According to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rick Scott (R-FL) have been kicked off the Senate Commerce Committee. He claimed it was not payback for criticizing his leadership the previous year. Republicans have term limits for members of the Commerce Committee, according to McConnell, who said Scott had a two-year temporary appointment to the committee.
“He could have carried on the trade by exchanging one of his standing committees for it. He was in temporary charge,” McConnell said of Scott. “Others were interested, so I presented it to two other senators. There is no specific revenge plan. I have absolutely no ill will against Rick Scott.”
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According to McConnell, Scott could have chosen commerce as one of his two primary committee assignments. Scott insisted that McConnell texted him to inform him of his ouster from the committee and, in an earlier statement, said, “That’s what happens when you face leadership.”
“It was McConnell’s choice to remove from a committee that I’ve been on for four years as a person who has really led the initiative and run the third largest state. You have to ask him why.
“Well, that’s not right,” McConnell responded when McCallum informed him that the Florida senator blamed the expulsion on retaliation.
Sense. Cynthia Loomis (R-AL) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) were given two Commerce Committee posts available by McConnell (R-WY).
As House Republicans passed the legislation, the minority leader criticized the Senate for “essentially doing nothing” for a month.
Therefore, McConnell said, “I’m interested in what Sen. Schumer might have in mind for us to accomplish.”
McConnell said he was “on board” with spending cuts in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling, which the U.S. hit earlier this year.
“Actually, Joe Biden and I got it done in 2011. To deal with my party and me as the leader of the Senate, the president appointed him,” McConnell said of the negotiations surrounding the budget control legislation, the result of which he claimed had dragged on since the Korean War. The budget was cut in the first two years.
The president is aware that McConnell has a track record of negotiating the debt ceiling, McConnell continued. Therefore, I believe what the Speaker is asking him to do is reasonable and undoubtedly within the bounds of precedent.
At 9pm EST on Tuesday, President Joe Biden will deliver his State of the Union address – his first address to the Republican House majority. Immigration, Ukraine, police reform, and even a comment on the success of the Chinese spy balloon shooting are some of the topics expected to be discussed.
Chinese surveillance balloons “made brief transits over the continental United States at least three times under the last administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never this time,” a senior defense official told reporters on Saturday.
McCallum also brought up reports of 10 sightings of Chinese spies on flights, including six allegedly made under the Trump administration and four under Biden. McConnell commented, however, that he believes people should pay less attention to past events.
“I’m a member of the Gang of Eight, see. One in eight individuals with access to nearly all intelligence-related information. I was completely unaware of this,” McConnell said. “Let’s focus on what actually happened last week, regardless of whether we were aware of it in the past.”
McConnell continued, saying it’s just one more item that will add to people’s ambivalence about the Biden administration.
According to McConnell only 13% of Americans believed that the State of the Union was strong.
The American people realize that this weak response and actions like our hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 are not doing well for the country.
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