A firebrand MAGA lawmaker put her colleagues on notice Wednesday — including members of her own party — as she aims squarely at Congress' sexual misconduct "slush fund" amid a bipartisan House effort to release documents in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) made the comments exclusively to Raw Story on Wednesday after joining House efforts to release the Epstein files by signing a discharge petition led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA). Boebert was one of four Republicans who officially endorsed the petition, which seeks to force a House vote demanding the full release of Department of Justice records related to Epstein and his associates.

Talking to Raw Story, Boebert went a step further, suggesting details of sexual misconduct from fellow Congress members ought to also be brought to light.

“Also, I think the sexual assault slush fund, members of Congress paying off staffers to be quiet, that this should be released too,” Boebert told Raw Story's Matt Laslo.

Since the late 1990s, the Office of Compliance has spent more than $17 million in public money to settle workplace disputes on Capitol Hill. But that doesn't include sexual harassment, Politico reported in 2017, including a settlement for a woman who accused her former boss, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), of sexual misconduct. That money, the report said, came out of Conyers’ office budget and wasn’t included in the $17 million total.

In 2018, data released by a House committee showed nearly $300,000 in taxpayer money was spent to settle 13 claims against members of Congress or their offices since 2003, including over sexual harassment or sex discrimination, The Associated Press reported. The statistics didn't include names or other identifying information, except settlement amounts and the basis for the claim.

Boebert said that needs to change.

“That's a pretty big one, and, you know, I was promised before this Congress that we would be all over it. And I've heard more about the Epstein list and other things than that. So why are we — are these members still here? What were they covering up? What were they paying off? That's something the American people need to be demanding answers on," she said.

“That's just like a bipartisan swamp?” Raw Story asked.

“Yes,” Boebert replied. “Absolutely.”

“Like, this is how this place has worked,” Raw Story pressed, “but a part of your mandate is to upend that and, like, rid your own party of some of those elements?”

“Absolutely. I don't care what letter is next to anybody's name,” Boebert said.

She warned of what could emerge should the secret side deals face sunlight.

“Of course, you know, some things in there could be, you know, sound worse than they are,” Boebert said. “I understand that aspect of it, but I want to see what's in there. Why is this something that the House of Representatives is paying out to people and we have no transparency on it? We don't know what they're being paid for.”

Fellow Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Thomas Massie have also called for releasing the names of members who've settled with accusers.

“Congress has secretly paid out more than $17 million of your money to quietly settle charges of harassment (sexual and other forms) in Congressional offices,” Massie wrote on X in December.

“Don’t you think we should release the names of the Representatives? I do,” he said.

“Yes. I want to release the congressional sexual slush fund list,” Greene wrote on X at the time.

“Taxpayers should have never had to pay for that. Along with all the other garbage they should not have to pay for,” she added.

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WASHINGTON — After a slow start, President Donald Trump has been ramping up the pace of judicial nominations — but it remains to be seen if his recent public breakup with the increasingly far-right Federalist Society will impact the quality of his picks.

While Senate Republicans have tried to stay out of the fray, Democrats have enjoyed watching the brewing right-wing civil war.

“I love it. It's delicious,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told Raw Story.

“It's a fine sight to have those two corrupt factions warring with each other, and it puts the point on the fact that this is, in fact, a captured [Supreme] Court. Trump is just discovering that the wrong people captured it.”

‘Got what they wanted’

In late May, after Trump’s new tariff regime was blocked in federal court, the president lashed out at first-term allies who helped him transform large swaths of the federal judiciary.

“I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges. I did so, openly and freely,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, before lashing out at one of the group’s longtime leaders by name.

“But then realized that they were under the thumb of a real ‘sleazebag’ named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.”

Leo is the fundraising Svengali behind a range of right-wing groups who has become a bête noir of Democratic progressives.

Leo did not fire back at Trump — in public, at least — choosing to tell reporters he was "very grateful for President Trump transforming the federal courts.”

Regardless, Democrats can’t get enough.

“Listen, those are judges that Trump nominated,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) told Raw Story. “The whole strategy of the Federalist Society was to create a court that ruled in favor of corporations and the rich. They got what they wanted.

“If you want a conspiracy thesis that is actually true, it's how [the Federalist Society was] created 30 years ago for this purpose, basically, to ensure that we don't have government by and for the people, but by and for the powerful, and the Federal Society succeeded.”

Other Democrats agree that Trump got played.

“It's a little bit Bizarro World,” Sen. Whitehouse said, referring to the world in the Superman comics in which everything is the opposite of the same thing on Earth.

“But it's not Bizarro World if you have thought that you appointed a court that was going to do what you wanted and you've discovered that you've appointed a court that's going to do what the polluter billionaires want, and you got had in the scheme.

“You were the chump at the table. You weren't the person who was calling the shots.”

Whitehouse pointed to the libertarian-leaning Koch brothers — billionaires Charles and David Koch, the latter now deceased — and their political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, which opposed Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary.

“That was real combat back then,” Whitehouse said.

But the former Rhode Island attorney general said it was evident the Koch brothers came around to Trump after he pledged to only nominate Federalist Society approved judges for lifetime appointments.

“The combat evaporated, and the Federalist Society list emerged,” Whitehouse said.

“Now it wasn't the Federalist Society list. The Federalist Society never considered a list, never approved a list, never had a list on the agenda — not a thing. But they called it a Federalist Society list to give it some cover.

“Every clue points to there having been a deal where the Koch political apparatus would back off of thrashing Trump and the Kochs would get to appoint his Supreme Court justices.

“House of Trump is beginning to figure out that they had their pants pulled down around their ankles by the House of Koch.

“It appears now that Trump has finally figured out that he was the chump in the scheme, and that his rivals, who he despised, the Kochs, actually picked his Supreme Court justices.

“They've got the 100 percent batting record at the Supreme Court for polluter interests, and he does not have a 100 percent batting record.”

‘Those who will serve him’

Republican senators have tried to avoid the rift between Trump and the Federalists altogether.

“What have you thought of this little spat between Trump and the Federalist Society?” Raw Story asked.

“Who? I don’t keep up with that — why would I keep up with that?” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said. “It’s for you guys. We got day jobs.”

The chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee also shrugged off the spat.

“I don't know anything about the fight between the Federalist Society and Trump,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Raw Story.

In Trump’s first term, Senate Republicans confirmed 234 of his picks to fill vacancies on the federal bench. But after former President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats confirmed 235 federal judges between 2021 and 2025, there just aren’t many vacancies left to fill.

That’s partly why Trump didn’t get his first federal judicial nominee confirmed until July 14th, just before senators left Washington for their summer recess.

Before Trump sent five more nominations to the Senate on August 12th, an Associated Press review found “roughly half” of his first 16 judicial nominees had “revealed anti-abortion views, been associated with anti-abortion groups or defended abortion restrictions.”

While such views are in line with those of the Federalist Society, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), said Trump was deploying a new litmus test.

“Don't look for any consistency. He is just looking for those who will serve him personally,” Durbin told Raw Story.

“Occasionally the Federalist Society, which was the secret handshake of Republicans for so many years, disappoints him.”

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WASHINGTON — Just outside the newly unrolled yellow police tape that encloses Lafayette Square, the green seven-acre public park just north of the White House, a graying African American man bent down to leave a hot Potbelly sandwich and tall store-bought water for a younger white man who lay there, sleeping in the sun.

“Sir, I don’t mean to disturb you,” Michael — a 61-year-old Houston native — said as the man was roused.

“I brought you a sandwich and a drink.”

Michael walked away. Moments later, as Raw Story asked what prompted his act of kindness, the unhoused man sat up and enjoyed the sandwich.

"We're all human," Michael said. "It's a human lying on the street, hungry. It's terrible."

Hunger may remain “terrible” to many Americans, but to President Donald Trump, the homeless themselves need to be, at the very least, hidden far from the public eye.

“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” the president thumbed on social media over the weekend. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.”

'Crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor'

Throughout much of the nation’s capital — especially the hot spots frequented by lobbyists, politicians and tourists — you can hardly tell that earlier this week Trump took control of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department and deployed National Guard troops.

Trump’s promise to “rescue” the nation's capital from “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor” is far from the reality of the city streets.

Murders have dropped 34% this year, compared to 2024.

In May, homelessness data from the District’s Department of Human Services (DHS) showed a “9% decrease from 2024, including an 18.1% decrease among families and a 4.5% decrease among unaccompanied individuals.”

District officials say the latest numbers reveal a 19% decrease from its last count in 2020, before COVID-19 shuttered much of the nation.

Community Partnership, a local advocacy group, says an estimated 798 individuals sleep on D.C. streets any given evening.

Michael, the man who helped the sleeping man in Lafayette Square, said he was in town from Houston, visiting his daughter who just left the Navy and started "one of the coolest jobs" in national security.

Raw Story asked: "What do you think about President Trump coming through and saying, like, 'You don't have a home but you can't stay here'?"

"President Trump is a dictator,” Michael said. “I think that America is gone the way we knew it. It will never come back.

"I think this is martial law with a different name on it. What's the definition of a martial law? It's when the government takes over the functions of the state, and that's exactly what happened yesterday. In detail.”

Eight months into his second term, Trump deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles — ostensibly to deal with protests — and now Washington, despite howls from local and state leaders.

To Michael, it’s just the beginning.

"They're not just here. It's going to be in every state,” he said. “It's clear to me. It's clear to me."

‘Just doing my part’

Washington may be getting its Trumpian makeover, but Michael says his goal will remain to never forget the least of us, especially those suffering homelessness.

"Just doing my part, man,” Michael said. “Nothing special."

"That is special," Raw Story pressed.

"Nothing special.“

Michael shared that he'd had experiences with homelessness himself. “That's why I didn't want to wake him up," he said.

“But when you wake up, there you go. [Meal] right there."

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WASHINGTON — Elon Musk may have packed up and gone home weeks ago, but he’s still got a grip on Washington’s political class.

While Republicans cling to the coattails of the world’s wealthiest man — whether or not he’s tweet-shaming the GOP agenda on his social media platform, X — many Democrats are cheering the Tesla CEO’s latest foray into politics, with the soft launch of his “America Party.”

Musk’s initially cringe-inducing breakup with President Donald Trump is mostly in the rearview, and many veteran Democrats remain wary of the heavy-spending billionaire.

“A man that rich can do a lot of things,” Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told Raw Story at the Capitol recently. “He can also fake a lot of things, so I’m not sure how serious he is.”

Musk may no longer lead the Department of Government Efficiency — or DOGE — but he’s still a Washington player. And with next year’s midterm elections looming, members of both parties are trying to simultaneously avoid and court him.

‘I wouldn’t say he's turning on us’

Musk and Trump formally parted ways at the end of May, but just a few days later things got awkward as they took to their social media companies to digitally pummel each other.

After Musk lambasted Trump’s signature tax cut and tough-on-migrants spending bill, Trump complained of being "disappointed" in his former wingman.

Musk then dropped what he called the "really big bomb" — and accused the president of being “in the Epstein files.”

Republicans in Congress struggled to make sense of the fight between their leader that some call “Daddy,” and the sugar daddy who dropped upwards of $290 million on the 2024 election.

This summer, the Musk-aligned Building America’s Future PAC doled out more than $1 million promoting Trump’s agenda, including his signature “One Big Beautiful Bill” — which perplexed many political watchers, as at the same time Musk repeatedly used social media to rip a bill he labeled a “disgusting abomination.”

“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong,” Musk posted in early June. “You know it.”

Wrong or not, many rank-and-file Republicans who voted to pass Trump’s agenda want to appease Musk too.

“I agree with Musk,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) told Raw Story at the time.

“We need more people like Elon Musk, because being in the arena and being on the battlefield and fighting, that air cover is awesome.”

For many — if not most — in the GOP, Musk’s declaration that he’s starting a third party doesn’t mean he’s parting ways with the Republican Party they call home.

“I wouldn’t say he's turning on us, he's got a right to his opinion,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) told Raw Story. “Turning on us would be him going back to the dark side: the Democrats.”

On that Democratic side, things are awkward too.

Generally, Democrats view Musk’s promised third party as a net win, a move that will split the right-wing vote.

“Oh I definitely think it will be better for Dems,” Rep. John Larson (D-CT) told Raw Story.

“That obviously would help us. We’ll take it. I think we’re gonna do well no matter what. House Democrats did extraordinarily well [in 2024]. We actually picked up seats in a time that had gone heavily against the trends.”

“Republicans should worry more. Much more so,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told Raw Story.

Democrats don’t have many good inroads to Musk, in part because DOGE focused on slashing and burning rather than building, Beyer said.

“I don’t know anybody that doesn’t want to make [government] more efficient. I’d love just the modernization. Makes perfect sense to me.

“Even things like deficit reduction, I’m on his side. We need to have much better deficit reduction, not the way [Republicans are] doing it, which is cut all the hospitals and services [like] Medicaid and then still drive [the deficit] up $4 to $5 trillion.”

With the Democratic Party promising to get “big money” out of politics, cheering on the world’s richest man is awkward — a point many veteran Democrats understand.

‘He’s got no base’

On the other side of the Capitol, most Democratic senators remain wary of Musk.

“Is it good for Democrats to just not have his money behind the GOP this time around, seemingly?" Raw Story asked the Democratic whip.

“I think there are going to be outrageous unlimited amounts of money regardless, and what impact he’ll have on either political party remains to be seen,” Durbin said.

“At the moment we only know the message that he is personally grieved. If there’s more, perhaps he can build a political base.”

Democrats are increasingly united in wariness of Musk and his meddling.

“I don't know yet [about the third party],” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) told Raw Story. “Like, he certainly has the money. Right? But he also has to have people who decide to go with him.

“He's got no base. Until I see that, it's interesting. I enjoy a cat fight between two men. But until I see who joins [Musk], I can't say that this is a real thing.”

What is real is voter unrest.

“There are a lot of disaffected voters,” said Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA). “Absolutely.”

Polling shows many Democratic voters are disaffected with Fetterman, one of the more independent-minded senators in either party, who has supported Trump nominees and sided with Israel in its war in Gaza.

“At points I’m at odds with my party,” Fetterman conceded, “and I know I’ve had colleagues on the other side that were at odds with their side too. I don’t know if we're ready for a third party in that sense, but without a doubt there are a lot of disaffected voters.”

“Last I saw, you were doing better with Republicans than Democrats?” Raw Story pressed.

“I have a great relationship with my parents,” Fetterman said, alluding to his blue-collar, conservative Pennsylvania roots — the very groups Democrats alienated and Musk courted last year.

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WASHINGTON — A senior Democratic senator slammed President Donald Trump as trying to realize the "wet dream of the dirtiest players in the fossil fuel industry."

The vivid comment was made to Raw Story after Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency chief announced the scrapping of a key control on greenhouse gas emissions.

Speaking at the U.S. Capitol, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) fumed to Raw Story that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the former New York Republican congressman and 2022 gubernatorial candidate, was doing “the bidding of the fossil fuel industry, which paid good money for this kind of corruption."

“The endangerment finding is what brings carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act,” Whitehouse added of the measure Zeldin promised to scrap this week.

Issued in 2009, the endangerment finding also imposes emissions standards on cars, trucks and buses.

Announcing its demise, Zeldin claimed “the Obama and Biden EPAs twisted the law, ignored precedent and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year.”

The move is being hailed within the administration as “a monumental step toward returning to commonsense policies that expand access to affordable, reliable, secure energy and improve quality of life for all Americans,” as Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed.

But Whitehouse charged the Trump administration with simply rewarding polluters who are also big money donors, by pursuing “the deletion of all regulation of carbon emissions, which is obviously the wet dream of the dirtiest players in the fossil fuel industry and the result of a lot of dark money spending by the industry to buy an administration that will do its dirty bidding.”

Zeldin’s move has prompted outcry among climate crisis activists but it is not a done deal, as lawyers on both sides gear up for what promises to be a drawn-out legal battle.

“I think it has … legal problems,” Whitehouse said, “because there really isn't a factual basis for what they are doing, outside of the boardrooms of Big Oil and creepy front groups who pretend climate change isn't real.”

Raw Story asked Whitehouse if he had any hope that the MAGA-infused GOP of Trump and Zeldin might resist efforts to cripple the fight against climate change. He said he did.

“You could actually see fairly significant efforts within the Republican Senate Caucus to try to repair some of the stupid damage that Trumpsters were trying to do,” Whitehouse said.

“We continue to have ongoing, healthy conversations about carbon water tariffs, about interesting solar investments, we had a very good conversation last night with a Republican member about the threat to the real estate markets arising out of the uninsurability and hence unmortgageability of so much American real estate.

“I think there's a lot of genuine and underlying concern, but Trump’s political strategy is to try to terrorize Republicans in the Senate, and he's done a pretty good job of it, and most of their money comes from fossil fuels, so they are also having that problem.

“But facts don't go away. As [President John] Adams said [in 1770], facts are stubborn things, and so I have not given up.

“It may take a real kick in the head, like a collapse of Florida's insurance and real estate market, to get them to focus on this as a today issue and not a someday issue.”

'I didn't see it'

At least one Republican from that climate-vulnerable state seemed unlikely, at first glance, to heed Whitehouse’s words.

Catching up with Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) as he walked through the Capitol, Raw Story asked: “Have you been able to look at the EPA announcement this week on climate change?”

“I didn't see it,” Scott said, of the widely publicized, reported and debated announcement.

Another Republican, from a state historically dominated by the coal industry, was giddy when discussing the dismantling of the EPA.

“What do you make of what Zeldin is doing at EPA, his announcement this week?” Raw Story asked Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, (R-WV). “Do you think it’s a game changer?”

“It's a huge announcement,” Capito said. “I think it just shows [it’s about] getting rid of the over-regulation [of fossil fuel industries]. So I'm gonna support it.”

Many Democrats are retooling their message and focusing on public health, rather than rising temperatures and seas.

“What Lee Zeldin announced was the greatest crime against nature ever committed in American and world history,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) fumed to Raw Story.

“What Zeldin announced was a complete capitulation to the oil, gas and coal industry, and giving them a permission slip to continue to pollute and endanger the planet and the health of all Americans.

“There is now going to be a dramatic increase in the number of cancers, asthmas and other diseases in the United States of America, and it's going to hit kids and it's going to hit pregnant women disproportionately.

“So what Zeldin just did was to fulfill the payoff that Trump is providing to the oil, gas and coal industry for their contributions by the hundreds of millions to his re-election campaign, but the price is going to be paid by American families.”

No matter what Zeldin and Trump’s EPA are up to, Democrats say the GOP and their funders can’t just wave a wad of cash and reverse the globe’s changing climate.

“It's very bad for the climate,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) told Raw Story, of Zeldin’s move. “The best thing we can do is help people to understand that all these increasing natural disasters are being made worse because of Republican policies.”

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WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer confused the heck out of Capitol Hill this week when he deployed a little-known procedural maneuver — the "Rule of Five" — to try and force the Trump Justice Department to release the "Epstein files."

“Never heard it before,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-ID) told Raw Story.

“No, never heard of it,” two-term Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) told Raw Story.

“I gotta go,” Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsay Graham (R-SC) responded to Raw Story’s inquiry.

All the confusion and consternation stems from Schumer invoking the arcane 1928 "Rule of Five," which — on paper, at least — enables any five members of a congressional committee to band together and demand executive branch documents within their jurisdiction. No matter their party.

While Democratic leaders feel bullish on the issue, some Democrats are urging caution — in part because the party didn’t touch the topic during former President Joe Biden’s four years in the White House — despite Schumer’s latest effort to dislodge the files on the former billionaire financier who allegedly trafficked and abused minors.

"It's not a stunt”

Heads turned on Wednesday after Schumer announced their new strategy to force the Department of Justice to release most of the files the government has on Epstein.

Many Republicans initially laughed off the camera-loving New York Democrat as whispers of the minority leader’s gambit to deploy the little-known rule spread across the Capitol grounds.

But Schumer, flanked by Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee — all of whom formally signed off on the effort — brushed aside charges of politics as usual.

"It's not a stunt. It's not symbolic. It's a formal exercise of congressional power under federal law," Schumer told members of the congressional press corps Wednesday. “And we expect an answer from DOJ by August the 15th. That's what accountability looks like. This is what oversight looks like. And this is what keeping your promises to the American people look like."

Stunt or not, this latest effort by Schumer puts him in league with at least one of the nation’s most far-right senators.

“Hey, what do you make of this ‘Rule of Five’ that Schumer and Dems are deploying?” Raw Story asked the former chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, the same committee trying to force the disclosure of the Epstein docs.

“I used it,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Raw Story. “I never got the information.”

“So are you writing this effort off?” Raw Story asked.

“Well, they can try,” Johnson said. “We tried it a number of times. It’s very difficult to do. You gotta take that to the committee. When you’re in the minority, you really can’t do it.”

That doesn’t mean Democrats aren’t following suit.

The Epstein investigation — or "coverup," depending on who you ask — was dismissed by many Senate Republicans just a couple weeks ago. Not anymore.

After rank-and-file House Republicans forced Speaker Mike Johnson to address the topic — which he did by recessing his chamber early ahead of their August recess purely to avoid debating Epstein — Senate Republicans took note.

“What do you think should happen with the Epstein investigation?” Raw Story asked.

“Well, isn’t it kind of materializing in the House of Representatives right now?” Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) — who as the president pro tempore of the Senate, is third in line for the presidency, thus always flanked by security — told Raw Story.

“Yeah? Well, they’re on recess now,” Raw Story pressed. “But you’re watching that?”

Grassley said nothing as he, his security detail and aides entered a Senators-only elevator.

Even though many Senate Republicans still want to avoid the scandal at all costs, like Grassley, many are now quietly pressuring the Trump administration to judiciously address this homegrown scandal.

“I think the administration’s gotta be transparent,” Ron Johnson said.

“It’s very difficult to do”

It’s not just Republican heads that were turning this week.

“Did you know about this ‘Rule of Five’ before yesterday?” Raw Story asked a veteran Democrat.

“I don’t know if I did,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told Raw Story.

Even though many have never heard of the rule, Schumer’s procedural gambit has many on the left giddy as they continue ramping up pressure on the administration, but Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) cautions his fellow Democrats to keep the bipartisan scandal in context.

“I don’t really spend any time thinking about this,” Fetterman told Raw Story. “I don’t get any kind of outreach on it or whatever.”

While many Democrats have been feeling the wind at their backs for the first time in this second Trump administration, Fetterman cautions his colleagues against spiking the football.

“If they release it, fine, but it’s a strange argument when we were in absolute control for four years, we didn't release it or say anything with it,” Fetterman said. “So I’m just kind of like, ‘okay, release it. That’s fine. I don’t care.’ But I don’t think it’s a Democratic, another ‘get rich quick’ kind of scheme. You know, it’s like Russiagate or the ‘pee tape.’”

Unlike the fabled "pee tape," Epstein lived, breathed and, allegedly, abused. A lot.

These days, even Republicans who’ve avoided Epstein like the plague he became are now tuned in.

“People are interested,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Raw Story.

When Scott was governor, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi served as Florida's top law enforcement officer, so he’s in her corner, lonely though it may be.

“I trust Pam Bondi,” Scott said. “I think Pam feels like she’s doing the right thing. She’s protecting victims. She doesn’t want to release pornography. When I’ve talked to her, she’s doing the right thing.”

If Bondi’s doing the right thing, then someone else in the administration is the culprit, according to many of the president’s supporters who are increasingly frustrated with taking campaign pledges as ironclad promises.

“Something’s not on the level”

Bondi may have powerful Senate allies, but it’s been lonely for the 59-year-old lawyer of late.

The attorney general’s chorus of critics has grown since her claim to have the "Epstein list" on her desk unraveled — or disappeared, as many members of the MAGA wing of the GOP believe — in real-time.

While the Epstein affair was never a central issue for Democrats, the party’s rank-and-file are now engaged. And now that they are, they say things just aren’t adding up with this mysterious scandal.

“You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that something’s not on the level,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) told Raw Story.

With the Trump administration seeming to stall — even as reports swirl about Trump’s relationship with the former financier — Democrats are piling on, even as that means angling to co-opt this issue many dismissed as a conspiracy mere weeks ago.

“They don’t want to release information that they’ve been demanding. It’s a Republican issue. It’s gotten some lift because Republicans are furious that the president is not being transparent,” Welch said. “There’s a lot of internal pressure. The Republican base wants this information. Might be they’re entitled to it. We all are."

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WASHINGTON — Republicans are debating whether to blow up Senate rules to quickly usher through dozens of President Donald Trump’s stalled nominees — or to adjourn at the end of the week, thereby allowing Trump to make recess appointments throughout the scheduled August break.

“I think we have a choice. Democrats either have to relent and let us do the nominees through [unanimous consent], or we've got to do it through recess appointments,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Raw Story.

Presidents are allowed to temporarily bypass the Senate nomination process and fill vacancies when Congress is out, appointments that expire at the end of the next congressional session.

Some veteran GOP senators are now warning against allowing Trump to use recess appointments, but they seem to increasingly be in the minority.

On the other side of the aisle, Democrats are debating whether to strike a deal allowing the confirmation of a slate of lower-level nominees. Even that has tensions boiling.

“There’s a lot of us in this caucus that want to f–––––- fight,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday. “And what’s bothering me right now is we don’t see enough fight in this caucus.”

Republicans beg to differ.

‘Getting close’

In recent weeks, President Trump’s been increasing pressure on Republican leaders to deal with more than 140 nominees still stalled in the Senate.

In recent days, rank-and-file Republicans have started rallying around the president’s pressure campaign, because they say things have gotten to boiling point.

After Trump took office in January, Democrats allowed their then-Senate colleague Marco Rubio to be confirmed as secretary of state by unanimous consent — known as UC, whereby all 100 senators agree to limit debate on a bill or nominee.

But Democrats have refused to fast-track any other picks. With Trump fuming, Republicans say Democrats put them in a bind, which is why they’re debating rule changes.

“President Trump's the very first president not to have any UCs or voice votes on nominees, and the more they do this, the more [Republicans’] attitude changed,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) told Raw Story.

“At this point, people are like, ‘You're not giving us a choice.’ I think in February, they were like, ‘No, that isn't something we want to talk about.’ Now, that conversation has changed, like, ‘This is your all’s decision. You guys made this happen.’”

Democrats are particularly incensed by the nominations of former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro to be a federal prosecutor, Mike Waltz for UN ambassador — Democrats say Waltz endangered national security by discussing classified war plans on Signal after he included the editor of The Atlantic on a group chat — and Paul Ingrassia, nominated as special counsel despite ties to white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

But Republicans aren’t discussing individuals. Ahead of their summer vacation, they’re focused on the forest, not the trees.

“We need to explore what our options are. The obstruction we're seeing from Democrats is just kind of mindless and it's denying President Trump the benefit of his team,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Raw Story. “This has just gotten beyond the pale.”

“Does it feel like something has to give?” Raw Story pressed the former GOP whip.

“Yeah and it feels like we're getting close,” Cornyn said.

That has some Republicans proposing allowing Trump to make recess appointments — which divides the party.

“We're kind of reaching the point where to our Democrat [sic] friends, I think the choice is going to be either quit filibustering all these people or we’re going to recess the Senate and the president is going to fill up the rest of his administration with recess appointments,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story.

“I'm open to it,” Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) said.

‘Steady as you go’

While the GOP’s united in frustration over Democratic stall tactics, veteran Republicans reject recess appointments.

“The last thing we want to do is create the challenges that would come from sweeping recess appointments,” retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Raw Story. “That just lays the groundwork for really surprise appointments.”

The Constitution gives senators the special role of "advice and consent” when it comes to the president’s cabinet, which Tillis says is a duty senators should protect.

“It's our job. I mean, where we differ the most from the House,” Tillis said. “Doing recess appointments would essentially relegate us to being the House because we are in the personnel business.”

Roughly 1,200 executive branch positions need Senate approval. Tillis says he could be supportive of lowering that number, but he won’t be convinced to lay down and allow Trump to make recess appointments.

“Let's have that discussion versus using an absence as a way to get something done. Doesn’t make sense,” Tillis said. “I don't think the American people would like it regardless of whether or not they're sympathetic to some of the frustration we have right now.”

Tillis is far from alone in his opposition to recess appointments.

“I’m not in favor of that,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) told Raw Story.

"Why not?” Raw Story pressed the chair of the powerful Armed Services Committee.

“Oh, I don’t have time,” Wicker said as he waited in his Senators Only elevator for the doors to close.

“How do you guys get through these backlog of nominees?”

“Steady as you go,” Wicker said.

‘Insider baseball’

With GOP leaders threatening to keep the Senate in session into summer while contemplating rules changes, Democratic leaders find themselves torn between the progressive base and moderates who fear looking obstructionist.

But after years of watching the GOP stall Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s nominees, party leaders say Republican complaints ring hollow.

“We're trying to follow the same rules that they established,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, told Raw Story. “We’re doing a lot, but they want more.”

While progressives like Sens. Booker and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are unwavering in their desire to stay in Washington and fight Trump on every front, more middle-of-the-road Democrats don’t think nominations are the hill the party should die on.

“This is like the insider baseball of Washington, D.C.,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) told Raw Story.

“I try to focus on, like, we have huge cuts to Medicaid coming in my state. We have rural hospitals on the edge. I mean, that is the stuff that, on a day-to-day basis, I'm putting my time into.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal is making many of his Republican allies on Capitol Hill squirm — but that doesn’t mean they’re backing down.

After dismissing his own MAGA base as “stupid people,” “weaklings,” “foolish” and “PAST supporters,” the president has changed his tune a tad. But for many members of Congress in both parties, merely allowing Attorney General Pam Bondi to release the Jeffrey Epstein grand jury testimony is not good enough.

While the testimony would be welcome, members of Congress continue to demand the release of the full Epstein records, including the infamous client list that Bondi previously said was “on my desk" — and now denies exists.

“The grand jury release is a first step,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) told Raw Story at the Capitol.

“It's not going to have the information about all the other potential men who were involved, and that has to be a release of the witness memos, the release of the broader evidentiary file.”

If releasing the grand jury testimony was meant to placate Trump's critics, it’s already failed.

Republican rage

Republicans still seem to be struggling through the denial stage of collective grief after President Trump — who many referred to as “Daddy” throughout the 2024 election — spent the week lashing out at supporters and policymakers alike.

“My PAST supporters have bought into this “b—---,” hook, line, and sinker,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.

“Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats[‘] work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”

After years of Trump stoking Epstein conspiracies, political watchers were left scratching their heads as the president did an about face, contradicting his campaign trail vows of transparency, justice, even revenge.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) is one of the president’s most devoted congressional allies, whether rocking gold Trump sneakers or not.

Raw Story asked him: “So wait, you don't think there's a change in tune from Trump on Epstein?”

“Why are we talking about Epstein?” Nehls said, walking down the Capitol steps.

“Because her committee,” Raw Story said, pointing to Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Chair of the Task Force on the Declassification of Secrets. “The Task Force on Secrets is charged with investigating it.”

“Then let them do their investigation,” Nehls said.

“But they say that's harder because the DOJ under Bondi isn't releasing the information they need,” Raw Story said.

“I don't think that’s what the boss said. The boss said, ‘If there's stuff out there to release, release it,’” Nehls said. “I don't think the boss is being an obstructionist. We've got to talk about the wins we have and not get distracted over Epstein.”

“But Epstein was a promise to the base that you guys were going to uncover this pedophile ring,” Raw Story pressed. “You're not worried that the base is going to come looking for revenge?”

“So much great stuff to talk about other than that,” Nehls said.

“Sounds like wagging the dog?” Raw Story asked.

“Sounds like it's just — let's move on,” Nehls said. “Let's just move on.”

But many Republicans, like those on the Secrets Task Force, do not want to move on. They are demanding documents, answers and candor — none of which the Trump administration has been willing to provide without a fight.

“Do you guys plan on following the president's lead and dropping your Epstein investigation?” Raw Story asked Luna.

“No,” the congresswoman said.

Luna’s Secrets Task Force is new. House Republican leaders erected it, in part, to show the party’s base Republicans are taking on the so-called “Deep State,” investigating conspiracies from JFK’s assassination to whether 9-11 was an inside job.

Top of the stack of historical conspiracies party leaders saddled the task force with is Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged list of partners in crime. But you wouldn’t necessarily know that from talking to the chair.

“You can see all my comments publicly,” Luna told Raw Story. “You're going to see more of that, and that's all I’m going to say on that.”

“But what'd you make of this President saying ‘stupid people?'”

“Just look at my comments,” Luna said.

“I've read your comments,” Raw Story's reporter said, “but the President said y'all are ‘stupid’ for looking into it.”

“He didn't say ‘y'all are stupid.’ There's a lot of context there,” Luna said. “You'll see soon.”

Congressional Republicans aren’t used to presidential tongue lashings, which may be why many have tuned out what Trump actually said.

‘This is stupid’

“What’d you make of President Trump calling many in the base dumb for being curious about this Epstein stuff?” Raw Story asked Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK).

“I didn't hear that,” Mullin said. “I don't think he called them dumb.”

“He said, ‘stupid people,’” Raw Story said, reading the president’s exact quote.

“He was using it in the context of being caught up in this instead of focusing on what we've accomplished,” Mullin said. “Instead of focusing on what we've accomplished, we're allowing this one issue to divide us. I think he was referring to, ‘this is stupid.’”

"It was a hoax. It's all been a big hoax. It's perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid Republicans,” Trump told reporters at the White House Wednesday. “And foolish Republicans fall into the net.”

Dumbfounded, members of the press asked for clarification on whether the president was parting ways with some of his most ardent supporters — whether inside or outside of Congress. Trump tripled down.

"Yeah I lost a lot of faith in certain people because they got duped by Democrats," the president told the cameras.

‘We're going to have transparency’

It’s hard for Democrats to fathom, but no Republicans on Capitol Hill are looking for a political divorce from Trump. He is today’s Republican Party.

“What do you make of President Trump accusing y'all interested in Epstein of being ‘stupid people’?” Raw Story asked Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), a veteran of the far-right House Freedom Caucus.

“Look, President Trump has done more for this country, and I like his style. I like him, you know, regardless,” Norman said. “I'm not going to criticize him for one thing.”

“But you're not going to lay down on your calls to investigate Epstein?”

“We're going to have transparency,” Norman promised.

Like Norman, a growing number of the party’s rank-and-file find themselves on the opposite side of the Epstein scandal from the president. Awkward.

"I'm for full transparency on this. I'll be supporting releasing files," Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) told Raw Story.

"Obviously, I want to protect kids and no one wants to see child porn, but this is about right and wrong and it's ensuring we have trust in the process. I've worked with a lot of victims over the years."

"And you're not worried at all that there is stuff in these files on President Trump?" Raw Story asked the Secrets Task Force member.

"No, I'm not worried at all," Mace said. "No, not worried. No, no, no, no. Nope, no he's not a pedophile. That's ridiculous."

Mace and other Republicans demanding the release of the Epstein files are now more aligned with their Democratic counterparts than they are with their MAGA master. Before this week, Democrats were suspicious, but many are now convinced Trump is hiding something damning.

“It’s Trump showing true colors,” said Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY). “He's a liar. He manipulates people,”

“Are you pretty convinced Trump’s on the list?” Raw Story asked.

“I think so,” Ryan told Raw Story. “It's the only explanation.”

When Trump tried to bury the investigation, he seems to have accidentally made Epstein the talk of the town. And that’s not a good thing.

'Internal rebellion'

It’s surely a new day in Trump’s Washington — ordinarily, Republicans just don’t cross him, in large part because those who have, have been primaried or pushed out of the party.

Despite GOP efforts to change the law, Trump is constitutionally barred from running for a third term. That makes him a lame duck, even as his allies on Capitol Hill need the very voters he’s alienating. Democrats are trying to exploit this newly forming fissure.

“The Epstein issue is a real issue in this space, and they don't want rich, powerful people protected,” Rep. Khanna told Raw Story. “It's the first time he's facing an internal rebellion on his own base.”

Strange new — if potentially temporary — alliances have begun to form. Khanna’s teaming up with libertarian-leaning Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to try and force both President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to release the Epstein files.

Massie’s been effective, according to Khanna, who says they’ve gotten roughly eight MAGA-tinged Republicans to sign their discharge petition — a rare procedural tool that enables otherwise powerless rank-and-file lawmakers to overrule the Speaker if they can garner support from more than half of their colleagues.

Speaker Johnson’s been doing the president’s bidding — abandoning most oversight of the executive branch, surrendering the power of the purse — but the discharge petition could cut him, other GOP leaders and Trump out of the equation altogether.

This latest GOP brawl is only energizing Democrats who’ve struggled to find their collective groove since Trump re-entered the Oval Office in January. Democrats sense GOP leaders are on their heels, which was on display all week as Johnson failed to muster enough GOP votes to even advance broadly bipartisan crypto bills.

According to Khanna, those disruptions were tied to the discharge petition. He says he has the votes to overrule the speaker, which is why GOP leaders are maneuvering behind the scenes.

“They're trying to avoid that, and then they're hoping that the momentum is lost during the August recess,” Khanna said. “But this issue is not going away. Are Republicans in the Trump administration protecting pedophiles? They're protecting the rich and powerful, and they're giving them impunity.”

Congressional Republicans reject the notion of some White House coverup. Rather, they say, Trump just wants to move on past his old buddy, Jeffrey Epstein.

"He just wants to be done," Mace said of the president.

There is broad bipartisan agreement on one thing — no one on Capitol Hill thinks the Epstein saga will end anytime soon.

In fact, many of the president’s Republican allies on the Secrets Task Force are vowing to keep the investigation alive until they get answers for their revved-up base.

"It's not going away,” Mace told Raw Story. “Look what's happening right now in Washington — we can't hold a hearing without it coming up, because Democrats understand the political wedge that it is.”

NOW READ: Donald Trump just blew his cover as the 'real victim' in new scam on MAGA

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate kicked off a “vote-a-rama” — a lengthy process where senators from both parties get to offer amendments, political or otherwise, on budget measures — as Republicans rushed to appease President Donald Trump by clawing back funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting.

Whenever the party in control of the White House changes, lawmakers seek to undo the previous administration’s agenda. Only this time, the Senate’s debating a $9 billion package shipped to Capitol Hill by former Trump ally Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.

It’s an effort to enshrine otherwise illegal government-wide cuts — because, constitutionally-speaking, Congress is supposed to hold the nation’s purse strings, not the White House, agencies and un-elected DOGE team members.

Trump has demanded Republicans send him the measure by week’s end — even as veteran Democrats on Capitol Hill predict the political equivalent of nuclear fallout should the GOP pass the measure, thereby upending decades of bipartisanship on such matters in one fell swoop.

“We won't have the resources and capacity to respond to disasters,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told Raw Story of likely effects in the realm of foreign policy should the recissions package pass.

“We'll retreat from fighting pandemics and investing in public health. Dozens of countries that have relied on us as trustworthy partners for decades are left abruptly questioning whether they can count on us at all. So across the world, there will be specific and concrete harms to people: clinics that close, classrooms that shutter, folks who don't get help.”

Three Republican senators tried to block the measure by opposing it in committee, but Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote, setting up Wednesday’s amendments marathon.

Among the GOP rebels, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) raised alarms over the measure's proposed $400 million cut to PEPFAR, a Bush-era program to combat AIDS and HIV in developing countries that’s credited with saving millions of lives.

The White House conceded the point, and agreed to exempt PEPFAR. But the measure’s still promising deep cuts to formerly bipartisan foreign aid programs.

Those cuts will “really hurt our position in the world,” Coons said.

“Isn't China just waiting in the wings?” Raw Story asked of Beijing’s efforts to take America’s place in the developing world.

“They're not waiting here,” Coons said. “They're filling the gap.”

Closer to home, the GOP cuts would hammer public broadcasting, an area long decried by conservative talking heads as biased and costly, even as more moderate Republicans and Democrats have championed public broadcasting as vital for under-served communities.

Rural communities will suffer harmful cuts if Trump gets his wish, said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), particularly among Native American communities throughout the U.S.

“For some people, that's their only access to local news,” Kelly told Raw Story while hopping an elevator up to the Senate floor as the “vote-a-rama” kicked off. “For kids, you know, being able to watch Sesame Street and just other shows, and emergency alerts.

“I think people are going to be shocked as some of these stations, whether it's public radio or public broadcasting stations, start to shut down. The public radio thing for the Navajo is really big.”

Asked if he thought Republicans would pay an electoral price for such cuts, the swing state senator predicted backlash for the MAGA-tinged GOP.

“There is a lot of stuff that they're gonna regret,” Kelly said.

He also pointed to the passage earlier this month of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” — a mixture of deep health-care cuts, funding boosts for immigration enforcement, and tax cuts — which polls badly with the American people.

“They’re going to regret $4 trillion added to the debt, that they now own,” Kelly said. .

“I think they're going to regret kicking millions of people off their health care, because those people still get sick, and it's going to cost more. Ultimately, it's going to cost somebody more.”

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WASHINGTON — The Jeffrey Epstein saga continues, in spite of the Trump White House and many congressional Republicans wishing it would go away already.

Epstein, a financier and convicted sex trafficker, died in federal custody in New York in 2019, his death ruled a suicide. Speculation about his links to powerful men, including President Donald Trump, has flourished ever since.

But in trying to put the Epstein scandal behind them, Attorney General Pam Bondi, the FBI and Department of Justice have awoken the sleeping giant that is Trump’s MAGA base, including members of the congressional GOP.

“I don’t trust them,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told Raw Story of Bondi and her DOJ.

On the other side of the aisle, Democrats can hardly get enough of this latest conspiracy-tinged GOP civil war. Many are echoing calls for transparency from the Republican far right, arguing too many Trump officials campaigned on an Epstein coverup only to change their tunes.

“Why have they changed? Did they lie then? Are they lying now? Something Pam Bondi said is not accurate,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) told Raw Story.

“I either want her to say there was no [Epstein client] list and she lied about that” — Bondi first said such a list existed — “or there is a list and they can’t release it and here are the reasons why.

“It’s one or the other, right? She said the list was on her desk. So that was either not true or she’s not releasing the list."

‘A hell of a lot more problems’

“We’ve got a hell of a lot more problems than Epstein,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story.

More senior Republicans avoided wading in.

“No. I don’t know anything about it. Nothing,” said Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID). “I didn’t look into it to begin with, not looking into it now.”

“I really haven’t paid much attention to it, to be honest with you,” said Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV). “It’s just not something I’m focused on. Just let the story play out however it does.”

Many party leaders, including Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY), are echoing President Trump and trying to move past the controversy.

“No. It’s not something that comes up in Wyoming,” Barrasso told Raw Story. “Nobody at all is asking about that topic.”

As much as they want to move past the Epstein scandal, GOP leaders can’t avoid it, in part because rank-and-file Republicans keep raising questions.

“I have no information on it whatsoever. I’m as curious as everybody else,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Raw Story. “I’ve got questions, I don’t have any answers.”

In the House of Representatives, Republicans have been formally investigating the Epstein affair. Many blame Bondi for blocking their probe.

‘It’s been overwhelming’

At the start of this Congress, House Republican leaders established a formal Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets.

The panel’s tasked with investigating conspiracy theories of old, including the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr, and even the decades-long hunt for UFOs.

The Task Force has also been looking into more contemporary conspiracy theories, including the origins of COVID-19, the 9-11 terrorist attacks, and Epstein. Many on the panel have been frustrated with Bondi for months.

“I’ve already done everything I can from my perspective. I literally have multiple inquiries that went unanswered, so it’s not in my hands,” Task Force Chair Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) told Raw Story.

While Trump has tried to dismiss the Epstein scandal as “boring,” Luna and others on the far right have only fanned conspiratorial claims about evidence destruction at the DOJ.

“I’ve been looking into this for a while, and there was still, back I think it was February, a whistleblower came forward that he had firsthand knowledge or secondhand knowledge that there were files being destroyed,” Luna said. “But either which way, there’s still information that can be released.”

Luna and others on the Secrets Task Force say their voters demand Epstein answers.

“I’m getting calls on it, emails, texts, DMs, comments in the last hundred hours. It’s been overwhelming,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) told Raw Story.

Mace says Bondi should appoint a special counsel and stop dodging questions.

“If they do the special counsel, have a press conference and there’s more transparency from the DOJ, I think everyone will have a better understanding of what has been going on and what really happened,” Mace said.

Many Republican lawyers, like former Missouri attorney general Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), are demanding transparency too.

“Make it all public. That’s my view. I’m in favor of getting it all out there,” Hawley told Raw Story. “I know they’ve got an ongoing series of prosecutions. Unload it all on the public. I think they deserve to know.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has jumped on the bandwagon,

“I’m for transparency,” the speaker told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson this week. “It’s a very delicate subject. We should put everything out there and let the people decide it.”

‘They made this a campaign issue’

The president’s MAGA base has grown increasingly frustrated with FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino.

The two conspiracy-peddling firebrands helped stoke the Epstein flames throughout the 2024 election, but since becoming senior FBI officials have been mum, causing consternation, cursing and new conspiracies on the right.

“I just find this fascinating. They made this a campaign issue, right?” said Moskowitz, the Florida Democrat. “And all of a sudden it’s like, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, there’s no files.

“It’s amazing how they pivoted. The very same people who talked about it, Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, wind up in the administration, probably got their jobs because of the attack on Epstein, get in there and they’re like, ‘Let’s just move on to something else.’

“It makes us more interested. The polling on this, Democrats, Republicans, Independents think the [justice] department is not being transparent. And so that makes you want to pull the string more.”

With competing conspiracies flying, many Democrats are now lined up with the far right as they call for the Trump administration to release the so-called Epstein files.

“I’d love to see more information,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) told reporters this week.

As vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Warner can’t help but crack a smile as he watches the president and his top cops squirm.

“It is more than a little ironic,” Warner said. “Meaning that, when you create what appears to be a false flag operation and then there’s nothing there, and you’ve gotta live with the ramifications of that — a little poetic justice seems to be coming about.”

WASHINGTON — Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are all but daring President Donald Trump to take control of the local government that oversees Washington D.C.

Others in the GOP are aghast at the idea, which Trump teased again last week.

“We have tremendous power at the White House to run places when we have to — we could run D.C.,” Trump told reporters Tuesday.

“We would run it so good. It would be run so proper, we’d get the best person to run it. The crime would be down to a minimal, would be much less. We're thinking about doing it, to be honest with you.”

Just down Pennsylvania Ave., at the Capitol, some Republicans are cheering the president on.

“If we can’t take care of our nation’s capital, what do we expect out of these other cities? It's awful. Look at the streets, littered,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story. “That'd be pretty easy. I'd love to own that. Let me do it.”

Others in the GOP are praying the president’s joking about seizing power from local elected leaders and that allies like Tuberville never get near the reins of power in the capital.

“I don’t think that's a good idea,” Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV) told Raw Story. “We seem to have a good system right now that's worked pretty well.”

Broken or not, Trump is set on fixing it, and he has allies on Capitol Hill.

‘Adult supervision’

All year long, Republicans have been testing the D.C. system — one that’s held for decades — and hardliners aren’t done yet.

“So would you be supportive of doing something?” Raw Story pressed Tuberville.

“Yeah. Doing something where we might have a little say so about cleaning up the capital city of the United States of America, because right now it's — just walk around, it's just a pigsty,” Tuberville said.

Elected leaders in the capital decry the idea of a Trumpian nanny state, but Mayor Muriel Bowser and city council members have grown to expect interference when Republicans run Capitol Hill.

In February, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) introduced their Bringing Oversight to Washington and Safety to Every Resident (BOWSER) Act. It would repeal the 1973 D.C. Home Rule Act, which gave elected local leaders power over local affairs, even if the Constitution gives Congress final say over the city’s budget.

While many Republicans don’t know what to make of Trump’s latest threats, most are acutely aware the Constitution gives Congress the final say on D.C.

“I missed that. It sounds fun, but I don't know anything about it,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) told Raw Story of Trump’s latest remarks. “I don't know what he means by ‘takeover,’ but you know the Constitution says D.C. is Congress' responsibility.”

Last month, House Republicans passed measures barring undocumented workers from voting, restoring collective bargaining rights for Washington police officers, and forcing city leaders to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on migrant raids.

On one level, this is nothing new. For instance, since roughly 65% of voters legalized recreational marijuana in the nation’s capital back in 2014, far-right House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-MD) has blocked city officials from regulating recreational cannabis — thereby effectively enshrining D.C.’s thriving black (or gray) market in federal law.

But on another level, local officials face unprecedented federal interference. Leaders argue President Trump and congressional Republicans are to blame for many of D.C’s woes.

This spring, Moody’s Ratings downgraded Washington’s credit rating, due to the loss of an estimated 40,000 federal jobs in the National Capital Region from Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts alone.

The GOP also flexed its power over the city while averting a government shutdown earlier this year.

In the continuing resolution to fund the federal government, House Republicans effectively stripped $1 billion from Washington’s 2025 budget by forcing officials to operate at 2024 spending levels.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to take up a bipartisan, Senate-passed fix aimed at undoing those congressionally-mandated cuts, so even though the city has the money, leaders have been forced to use accounting tricks, furloughs and service cuts to get through the year.

Many Republicans hope Trump is bluffing when he teases a federal takeover — unless he’s talking tough on migration.

“It depends on what facet you're talking about,” Sen. Capito said. “In terms of sanctuary cities or cities that are … harboring illegals that are here and committing crimes, I think the president has made clear what he's going to do here.”

“Some people in your party do want a takeover of the federal city,” Raw Story pressed.

“He's not going to take over cities. He can question the governance of cities, and I think that's what he's doing,” Capito said.

“D.C. does have a lot of federal funding, and there's a lot of relevance there, but I think he's just concerned with the ‘defund police’ and illegal activities that are going on that are not being addressed by some of our big city mayors.”

Other Republicans say it’s within Trump’s authority to oversee affairs in the federal city, but caution the president to stay focused.

“I think the president's dealing with enough messes, I'm not sure why you'd want to take another one,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Raw Story. “I wouldn't want him to take it over, but D.C. could definitely use adult supervision.”

Even though violent crime fell to a 30-year-low in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, many in the GOP, along with fringe-rightwing talking heads, portray the capital as lawless.

Local elected leaders find themselves transformed into political piñatas.

“Nobody does anything here,” Sen. Tuberville said. “Ever since I've been here, it kind of runs on its own. I don't know what they do with money up here. I’m sure they got plenty.

“It’s pretty easy to clean the streets up, get the graffiti off the walls, get the homeless out of the way of the tourists.”

Democrats are working to get the GOP out of the way.

‘How’s he gonna do that?’

President Trump has also teased taking over New York City, if the democratic socialist mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, wins the race for City Hall.

"We're not going to have — if a communist gets elected to run New York, it can never be the same,” Trump said. “But we have tremendous power at the White House to run places when we have to."

California Democrats know that all too well, as they fight heavy-handed ICE raids in Los Angeles.

They’re warning city leaders across the nation to be ready for unparalleled federal intrusion, especially because the GOP’s “one big beautiful bill” is infusing upwards of $100 billion for ICE and other immigration efforts.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) speaks to members of the media. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

“We see the cruelty and extreme actions in Los Angeles, so I’m expecting to see more of the same, if not worse,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) told Raw Story.

“That's one of the cruel outcomes of the budget reconciliation bill, no change in policy with a huge infusion in the budget for immigration enforcement.”

Whether in California or in Washington, Democrats say there’s no mistaking President Trump’s efforts to amass more and more power, including meddling in local and state issues.

“Look, this is his king complex, right?” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told Raw Story. “He wants to be king. He wants to get rid of democracy.

“He doesn't want the people of the District of Columbia to have the right of self-determination, so it's just part of his authoritarian ruler complex.”

Raw Story asked. “Do you worry that he could actually…?”

Van Hollen interjected: “No. Well, I mean, we need to all make sure he doesn’t. I mean, how’s he gonna do that?”

“But he’s pushed every other boundary,” Raw Story replied.

“We all need to make sure we stand up,” Van Hollen said. “Unfortunately, to your point, you have Republicans continuing to be a rubber stamp to anything dear leader wants.”

WASHINGTON — Republican senators may have confirmed Pete Hegseth as the nation’s 29th defense secretary, but as Pentagon scandals keep stacking up, powerful U.S. senators are refusing to even discuss the embattled military leader.

In March, congressional Republicans rolled their eyes, joked or laughed nervously after Hegseth added the editor in chief of The Atlantic to a private Signal group chat where war plans were discussed.

Now, many in the GOP now seem dismayed by news Hegseth blocked military aid to Ukraine without telling his boss, President Donald Trump.

“What do you make of the news out of the Pentagon this week about the Ukraine funding?” Raw Story pressed the chair of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. “Is the media making too much out of this? Or is there something to be worried about [in] people in the Pentagon undercutting the president?”

“I just wouldn’t be able to comment,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) said as he hopped the nearest Capitol elevator.

Wicker wasn’t alone. The chair of the formidable Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), also dodged discussing Hegseth.

“Your thoughts on what happened with this Ukraine funding?” Raw Story asked.

“I know where you're going with this,” Risch said, while riding an elevator with Raw Story.

Like Wicker, Risch refused to even utter the defense secretary’s name.

“Talking about the …” Risch stammered. “I don't know anything about that, and I'm looking forward. I know you guys are looking backward. I'm looking forward. Okay?”

“Do you think my colleagues are paying too much attention to this?” Raw Story asked.

“Absolutely, yeah, absolutely,” Risch said, walking on. “There's nothing to be gained by looking backward. There's everything to be gained by looking forward.”

“But you’re not worried about people at the Pentagon trying to undercut the president?”

“Not at all,” Risch replied. “No I'm not. Listen, he knows how to do this stuff.”

Nonetheless, speculation over how President Trump will choose to handle Hegseth is mounting, given the Ukraine aid fiasco is only the latest public misstep from the former Fox News host.

Observers sense change afoot after Trump publicly attacked Russian president Vladimir Putin while greenlighting the Ukraine military package over protests from the MAGA wing of the GOP.

On Capitol Hill, for many on the far-right of the GOP, efforts to block Ukraine military aid are in the rearview mirror.

For years, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was one of the loudest voices of resistance to funding Ukraine. Not anymore.The former Homeland Security Committee chair says it’s a proverbial new day.

“Curious for your thoughts on the seemingly new Ukraine policy?” Raw Story asked.

“It's kind of recognizing reality,” Johnson said. “I mean, the aggressor here is Putin … President Trump's given him every opportunity like he gave the ayatollahs [in Iran] to come at the table. You know, 'End this war, end your nuclear program.' He's trying to do the same thing.”

What then does Sen. Johnson make of Hegseth cutting military aid without clearing it with the White House?

“I’m not even aware of it,” Johnson said. “So I have no comment on that.”

Other more MAGA-tinged Republicans are also singing a new tune.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a member of the Homeland Security Committee and a committed America First populist, joined Johnson in vigorously opposing President Joe Biden's efforts to assist Kyiv.

“What is this?” Hawley asked. “I've been asked a lot of Hegseth questions recently.”

Raw Story helped him out: “Is the media making too much of this? It kind of seems like President Trump might have been undercut on Ukraine policy.”

“Well, I mean, listen, I mean, everybody … he [Hegseth] serves at the pleasure of the President. Like, the President wants him gone, he'll be gone,” Hawley said, before entering the Senate chamber.

“But I think he seems to be doing a good job. I don't know. Again, I don't get caught up in cabinet drama.”

“No buyer’s remorse?” Raw Story pressed.

“Well, I mean, I didn’t buy him,” Hawley said. “He’s the president's choice.”

“That’s a nice way to wash your hands of every nominee,” Raw Story said.

“I thought he was qualified to do the job,” Hawley said. “Beyond that, he's the President's choice, which is why I also won't have a meltdown if it's like … ‘Well, the President's gonna change him.’ He can do whatever he wants with his cabinet.”

‘Watch your step’

Democrats — most of whom support funding Ukraine in its war against Russian invaders — are worried over the national security implications of Hegseth’s latest error, even as many sense the president losing faith in his Pentagon chief.

“Well, you better watch your step,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) — the Senate minority whip — told Raw Story. “Doesn't take much to get this president to decide that you're finished.”

Democrats who opposed Hegseth's confirmation are hoping this episode will at least go some way to restrain him.

“If Secretary Hegseth has not figured it out now or figured it out yet, he works for someone,” Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) told Raw Story.

“It appears that this Secretary just wants to be in charge, [to] be the president himself. And you know, I appreciate the President standing up to him and supporting Ukraine in this case.

“But it's very concerning that the Secretary of Defense is making arbitrary decisions without those that he has to work with and report to, namely, Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio as well as the President of the United States.”

As for powerful GOP senators like Wicker and Risch avoiding Hegseth like the plague?

“Turning a blind eye to all of this is not good for our national security, especially when we have responsibilities of oversight. This should be very concerning, and there should be briefings and hearings and gifts or whatever required to be able to get to the bottom of this,” Sen. Luján said.

“Someone needs to have answers.”

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans are breathing sighs of relief after passing President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Democrats aren’t going to let them relax for long, though.

“Are you celebrating?” Raw Story asked Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL). “Happy?”

“I’m celebrating it’s over,” the former mayor of Miami replied.

Democrats believe the GOP seriously miscalculated by falling in line behind Trump on his spending and tax cuts package so many Republicans decried.

“There's something different about this moment that I think Republicans are not recognizing, and that is, people are tuned in more than they know,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) told Raw Story.

“People are really, really disturbed by this. This is not what they — even the people who voted Trump — this is not what they voted for.”

Midterms are here

Ads have already been airing coast to coast, attempts to shame vulnerable Republicans into derailing the sweeping measure, which also vastly boosts Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

On Thursday morning, throughout House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ (D-NY) record-breaking speech against the bill before its final vote, progressives could be seen shooting campaign-style videos. Others were live-streaming with concerned supporters.

Now, Democrats are gearing up to make the multi-trillion dollar bill the centerpiece of next year’s midterm elections.

"I will tell you, the last few weeks … there isn't a place that I have been to where people aren't concerned about this,” McGovern said.

“Airplanes, and I trained it up to New York … I had about half a dozen people on the train, ‘Oh, you gotta fight this stuff.’”

With an estimated 17 million Americans slated to lose health insurance under the GOP overhaul, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Democrats are outraged yet hopeful their party finally has the opening it needs to start to win back sizable chunks of the electorate Trump made historic gains with in the 2024 election, like his historic gains — for a Republican candidate — with Black and Latino men.

To Democrats, the GOP isn’t just tone deaf: they say the party is alienating the very minority communities Trump wooed by reverting to stereotypical and antiquated tropes, like increasing work requirements for Medicaid recipients.

“It's the ‘undeserving poor,’ [the] ‘guy playing video games’ and the ‘welfare queen,’” Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) told Raw Story.

As Republicans delivered soaring speeches throughout the night, Democrats were left wondering if they had been transported back in time.

“I was in the Assembly in Connecticut back in the 80s — it’s like, ‘Wow, I haven’t heard that stuff in a while,” Courtney said as he left the Speaker’s Lobby, just off the floor of the House.

While Trump campaigned as a populist, he surrounded himself with tech billionaires who paid for much of his inauguration. Now many of those billionaires are in his cabinet, others just a phone call or text away.

With rank-and-file Republicans lambasting millions of Americans who depend on the federal government for health insurance or food assistance, Democrats see an opening for good old -fashioned empathy.

“It's fear mongering on others and immigrants. And, like, total bad faith bulls—t takes from the 90s,” Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) told Raw Story. “I really think people see through it.”

On Wednesday evening, after a cable news hit with a Republican colleague, Ryan said he couldn’t keep it in anymore.

“It's definitely retread BS. I actually said to my colleague after the interview, I was like, ‘Do you actually believe that?’” Ryan recalled.

“In this case, he's from Nebraska. He's got 100,000 people on Medicaid. Like, do you really believe that all those people are lazy and unemployed?”

Ryan’s starting to think many Republicans actually believe their own rhetoric.

“I actually think they lie to themselves and don't actually wrestle with it,” Ryan said. “So it's pathetic.”

‘The old rhetoric is the new rhetoric’

On Capitol Hill, partisanship has become so bitter, there’s not much that shocks veterans like 14-term Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA).

That’s why Sherman says he’s not surprised when Republicans perpetuate racist and sexist stereotypes.

“The very fact that it's a trope — am I surprised that somebody said something that hundreds of hundreds of times has been said before? Nope,” Sherman told Raw Story.

“But is it disappointing?” Raw Story pressed.

“Of course it’s disappointing,” Sherman said.

Disappointing, yes — but also not that different.

“It's like the old rhetoric is the new rhetoric,” McGovern said. “They don't have an original thought in their heads.”

Rather, McGovern argues, today’s Republican Party bends to every wish and whim of Trump.

Take the July Fourth timeline the president demanded of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), for the passage of his “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

It was a totally arbitrary date, but senators stayed in session all weekend and into the wee hours of the morning, just to appease the president.

Not to be outdone, Speaker Johnson cut his chamber’s annual July Fourth recess short, calling the House back into session.

Just as they did when tanks were rolling through Washington's streets for Trump’s recent military parade, Democrats are rolling their eyes while watching the GOP contort and convulse, scrambling to make Trump happy.

“This artificial deadline is, you know, Trump wants to throw another party for himself. That's it,” McGovern said. “None of these Republicans have a backbone in their body — not a single one of them.”

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WASHINGTON — An increasing number of congressional Republicans are nervous that President Donald Trump is forcing them to walk the proverbial plank and pass his “Big Beautiful Bill” — even if that means losing their seat. With the expansive measure stalled in the House, Democrats sense fear in the air.

“I think my colleagues across the aisle are scared,” Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL) told Raw Story.

“They know there's a lot of pain. They know it's gonna be tough, but they're even more afraid of Trump.”

Even so, the Trump card isn’t working as Republican leaders hoped. The president spent Wednesday trying to persuade GOP holdouts to pass the bill as overhauled by their Senate colleagues.

While the president is promising carrots, he’s also wielding a stick.

Trump’s made multi-million-dollar moves to oust one Republican who has rejected the measure from day one, libertarian-leaning Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). Other fencesitters are now weighing limited options: Cross Trump or cross their constituents by, say, booting millions off health insurance.

Threats haven’t worked yet, as members of the far-right Freedom Caucus demand more drastic budget cuts and the last remaining more moderate members fight for mortgage deductions for their upper-middle-class constituents.

Analysts and Democrats say the “Big Beautiful Bill” will have a devastating effect on millions of Americans who rely on programs including Medicaid and food stamps, while also damaging U.S. renewable energy production and loading tax cuts in favor of the wealthy.

The bill’s a MAGA wishlist, including billions of dollars for masked ICE agents and tens of billions of dollars more in military spending.

Polling shows clear majorities of Americans don’t like the bill.

Regardless, Republican leaders are attempting to ram it through the House and have it on Trump’s White House desk by Friday, Independence Day.

On Wednesday, rank-and-file Republicans ground the bill to a halt, and Democrats claimed a mini-victory.

“Obviously, there's a message to be had. It speaks for itself. The largest transfer of wealth from ordinary people to rich people. That's real simple,” said Garcia, a member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.

“The pain … it's real. Real people are affected by this.”

But real people aren’t a part of the debate — politicians are. Trump, Garcia charged, is thereby guilty of a “huge betrayal” of the 77 million Americans who voted for him over Joe Biden last year.

“How long will people go for this, once they start to see the impact on regular people,” Garcia said. “That’s the question.”

The Senate passed Trump’s bill on Tuesday by the barest margin, 51-50, Vice President JD Vance casting the tiebreaker after three Republicans defected.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), an independent-minded Republican, faces continued ire from progressives for voting in favor of the tax and spending package despite saying she did not like it and hoped the House would change it.

So far, SpeakerJohnson’s been working tirelessly behind the scenes to keep the Senate measure intact. Otherwise, Senate Republicans will have to pass the measure again.

‘The House is totally frozen’

In the House, with the Fourth of July recess canceled, members from both sides of the aisle faced challenges just getting to Washington to vote.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), a senior voice in his party, told Raw Story he abandoned a vacation in France to fly back to the Capitol. While he didn’t stop to shave, the former Goldman Sachs executive was miffed that he had to buy a second round ticket, so he could vote against the “Big Beautiful Bill” before rejoining his family.

As Wednesday evening drew on, Himes took to social media to vent and goad the GOP.

“The House is totally frozen right now,” he wrote.

“Even Republicans know that adding $4 trillion to the national debt while kicking 17 million people off health insurance just to give tax breaks to rich people is A BAD IDEA.”

After campaigning on soaring promises to ‘Read the Bill,’ some Republicans were shrugging off pesky questions about how much of the more-than-900-page bill they had read. Many admitted they hadn’t read it, which had Democrats smarting.

“I read it all night long,” Rep. Diana Degette (D-CO) drily joked to Raw Story: “I decided not to support it.”

“I decided not to support it when Chuck Schumer stripped the title out,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) quipped back.

That was a reference to the Democratic Senate minority leader’s gambit on Tuesday, when he had the bill’s title removed moments before it passed the Senate.

"This is not a ‘big, beautiful bill’ at all,” the New Yorker told reporters. “That's why I moved down the floor to strike the title. It is now called ‘the act.’ That's what it's called. But it is really the ‘big ugly betrayal,’ and the American people know it.

"This vote will haunt our Republican colleagues for years to come. Because of this bill, tens of millions will lose health insurance. Millions of jobs will disappear. People will get sick and die, kids will go hungry and the debt will explode to levels we have never seen.”

Schumer’s move did not meet with universal applause, many observers saying stunts were less effective than action. Nor, on Wednesday, did House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ (D-NY) decision to pose with a baseball bat, to illustrate his determination to oppose Trump’s bill.

Rank-and-file Democrats said such antics were a distraction.

“You know, this is the most consequential bill for hard-working Americans in our lifetime, and not in a good way,” Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) told Raw Story.

“You’d think that because these are such radical changes, that we would be given the time and courtesy to be able to read through all of this. We know, of course, the broad strokes and they're horrible, but there are probably innumerable details in there that are just as bad or even worse that we haven't even gotten to.”

WASHINGTON — The Jan. 6, 2021 attack is once again the talk of Capitol Hill.

While Democrats are hanging replica plaques across the Capitol pressuring Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to display an official congressionally-mandated plaque honoring Capitol Police officers for defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, President Donald Trump continues quietly pressuring Republican congressional leaders to formally investigate the bipartisan select Jan. 6 committee that disbanded in 2023.

“The president wants it,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) told Raw Story.

Even so, the ball seems to be in Johnson's court, and he’s remained mum since saying he would launch his own J6 investigation at the start of the year.

Low-level form of legislative civil disobedience

In 2022, while the Capitol was still undergoing post-riot repairs, lawmakers from both parties came together and passed a law requiring a plaque for the west front of the Capitol — where officers were first overrun on Jan. 6, 2021 — honoring the men and women of the Capitol Police who protected Congress in the face of violent insurrectionists.

Three years later and there’s still no official plaque, which is why a handful of House Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), unveiled their own replica plaques this week.

“It is a very low-level form of legislative civil disobedience,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Raw Story.

As the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Raskin says the speaker is flaunting the very Constitution he swore an oath to uphold.

“The speaker is in violation of the law. That's an indefensible posture for a speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives,” Raskin said. “Our poster replicas are saying, we are going to go ahead and honor the officers until Mike Johnson starts following the law.”

To many of the lawmakers left trapped in the House gallery on Jan. 6, 2021, let alone Capitol Police officers themselves, the plaque is personal.

“It's important so that nobody ever forgets the truth,” Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) told Raw Story.

Escobar says the refusal to hang the plaque shows Republican "tough on crime" rhetoric is mere lip service.

“It’s evidence of the fact that they really aren't interested in supporting law enforcement. That's what it comes down to,” Escobar said. “They are so afraid of Donald Trump, and these were his soldiers.”

Democrats accuse the speaker of thumbing his nose at the Capitol Police officers who protect him daily.

“It's pathetic,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) told Raw Story. “The speaker won't put it up. So I don't know what the hell's the problem, but it's an insult to our brave men and women in law enforcement who protected us that day.”

McGovern’s the top Democrat — or ranking member — of the House Rules Committee, which plays the all-important role of providing parameters for debate before any measure can be voted on by the full House of Representatives.

The veteran Massachusetts congressman says he plans to use that perch to regularly remind Republicans of their party’s sin of omission.

“I'm gonna raise it in every Rule I do now,” McGovern said. “Why isn’t the plaque up? Why is it not displayed? Why is he disobeying — why is the speaker disobeying the law?”

The White House is engaged

On the other side of the aisle, some Republicans are also wondering where the official plaque is.

“I'm surprised, personally surprised it hasn't been done," Loudermilk said. “I don't think that's controversial. Regardless of who did what, who started it, who was responsible — there was violence here that the Capitol Police were engaged in.”

Even though Loudermilk wants to investigate the former select Jan. 6 committee, he says commemorating the heroism of the Capitol Police is the least Congress can do.

“We've got some colleagues saying, ‘Well, there's nothing more than a tour.’ I'm like, ‘No, it was way beyond that.’ There was violence,” Loudermilk said. “There was violence on both sides. I mean, of course, police had to counter the violence. I don't have a problem with having the plaque honoring the Capitol Police and what they've done.”

Still, Loudermilk dismisses the work of the bipartisan Jan. 6 select committee, which is why he continues calling on the speaker to let him formally launch his own investigation.

“There's been no movement on it. I would say there's been a negotiation going on, but it's just been a one-sided negotiation,” Loudermilk said.

With Congress rushing to wrap up an array of measures ahead of their July Fourth recess, Loudermilk is hoping to get the speaker’s ear this week.

“I'm hoping by the end of the week we'll have something,” Loudermilk exclusively told Raw Story. “The White House is engaged.”

After interviewing upwards of 1,000 witnesses, reviewing thousands of documents and releasing a detailed 814-page report on their findings, Democrats who served on the panel dismiss this latest White House effort as a smokescreen intended to distract from the damning details they uncovered.

“The January 6 select committee may have produced the most successful legislative investigation, certainly in the 21st Century, and one of the most successful ones in the history of the US Congress,” Raskin told Raw Story. “We produced a report. They have not laid a glove on a single detail in that report. They're trying to rewrite history.”

WASHINGTON — Pro-Israel Democrats fear the Trump administration is squandering what little goodwill remains with moderate Democrats on Capitol Hill by postponing congressional briefings on this weekend’s military strikes in Iran.

“I don't think it's a smart move. Members want to get a sense of what the administration’s thinking,” Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told Raw Story. “If this was successful, it's probably good for the president, so there's no reason not to do it.”

While progressive Democrats, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), have decried the military strikes as “clearly grounds for impeachment," many in the moderate wing of the party are looking for a way to back Israel in the conflict, which they say only got more complicated since the administration delayed briefing Congress on the strikes.

“I don’t know what to make of it,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) told Raw Story. “Maybe they're hiding.”

Even if the Trump administration wasn’t hiding, many Democrats feel they are.

Confusion on Capitol Hill

With President Donald Trump’s "One Big, Beautiful Bill’ on thin ice in the Senate, lawmakers across Capitol Hill blocked out large chunks of time to hear directly about the strikes in Iran from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Dan Caine in classified briefings Tuesday.

But by early afternoon, whispers fanned across Capitol Hill that the briefings were postponed.

“I just heard that,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Raw Story. “Did they say why?”

Even powerful Republican senators were left asking the same question on their way to their weekly conference lunch.

“Some of your Democratic colleagues are complaining about the delay in these briefings,” Raw Story asked, “what do you make of that?”

“I may be able to find out a little more in a few minutes,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) told Raw Story while walking through the Capitol Tuesday afternoon. “I'm going to check on why.”

As news of the postponed briefings spread, so did anger amongst many Democrats.

“It's outrageous, and I think it's astonishing,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) told Raw Story. “I believe it's unlawful, and I believe it's unconstitutional.”

As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Houlahan says her concerns go beyond the Trump administration.

“I think it's worrisome,” Houlahan said. “And I think it's even probably more worrisome that it would appear that the speaker of the House doesn't care, and so I'm pretty stunned. I'm hoping that smart people will figure out that this is not okay.”

But Houlahan and other Democrats aren’t holding their breath.

The Democratic skepticism over the postponed security briefings stems, in part, from the Trump administration bypassing protocol and only briefing congressional Republican leaders ahead of the military strikes in Iran, while only alerting Democratic leaders after the bombing campaigns.

“That's also really insane,” Houlahan said. “It's bananas.”

When it comes to matters of American intelligence secrets, nonpartisanship has always been the name of the game. Until now, at least.

In Congress, the responsibility of keeping those secrets, well, secret lies with the ‘gang of eight’ — the four party leaders from both sides of the Capitol along with the top Republicans and Democrats on the Intelligence Committees from both respective chambers of Congress.

Reports that the Trump administration alerted Republican congressional leaders ahead of time and Democratic leaders after the strikes occurred have Democrats of all stripes crying "foul."

“It's like the destruction of the system of government,” Lofgren said. “The so-called gang of eight never leaks, because that's their obligation and that's never once happened. It wouldn't have happened in this case. It's outrageous, really.”

“He's going to need Democratic support”

From the perch of more centrist Democrats, Trump made a huge miscalculation.

“If this escalates, he's going to need Democratic support on this,” Bera said. “Because you're going to have a number of Freedom Caucus, hardline… guys that are not going to fund a war. If he needs additional war funding, he's going to need our support.”

At the end of the day, even moderate Democrats are feeling pulled to the more progressive view of their party when it comes to Trump thumbing his nose at Congress.

“It's his general disdain for the legislative branch of Congress,” Bera said. “It's the petty stuff that Trump does.”

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WASHINGTON — The Democratic Party is at a crossroads, and Rep. Jasmine Crockett says she’s got the roadmap her beleaguered caucus needs.

The Texas Democrat known for electrifying the internet is only serving her second term in the U.S. House of Representatives, which is why her bid to become ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee Tuesday is turning heads.

“We have a very interesting figure that is currently in the White House, and I think I'm uniquely suited to kind of be the opposition to him,” Crockett told Raw Story, while walking through the Capitol.

“He already envisions me that way, and I'm sure, if there's one person he doesn't want in that seat, I'm sure it's me.”

Crockett is part of a four-candidate race to succeed nine-term Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), who lost his battle with cancer earlier this year.

With younger progressives challenging veteran incumbents in heated primaries from coast to coast, this week’s internal Democratic debate over which direction the House Oversight Committee should go indicates broader tensions dividing the party ahead of the 2026 midterms.

‘I hate that committee’

Crockett knows how to get attention. But getting clicks is different than delivering Democrats out of the proverbial political wilderness voters banished them to in November.

Everyone on Capitol Hill knows Crockett is adept at garnering free media coverage and retweets. That’s no longer enough. In recent weeks, Crockett’s been pitching herself as a team player.

“So my big pitch is getting us to the majority and making sure that we start to build a rapport with the American people,” she said.

“From raising money to giving money away, I think a part of leadership is more than just kind of running the committee, it’s making sure that we can help the caucus get to the majority.”

While Crockett needs to convince her peers to back her move up the power ladder, in meetings with colleagues she’s been highlighting the party’s need to appeal outside the Washington Beltway. The 44-year-old lawyer sees herself as Democrats’ bridge to the future.

“We've got to think about, ‘How is this going to be perceived by the outside?’ Will they then become more engaged? Because we need people to be more engaged in government,” Crockett said.

“We need them to know what it is that we're doing and what it is that we're fighting for.”

Republicans sense Democratic weakness on the Oversight Committee.

“You see how all over the map they are?” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) laughed to Raw Story after a recent high-profile hearing.

“When we were in the minority, our goal was always to try to at least win the hearing. Determine what your narrative and point is, and then see how much you can hammer it home.”

Being confined to the minority means Democrats are mostly locked out of the legislative process. That makes committee work tiresome for most, except those on the headline-grabbing Oversight panel.

"Because of the subject matter that it covers — which is anything — it has the propensity to actually elevate issues into headline issues,” Biggs said. “It has the potential to be a very high-profile committee, consistently.”

Oversight attracts rabble-rousers. On the right, there’s Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO). On the left, four out of seven of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ (D-NY) so-called “Squad” members call Oversight home.

Still, the committee isn’t for everyone.

“I hate that committee,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) told Raw Story. “I was on it as a freshman. You don’t pass bills. You just go there to get on TV.”

Getting on TV used to be little more than a vanity project. These days, if your party isn’t winning American screens, it‘s barely even an afterthought. Far-right Freedom Caucus Republicans on the Oversight Committee know this all too well.

“Part of Oversight is conducting oversight and questioning these officials on why they continue to put their constituents and their citizens last and making sure that Americans get to see it on TV," Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) told Raw Story.

"That's a part of what Oversight is all about, so that the people in this country know what their representatives are doing.”

'Bomb throwing'

Crockett’s got competition. Connolly tapped 12-term Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) to take over as top Democrat on Oversight — which has had many Republicans laughing or cringing as they’ve witnessed him ratchet up his rhetoric in recent weeks.

“He’s very different – the grotesque rhetoric,” Biggs told Raw Story, after Lynch compared ICE agents to the Gestapo at one hearing. “He's trying to show that he can compete on the bomb throwing.”

The bomb throwing comes natural to two-term Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA). He’s been turning heads on social media since coming to Washington in 2023, and is making a similar pitch asCrockett: that he’s youthful, very online and understands angst in the next generation.

While the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has formally endorsed Garcia, the Congressional Black Caucus isn’t formally endorsing in this race, in part, because two of its members are facing off in the contest.

Which brings us to the last candidate pitch, which comes from the other side of the seniority spectrum.

After winning a fifth term in 1996, Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD) resigned his seat to become president of the NAACP. In 2020, voters sent him back to Washington, maintaining the seniority from his first time in Congress — a card he’s playing to his peers, arguing the party needs the wisdom of old amid today’s digital duress.

The four candidates vying to be the senior Democrat on Oversight are twisting their rank-and-file peers into knots.

“You have four very different candidates, very different backgrounds. You have seniority versus kind of the younger generation," Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA) told Raw Story. “On policy, I don’t think there’s much difference between the four of them. On style, there is.”

The six-term congressman feels the tension between rewarding veterans and passing the baton to the next generation, which is why Crockett’s been on his radar.

“She’s got a talent on how to use social media. Talks about the younger generation, how to engage them,” Bera said. "I think there's something about seniority and experience, but I also think — I'm not the social-media darling — but you have folks that do know how to use those tools to communicate.”

Others concur.

“Clearly, I believe in seniority. It would be against my own personal interest not to be,” 10-term Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) told Raw Story. “Everything equal I would certainly want to take the person with seniority — everything being equal. You know, these are some unusual times.”

Given the recent dustup at the Democratic National Committee over former vice-chair and anti-gun violence activist David Hogg’s decision to back primary challenges to sitting members of Congress, many congressional Democrats have been frustrated watching the party squabble.

“We’re wasting a lot of energy and money trying to help Donald Trump when we start fighting like this. It makes absolutely no sense. It’s not helpful,” Cleaver said.

Cleaver’s a former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), which recently invited all four Oversight candidates to a forum where they privately pitched their peers.

“One thing that I will say that I thought was great about this forum is all about who the best leader for this committee would be,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), the current CPC chair, told Raw Story.

“It wasn’t about whose turn it is, it was all about who the best leader for the committee is and I think that's a good thing for Congress.”

Many senior Democrats are trying to stay out of the fray, for fear they may attract a primary challenger. But with an increasing number of progressives targeting what they see as an out-of-touch seniority system, veteran Democrats are embracing the four-way Oversight contest.

“It’s their prerogative,” Rep. John Larson (D-CT) told Raw Story. “Especially these days, there's a lot of feeling out there on seniority, term limits and all those discussions. You always go through these trends.”

“Do you think the seniority system still matters?” Raw Story pressed.

“Yes, I do. I think experience matters,” Larson said. “It's an education process for people, so I do think that that's important.”

‘New, energetic voices’

With Democratic leaders still trying to figure out how they failed the party’s base in 2024 by allowing President Donald Trump to win a second term, Republicans are giddy.

“Does top slot on Oversight for Dems really matter?” Raw Story asked.

“It does for the messaging for the Democrats,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) — another darling of the far-right Freedom Caucus — told Raw Story. “Democrats, nationally their polling is in the s----- … so it's just all propaganda.”

Democrats are looking for a powerful, unifying voice, which is why Crockett’s become a party favorite.

“She's certainly a dynamic voice, and injects some new energy into a Congress that needs it,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) told Raw Story. “We need new, energetic voices.”

Crockett’s promising more than her megaphone. She’s trying to convince her colleagues she’s adept at more than winning news cycles: she wants to win back the White House, starting by reclaiming the House majority in 2026.

“Talking about things such as listening to people, not when we're asking them for votes, but like right now,” Crockett said. “Doing some shadow field hearings in Republican backyards where they don't want to show up. We're listening to the real stories of the people, letting their neighbors hear from them.”

Crockett’s also promising her peers she’s willing to share center stage.

“Doing my best to make sure that we're uplifting the voices of the team,” she told Raw Story.

“This is a very young committee, and so introducing them to the American people so that people don't feel like there's only a couple of Democrats that are part of the opposition, but they start to see more faces and voices.”

Crockett’s Oversight Committee bid is about more than just going viral. A trial lawyer by training, she argues her resume makes her a perfect fit for the Trump-era.

“Investigations is kind of all I did,” Crockett said, with a knowing laugh. “I dealt with criminals a lot so I know how to deal with them, that's for sure.”

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Candace Taggart contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leaders are rushing to pass President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act before their July Fourth recess, but rank-and-file Republicans from both sides of the party are tapping the brakes on the effort.

While conservative hardliners continue calling for steeper spending cuts, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a far-right conservative himself, has become one of the loudest voices of opposition to proposed changes to how states pay for Medicaid.

“I don't get it. I don't get why we would punish working people and rural hospitals, and I don't know. I don't understand. It's broken,” Hawley told Raw Story about his party's fixation on slashing care relied on by millions. “I think it's bizarre.”

For now, Republican leaders are barreling forward, even as they don’t seem to have the 51 votes needed to pass Trump’s sweeping tax cut package.

‘Really surprising’

Hawley and a handful of other Republicans, like Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV), are up in arms over a new Senate GOP plan that slashes a tax states levy on health care providers to pay for Medicaid.

While 38 states slap more than a 5.5 percent tax on health care providers — known as a “provider tax” — under the new Senate proposal, states that expanded Medicaid via the Affordable Care Act would be capped at taxing providers at 3.5 percent by 2031.

The new proposal also phases out clean energy mandates slower than the House-passed measure, which Hawley opposes.

“I'm totally surprised by what they proposed to do on the provider tax. I don't know why we would defund rural hospitals to pay for Chinese solar panels today,” Hawley said.

“It's a huge change from the House framework. It's a big change from what we had previously been discussing, certainly what I discussed with leadership. It's really surprising, and I think it's potentially really bad for rural hospitals.”

It’s all hands on deck for GOP leaders and Trump officials. On Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz joined Republican senators for their weekly policy lunch at the Capitol where each delivered the administration’s pitch.

“We do not believe that addressing the provider tax effort is going to influence the ability of hospitals to stay viable,” Oz told reporters. “The framework of addressing the legalized money laundering with state-directed payments and provider taxes must be in this bill, it should be in this bill.”

That’s news to Hawley, who said Trump hummed a different tune when they spoke earlier this week.

“We just discussed the big changes made by the Senate, and he said that he was also surprised by what the Senate had done,” Hawley said of his call with the president. “But I’m gonna leave that to him.”

Hawley says rural hospitals in his state are freaking out.

“This is like a crisis point. We’ve got 35 hospitals in Missouri that have fewer than 25 beds. These are really small hospitals, and they just feel they’re at a breaking point,” Hawley said.

“I'm open to any ideas about how we safeguard rural hospitals. That's my bottom line in this, I want to see rural hospitals safeguarded. There's nothing for rural hospitals, nothing but bad, nothing but pain for rural hospitals in this bill. I'm totally stunned by what they've chosen to do here. It is not at all what we have been discussing.”

Hawley’s fine with adding work requirements to Medicaid, but says he’s told party leaders he can’t back a measure that punishes rural hospitals. That’s why he was so surprised to see Senate GOP leaders get behind this new effort to cap state’s provider taxes.

“Ball’s in their court. I mean, I've met with them a billion times,” Hawley said. “They know where I stand on this.”

‘Artificial deadline’

On the other side of the great GOP divide are conservatives clamoring for steeper cuts than are in the House-passed measure, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates would add $2.8 trillion to the national debt over a decade.

With all Democrats opposed to Trump’s tax and spending priorities, Republicans only have three votes to spare. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) opposes the package because it includes raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, while Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and others from the far right of the party oppose the measure because it doesn’t cut spending enough.

Johnson wants GOP leaders to hit pause until after the recess.

“There's no way you can get this right by July Fourth, so I'm just suggesting we take all of July, let's properly define the problem. Then let's get serious about making this a much better bill,” Johnson told reporters.

“This is an artificial deadline. There's no reason to be trying to rush this. If we rush it, we're not going to get it as a good result. We won't.”

Senate Republican leaders behind the proposed Medicaid changes say they’re working with critics like Hawley to try and find an acceptable fix, even as they work to win over conservatives who want to cut even deeper.

“We think [the changes] rebalance the program in a way that provides the right incentives to cover the people who are supposed to be covered,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters after the weekly party lunch Tuesday.

“We continue to hear from members specifically on components or pieces of the bill they want to see modified or changed, and we are working through that.”

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Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) finally bowed to pressure on Tuesday and removed social media posts in which he appeared to mock the murder of a prominent Minnesota Democrat and her husband and the wounding of another state Democrat and his wife.

“I have deleted it,” Lee told Raw Story at the U.S. Capitol, as senators emerged from a briefing on safety and security in light of the Minneapolis shootings.

Lee said he deleted the post after “a good conversation with my friend Amy Klobuchar this morning,” referring to the senior Democratic senator from Minnesota, who spoke out on the issue.

“It was important to her that I take it down,” Lee said. “We're good friends. I took it down.”

Lee had previously avoided answering questions on the matter.

In Minneapolis on Saturday, Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman were shot dead and state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette Hoffman were wounded by a gunman who came to their homes, dressed as a police officer.

The suspect, Vance Luther Boelter, 57, was charged with murder. Law enforcement said Boelter visited other lawmakers’ homes and compiled a list of targets.

Boelter’s rightwing views and ties have been widely reported, including that he voted for Trump.

Nonetheless, in posts to X on Sunday, Lee wrote, "This is what happens when Marxists don't get their way,” and "Nightmare on Waltz Street,” the latter a misspelled reference to Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president last year.

Subjected to a barrage of disapproval, Lee was initially unrepentant.

Earlier on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said President Donald Trump should “demand that Mike Lee takes down his disgusting tweet on X about the Minnesota shootings.”

“I asked [Lee] to do it yesterday,” Schumer added. “Well, he wouldn't listen to me.”

Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) confronted Lee on Monday.

“Mostly, I think he was just sort of shocked to have me talking to him,” Smith said on Tuesday, adding that Lee “did not really seem sorry.”

On Tuesday afternoon, both posts had disappeared.

‘Nobody’s entirely safe’

The Senate continues to wrestle with Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” a package of spending and tax cuts, but on Tuesday the security briefing occupied minds. Asked if lawmakers felt safe in the Capitol and in their states after the Minneapolis shootings, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-SC) chose to be laconic.

“Nobody’s entirely safe,” he told Raw Story. “Everybody should be on guard. I am.”

Schumer was more passionate.

“When political opponents are treated like enemies, when leaders encourage the kind of protest that can lead to violence, it increases that violence,” the New Yorker told reporters.

“So it's the responsibility of all leaders, especially President Trump, to not just unequivocally condemn hatred, but to stop the violent and regressive language against political opponents.”

Trump has repeatedly abused Walz, when asked if he will offer support.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) accused Democrats of stoking hatred themselves.

“When they go out there publicly [and] say Republicans are limiting Social Security, limiting Medicaid, limiting benefits to Americans, they're fanning the hatred of Republicans,” Moreno told reporters, nodding to debate over the GOP spending measure.

“By the way, Chuck Schumer is the same guy that stood in front of the Supreme Court and said that the Supreme Court justices are going to see whatever they deserve.”

In 2020, Schumer said he regretted remarks about justices then viewed as likely to remove the federal right to abortion, but did not apologize.

Moreno said Schumer had “zero credibility on this topic. Zero. He's responsible for the vast majority of inflammatory rhetoric that comes from the other side of the aisle. And we both have to stop it. We both have to say, ‘Look, this is what you believe. This what we believe, and do it in a respectful way.’”

Moreno also claimed Democrats were “7,000 times” more responsible for escalating tensions, adding: “The Democrats have called Trump Hitler, a fascist authoritarian.”

Moreno accused reporters of lacking credibility on the issue. He did not note that Trump’s own vice president, JD Vance, famously called him “America’s Hitler.”

‘Attacks on democracy’

Schumer described “a dramatic increase in threats against senators, congressmen, public officials and throughout America.

“And these are not just attacks on individuals, but on democracy, on our way of life, on what we believe in, and an attempt to intimidate people not to do their jobs, not to run for office.

“It's gross, it's disgusting, we must take immediate steps to ensure the safety of members, and that includes increased funding for the Capitol Police. And there was agreement in our meeting between Democrats and Republicans that we ought to have that increased funding.”

Sen. John Hoeven (R–ND) told Raw Story his “biggest takeaway” from Tuesday’s briefing was that “the Senate has some funding to help … if [senators] want to put cameras or other security equipment in place.

“And beyond that, people can use … the dollars we raise, we can use that for security purposes too. So whether to go beyond that or not at this point, I don't know, and it was more just information about what happened, and what folks could do and those kinds of things.”

Raw Story asked if Hoeven thought threats to lawmakers were the result of heated rhetoric.

He said: “That's always part of it. Look, how do we keep the debate as a debate and not get to the point where people are going beyond just speech and expressing opinions, kind of take the temperature down on those. That's always an important part of this.

“And members obviously have to show leadership in that regard.”

Raw Story asked about charges that Trump is worsening tensions.

“You’ve got to separate the underlying logic of what he's saying versus, you know, the political,” Hoeven said. “In other words, sure, Democrats are going to say that because they're in the blue states, so they're going to say they have a different opinion.”

Trump’s decision to target Democratic-run cities for mass deportation of undocumented migrants, thus stoking angry protests, was just logical, Hoeven claimed.

“Actually, if you look at it, it's a statement of fact. I mean, in terms of where most of the illegal immigrants are, it's in those larger cities in the blue states, because they're sanctuary cities. So it's just basic logic, and [Democrats are] actually politicized.

“When they say, ‘Oh, he's making a political statement.’ Well, it's actually a logical statement. But regardless, there's going to be that back and forth. The key is you keep it within the realm of speech and not resorting to violence.”

Lambasting Republicans as “hypocrites,” Schumer highlighted law enforcement cuts.

“The Trump administration cut the … program aimed to spot lone wolf, [lone] actor violence, violent people, violent extremists,” Schumer said.

“Doesn't that sound exactly what happened in Minnesota? And they're cutting it. It's outrageous, but that's what they do.

“The last top officials at this program that aims to spot … violent domestic extremists were reassigned in the four months that Trump has [been in] office.

“His administration has shrunk the Department of Homeland Security Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, CP3 , from dozens of analysts to fewer than 10 people.

“So here with violence increasing, they are shrinking the number of law enforcement people aimed at trying to prevent that violence from ever occurring.

“Right now we need to give our law enforcement more, not less. It's just totally hypocritical of this administration.

“The dangerous environment isn't spontaneous, however, it's being stoked, often deliberately, by reckless rhetoric coming from some of the most powerful voices in the country.”

WASHINGTON — Democratic veterans in Congress accuse President Donald Trump of weakening the U.S. military by deploying soldiers in Los Angeles for political reasons.

Many Democrats also fear Trump’s deployment of 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines in California is just the beginning, especially because city and state leaders don’t want such forces on their streets.

“It's absolutely illegal, and a misuse of our military with the National Guard,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), an Army veteran, told Raw Story. “Bypassing the governor means that they're federalized. So that's a real problem.”

With the economic outlook still shaky amid Trump’s tariff war and with much of his agenda stalled as Senate Republicans overhaul the House-passed “One Big Beautiful Bill” package of cuts to tax and programs including Medicaid, Democrats are bracing for a summer of ICE-induced unrest.

‘Two hours of training’

To veterans like Duckworth, there’s no question that U.S. servicemembers can quell civil unrest. The question is, should they?

“Yes, they can do the job. Yes, Marines are perfectly fit, but … they get two hours of training annually on civil disobedience enforcement, yet Los Angeles police officers get 600 hours,” Duckworth said.

“So why are we putting people on the ground that have far less training than people who already know the area?”

One of a record nine female veterans serving in the 119th Congress, Duckworth, who lost both legs as an Illinois Army National Guard helicopter pilot in Iraq, says having heavily armed Marines patrol American streets will have repercussions both for the young soldiers and communities to which they deploy.

“I worry about what this is going to do to, you know, the mental health of our Marines who are being told, ‘You gotta now do this on American soil,’ and what is it gonna do for the trust of Americans for our Marines?” Duckworth said. “So I have some concerns.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is one of 13 former Marines in Congress. He fears deploying the military to quell protests against Trump’s mass deportation efforts will backfire — unless the goal is more unrest.

“I think it is unnecessary to use troops,” Blumenthal told Raw Story. “It is potentially dangerous and is inflammatory, rather than calming. And also a potential damage to civil rights.”

The president and his Republican allies argue Democratic governors, mayors and members of Congress are doing all they can to derail Trump’s deportation agenda, which is why they say federal forces are needed to protect ICE agents during immigration raids.

“We have law enforcement, we have National Guard to keep this nation and American citizens safe,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), a former chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told Raw Story.

“Unfortunately, you've got Democrat governors and mayors who apparently don't have much interest in keeping people safe. And you have Democrat politicians who are basically inciting the protests, which turn into violence.”

Democrats reject that charge. Some who came to Washington from state government are appalled to see the Trump administration interfere in local matters, which they say will have lasting consequences for National Guard forces.

“As a former mayor and governor, I spent a lot of time with the Guard, and it is a very finely crafted partnership of centuries between president, governors, Guardsmen and women,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told Raw Story.

“You screw it up and you start to use the Guard as a bludgeon rather than as a partner, the downstream effects of that are going to be very, very negative.”

Kaine sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, one of the most bipartisan panels on Capitol Hill.

“It's egregious overreach,” Kaine said. “And it is really essentially unprecedented for the president to do this, even with the Guard, without a request by the governor.”

Gavin Newsom, the California governor and a potential contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, has expressed strong opposition to Trump over events in LA.

Kaine continued: “In fact, Trump himself said [five] years ago he couldn't do this without a request by the governor, so to do it without a request and over the governor's objection … I think most people see it for what it is: it's a political snipe.”

“It seems to be testing the Supreme Court?” Raw Story pressed.

“It is,” Kaine said.

‘Retribution’

With Trump testing the bounds of presidential power, Democrats are bracing for him to deploy the military in other blue states.

“Oh, I think they'd like nothing better than to provoke confrontations around the country over immigration,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told Raw Story.

“I don't think it was necessary to send the Guard in [to LA]. Adding Marines to that seems nonsensical and an abuse of the military for the political agenda of the president.”

Schiff and others say Trump is not serving the people.

“Their tariff agenda is a failure,” Schiff said. “They've got internal divisions over their ‘great, big ugly bill’ and, certainly, what they're doing in LA indicates they have no interest in what the state or the city or the county or the public want.

“Their interest is inflaming people and provoking a confrontation.”

Veterans in the California delegation say it’s sad to watch the president play politics with the military.

“This is about retribution, it's about provocation and it's about distraction,” Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), a former Naval reservist, told reporters this week.

“It's about retribution, because Donald Trump does not like California. He doesn't like our policies. He does not like our politics.

“But you know what? That's okay, because clearly, based on the election, California does not like the narcissistic personality of Donald Trump, and we clearly do not like his politics.”

Candace Taggart contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Masked ICE agents are the mysterious and menacing face of the Trump administration’s mass deportation drive.

Increasingly alarmed, Democrats are trying to conduct oversight on the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and related offices.

But Republicans care a lot less. In exclusive interviews with 10 senior senators, Raw Story found many of the most senior GOP figures on relevant committees aren’t even thinking about migrants’ rights, let alone debating the issue.

Furthermore, some of President Donald Trump’s top allies say migrants don’t have rights at all.

“I’m for ICE agents wearing anything they want to protect themselves,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story while walking through the Capitol.

“Don’t American citizens deserve the right to know who's knocking on their door?” Raw Story pressed.

“No!” Tuberville replied, with a loud laugh. “Not when they're looking for illegals that's killing people.”

Never mind reports such as one from the American immigration Council that showed “immigrants have had lower incarceration rates than the U.S.-born for each of the last 150 years,” and concluded that “immigrants are 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated than those who were born in the United States.”

In Trump’s Washington, studies are less important than anecdotes, talking points are more prized than facts, and rhetoric parades as reality.

Among Capitol Hill conservatives, in the midst of Trump’s rush to hunt, detain and deport entire communities, no one’s debating due process.

Rather, some Republicans are fighting to enshrine ICE agents’ legally questionable ability to permanently hide their faces, rallying around errant accusations that Democrats and the press are “doxxing” such operatives.

Even as Senate Republicans debate what to do with the House-passed “One Big Beautiful Bill,” and the roughly $185 billion it allocates to mass deportation efforts, there’s little to no discussion about trying to exert even some of the authority the Constitution explicitly gives to Congress.

“What are your thoughts on ICE agents wearing masks here in America?” Raw Story asked Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the Senate Homeland Security Committee chair. “Do American citizens deserve to know who these agents are?”

“I don't have anything for you on that,” the self-described limited government libertarian dismissively replied.

Some Republicans defend ICE agents’ heavy-handed, secretive tactics. But that doesn’t mean they’re bothering to look into allegations that agents are running roughshod over the Constitution’s promise of due process for all.

“They should comply with the law — whatever that is on that — but we've got, you know, plainclothes police officers all the time,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story, while rushing to vote.

Hawley was attorney general of Missouri. He has no problem with ICE agents playing dress-up — dress-down, really — because local, state and federal law enforcement regularly work undercover.

“Sometimes they wore badges, sometimes they wouldn’t,” Hawley recalled.

‘Doxxing’ debate

Like many on the right, Hawley says his biggest concern is the safety of ICE agents, especially after the House minority leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) joined rank-and-file Democrats in calling for agents’ identities to be released.

“What’s outrageous is Hakeem Jeffries and others saying that we ought to doxx these agents,” said Hawley, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. “That's ridiculous.”

So ridiculous, it didn’t happen.

Doxxing means publishing someone’s private information, especially their home address, without consent. Responding to a question from Migrant Insider’s Pablo Manríquez, Jeffries called for the release of names of ICE agents, not addresses.

Jeffries was referring to agents accused of wrongfully detaining a staffer for Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), as well as agents in Newark, New Jersey who members of Congress say roughed them up last month.

Just last week, Democratic Newark Mayor Ras Baraka sued Interim New Jersey U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, once Trump’s personal lawyer, for falsely arresting him at an ICE facility in May.

Jeffries says the Constitution doesn’t just protect elected officials. He says everyone on U.S. soil has a right to know the identity of badge-waving — and especially badge-hiding — accusers.

“Every single ICE agent who’s engaged in this aggressive overreach and are trying to hide their identities from the American people will be unsuccessful in doing that,” Jeffries said.

“This is America. This is not the Soviet Union. We're not behind the Iron Curtain. This is not the 1930s and every single one of them, no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, will, of course, be identified.”

But Jeffries’ words are meeting the far-right messaging machine. While he never called for agents’ addresses to be released, you wouldn’t know that from listening to top Trump officials.

In the Republican-run Capitol, meanwhile, Trump officials’ talking points are treated as gospel.

Raw Story asked Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, if he had “any concerns over ICE agents wearing masks and sometimes not identifying themselves?”

“Not if the reports I've heard [are right], that they get doxxed, and their families are threatened,” Grassley replied.

“We've got to make sure that people that are hired to enforce the law can do it without harm to themselves,” added Grassley, 91 and president pro tempore of the Senate, third in line for the presidency, flanked by a large security detail.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), 91, chairs the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

“And if [masks are] what it takes, I've got no problem with it because I don't want people to be terrorized just because they're doing their job of enforcing the law.”

“It doesn't raise any due process concerns?” Raw Story pressed.

“I'll let the courts take care of that,” Grassley said.

Other Republicans want the Senate to take care of it.

Just last week, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) dropped a new anti-doxxing bill. The rumored 2026 gubernatorial candidate’s new measure, the Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act, makes doxxing federal agents illegal.

The fact no one has released the addresses of any ICE agents doesn’t matter, given few Republicans have even stopped to think about roving deportation squads of faceless agents knocking down doors and shattering windows.

“I hadn't thought about it,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who sits on the Homeland Security Committee, told Raw Story. “You want them to be safe, so if it's a safety issue, I completely understand it.”

“Don't American citizens have a right to know who's charging them?” Raw Story pressed.

“It's important for them to be clear who they are,” said Scott, a former Florida governor. “I don't know if it's important for them to know the exact person.”

‘Core concern’

Democrats are aghast.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told Raw Story there was a “long history in the United States of law enforcement having identifying badges with their names so that people can know who is carrying out an arrest, from what agency.”

Facing your accuser is central to the American justice system — or, at least, it was.

“It is a core due process concern if those who are facing arrest, detention, deportation, and their families, which in many cases includes American citizens, don't know what this is, who it is,” Coons said.

Coons fears heavy-handed ICE tactics will have repercussions in migrant communities.

“Trust between law enforcement and our communities is an important part of effective law enforcement,” Coons said. “Knowing that the person who's arresting someone or detaining someone is duly authorized is a key part of a system of order.”

It’s about more than masks. Coons argues checks and balances built into America’s legal system are being erased in real-time.

“Due process requires transparency, traceability and following court orders — all of those have been somewhat in play in recent months,” Coons said. “It's important that they be followed.”

Nonetheless, masked agents are central to the deportation debate.

After recent ICE raids across Virginia, its two Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, addressed what they called an “alarming and dangerous turn.”

On May 23, in a fiery three-page letter documenting ICE-related unrest nationwide, the two former governors lectured Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Deportation Czar Tom Homan and two ICE directors about the “unintended consequences” of secretive tactics.

“Such actions put everyone at risk – the targeted individuals, the ICE officers and agents, and bystanders who may misunderstand what is happening and may attempt to intervene,” Warner and Kaine wrote.

“We urge you to direct ICE officers and agents to promptly and clearly identify themselves as law enforcement officers conducting law enforcement actions when arresting subjects, and limit the use of face coverings during arrests and other enforcement.”

‘The fear’

Before Trump swept back into the White House, American policing had been bending slowly towards transparency, according to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a former state attorney general.

While many police forces and unions initially resisted body cameras, they’ve now become the norm in major cities.

“Even body cams are there to show the public that in fact [officers] behaved well,” Whitehouse said. “So I think that's the message [of ICE agents masking and operating without badges.] They intend to create a sort of image of creepiness and unaccountability, because that helps with the fear that they're trying to inculcate.”

That’s why Whitehouse and most other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are vehemently opposed to officers wearing masks.

“It's not consistent with the best traditions of American law enforcement,” Whitehouse told Raw Story. “It conjures unpleasant images. It runs contrary to the transparency that we customarily worked on, where people's name and badge number has to be visible.”

WASHINGTON – Dismissing President Donald Trump’s claim that preemptive pardons Joe Biden gave members of the House January 6 committee are invalid if Biden used an autopen to sign them, the senior Democrat who chaired that panel and received such a pardon doubted whether Trump himself signed all pardons he gave supporters who carried out the Capitol attack.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told Raw Story: “Ask him! Did he sign all 1,500 pardons?”

Trump and Republican allies claim aides to Biden used an autopen to sign documents as the then president was too old and infirm to wield a pen himself.

This week, Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate.

Democrats dismiss the move as political theater.

Thompson said: “It's just a distraction. The autopen has been around for a good while.”

Experts agree, and reporters have pointed out that presidential autopen use is long established, with Trump himself having used such devices.

Nonetheless, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer has subpoenaed Biden’s doctor for testimony on matters including “potentially unauthorized issuance of sweeping pardons and other executive actions,” suggesting drama to come.

Speaking to Raw Story, Thompson defended his decision to push for preemptive pardons.

“One of the reasons I was a public advocate for pardons is that I know what Trump and the people around him are capable of doing,” Thompson said.

“If we had not received a pardon, there's no question what we'd be faced with. And the members didn't deserve it, and the staff or the committee didn't deserve it.”

Thompson and his January 6 vice-chair, the former Republican Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, were among those who received the pre-emptive pardons Trump now wants to void.

The president and his allies also claim members of the bipartisan House committee destroyed evidence that did not support their view of the attack on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, which Trump incited as he tried to overturn his 2020 defeat by Biden.

Thompson told Raw Story: “All this stuff about, ‘Well, they did away with stuff and all that’ — where is it? So prove it. They can't. We went to great lengths to preserve everything consistent with what the law required.”

“I think the only thing left is to try to somehow discredit the process. You know, we were created by the House, charged with doing a job. We did it, our committee [closed], and that was it.”

The January 6 attack is linked to nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides.

It produced hundreds of convictions but after Trump returned to the White House this year he issued pardons and acts of clemency even for people convicted of violent offenses and crimes as serious as seditious conspiracy.

Thompson told Raw Story: “I think in America, when you see people break into this great building [the Capitol], some who pled guilty, others who went to court, and then you do a mass pardon saying they, in fact, were the victims — it's a sad commentary for democracy.”

Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress have refused to display a plaque made to commemorate police officers who defended the Capitol, including some who died after the riot.

Thompson said Republicans were “always talking about ‘Back the Blue,’ right? But a couple of [officers] lost their lives, 140-odd got hurt. A number of them had to go out on disability retirement.

“And so it's come to this. It all boils down to Trump’s stranglehold on the party.”

Trump has also stirred controversy by vowing to pay $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by an officer as she and other rioters tried to break into the House chamber.

“I was in there when she got shot,” Thompson said. “I was up in the gallery. And so this whole notion that, ‘I can break in, I can get shot, breaking the law, putting everybody at risk,’ and there’s a $5 million payment, for law enforcement doing their job?

“God knows, if they hadn't done their job, I don't know what would have happened.”

WASHINGTON – Democrats on Capitol Hill are nervously laughing off President Donald Trump’s so-called investigation into Joe Biden’s use of an autopen.

Prominent Democratic senators who spoke to Raw Story at the Capitol on Thursday dismissed the effort — passed through executive order and giving Attorney General Pam Bondi authority to launch a criminal probe — as a made-for TV “political stunt.”

“It’s a political stunt trying to change the narrative from tariffs that are gonna harm the economy,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“It’s a gigantic distraction and totally frivolous and unfounded,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the second-most senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Raw Story.

“They would be better advised to focus on problems that really matter to everyday Americans, like rising prices and threats to our economy from dumb moves like imposing across-the-board tariffs. It’s a political stunt.”

Biden’s use of an autopen to sign documents — from pardons to pieces of legislation — has become the subject of Republican conspiracy theories.

Riding the coattails of the new book Original Sin, by Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios, conservative pundits and far-right politicians are claiming Biden was too old to function properly as president.

Biden was 78 when he entered the White House in 2021, and 82 when he left office this year.

Trump, who turns 79 next week, has shared numerous conspiracy theories about the man who beat him in 2020.

Last week, Trump shared the objectively absurd claim that Biden was “executed in 2020” and replaced by “clones[,] doubles and robotic engineered soulless mindless entities.”

Compared to that, the autopen conspiracy theory is relatively mundane, holding that aides used the robotic device to sign documents and keep the government running because Biden was too old to keep up.

Republicans claim documents signed by autopen would be invalid, including pardons issued by Biden to family members and leading Democratic politicians, especially those who served on the House January 6 committee.

Experts, historians and journalists have repeatedly countered that presidential autopen use is long established and perfectly legal — as Trump would know, having used an autopen himself.

“I don't think there's a there there,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told Raw Story. “I think this is more of a political point.”

Coons has more reason to know than most. A close Biden ally, he holds the Senate seat Biden vacated to become President Barack Obama’s vice president in 2009. He has also served as an executive himself, in his home state.

“Broadly, governors, mayors [and] presidents should have and need to have processes that guarantee that the documents that are executed by them are, you know, duly reviewed and appropriately executed,” Coons said.

“When I was county executive, we used to have signing day once a month where I would sit down and sign a stack of a thousand documents. And I remember saying on several occasions, ‘Do I really need to personally sign every single one of these?’

“Anyone who's been an executive of any significant entity recognizes that the use of the approved, auditable use of an autopen is essential to carrying out the due functions of a large government. The number of things the U.S. president has to sign would boggle the imagination.”

Asked about Republican claims that then-First Lady Jill Biden really ran the government during much of Biden’s four years in the White House, Coons answered wryly.

“In the case of Edith Wilson, where the president was literally in a coma, yeah, that was true,” Coons said.

President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke while in office in 1919. Accounts of Wilson’s illness differ, but he is not thought to have fallen into a coma.

Coons said he was with Biden in his final days in office, and he says he was cogent.

“I had breakfast with President Biden the last Friday that he was in the White House and he was present, engaging, positive, clear,” Coons said — before admitting that at other moments Biden seemed his age.

“Did he have some bad moments in his last year as president? Like the debate? Yes.”

Biden’s catastrophic display against Trump in Atlanta last June ultimately precipitated his withdrawal as Democrats’ presidential nominee.

“But I've seen no evidence that he actually, at any point, wasn't fully capable of being president,” Coons said.

NOW READ: John Roberts has a lot to answer for

WASHINGTON — “I agree with Musk,” far-right Freedom Caucus member Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) told Raw Story on Wednesday, when asked about Elon Musk’s forceful opposition to Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” the package of tax and spending cuts the House sent to the Senate before Memorial Day — and for which Burlison voted.

Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire, is the world’s richest man. He left the Trump administration last week, after four months leading attempts to slash government budgets and spending through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

On Tuesday, Musk shocked Washington by turning on the Republican budget measure.

Slamming the “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill” as “a disgusting abomination”, Musk thundered: “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

On Wednesday, he added: "Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL."

Burlison, a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, cast his vote last month as the bill passed the House by the narrowest tally possible, 215-214.

Regardless, on Capitol Hill he told Raw Story: “I agree with Musk. I welcome his comments and his energy on this.

“We need more people like Elon Musk because being in the arena and being on the battlefield and fighting, that air cover is awesome.”

But many Republicans fear being strafed by Musk, who donated more than $250 million to Trump’s presidential campaign last year and is widely seen to be able to take out most any Republican who crosses him.

“We probably could have gained more ground in spending cuts if we had had [the bill] earlier, but at the end of the day, I welcome [Musk’s comments],” Burlison insisted. “I think it's awesome.”

The two-term Republican also offered an extended baseball metaphor, about why he voted for the bill.

“The best way that I described this bill is that we're 37 runs down, it's the bottom of the ninth, and the question is, do you bunt to get on first base? And you know what it's like, it's not gonna win the game, but you know what, like, I'm gonna take a bunt if that's all I can take.”

Other right-wingers who voted for the House bill now say they agree with Musk.

“I think he’s right,” Rep. Andy Ogles (R–TN) told Raw Story. “It's big, it's not quite beautiful yet. If the Senate makes additional cuts, it'll become beautiful.”

“When you voted, were you voting for an ‘abomination?’” Raw Story asked.

“His words not mine,” Ogles said. “What it does is, it really puts the pressure on the Senate to do more. So for him to criticize the product that's coming over, that gives the Senate ammunition to say, ‘Hey, we should fix this.’”

Other Republicans found themselves tied in knots, trying not to dump on their own work or Musk’s pointed words.

“We're gonna get through it,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) told Raw Story, puffing a stogie while walking across the Capitol grounds.

“We're gonna get through it. Everybody talks. A lot of people talk, not everybody's happy, but it's gonna be fine.”

Nehls insisted, “This isn't about Elon Musk. Elon Musk is one person, but I will tell you, you got 435 members in Congress, and the House passed it. Thin majority, but we got it done.”

Rep. Dan Meuser (R-PA), more of a moderate, said Musk had turned against the bill because he was “very frustrated” … because “he's a businessman. Trump's a businessman. They want to correct things fast.

“And in government, you can't do that. So, you know, [Musk’s] frustration bubbled over because he's acting like this is the last bill we're ever going to pass. This is four months into the administration. So this is a beginning.”

Where Burlison talked baseball, Meuser looked to football.

“We didn't score a touchdown on this play, but we did run the ball up field 25 yards, and it does have some savings. It's got the taxes, the border, the energy initiatives, everything else,” Meuser said. “So it's a big play, but it's not all of it.”

Meuser added that Musk “doesn’t understand Washington, he understands auditing. He understood what he was tasked with” through DOGE.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R–WI) dismissed questions about Musk, telling Raw Story that as “a retired Navy Seal Senior Chief,” he had “had about 50 of my friends killed in training and in combat since 9/11, and I broke my spine. That was painful. Somebody disagreeing with me politically is not.”

Asked if Musk’s intervention might complicate matters in the Senate, Van Orden said: “Dude, listen, I do me.

“I respect Elon Musk. The work he's done is just remarkable, but you know, his 130-day term as a special government employee has expired. Will he continue to give input? I sure hope so.”

Democrats seeking to highlight what they and independent analysts say the Big Beautiful Bill will mean for the national debt (a big increase) and Medicaid (severe cuts) looked on.

Of Musk, Rep. Mark Pocan (D–WI) told Raw Story: “To be fair, I've had Republicans tell me they didn't know what DOGE was up to. They didn't get any updates either.”

Pocan added: “Instead of letting an unelected billionaire and a bunch of outsiders make decisions as an extra-governmental organization, because that's kind of what DOGE has become … [we] should maybe have a bigger policy conversation.”

Back on the Republican side of the aisle, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), a leading Trump ally, pointed to the common absurdity of a House chamber which often twists members into human pretzels, pushed to vote first one way then the other, often opposing bills they recently supported.

“Anybody who comes to this place with a desire to do things that are logical gets frustrated very fast,” Donalds told Raw Story.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson need to back off — or so argue many Senate Republicans set on overhauling the House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would turn much of Trump's campaign rhetoric into law.

After the measure squeaked out of the House by a single vote ahead of the Memorial Day recess, GOP leaders and the president are pressuring Senate Republicans to pass the bill, complete with tax and spending cuts, by July 4.

“Do you think the current timeline is unrealistic?” Raw Story asked Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) at the Capitol.

“It is,” said Johnson, one of only a few Senate Republicans Trump has called this week.

Unrealistic or not, Republican leaders are barreling ahead to meet their own self-imposed timeline of ASAP, even as an increasing number of senators call for a better bill.

‘He wants no Medicaid cuts’

A handful of key Republicans are worried less about timelines than about the substance of the bill, a measure even Trump’s former “first buddy” Elon Musk now calls a “disgusting abomination."

The White House has pushed back, arguing the measure “delivers the largest deficit reduction in nearly 30 years.” But that’s not what analysts say, and it isn’t good enough for fiscal conservatives like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). He says raising the debt ceiling by $5 trillion as part of the package makes it impossible for him to swallow White House talking points.

“Well, have you ever seen the debt ceiling go up when we didn't reach the debt ceiling? So we will,” Paul told reporters this week. “It means we're going to borrow $5 trillion more, probably, presumably, next year. And so it means that they're calculating spending and the deficit accumulation goes on unabated.”

On Tuesday, President Trump lashed out.

“Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him. This is a BIG GROWTH BILL!”

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the House measure will add more than $2 trillion to budget deficits, while changes to Medicaid would result in millions losing health coverage.

Paul says that if the GOP is serious about getting federal spending under control, it must overhaul programs like Medicare and Social Security.

“If you take the entitlements off the table, which they’ve largely done, you cannot change the direction, cannot change the vast accumulation of debt,” Paul said.

Paul is far from alone. A growing number of Republicans are demanding steeper spending cuts.

Johnson, the Wisconsin senator, has been walking around the Capitol, using his phone to show reporters and fellow Republicans spending charts, arguing the House measure fails to bring federal spending back to pre-pandemic levels.

“I understand the challenges everybody faces, but we have to bend the deficit curve down,” Johnson told Raw Story, showing a chart. “We have to do that.”

While Paul wants the debt limit increase stripped out of the bill, Johnson advocates making it smaller, so Congress is forced to cut spending next year.

“Right now I'm hoping to convince President Trump that it's in his best interest — he wants to bring the deficit curve down as well — to just do a debt ceiling for a year to put pressure on the process, force us to come back and do another reconciliation and get more serious about all this stuff,” Johnson said. “If I can accomplish that, I think that would be pretty good.”

“Do you think there's political will in the GOP conference to cut the deficit?" Raw Story asked.

“You have to create it,” Johnson said.

Creating political will is hard, especially in this divided Washington.

The GOP is itself divided. Some Republicans are fighting House-passed Medicaid cuts.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), no one’s idea of a moderate, has spoken to Trump and says the president sided with him and other vocal opponents of cutting Medicaid.

“He reiterated that he wants no Medicaid benefit cuts,” Hawley told reporters. “I agree with him 100 percent."

Hawley is joined by the few remaining GOP centrists, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME), in vowing to oppose the Big Beautiful Bill if Medicaid cuts stay in.

‘Deep uncertainty’

Such GOP infighting is bolstering Democrats who cannot derail the bill without Republican assistance. Many highlight the hypocrisy enshrined in the Republican plan.

“It’s one of the most destructive pieces of legislation in the history of the USA,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) told Raw Story. “It’s a massive act of self-deception.

“Everything that traditionally Republicans stood for. Fiscal responsibility? Gone. Investment in the future? Gone. Rule of law? Gone. This will spread the pain universally. No one's spared.”

Democrats claim that message is resonating in battleground states.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) says his voters resent even the name of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“What I hear from my constituents does not include the word ‘beautiful,’” Kelly told Raw Story. “Nobody in Arizona has used that word with this legislation.”

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) just attended the Detroit Chamber of Commerce’s annual bipartisan conference on Mackinac Island.

“It was pretty much the only talk of the island,” Slotkin told Raw Story. ”All our business leaders, all our unions, energy companies, environmental folks, every elected official — Democratic, Republican.”

“What's the mood?” Raw Story pressed.

“Deep uncertainty, especially in manufacturing,” Slotkin said.

‘I’m a maybe’

With Republican senators demanding sweeping changes to the multi-trillion-dollar package, even some of Trump’s closest allies are still on the fence.

“I’m a maybe right now,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story. “Every day something will change. If people are going out there saying, ‘I'm for it’ or ‘I'm against it’, why would you do that? Too early.”

Speaker Johnson has urged Senate Republicans not to overhaul the measure, because with every tweak he risks losing support in his own divided conference.

To make it out of the Senate, the bill needs backing from 50 Senate Republicans, given Vice President JD Vance would break a tie. As of now, the votes aren’t there. Supporters say that’s to be expected.

“It's called negotiations. We're just negotiating,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) told Raw Story. “Everybody wants their fingerprints on it, but, at the end of the day, you’ve got to get 51 on the bill. That's what we're going to do.”

ALSO READ: The question no one is asking

WASHINGTON — As Elon Musk hits the exit from the Trump administration, the top Democrat on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) DOGE — Delivering Government Efficiency — Subcommittee is laughing off the billionaire as a “fraud” and “poser” who squandered his shot to streamline government.

“Turned out that literally everything Elon Musk said on TV was just bulls---” Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM), the ranking member on the DOGE panel, told Raw Story in an exclusive interview at the U.S. Capitol.

Stansbury also divulged secrets about her GOP counterpart, including a recent moment during a particularly tempestuous hearing when she felt the need to slide Greene a snack.

“I tried to slip her some Cheez-Its because I was like, ‘Maybe she's hangry?’” Stansbury said.

While she’s only on her third term in the House, Stansbury knows the ways of Washington from her time as a staffer on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President Barack Obama.

At OMB, Stransbury worked for the United States Digital Service — the federal technology unit Musk and President Donald Trump upended and renamed the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

After a federal judge granted Musk and his secretive DOGE team access to sensitive Treasury Department data this week, Stansbury is sounding the alarm, warning that as Musk leaves town, he’s likely taking Americans’ personal data with him.

Raw Story’s interview with Stansbury has been edited for length and clarity.

RS: How has it been for you sitting across from MTG on the DOGE subcommittee?

MS: “Uneventful. Well, I say that … She's actually fairly collegial to me. When I first decided to take this on, I went and met with her in her office with the committee staff, and it was southern hospitality. She was very nice, very warm and we agreed that we’d tried to do bipartisan stuff, and then it devolved into madness very quickly.

“We had a crazy hearing at the start of May where they were attacking trans athletes, and she was just so out of control. Later — that was the week she announced she wasn't running for Senate — I knew something was wrong with her that day, because she was acting so stressed out.”

RS: Interesting.

MS: “Even halfway through that hearing, I tried to slip her some Cheez-Its because I was like, ‘Maybe she's hangry?’ I'm like, ‘I don't know why she's acting this way.’

“The thing that's interesting about her, too, that I noticed, is that the media is so obsessed with her, it's like she could sneeze and it'd be front page news. Anything she does generates news.”

RS: Sometimes I let her walk past without interviewing her, just so she feels what it’s like to not have the spotlight on her.

MS: “I think the biggest takeaway is that I was skeptical that that committee was going to actually do real stuff in the beginning, and it devolved and unwound so catastrophically, so quickly. That last hearing on trans athletes was such a disaster for them. I still see Heritage Foundation affiliates trying to plant stories in the media and I’m like, ‘You guys f—d up. Sorry. You can't redeem yourselves.’”

RS: GOP leaders gave her the subcommittee because they wanted to placate her, right?

MS: “That I don't know … I could not tell you the inner workings of the Republican conference. It's an interesting ecosystem. In fact, right after the committee got created, I had a Republican member come to me on the floor and say, ‘Did you know that Marjorie didn't put any women on the committee?’ And I'm like, ‘Okay.’ There's a lot of dysfunction there.”

RS: Is it all men on there?

MS: “It is. I mean, reportedly, [House Oversight Committee Chair James] Comer told me this, she wanted the best members so she handpicked the seven men she wanted …

“At the beginning, I think they honestly all bought the hype of Elon Musk. I think they thought, like, ‘Oh, this guy is a tech guy, and he's so smart and he made all this money so he must be super smart.’ And the dude's just a bulls----- He had no idea what he was doing. And also, apparently he's an a-—hole too, so he's very difficult to work with. And then he started doing stuff that pissed off the cabinet secretaries and apparently all the West Wing people didn't like him, but he's a major donor so they couldn't push him out.”

RS: Do you communicate with him? MTG told me she communicates with him some.

MS: “The only communication I ever had from him is that he tweeted at me relentlessly for 24 hours, and I literally said to him on national television, ‘If you'd like to engage, you can come into our committee under oath.’”

RS: Yeah?

MS: “He never did.”

RS: Do you think Musk stepping out of the Trump White House and pulling back from political spending will change the dynamics of the DOGE subcommittee?

MS: “I've been around this place a long time, from when I was a staffer. People will parse their words, and what I heard Musk say was that he was going to do less donations. Does that mean he's gonna do less political activity? I don't think so. I think he stole that data, and I think he's gonna use it for his own fundraising.”

RS: Americans' private data?

MS: “Yes. Why wouldn't he? This is the thing, it's all indefensible. They're drunk on power right now. But this is one of their cardinal sins because it will come back and bite them, and it's going to bite them hard because they overplayed their hand.”

RS: With Musk on his way out, is that going to change the dynamics? Have you felt his presence in the subcommittee or is it MTG’s show?

MS: “The very first hearing was, if you accept their premise of the case, a legitimate hearing. They were like, ‘Let's look at improper payments in the Medicaid system.’ But now it's, like, completely decoupled, right? What they're doing to Medicaid has nothing to do with what they claimed they were gonna do, and it turned out that literally everything Elon Musk said on TV was just bulls-—-.”

RS: Does that make you feel like a pawn? Or are you and the other five Democrats — three men, two women — doing important work?

MS: “I'm a former OMB employee. I knew [Musk] was a fraud from the second I laid eyes on him. When he stood up that fake-a— Twitter account to show his receipts, I was like, ‘Do you know how to use Excel?’ For real, because that's how we put together budget spreadsheets and none of this adds up.

“I'm genuinely interested in making the government work better. My background is in the sciences and I'm really into big data. I actually helped stand up the U.S. digital program that DOGE took over. I was interested from its inception, and I helped set it up when I was at OMB.”

RS: Does it hurt to see DOGE upend it and claim it?

MS: “No. Again, I think they were so stupid — and by they, I would pin this on just the administration in general. Had they just spent six to nine months putting together a concrete plan, identifying what they wanted to end, how they wanted to restructure these agencies, and then brought it to Congress, they have a majority, they could have done it legally. But it was sloppy, stupid, uncoordinated and ineffective.”

RS: Musk admitted with a shrug on live TV they accidentally erased Ebola research funding!

MS: “Elon Musk's fall from grace publicly with the Republicans was after he tried to buy that Wisconsin judicial race. I think their bravado was that they could break everything and then buy their way out of it and then people start marching in the streets and they're like, ‘Oh, oops, I guess we broke it.’

“I think the big challenge will be what gets rebuilt and how. For me, again, because I am interested in the modernization of government coordination, I think that they've been so norm-breaking and destroyed so much, whereas the bureaucracy is incremental, right? Like, Congress passes a law to fix a problem. Then they pass another law to fix a different problem, and so the whole is not greater than the sum of the parts.

“It's just a bunch of random sh— that got tied together, and so does it create a new space to kind of wholesale rethink things in a modern way? I actually think it does, if we can ever find the time away from this insanity to do that.”

RS: That's where bringing AI and tech and streamlining government would come in?

MS: “Yes!”

RS: But it doesn't seem like they've done that — or have they, just in the background?

MS: “No. This is where I'm like, ‘They're idiots. Literally.’ I saw an interview where Musk was going on and on and on about how his DOGE people were at the Internal Revenue Service and, ‘They didn't even have the search button in a standardized location.’ It was like April 5, and he was like, ‘We couldn't even get an IT person to move a button on the web page.’

“I'm like, ‘No s--- Sherlock, it's tax season. You think they're gonna f--- with the federal IRS website as people are filing their taxes?’ That's just dumb.”

RS: So it was just that common sense was lacking?

MS: “Yeah. That's his idea of government efficiency. And so the thing to me that makes Elon Musk such a poser, he comes out of the tech bro world and those guys, what do they do? They figure out how to monetize a customer experience through mostly an app interface, right?”

RS: Yeah?

MS: “That's what he's selling. He's selling you an experience. And so, yeah, they could have just come in, which is actually what OMB’s digital service department was designed to do, to deal with the user interface. But he thought he was gonna transform it the way he did Tesla, right? Total overhaul and then put all the pieces back together, because he didn't understand the law and how the government worked and its vital functions.”

RS: Right.

MS: “I think if he had stuck to user interfaces and improving government websites, he probably could have built some cool stuff. But he did not. Instead, he broke everything, and then became the most unpopular modern political figure and got his feelings hurt.”

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

WASHINGTON – Veteran members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) say the Trump administration has moved from offensive to straight racist with its decision to welcome white South Africans as refugees.

Amid continuing controversy over President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration by people of color, one senior Black House Democrat lamented “the most blatant show of white supremacy in America in the history of the world.”

“It is a slap in the face to every African American and every person in this country who believes in the rule of law,” added Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL), ahead of Congress’ Memorial Day recess.

Afrikaners are the descendants of Dutch colonists who underpinned South Africa’s racist apartheid regime until 1994, when the African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison, became his country’s first Black president.

Now, the Trump administration claims Afrikaner farmers are the victims of government-sponsored genocide — claims Trump spewed live on TV last week in a widely decried Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Trump’s conspiratorial claims were rejected by Ramaphosa — and easily debunked.

A picture Trump claimed showed farmers being buried was from the Democratic Republic of Congo. An image Trump claimed showed “burial sites” of “over a thousand of white farmers” showed a memorial to one murdered couple.

One experienced observer, Dorothy Byrnes, a former head of news for the British TV network Channel 4, went viral when she told radio station LBC: “There is no genocide against Afrikaners, that was absolute drivel.”

Byrnes added: “Overwhelmingly, and this is covered, and I have covered it myself, the big problem of violence in South Africa inordinately affects Black people. South Africa has a terrible problem with violent crime, and the chief victims are Black people.”

Regardless, Trump plowed ahead.

“We're deporting thousands of people, and he's bringing in white Afrikaners who he says he's gonna uplift, get health insurance, get found jobs, resettle and housing,” Wilson said.

“I mean, what an insult, right? And also the foundation for his conspiracy theories, saying that there's this genocide happening, that is insane and none of it is true.

“I think that the way that he acted when the president of South Africa came, to try to embarrass … one of our African countries’ heads of state, was just an insult.”

Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO), a minister and former CBC chair, called Trump’s meeting with Ramaphosa “embarrassing.”

“He was set up,” Cleaver said of Ramaphosa, who followed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in enduring a White House harangue.

“You know, in some ways we should have known [Trump was] gonna do that when he met with African leaders,” Cleaver said.

“He's divisive in his spirit. And so I guess he can't help himself. I wonder who was orchestrating that stuff. Is it him, or is it Elon Musk?”

Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX mogul, is a Trump donor and adviser and attended the Ramaphosa meeting. A U.S. citizen, Musk was born in South Africa and has advanced claims of genocide against Afrikaners.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) had time for only a short word, as she rushed to a vote.

Trump’s Afrikaner policy was “Elon weirdo stuff,” the progressive phenom told Raw Story.

‘Stephen Miller probably came up with this’

On the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) told Raw Story Trump’s policy was simply another instance of his “burning our alliances, eroding if not totally compromising trust.”

“As long as he's on top, he’s the bully,” Welch said.

The Afrikaner policy is an example of Trump “changing inherent policies to pick who's going to vote for him,” said Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM.) “Rather than looking at policy, fixing the broken immigration policy and then let us all work towards finding these solutions and working together.”

Luján also said “the initial reaction and response that I've heard from constituents and from colleagues is a negative one. It just feels very overt. It's not a surprise coming from this administration but I would argue it's intentional. Stephen Miller probably came up with this.”

Miller is an immigration ultra-hardliner and one of Trump’s closest advisers.

Earlier this month, Miller told reporters “what's happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created. This is persecution based on a protected characteristic, in this case, race. This is race-based persecution.”

Miller claimed “a whole series of government policies specifically targets farmers and the white population in South Africa”, including “land expropriation.”

He added: “You even see government leaders chanting racial epithets and espousing racial violence.”

Miller said such policies and threats were “all very well documented.”

Experts disagree.

“The politicians quoted [as espousing racial violence] were not ANC politicians, one of them was a man who’d been specifically thrown out of the ANC and the other was an opponent of the ANC,” said Byrnes, the British expert.

The first 59 Afrikaner refugees arrived in the U.S. in mid-May. Before that, Miller predicted “a much larger-scale relocation effort, and so those numbers are going to increase.

“It takes a little while to set up a system and processes and procedures to begin a new refugee flow,” Miller said. “But we expect that the pace will increase.”

‘Against the ideals of our nation’

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) has emerged as a leading Democratic voice against Trump, notably through a record-breaking Senate speech in April, when he spent 25 hours highlighting Trump’s threat to the Constitution.

Speaking to Raw Story, Booker said the Afrikaner refugee policy was a dereliction of moral duty.

“Why, at a time of ungodly ethnic cleansing, like in places like Darfur and Sudan, are we not allowing in people that are escaping legitimate threats?” Booker asked. “Why are we making it harder for them to get in?

“So this is, to me, unconscionable. It's against the larger ideals of our nation. It's morally unacceptable.”

WASHINGTON — Democrats don’t know whether to scream, cry or celebrate — so they’re doing a little bit of each. After they sneak in a nap or two.

After months of negotiations, House lawmakers were forced to pull all-nighters before Republicans finally passed President Donald Trump’s budget measure, his “One Big Beautiful Bill,” early Thursday morning.

Now the hard part begins. Many Senate Republicans are demanding changes to the sweeping measure, which advances Trump’s priorities while cutting both taxes and spending on programs such as Medicaid. Democrats, meanwhile, are ready for battle — and say the GOP just gave them all the ammo they need.

“They have no idea,” Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) told Raw Story, pointing to the bill’s late-night negotiations and passage. “If you're doing something wrong, you don't want anybody to know about it, you want to do it quietly, you want to do it in secret, otherwise you're going to be held to account. They're going to be held to account on this.”

Throughout the night, congressional staffers pored over as much of the 1,000+ page bill as they could. Even committee chairs didn’t know if their amendments made the final bill or were stripped out in secret.

“These characters, they're writing the next campaign,” Garamendi said, pointing to midterm elections next year. “It is 50 districts that will be up [for grabs], maybe more. And in those districts, this bill has killer provisions. Big stuff. Medicaid, taxes are bad enough — and then we don't know all of it.”

‘Chairs don't read their own bills’

By 6:24am, when lawmakers voted on the final bill, the Capitol was more reminiscent of a frat house than the boring old chamber lawmakers know so well.

In public restrooms, aides brushed Cheetos-stained teeth. Lawmakers lounged about, in jeans or workout gear. Garbage cans overflowed with pizza boxes, cookie wrappers and crushed energy drink bottles. The caffeine stopped working at some point — most members were zombie-like.

“I’m hanging in, but struggling,” House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX) told Raw Story through a big yawn, just after midnight.

But on the outside at least, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) seemed energized, almost giddy.

“Mike Johnson was walking through the Capitol looking like a Cheshire Cat,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) told Raw Story on the steps outside, around 2 a.m. “Well, he always has a bit of a Cheshire Cat look to him, now that you say it, but it was more pronounced than usual.”

Rank-and-file lawmakers didn’t get to see — let alone read — the entire bill until around 9pm on Wednesday. Even powerful committee chairs scrambled to make sure verbal deals were enshrined in ink.

Raw Story asked Stansbury what she made of “the GOP corralling all their troops around this, and they’re still reading the bill, so they don't even know what's in it?”

“It doesn't surprise me, to be honest," the former Senate staffer said. "I can tell you that I sit on a few committees where the chairs don't read their own bills, so I was not surprised to see that many of the chairs can’t answer basic questions.”

Few if any lawmakers were able to truly digest the sweeping measure, but Democrats complained the bill had become a Trojan horse for culture wars Republicans are waging nationwide.

“Dozens, if not hundreds, of specific provisions on all of these super-conservative things — it ranges from abortion to education — goes on and on,” Garamendi said.

“It is a terrible piece of legislation. It may be the worst piece of legislation. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

‘A master of distraction’

Legislating can be dirty business. So Democrats aren’t banking on sympathy from voters.

“As much hay as we're going to make out of this … who really cares at the end of the day that we were here late and passed the bill?” Rep. John Larson (D-CT) told Raw Story, in the middle of the night.

Even though Democrats and their progressive base despise the Republican bill, they expect Trump to lean on senators until he’s sent a final measure to sign into law.

“He’s a master of distraction,” Larson said. “We don't give him enough credit, but you don't get to be president of the United States twice and not know a little bit about how to manipulate and how to get your message out. And he uses social media as effectively as anyone.”

Cracking the whip on reluctant Republicans could work in the short term but prove devastating to the GOP come next year’s midterms.

Some Democrats are having flashbacks to 2009, when then Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) forced the party to vote on an aggressive climate change measure.

In the 2010 midterms, party conservatives — so-called Blue Dog Democrats — were decimated, going from 54 members to a mere 28. There are now just 10 Blue Dogs. Parallels are being drawn.

“Are you having flashbacks to when Pelosi put the climate bill on the floor and then you lost all Blue Dogs forever?” Raw Story asked Larson.

“Yeah,” Larson said. “Oh, yeah.”

Pelosi ushered her climate measure through, 219-212. Her critics still lament that conservative Democrats walked the plank for her on a measure that never even got a vote in the Senate.

Speaker Johnson got his bill through 215-214, with two Republicans not voting and one voting present. Like Pelosi, he may not be smiling for long.

While Johnson is urging the Senate to pass the House measure as is, Republicans in the upper chamber laugh off the suggestion. Distrust is palpable.

“They have a dynamic over there that traditionally — historically, normally — is, like, structured but less conservative,” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) told Raw Story.

After months of House Republican infighting, the ball is in the Senate’s court.

‘This should be DOA’

A handful of Senate Republicans previously served in the House, but that doesn’t mean members of the two chambers chat regularly.

That even goes for someone like Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), a former mixed martial arts fighter who left the House just two years ago.

“We don't talk like we used to,” Higgins said, smirking. “He used to come to the gym, but now he's in the fancy gym over there.”

Differences are more than just gym-deep.

There’s deep distrust between some factions of the House Republican conference and their Senate counterparts, which is why many Republicans who just risked their necks passing Trump’s agenda packaged into one bill are nervous their work will be eviscerated, based on any senator’s whim.

Some Senate Republicans have extended olive branches, promising not to gut the 1,000-page House measure.

“We’re not going to overhaul it completely,” Mullin told Raw Story. “We're gonna take the bill and try to, maybe, repaint some of the interior walls for … the Senate, because we've got to put our fingerprints on it too.”

Tell that to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI). He says this week’s damning Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report — which found the House bill will increase the deficit by $3.8 trillion — proved he’s right to demand much steeper spending cuts.

Many Republicans distrust the CBO but Johnson says his “calculation” lines up with its independent assessment.

“Is that good enough for you?” Raw Story asked, of the GOP promise to cut the debt despite official arithmetic.

“Of course not,” Johnson said. “We should be reducing 10-year deficits, not keeping them solid and certainly not increasing them. This should be DOA [dead on arrival]. We shouldn’t be talking about this.”

NOW READ: How Republicans snuck hidden, last minute provisions into their horrendous budget bill