Free Republic

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted twice to convict former President Trump on impeachment charges, is ruling out voting for Trump in 2024, citing a court’s finding that the former president sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s. Romney’s announcement that he won’t vote for Trump isn’t surprising. But it does show him sharpening his rhetoric against the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination by saying the reason for his opposition is a Manhattan jury’s finding last year that Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll, awarding her $5 million in damages. A New...

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2-ranking Senate Democrat, called on embattled Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to resign Wednesday. Durbin had declined to call for Menedez to step down during a television interview Sunday but he changed course Wednesday after 22 Senate Democrats called for Menendez to leave office. “Leaders in New Jersey, including the Governor and my Senate colleague Cory Booker, have made it clear that Sen. Menendez can no longer serve. He should step down,” Durbin wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Republican senators say they’re worried that conservative populism, though always a part of the GOP, is beginning to take over the party, becoming more radical and threatening to cause them significant political problems heading into the 2024 election. GOP senators are saying they’re being increasingly confronted by constituents who buy into discredited conspiracy theories such as the claim that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election or that federal agents incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Growing distrust with government institutions, from the FBI, CIA and Department of Justice to the Centers for Disease Control and National...

Senior Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are raising concerns about what role Trump-appointed federal judge Aileen Cannon will have in handling the case the Department of Justice is bringing against former President Trump. Cannon, a member of the conservative Federalist Society who was confirmed to sit on the district court for the Southern District of Florida shortly after the 2020 election, made headlines last year when she ruled that an independent arbiter must review the 13,000 government records seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in August. Her decision was later struck down by a three-judge panel made up from members...

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Republicans shouldn’t have let Democrats confirm so many Biden nominees to the federal courts when the Senate was evenly split during Biden’s first two years in office. “The truth is the leadership squandered a 50-50 Senate. They could have at the committee level made a major push to vote together and to stop at least the circuit court nominees. Every single one of them would have required a discharge petition. We didn’t do that,” Hawley told The Hill. “There was no concerted effort made whatsoever,” he added. “Say what...

Tensions between Elon Musk and Senate Democrats are heating up ahead of former President Trump’s expected return to Twitter, which comes amid reports that the popular social media platform has seen a rise in hate speech since Musk’s takeover last year. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is raising concerns about Twitter’s opaque financing and whether foreign interests could gain enough influence over the “digital town square” ahead of the 2024 election to pose a national security threat. Musk, anticipating more criticism from Democratic lawmakers, on Wednesday predicted the Biden administration “may try to weaponize federal agencies against Twitter.” ...

Senate Republicans who want to move on from Donald Trump are smelling blood after a series of self-destructive errors by the former president that they think is opening the door for GOP rivals to challenge and defeat him in a 2024 presidential primary. The GOP lawmakers say Trump looks increasingly vulnerable in a primary after what they describe as his erratic behavior in recent weeks, which has raised new doubts about his ability to beat President Biden or any other Democrat in a general election. Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said Trump’s most recent self-inflicted wound — in which...

Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) are emerging as the new champions of conservative populism at a time when many Republicans think former President Trump’s grip on the party is slipping. All three GOP senators voted with almost the entire Senate Democratic caucus to give seven days of paid sick leave to 115,000 rail workers who threatened to go on strike because of an impasse in labor negotiations. Trump touted a new brand of Republican populism that brought many first-time voters to the polls for the 2016 presidential election and helped him stun political experts...

Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) side deal with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to enact permitting reform before the end of the year is on life support as Republicans look to deprive the lawmaker of a major victory that could aid his potential 2024 reelection. Manchin is in discussions with GOP colleagues about striking a deal on permitting reform in the lame-duck session, but Republicans say it faces an uphill path as they view his West Virginia Senate seat as a top pickup opportunity in the next election. “It’s a heavy lift but we’re still exchanging ideas,” said Sen. Shelley...

Republican aides and strategists privately expect Attorney General Merrick Garland to pursue an indictment of former President Trump within 60 to 90 days after Election Day, predicting the window for prosecuting Trump will close once the 2024 presidential campaign gains momentum. Republican aides on Capitol Hill and veteran party strategists emphasize they don’t have any inside information on what Garland might do, but they say the attorney general is under heavy pressure from Democrats to act and the deadline for pursuing an indictment is fast approaching. GOP aides also warn that an indictment of Trump by the Biden administration would...

Sen. Ben Sasse’s (R-Neb.) expected retirement from the Senate is the latest sign that is it harder to be a Republican critic of former President Trump in Congress than a loyal ally. Sasse is one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict former President Trump last year during his impeachment trial over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He’s the third to retire. The Nebraskan senator not that long ago was also seen as a rising star in his party and a possible presidential candidate. But that possibility seemed more and more faint as Sasse’s opposition to...

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D) announced Tuesday morning that he will vote against a motion to begin debate on Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) permitting reform bill, dealing a blow to Manchin’s hopes of passing the measure. Kaine said he will vote against a motion to proceed to a legislative vehicle that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to use to advance a short-term government funding measure and Manchin’s permitting reform legislation.

The damaging revelations of the Jan. 6 committee hearings are fueling skepticism among Senate Republicans that former President Trump can win the GOP nomination in 2024 or even run for another term in the White House. One Republican senator, who requested anonymity to comment on the former president, said the “cascade” of embarrassing details about Trump’s conduct in the weeks before Jan. 6, 2021, and during the attack on the U.S. Capitol will seriously damage his political viability ahead of the 2024 election.

Former President Trump’s plans to announce his 2024 presidential campaign as early as this summer, well before what he previously indicated, throws a wrench into Republicans’ strategy for winning back the Senate and House majorities in November. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made clear they want the 2022 midterms to be a referendum on President Biden and his handling of inflation and the economy.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who famously refused to give the last Democratic Supreme Court nominee a Senate hearing or vote, on Thursday said he’s ready to give President Biden’s pick to the high court “a fair look.” While some conservatives are already taking shots at Biden for pledging to consider only a Black woman to replace retiring liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, McConnell is keeping his powder dry until the nominee is known.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), a leading Senate advocate for supporting Ukraine’s war against Russia, crossed into Ukraine Sunday and called on the Biden administration to step up its shipments of artillery. Portman announced his visit while at the Ukraine-Moldova border crossing at Palanca. “I also had the opportunity to speak with several Ukrainians crossing the border and hear about their concerns about what Russia was doing to their country,” he tweeted.

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a bill to create domestic terrorism offices within federal law enforcement agencies in response to a mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., that left 10 people dead. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) framed the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act as an opportunity to vote on Republican and Democratic amendments to curb gun violence, but his plea for GOP support to begin the debate fell flat with Republican colleagues. “The bill is so important because the mass shooting in Buffalo was an act of domestic terrorism. We need to call it what it is, domestic terrorism. It...

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday slammed Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for delaying a $40 billion Ukraine aid package by one week, calling the move “repugnant” and predicting the legislation will pass the Senate Thursday. “This should already have been done and over with, but it is repugnant that one member of the other side, the junior senator from Kentucky, chose to make a show and obstruct Ukraine funding,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “For Sen. Paul to delay it for purely political motives is to strengthen Putin’s hand,” he added, noting, “the vast majority of Republicans...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday grew increasingly combative in his line of questioning of Ketanji Brown Jackson, asking President Biden's Supreme Court nominee about her religious faith, her defense of Guantánamo Bay prisoners and whether she was aware of what he said were left-wing attacks on his preferred nominee to the court. Graham has been seen as a swing GOP vote on Jackson given his support for previous Democratic judicial nominees, but he has signaled he is likely to vote "no" on this nomination.

Tensions that flared between Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) during the debt ceiling standoff revealed the two leaders’ differing styles and personalities and raised questions about their relationship going forward. The main source of division between the two top Republicans in Congress is their contrasting relationships with former President Trump, whose day-to-day comments on events in Washington have a major influence over the GOP. Trump called on Republican lawmakers to pull out all the stops to oppose raising the nation’s debt limit — even though it would have risked a federal credit...