Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee forced through a bill that could effectively ban TikTok from all mobile devices in the U.S. despite united opposition from Democrats — a rare breakdown of congressional bipartisanship on the alleged threat posed by Chinese tech.

“Everybody knows what TikTok is,” committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said on Tuesday as the panel debated the fate of the popular Chinese-owned video app. “It’s too dangerous to be on our phones as members of Congress. In my judgment, it’s too dangerous to be on our children’s phones. That’s the whole point of this bill.”


The committee ultimately advanced McCaul’s DATA Act, H.R. 1153, on Wednesday morning by a vote of 24 to 16, with all Democrats voting no. The legislation would grant the president new authorities to ban foreign-owned applications, and would require the imposition of sanctions on companies with ties to TikTok or other Chinese-owned apps.

The vote came after a lengthy back-and-forth on Tuesday, with Republicans repeatedly shooting down Democratic amendments meant to rein in different parts of the legislation. In a brief interview with POLITICO on the sidelines of Tuesday’s markup, McCaul said he hoped the split wasn’t the start of a broader collapse of bipartisanship on issues related to Chinese tech.

Donald Trump is driving a wedge through the GOP over one of American politics’ thorniest issues: the future of Medicare and Social Security.

The former president’s attacks on potential GOP primary opponents, and his warning to party leaders to stay away from the popular entitlement programs in their push to cut spending, are cleaving Republicans at every level. Lawmakers who once backed entitlement overhauls are now openly at odds with colleagues who’d prefer to soften their positions before they face voters in 2024. And a GOP presidential race that’s a referendum on Trump himself is now also becoming one on Medicare and Social Security.

While the GOP once more actively pushed for changing both programs’ benefits, Trump has separated the party into two distinct camps as he attacks Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as a “wheelchair over the cliff kind of guy” for supporting a congressional budget that alters Medicare. Both Republican camps and even some Democrats agree that Trump’s moves are politically effective. But some GOP members are angry to see their party freshly divided over fiscal austerity.

“It got him elected the first time, and I think it will get him elected the second time,” Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Budget Committee’s top Republican, said of Trump’s rhetoric. “But it doesn’t do anything for our children and grandchildren that aren’t going to have a program that I’m enjoying right now.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/01/trump-gop-medicare-social-security-00084845

A bipartisan group led by Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, and Bill Cassidy, R-La. is considering gradually raising the retirement age to about 70 as part of their legislation to overhaul Social Security, Semafor has learned from two people briefed on their efforts.

Other options on the table include changing the existing formula that calculates monthly benefits from one based on a worker’s average earnings over 35 years to a different formula that’s based instead on the number of years spent working and paying into Social Security.

The plan also includes a proposed sovereign wealth fund (as previously reported by Semafor) that could be seeded with $1.5 trillion or more in borrowed money to jumpstart stock investments, the people said. If it fails to generate an 8% return, both the maximum taxable income and the payroll tax rate would be increased to ensure Social Security stays on track to be solvent another 75 years.

“This is an example of two leaders trying to find a solution to a clear and foreseeable danger,” Cassidy and King spokespeople told Semafor in a statement. “Although the final framework is still taking shape, there are no cuts for Americans currently receiving Social Security benefits in our plan. Indeed, many will receive additional benefits.”

CHICAGO (AP) — Paul Vallas, the former schools CEO endorsed by the Chicago police union, advanced to a two-candidate runoff for Chicago mayor on Tuesday. His rival in a bid to unseat Mayor Lori Lightfoot had not yet been decided.

Lightfoot, the first Black woman and first openly gay person to lead the city, was still vying to make the April 4 runoff for a second term. Among her top opponents were Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, and U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.

Vallas served as an adviser to the Fraternal Order of Police during its negotiations with Lightfoot’s administration. He has called for adding hundreds of police officers to patrol the city, saying crime is out of control and morale among officers has sunk to a new low during Lightfoot’s tenure.

Lightfoot has criticized Vallas as too conservative for Chicago and for welcoming support from the police union’s controversial leader, who defended the Jan. 6 insurrectionists at the Capitol and equated Lightfoot’s vaccine mandate for city workers to the Holocaust.

Paul Vallas
93,204
36.3%

Brandon Johnson
50,499
19.7%

Lori Lightfoot
40,473
15.8%

Jesus Garcia
35,949
14.0%

The hospitalization of Sen. John Fetterman for depression raises a host of questions. Of course our first reaction is to convey good wishes for a speedy recovery and acknowledge that mental health issues are as real as physical problems. Indeed, to appreciate the often-concealed suffering associated with such disease, one need only read the heart-stopping book, “Invisible Storm: A Soldier’s Memoir of Politics” by Jason Kander, the former Missouri Secretary of State and U.S. Senate candidate who dropped out of a sure-win Kansas City mayoral race when he finally recognized that his depression and PTSD had made his life unbearable. Fortunately we are a far cry from Sen. Tom Eagleton’s experience of being removed as George McGovern’s vice presidential running mate in 1972 when it was discovered that he had gotten electroshock treatment for depression. (By the way, after several years of therapy, Kander seems to be doing pretty well.)

Beyond any sympathy or empathy one might feel for the Pennsylvania senator is his hospitalization’s political impact. Aside from the fact that his constituents’ needs are being temporarily unmet by him (though I am sure his staff is working 24/7), there is the issue of whether his absence imperils the majority’s effectiveness in the Senate. After all, neither Fetterman nor his physicians can predict how long he will be away from Washington. The good news is that the Democrats have a two-vote edge, so his course of treatment does not deprive them of a majority. But life being as unpredictable as it is, the majority party is only one heartbeat away from an evenly split Senate. Although Vice President Kamala Harris could then cast a tie-breaking vote, that would depend on Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s being able to count on his full caucus (remember Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema?).

Unfortunately, Fetterman’s situation is neither new nor unique: Sen. Tim Johnson from South Dakota was out for eight months after suffering a brain hemorrhage in 2006; Sen. Ben Ray Lujan from New Mexico had a stroke in 2022 and it took him a few months to recover; and former Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy checked into the hospital last year when the Senate was 50-50. These are just a few of the recent examples. And, in that the Senate does not allow proxy voting (unlike the House during the pandemic), all members need to show up. John McCain, battling brain cancer at the time, had to appear personally in the Senate chamber to save Obamacare.

It is surprising that there is no current remedy. In an effort to jumpstart a discussion, however, I offer the following suggestion. A state should enact a statute that allows an ill senator to resign and have the governor appoint a temporary replacement. (Forty-six states already permit a governor to appoint an interim senator when there is a vacancy.) And once the senator recovers, the place-holder would resign and the governor would appoint the original senator to the seat. To make this work politically, the law would have to require the temporary senator to be of the same party as the ill senator. (Six states already compel governors to fill a Senate vacancy with someone of the same party.) Obviously all parties would have to act in good faith, and there would need to be structural safeguards to facilitate the process. In this regard I take my cue from the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as it relates to an incapacitated president.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday defended his decision to give conservative TV host Tucker Carlson access to roughly 40,000 hours of security footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, telling reporters that the footage will soon be released broadly and that his office is taking measures to address concerns about security risks.

“It almost seems like the press is jealous,” McCarthy said in a one-on-one interview with The Washington Post. “And that’s interesting because every person in the press works off exclusives on certain things.

“People like exclusives, and Tucker is someone that’s been asking for it,” said McCarthy, who characterized Carlson’s style of journalism as “opinion,” not news. “So I let him come in and see it, but everyone’s gonna get it.”

McCarthy has avoided repeated questions from reporters about his agreement with Carlson since the Fox News host announced last week that his team had access to security footage. Several media organizations, including The Washington Post, sent letters to McCarthy requesting the same access and raising concerns “that an ideologically based narrative of an already polarizing event will take hold in the public consciousness.”