‘What Are We Doing Here?’ A Plaintive Cry From A House Republican Hostage

Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕

“What are we doing here? I don’t quite get this.”

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), sitting around a House Rules subcommittee table with the other poor schlubs left breathing in their colleagues’ jet fumes Friday, sounded tired, vexed, done.

He asked around the room, questioning whether any of his colleagues had extracted promises from their Senate counterparts that the appropriations bills they were debating would pass the upper chamber. The answer was resoundingly negative.

“Why aren’t we negotiating bills that can actually make it to the President’s desk and get signed into law?” he asked.

It was the capstone of a hectic, messy, cacophonous week in Congress, when the House’s utter implosion — including an incredibly rare twice-failed procedural votes — has left the country barreling towards a shutdown. 

With the right flank of the House Republican caucus in full revolt against seemingly any short-term funding bill, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has decided to follow the plan of, amazingly, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), and try to pass individual appropriations bills. That’s a much harder legislative lift than passing the short-term bill, and the spending bills will have a tough time just passing in the House. They certainly won’t all pass before the government shutters next weekend. And even if they miraculously do, as McGovern pointed out in a deadpan, they’re dead on arrival in the Senate.  

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has made moves in the meantime to originate a continuing resolution in the Senate. Even if the Senate can pull it off in time, McCarthy will have immense difficulty limiting defections from the burn-it-all-down caucus.

The mood on the Hill this week was grim. Democrats, and lots of Republicans, are incredibly steamed at the far-right members near openly rooting for a shutdown.

The only way to avert a shutdown — or, as is becoming increasingly likely, to end it — is the non-career obstructionist House Republicans joining with House Democrats to pass a CR that can actually survive the Senate. Such a compromise would put McCarthy’s gavel at risk, likely why he’s avoided that pathway so far.  

“The House and the Senate have to sign off on a budget to keep the government open,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told me as she jogged to a vote Thursday. “That means a handful of Republican extremists are now running the world in Washington.

— Kate Riga

Mayoral Candidate Charged With Role In Jan. 6 Insists He’s Just ‘A Regular Guy’ 

Gino DiGiovanni Jr. is ready to put Jan. 6 behind him. The Republican mayoral candidate in Derby, Connecticut is facing federal charges for trespassing in the U.S. Capitol that day, but he’s hoping voters will see beyond that.

“The people in Derby have known me all my life. They know the type of person I am. They know the character that I carry,” DiGiovanni said in an interview with TPM. “Everybody wants to just talk about Jan. 6 all day every day and the voters know where I’m coming from.”

We’ve covered other aspiring Republican politicians and right wing influencers who are attempting to capitalize on their involvement in Jan. 6 and the associated efforts to overturn former President Trump’s 2020 loss. DiGiovanni is a different breed. While he admitted to joining the crowds who broke into the U.S. Capitol as the presidential vote was being certified, DiGiovanni has tried to distance himself from the conspiracy theories and violence associated with the efforts to overturn the election. Instead, DiGiovanni has tried to characterize himself as something of an unwitting bystander.

“People say, ‘How could you have gone to an insurrection?’ And I say to them, ‘I didn’t go to an insurrection,’” DiGiovanni explained.

DiGiovanni’s opponents in the Derby mayor’s race have largely refrained from attacking him over his role in Jan. 6. His lawyer, who indicated he plans to plead not guilty, described him as a “patriot.” However, as we noted in our piece on his unusual campaign, some of DiGiovanni’s claims about not even witnessing any violence or vandalism that day simply don’t add up.

“That one day shouldn’t define anybody. Well, let me rephrase that, because obviously there’s people that have been arrested for beating people up and doing things. I mean, I understand things that are getting charged,” DiGiovanni said. “I’m saying for my unique case, I didn’t go there for … nefarious purposes.”

— Hunter Walker

Gold Bars Menendez

Robert Menendez is 69 years old. He’s at the pinnacle of his political career, rising into one of the country’s most exclusive political clubs (the Senate). He’s already fended off one federal corruption indictment while there.

What makes the new allegations more confusing is that, per the indictment unsealed Friday, it’s not clear that Menendez took the bribes in a form where he could at least have enjoyed the results. Some things, yes: he and his wife allegedly received a Mercedes-Benz convertible and a recliner from the alleged bribers. But much of the proceeds from his alleged corruption weren’t immediately usable. Gold bars, for example. Nadine, his wife, was only able to cash in a measly two gold bars — a transaction which prosecutors picked up. The rest of them were left to gleam in the Menendez home until the FBI seized them.

The same goes for cash. A man like Menendez isn’t paying for cars, homes, or fancy meals with briefcases full of cash. But you can’t bank a bribe of the kind the senator allegedly took. In the indictment, he seems to have literally used the bills as insulation, stuffing jackets embroidered with his name with payola. But what gives? If not for material benefit, was he simply in it for the love of the game?

— Josh Kovensky

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“If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week.”

That’s a tweet from Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) who was this week’s public enemy number one for the GOP. Republican lawmakers (and a certain Democrat I shan’t name who seems to be feeling his irrelevance) came at Fetterman for his outfit choices, criticizing the fact that he dons shorts and hoodies around the Senate. When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) officially told the Senate sergeant-at-arms not to enforce the jacket-and-tie dress code on the Senate floor this week, Fetterman was assumed to be the intended beneficiary.

The attacks, of course, created the perfect opportunity for the witty senator to point out the questionable priorities of his Republican colleagues — who are leading the country straight into a shutdown amid their chaotic infighting.

BONUS: In a separate tweet, Fetterman hit back at MTG, who was among his sartorial critics.

“Thankfully, the nation’s lower chamber lives by a higher code of conduct: displaying ding-a-ling pics in public hearings,” Fetterman tweeted, referring to the House hearing where MTG showed nude pictures of Hunter Biden.

— Emine Yücel