ineligible to vote despite multiple attempts at a pathway toward citizenship.
“It’s kind of funny, but not funny because I talk to people about the importance of voting. Yet, I cannot vote,” Larsen told ABC News.
It’s a nagging feeling for someone so entrenched in the political process. But one that could change this week.
On Thursday, the New York City Council will vote on legislation, Our City, Our Vote, that would allow permanent New York City residents and those with work permits to participate in municipal elections. The legislation, introduced by Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez, is expected to pass by a veto-proof margin with 36 out of 51 councilmembers sponsoring the bill.
New York City’s local elections historically have attracted low voter turnout. A record-low 23% of New Yorkers voted in this year’s mayoral election. This bill could dramatically change the city’s electorate by giving more than 800,000 noncitizens the right to vote.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says he will not veto the legislation despite reservations about the bill. Mayor-elect Eric Adams championed the legislation on the campaign trail and continues to voice his support.
If the bill passes, it will then be up to the New York City Board of Elections to figure out exactly how the law will be implemented when it takes effect in 2023 during the city’s next local election.
For Larsen and many other immigrants who work and pay state and federal taxes, the legislation presents the potential to finally have a say in who represents them.
“I deserve the right to vote for the person that I think would actually represent my interests and do something about those specific issues I care about,” Larsen said.
It’s not a done deal yet, though. Some GOP councilmembers and attorneys in the city are already promising legal action. Councilman David Carr, a vocal critic of the legislation, believes if the bill passes as expected, a New York state court will overturn it.
“I believe fundamentally that the right to vote is part of being a citizen…And it should be exclusive to them,” Carr told ABC News.
“You have an issue with the naturalization process or an issue with the way this country handles immigration more generally, your fight’s in Washington, not City Hall,” he added. “We don’t get to have 50 immigration laws these days or thousands of different standards because of all the different municipalities that make up this country.”
This type of legislation isn’t new to the United States. It’s not even unique to New York City. For over 30 years, noncitizens voted in New York City school board elections before they became mayor-appointed positions in 2009. San Francisco has afforded noncitizens the right to vote in school board elections since 2016. And cities in Maryland and Vermont have allowed noncitizens to vote in local elections since 2017 and 2021, respectively.
New York City, however, would be the largest municipality to date to pass this type of legislation. It comes at a time when an unprecedented number of states are taking up bills that will make it harder for Americans to vote.
“I think it sends a strong signal that the essence of democracy is full participation,” Elizabeth OuYang, a civil rights attorney in New York City, told ABC News. “You can’t say noncitizens should not have certain basic rights and then make citizenship very difficult to obtain. And so we need to be consistent in making sure that the franchise and citizenship is accessible.”
OuYang cites historical precedent for New York City’s proposed legislation.
“This notion of suffrage being dependent upon citizenship is misinformed” she said. “In the founding of our country, [voting] was not based on citizenship as much as it was based on wealth and gender…there’s nothing in New York State Constitution or New York City charter that bars non-immigrant, lawful permanent residents from voting in municipal elections.”
Only time will tell if the bill holds against legal tests, but immigrants like Julieta are celebrating the moment for what it is.
“New York City is home…I definitely consider myself lucky and privileged to live in a community that works on this legislation,” Larsen said. “This is huge. I am very lucky to be here. I’m very lucky that my children are gonna grow up in such a progressive community and society.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has informed the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that he is no longer cooperating with their probe, two sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
In a letter from Meadows’ attorney, Meadows’ team says that they had intended to cooperate with the committee — but no more.
“We agreed to provide thousands of pages of responsive documents and Mr. Meadows was willing to appear voluntarily, not under compulsion of the Select Committee’s subpoena to him, for a deposition to answer questions about non-privileged matters. Now actions by the Select Committee have made such an appearance untenable,” the letter from George J. Terwilliger II stated.
Terwilliger, in the letter, said that Meadows “has consistently sought in good faith to pursue an accommodation with the Select Committee,” but claims the panel has made an appearance for a deposition untenable because they have “no intention of respecting boundaries concerning Executive Privilege.”
In a subsequent statement, committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and vice chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said they would pursue contempt of Congress charges if Meadows fails to appear before the committee on Wednesday as scheduled.
“Tomorrow’s deposition, which was scheduled at Mr. Meadows’s request, will go forward as planned,” the statement said. “If indeed Mr. Meadows refuses to appear, the Select Committee will be left no choice but to advance contempt proceedings and recommend that the body in which Mr. Meadows once served refer him for criminal prosecution.”
A floor vote holding Meadows in contempt of Congress could lead the Department of Justice to pursue criminal charges as they have already done with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
Last week the committee suggested that Meadows had agreed to come forward for a deposition without preconditions, based on their initial communications.
Meadows’ attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
(WASHINGTON) — When asked Monday about whether his sweeping social spending and climate agenda — the Build Back Better Act — can pass the Senate before Christmas as he and congressional leaders want, President Joe Biden responded, “As early as we can get it. We want to get it done no matter how long it takes.”
And that answer suggests it could be yet another deadline missed.
In the face of numerous reports that the deadline is slipping to January, and comments to that effect from some key Democrats with objections, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told his his caucus in a letter Monday that the goal is still to pass the legislation “before Christmas and get it to the president’s desk.”
But even if Build Back Better passes the Senate before lawmakers are taking down Christmas decorations, they are still facing several dates circled in red before the end of 2021, some of which lawmakers have set for themselves and may still be on track to miss.
The most pressing is raising the debt limit in the next few weeks before financial disaster strikes.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has previously painted a grim picture if the U.S. were to default on its debt, warning Congress back in September of “calamity” from a “manufactured crisis” as Senate Republicans blocked Democratic efforts to raise the ceiling.
Despite the warnings, lawmakers eventually came to only a short-term solution in October, raising the debt limit by $480 billion until Dec. 3, to return to the issue when it became impossible to put off any longer.
Why does this keep happening and at what cost?
“The contemporary Congress really is fueled by deadlines, and sometimes they’re fueled by deadlines and it’s helpful to them, and sometimes they’re fueled by deadlines and it’s not helpful to them,” Brookings Institution senior fellow Molly Reynolds told ABC News.
Most years in December, with the holiday season in full swing, everything comes down to the wire on Capitol Hill. But Reynolds said that while legislators face a mountain of work to finish each year, 2021 stands out.
In addition to the debt ceiling and Biden’s agenda, measures perennially seen as must-pass, such as the National Defense Authorization Act and critical funding bills, still hang in the balance.
Reynolds said Congress sometimes appears to procrastinate, working right until deadlines or missing them altogether, because it needs more time to work things out.
“Kind of like a college student getting an extension on a paper,” she said.
But in other cases, lawmakers working to the last minute before a deadline is the failure to find common ground on disagreements, and Reynolds said partisanship and dissent has been everywhere this year, especially among House and Senate Democrats.
In setting soft deadlines, such as when leadership wants to see progress on Build Back Better, the strategy can be to break a logjam and force action.
“In most cases, as we’ve seen them, obviously the bill itself has not been finished, but there’s been kind of incremental progress,” Reynolds said.
Biden has previously played down months of Democratic infighting that delayed progress on infrastructure and reconciliation negotiations this fall.
“Right now, things in Washington, as you all know, are awfully noisy. Turn on the news and every conversation is a confrontation, every disagreement is a crisis,” Biden said in October about a plan proposed in framework form months before.
Jim Manley, a Democratic operative and a spokesperson for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said legislators setting time limits for themselves is just the way Capitol Hill functions in its present state.
“What has become very clear is that Congress is unable to get anything done without facing a deadline,” Manley said.
“It’s now become a frequent occurrence and is a significant part of the leadership — whether Republican or Democrat — playbook when they’re running the place,” he added.
Washington University professor Steven Smith sees constant short-term deadline-setting, particularly when it comes to the appropriations process and stopgap government spending bills, as a “function of political failure.”
“How can it become worse? The Senate failed to pass any of the 12 appropriations bills — not one. They didn’t even vote on them on the Senate floor, let alone pass them. How could it be worse than that? This is as bad as it gets,” Smith said.
Smith added he believes deadlines allow lawmakers to force themselves to revisit and address a variety of issues and policies.
It’s not healthy for government programs to be consistently running on stopgap funding, because short-term funding naturally creates challenges when agencies are trying to plan ahead, Reynolds said.
She also said more political conflicts have found their way into the appropriations process — the start of the fiscal year each October is often preceded by missed deadlines and, some years, government shutdowns.
(WASHINGTON) — With the critical 2022 midterm election looming, elections experts say the already opaque world of campaign fundraising is becoming even more murky, as a number of political groups have started registering under cryptic and hard-to-trace names.
“When super PACs name themselves using simply an assortment of letters and numbers, it’s harder for people to understand the super PAC’s ideological leanings without additional digging,” said Michael Beckel, research director with bipartisan political reform group Issue One.
“Few people will take the time to research the name of a super PAC after seeing its ads — if they can ever remember the right mix of letters and numbers the super PAC is using as its name,” Beckel said.
One recent example is the fundraising organization known as “34N22.” Surfacing two months ago, the cryptically named group registered with the Federal Election Commission as a super PAC, also known as an independent expenditure-only political action committee, which can accept an unlimited amount money from donors and spend an unlimited amount to support candidates — as long as it’s independent from the candidates themselves. Regular PACs, in contrast, are limited by a $5,000 limit per year per donor, and can make direct contributions to candidates up to $5,000 per candidate.
The new 34N22 super PAC offered the first clues to its actual purpose a few days ago when it announced and reported to the FEC that it would be spending $81,000 for an online ad campaign in support of former NFL player Herschel Walker’s bid against Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. A spokesperson for 34N22 told ABC News that the group’s name is “pretty straightforward,” saying, “34 was Herschel Walker’s number at the University of Georgia — and the election is in 2022.”
Little else is known about 34N22, including who is bankrolling it. Election rules provide less frequent filing deadlines for super PACs’ donor disclosures during off-election years. A press release from 34N22 names as its spokesperson Stephen Lawson, a former adviser to former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who was unseated by Warnock earlier this year. The group’s FEC filing lists 34N22’s treasurer as Charles Gantt, who has been linked to multiple other GOP political committees.
34N22 is just the latest example of a new super PAC with an obscure name. Other groups this election cycle are using such names as NNH PAC, NJH PAC, NTC PAC, TAS PAC, GMI Inc and KSL Inc — odd monikers that, as campaigns heat up, may lead to TV ads ending with uninformative or confusing taglines regarding who they’re “paid for by.”
There were signs of this trend toward obscurity during the 2020 election cycle. The two Georgia Senate contests between Loeffler and Warnock and between incumbent GOP Sen. David Perdue and challenger Jon Ossoff were the target of an ad blitz worth tens of thousands of dollars by a conservative group named C3 PAC. Last year in Maine, GOP Sen. Susan Collins’ reelection bid was supported by a multimillion-dollar ad campaign from an organization called 1820 PAC. And Gantt was the treasurer for another group that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting various GOP congressional candidates under the name SG PAC.
Under federal law, there are very few restrictions on how a political committee should be named, other than that an outside political group that is not a candidate’s authorized campaign committee cannot use a candidate’s name in its official name.
Brendan Fischer, the federal reforms director of the good-government group Campaign Legal Center, said that “plenty of PACs use innocuous or generic names” and that obscure names made up of initials are “not necessarily too concerning” as long as “the ad disclaimers are clear and accurate.”
“What’s most important is that a voter can identify the PAC running a particular ad, and then be able to use FEC records to figure out where the PAC’s money is coming from and where it is going,” Fischer said, referring to both regular PACs and super PACs.
That, however, isn’t always possible.
Earlier this year, three super PACs were established under the similarly obscure names of NNH, NTC and NJH, all registered by a South Carolina-based super PAC treasurer named Gabrielle D’Alemberte. Online, each group’s FEC statement of organization links to the group’s website, which reveals that they are campaigns against GOP Sen. Tom Cotton, GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, and potential 2024 GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley — with the initials representing Never Tom Cotton, Never Josh Hawley and Never Nikki Haley.
None of the three super PACs have reported any political activities so far, but NNH and NJH’s websites feature videos attacking Haley and Hawley, with disclaimers that the videos were paid for by Never Nikki Haley LLC and Never Josh Hawley LLC. Each group’s website also includes a disclaimer that it was paid for by Never Nikki Haley LLC, Never Josh Hawley LLC and Never Tom Cotton LLC, respectively. This means that voters who come across these videos and websites won’t be able to easily find their FEC disclosure filings — because with the FEC, the groups are registered as NNH, NJH and NTC.
Fischer said the groups’ websites “are failing to comply with legal disclaimer requirements.”
“This isn’t just a matter of semantics,” Fischer said. “NNH PAC’s failure to include accurate ‘paid for by’ disclaimers deprives voters of their ability to identify who is behind the PAC. A voter who wants more information about the PAC and searches the FEC website for the name on the disclaimer, ‘Never Nikki Haley, LLC,’ will find nothing.”
The three groups are “partners” of an umbrella group called the NUMQUAM Project, which, according to its website, is “dedicated to defeating all Trump Republicans and any politicians who were involved with, participated in, or supported the January 6, 2021 insurrectionist attack on the United States Capitol.” The name “NUMQUAM” appears to be a reference to Latin phrase “numquam iterum,” which means “never again.”
An ABC News review of the FEC database was unable to trace back the name “NUMQUAM Project” to any FEC disclosure filing.
The three super PACs and their treasurer D’Alemberte did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — Former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, who will be remembered for the tenacity that defined his career and his work on behalf of fellow military veterans, died in his sleep Sunday morning. He was 98.
“Thank you for the outpouring of love over the last year, it continues to sustain us as we grieve the loss of the precious man we knew as husband and father,” the Dole family said in a statement Sunday. “Bob Dole was never only ours – we shared him with Americans from every walk of life and every political persuasion. He dedicated his life to serving you, and so it is heartwarming that so many honor him at his passing.
In his memoir, One Soldier’s Story, Dole wrote that his experiences in World War II defined his life.
“Adversity can be a harsh teacher,” he wrote. “But its lessons often define our lives. As much as we may wish that we could go back and relive them, do things differently, make better, wiser decisions, we can’t change history. War is like that. You can rewrite it, attempt to infuse it with your own personal opinions, twist or spin it to make it more palatable, but eventually the truth will come out.”
As an Army officer in World War II, he was wounded and there were doubts he’d survive. His right arm was permanently disabled, but he adapted.
“If unable to reach voters with my right hand, I could always reach out with my left,” he wrote in The Doles: Unlimited Partners, a book he co-authored with his wife, Elizabeth, and Richard Norton Smith.
He went on to graduate from college, and, while still in law school, won a seat in the Kansas state legislature. He won a seat in Congress in 1960 and went on to serve in the House until he was elected to the Senate in 1968.
Dole ran three times for president. He lost in primaries in 1980 to Ronald Reagan and in 1988 to George H.W. Bush. He won the Republican party nomination in 1996, but lost the general election to Bill Clinton.
“Those pivotal moments remain indelibly impressed in your heart and mind,” he wrote in One Soldier’s Story. “For me, the defining period in my life was not running for the highest office in the land. It started years earlier, in a foreign country, where hardly anyone knew my name.”
‘An All American Boy,’ wartime service and wounds
Robert Dole was born in the small town of Russell, Kansas, on July 22, 1923.
His father, Doran, ran a local creamery, and his mother, Bina, occasionally sold Singer sewing machines door-to-door to make ends meet. He grew up with three siblings and, according to a timeline on the Dole Institute website, the four children shared a room, a bike and a pair of roller skates.
His neighbors recalled him growing up as “an all-American boy,” according to his 1996 presidential campaign website. In school, he was an honor student, sports editor of his school newspaper and he lettered in football, basketball and track.
In 1941, he graduated from Russell High School and enrolled at the University of Kansas, becoming the first in his family to go to college — thanks to a $300 loan from a Russell banker.
A year into college, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Dole left the university in 1943 to enroll in the Army. He had hoped to become a doctor and trained in the medical corps at Camp Barkley in Texas, according to a Dole Institute timeline. He later attended Army Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning in Georgia and, by the end of 1944, graduated as a second lieutenant in the Army infantry.
In 1945, Dole was assigned to the 85th Regime, 10th Mountain Division. It was originally intended to be a group of “skiing soldiers” to fight the Germans in the snow and mountains. But Dole was wounded during “Operation Craftsmen,” a spring offensive in Italy that was meant to overtake German troops scattered in the hills and valleys of the Apennine Mountains and gain control of northern Italy.
Dole’s platoon was to take Hill 913. His fellow soldiers later described it as a “suicide mission.”
It was April, and a stone wall and a field of landmines trapped the Americans in an exposed area. A Nazi sniper, perched in a farmhouse, began firing at the battalion, according to Dole’s 1996 campaign website. The platoon leader was ordered to take out the sniper and gunners. But as Dole climbed a rocky field, his radio man was hit.
Dole crawled across the battlefield on his stomach and then pulled the wounded soldier into a foxhole. Seconds later, an exploding shell ripped into Dole’s right shoulder and back. His collarbone was shattered, part of his spine was smashed and his right arm was dangling from his side.
Lying facedown in the dirt, Dole recalled being unable to see or move his arms.
“I thought they were missing,” he said on his campaign website. He called for help, and two medics who tried to rescue him were gunned down. A sergeant eventually dragged him to safety.
Dole earned two Purple Hearts and was awarded the Bronze Star, but doctors weren’t sure he’d survive. He was hospitalized for three years. He suffered infections, grueling therapy, several operations and in one instance developed a blood clot that nearly killed him.
Good Samaritans helped him. A surgeon performed several of Dole’s surgeries at no charge. Back home in Russell, the community collected money in a cigar box at the local drug store to help pay for his medical bills. Dole kept that cigar box, decades later, in his Senate office desk drawer.
He recovered sensation in most of his body and was able to walk, but his right arm was permanently disabled. He would often carry a pen in his right hand to prevent his fingers from splaying. He usually avoided shaking hands with his right hand.
“Coming back from a war is a longer journey than any plane flight home,” Dole wrote in a 2006 forward to Courage After Fire: Coping Strategies for Troops Returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and Their Families. “I sustained my own injuries in World War II; some of my wounds were obvious, some were not. Some wounds were healed more quickly than others. And though I was lucky to be surrounded by great doctors, wonderful family, and a more supportive community than anyone could reasonably ask for, that mental readjustment was no small task.”
In 1948, while still recovering, he married Phyllis Holden, an occupational therapist from New Hampshire. They met during his last months of treatment at a hospital dance and married three months later.
His hopes of becoming a physician dashed, he set his sights on becoming a lawyer.
“Maybe I couldn’t use my hand, I told myself, but I could develop my mind,” he wrote in The Doles: Unlimited Partners.
He first enrolled at the University of Arizona in Tucson on the GI Bill, and a year later transferred to Washburn University in his home state of Kansas. He graduated in 1952.
Senate leadership, presidential aspirations, a political power couple
Still in law school, Dole won his first election, claiming a seat in the Kansas House of Representatives. He served from 1951 to 1953, until he was elected Russell County Attorney.
His daughter, Robin, was born in 1954.
He served as county attorney until 1961, when he was first elected as a Republican to the 87th Congress.
His campaign events featured singers playing the ukulele and women referred to as “Dolls for Dole,” who handed out cups of Dole pineapple juice, according to the Dole Institute. He served on the House Agriculture Committee after having pledged to support farmers’ interests, such as promoting rural electricity and soil conservation.
In 1964, he voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act, and in 1965 voted in favor of the Voting Rights Act. He considered them to be the most important votes of his career.
He was elected to the U.S. Senate, defeating former Kansas Gov. Bill Avery, and served for 28 years, garnering national attention.
In the early 1970s, he served as the chairman of the Republican National Committee, including during the 1972 election and Watergate break-in. He lived at the Watergate at the time, and a hometown reporter asked whether he had hidden the break-in tools in his one-bedroom apartment, according to The New York Times. He said he did not.
Dole and Phyllis divorced in 1972. In 1976, she told an interviewer that much of what her former husband had achieved since the war was an effort to prove that he could do it in spite of his handicap, according to a 1982 profile in The New York Times.
He married Elizabeth Hanford in December 1975 in a ceremony at the Washington National Cathedral.
In 1976, then-President Gerald Ford selected Dole as his running mate at the Republican National Convention. And at the end of the decade, Dole made a brief run for president in the Republican primary, but withdrew after a lackluster showing in New Hampshire.
Dole went on to serve as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee from 1981 to 1985. He served as the Republican leader from 1985 to 1996. In the midst of his leadership role, he ran for president again. This time, he scored an upset over then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in Iowa, but fell short again in New Hampshire in 1988, withdrawing from the race.
Elizabeth Dole became labor secretary under Bush. In 1991, she left her Cabinet position to become the president of the American Red Cross. From 1983 to 1987, Elizabeth Dole, under President Ronald Reagan, had become the first woman to serve as secretary for the Department of Transportation and the first woman to lead a branch of the armed services, the Coast Guard.
In 1996, Dole retired from the Senate to fully pursue the presidency. This time, he secured the Republican nomination and, with former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp, challenged President Bill Clinton.
“When I delivered my concession speech that evening, I meant it when I said, ‘Tomorrow is the first day of my life when I have nothing to do,'” Dole wrote in Great Political Wit: Laughing (Almost) All the Way to the White House.
He was wrong. He went to his Washington campaign office to personally thank his staff and volunteers. While there, he got a call from the producers of The Late Show with David Letterman asking if he’d be a guest on their show while they broadcasted from Washington.
Two nights later, he recalled trading quips with Letterman when he asked Dole about Clinton’s weight.
“‘I don’t know,’ was my comeback. ‘I never tried to lift him. I just tried to beat him,'” Dole wrote, then describing the audience’s laughter. “Pundits, ever quick to grasp the obvious, claimed to have discovered a New Dole.”
He was no longer the “glowering, Social Security-devouring sourpuss they’d come to know,” he wrote. He made appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Saturday Night Live and filmed a Visa commercial that premiered during the 1997 Super Bowl. In it, he returned to his hometown to be asked by the diner’s waitress for identification before he could cash a check.
“I just can’t win,” he said in the advertisement.
In his book, he wrote, “Over the years I’ve grown ever more convinced that my hero, Dwight Eisenhower, was absolutely right when he said, ‘A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.'”
As Dole settled into a post-political life, Elizabeth Dole returned to politics.
She sought the Republican nomination for president before exiting the race in October 1999. Then in 2002, when longtime Sen. Jesse Helms announced his retirement, she decided to run for his seat and became the state’s first female senator. She served one term before being defeated in her reelection bid in 2008.
Post-political life, continued service to veterans
In 1997, months after losing the presidential election, Clinton presented Dole with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“Through it, we honor not just his individual achievement but his clear embodiment in the common values and beliefs that join us as a people,” Clinton said ahead of placing the medal around his neck. “Values and beliefs that he has spent his life advancing. Sen. Dole, a grateful nation presents this award, with respect for the example you have set for Americans today and for Americans and generations yet to come.”
After accepting the medal, Dole said, “No one can claim to be equal to this honor, but I will cherish it as long as I live because this occasion allows me to honor others who are more entitled.”
Dole went on to lead the World War II Memorial Commission. As national chairman, he helped to raise more than $197 million to construct a national memorial to honor the 16 million Americans who served in the armed forces during the war. Construction began in September 2001 and was completed in April 2004.
At the dedication ceremony, Dole spoke about the importance of remembering the sacrifices made to uphold democracy.
“It is only fitting when this memorial was opened to the public about a month ago the very first visitors were school children,” Dole said. “For them, our war is ancient history and those who fought it are slightly ancient themselves. Yet, in the end, they are the ones for whom we built this shrine and to whom we now hand the baton in the unending relay of human possibility.”
In addition to his Visa commercial, Dole went on to pitch for Dunkin’ Donuts, Pepsi and Viagra. His good humor also won him a place on Comedy Central, where he supplied commentary on The Daily Show during the 2000 election. And ground was broken for the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1997 and dedicated in 2003.
But his work with and for veterans is something he notably continued into his later years. Elizabeth Dole began to work in support of military caregivers.
He served as honorary adviser of the Honor Flight Network, which works to provide veterans the opportunity to visit the World War II Memorial in Washington for free. Dole would often spend Saturdays at the memorial, greeting veterans, swapping stories and posting for photos.
In 2007, President George W. Bush appointed Dole to help lead a bipartisan commission to investigate a neglect scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Elizabeth Dole, in 2012, established the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, which was designed to empower, support and honor the nation’s 5.5 million military caregivers.
Dole embarked on a reunion tour of his home state, visiting all 105 counties, in his early 1990s. And in 2017, at the age of 94, he returned to Fort Benning, from which he’d graduated from Army Officer Candidate School in 1944.
On his Twitter account, he posted that he hadn’t been there since he graduated. “Jiminy!” he wrote, posting a photo of him sitting on a plane.
On Dec. 4, 2018, Dole made headlines celebrating a fellow veteran. He visited the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and was helped out of his wheelchair so that he could stand and salute the casket of George H.W. Bush.
Two days later, the Doles celebrated their 43rd wedding anniversary.
In April 2019, President Donald Trump signed into law a bill authorizing Dole’s honorary promotion to colonel.
“He turned adversity into action as he healed from the grave wounds sustained while risking his life for a fellow soldier, and decided to come to Congress and to serve the people of Kansas,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi said in January 2018 at a ceremony granting Dole the Congressional Gold Medal. “Sen. Bob Dole, for a lifetime spent defending, advancing and exemplifying our proudest American ideals, we thank you.”
Dole announced in February 2021 that he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.
“While I certainly have some hurdles ahead, I also know that I join millions of Americans who face significant health challenges of their own,” Dole said.
(WASHINGTON) — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., attempted to downplay the tumultuous week in the Republican conference on Friday, acknowledging only that some of his hard-right members distract from the GOP midterm message in their feuds with Democrats and each other but not condemning the anti-Muslim rhetoric from his member that set off the most recent controversies.
“It’s things we would not want to deal with,” he said of the controversies over the last few weeks surrounding comments and social media posts from Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona.
“It’s [distracting from] things the American people want to focus on: stopping inflation, gas prices and others,” he said. “Anything that deviates from that causes problems.”
The infighting this week began when Boebert’s remarks that likened Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., to a terrorist first appeared on social media. Boebert tweeted an apology to “anyone in the Muslim community I offended” but refused Omar’s request to make a direct public apology to her.
“She apologized publicly, she apologized personally,” McCarthy suggested of Boebert’s comments, defending the lawmaker.
According to both Omar and Boebert, Omar hung up on Boebert in their private phone call because, Omar said, she refused to apologize directly and Bobert, instead, demanded she apologize for “anti-American” sentiments.
McCarthy did not specifically address the content of Boebert’s bigoted remarks that set off the exchange.
The second feud of the week broke out soon after between Greene and Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., a freshman who has loudly and repeatedly criticized some of her far-right colleagues.
After Mace condemned Boebert’s remarks in a CNN interview, Greene referred to her as “trash” and a “RINO” or “Republican in name only,” calling her “pro-abort” because Mace, a rape survivor, supports access to abortion in cases of rape and incest.
Mace responded on Twitter with taunting emojis to Greene, calling her “crazy” and “insane.” The feud continued even after McCarthy met with both women in private: Greene claimed to have spoken with former President Donald Trump about supporting a primary challenger against Mace next year.
The escalating series of attacks left moderate Republicans grumbling and worried that McCarthy’s refusal to publicly condemn his far-right members’ antics could further embolden them and inject more chaos into the midterms and hurt Republicans’ increasingly likely chances of taking the House next year.
McCarthy, who needs to keep both wings of his party happy to win the speaker’s gavel next year, had a different take.
“We’re going to be quite fine,” he predicted brightly.
McCarthy’s press conference comes hours after more than 40 House Democrats called for Boebert to be removed from her committee assignments “following her Islamophobic comments and incitement of anti-Muslim animus.”
“There must be consequences for vicious workplace harassment and abuse that creates an environment so unsafe for colleagues and staff that it invites death threats against them,” said the statement from Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., Congressional Black Caucus Chair Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, Congressional Asian Pacific American Chair Judy Chu, D-Calif., Congressional Equality Caucus Chair David Cicilline, D-R.I., and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., and signed by 36 other members of the Progressive Caucus.
If the House does take action against Bobert, it would follow Green and Gosar being stripped from their committee assignments, as well as Gosar becoming the first congressional lawmaker to be censured in more than a decade last month after he tweeted an edited Japanese cartoon depicting violence against Democrats.
(WASHINGTON) — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., attempted to downplay the tumultuous week in the Republican conference on Friday, acknowledging only that some of his hard-right members distract from the GOP midterm message in their feuds with Democrats and each other but not condemning the anti-Muslim rhetoric from his member that set off the most recent controversies.
“It’s things we would not want to deal with,” he said of the controversies over the last few weeks surrounding comments and social media posts from Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona.
“It’s [distracting from] things the American people want to focus on: stopping inflation, gas prices and others,” he said. “Anything that deviates from that causes problems.”
The infighting this week began when Boebert’s remarks that likened Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., to a terrorist first appeared on social media. Boebert tweeted an apology to “anyone in the Muslim community I offended” but refused Omar’s request to make a direct public apology to her.
“She apologized publicly, she apologized personally,” McCarthy suggested of Boebert’s comments, defending the lawmaker.
According to both Omar and Boebert, Omar hung up on Boebert in their private phone call because, Omar said, she refused to apologize directly and Bobert, instead, demanded she apologize for “anti-American” sentiments.
McCarthy did not specifically address the content of Boebert’s bigoted remarks that set off the exchange.
The second feud of the week broke out soon after between Greene and Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., a freshman who has loudly and repeatedly criticized some of her far-right colleagues.
After Mace condemned Boebert’s remarks in a CNN interview, Greene referred to her as “trash” and a “RINO” or “Republican in name only,” calling her “pro-abort” because Mace, a rape survivor, supports access to abortion in cases of rape and incest.
Mace responded on Twitter with taunting emojis to Greene, calling her “crazy” and “insane.” The feud continued even after McCarthy met with both women in private: Greene claimed to have spoken with former President Donald Trump about supporting a primary challenger against Mace next year.
The escalating series of attacks left moderate Republicans grumbling and worried that McCarthy’s refusal to publicly condemn his far-right members’ antics could further embolden them and inject more chaos into the midterms and hurt Republicans’ increasingly likely chances of taking the House next year.
McCarthy, who needs to keep both wings of his party happy to win the speaker’s gavel next year, had a different take.
“We’re going to be quite fine,” he predicted brightly.
McCarthy’s press conference comes hours after more than 40 House Democrats called for Boebert to be removed from her committee assignments “following her Islamophobic comments and incitement of anti-Muslim animus.”
“There must be consequences for vicious workplace harassment and abuse that creates an environment so unsafe for colleagues and staff that it invites death threats against them,” said the statement from Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., Congressional Black Caucus Chair Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, Congressional Asian Pacific American Chair Judy Chu, D-Calif., Congressional Equality Caucus Chair David Cicilline, D-R.I., and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., and signed by 36 other members of the Progressive Caucus.
If the House does take action against Bobert, it would follow Green and Gosar being stripped from their committee assignments, as well as Gosar becoming the first congressional lawmaker to be censured in more than a decade last month after he tweeted an edited Japanese cartoon depicting violence against Democrats.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden has signed a short-term funding bill to keep the government open until Feb. 18, 2022, narrowly averting a shutdown that loomed for Friday, the White House said.
At the top of earlier remarks on the November jobs report Friday, Biden teased he would sign the bill before heading to Camp David for the weekend and said the action represents the “bare minimum” of what Congress should do.
“Funding the government isn’t a great achievement, it’s a bare minimum of what we need to get done,” he said.
The president also thanked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for their leadership on getting the bill passed and called for them to start working now on a full-year funding bill.
“In these times, a bipartisan cooperation is worth recognition. So I want to thank Speaker Pelosi and Schumer getting this done. And I want to urge Congress to use the time this bill provides to work toward a bipartisan agreement on a full-year funding bill that makes the needed investments in our economy and our people,” he said.
Both chambers of Congress passed the continuing resolution on Thursday that will kick the can of keeping the government open down the road until mid-February, averting a shutdown even after a small group of Senate Republicans threatened to stall the legislation in protest of Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal workers.
The small contingent of GOP senators, fronted by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, insisted that the Senate consider an amendment to the stopgap funding bill that would have effectively zeroed out funding to support the mandate.
Debate between Senate leaders about whether to allow such a vote nearly ground the upper chamber to a halt and threatened to cause time-consuming procedural delays that would have led to a temporary shutdown — but late Thursday night, a deal was reached to allow a vote on the amendment and on final passage.
“I am glad that in the end cooler heads prevailed. The government will stay open and I thank the members of this chamber for walking us back from the brink of an avoidable needless and costly shutdown,” Schumer said just before the votes were taken.
Efforts to strip funds for the mandate failed, with two Republicans absent for the vote, but the short-term spending bill passed. Nineteen Republicans including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell voted with Democrats after the House approved the bill largely along party lines — other than the support of a single Republican, retiring Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.
Sometime next week, the Senate will take another vote on overturning Biden’s vaccine mandate. The effort has been backed by moderate Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and is expected to pass the upper chamber, though it likely won’t get a vote in the Democrat-controlled House.
To avert a future shutdown, Congress will need to pass another short-term spending bill before Feb. 18 or pass a package of large appropriations bills that have been caught up in negotiation for months.
(WASHINGTON) — The Christmas season has begun in Washington, with bright lights, festive trees and a touch of bipartisanship in the spirt of the holiday.
President Joe Biden, joined by first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, lit the National Christmas Tree outside the White House on Thursday evening.
The president delivered a message of optimism, telling the crowd of first responders and military families, “We have so much ahead of us.”
“We are a great nation because of you, the American people,” Biden said. “You’ve made me so optimistic.”
While Biden struck a tone of optimism, the reality of the pandemic was still on display with a smaller crowd allowed than most years and guests required to wear a mask despite being outside.
Last year’s ceremony had no guests and was completely virtual because of the pandemic.
The national Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony began in 1923 with President Calvin Coolidge, when he lit a 48-foot balsam fir tree from Vermont with festive bulbs in red, white and green on Christmas Eve.
This year’s tree came from Middleburg, Pennsylvania, and is adorned with white and red lights. It is surrounded by smaller trees each representing a different state and territory with decorations unique to the area handcrafted by students across the country.
The White House tree was lit one night after the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, which featured House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday.
“Now, as always, this tree is our symbol of hope. That it has earned the nickname ‘The People’s Tree,’ is a testament to its special ability to unite us in comfort and joy, no matter who we are where we’re from,” Pelosi said.
The Capitol Hill Christmas tree is a tradition dating back to 1964.
The 84-foot white fir, nicknamed “Sugar Bear,” made its way to D.C. after venturing across the country from Six Rivers National Forest in California. The tree features hand-painted ornaments made by California residents.
“A tree is the lungs of the earth. A tree breathes in CO2, captures the carbon but releases the oxygen, and purifies,” McCarthy said. “So it’s a rightful symbol of why we have it here.”
Both the National Christmas Tree and the Capitol Hill tree are free to visit for the public until early January.
