Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who served in political office in California for more than two decades, died suddenly at age 65, House leaders said.
While addressing the ongoing debate about Obamacare subsidies in Congress, Trump urged House Republicans to be “a little flexible” when it comes to the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for most abortions.
“You have to be a little flexible on Hyde, you know that. You got to be a little flexible,” Trump said at the Kennedy Center. “You’ve got to use ingenuity. You’ve got to work. We’re all big fans of everything.”
Senate Republicans had said last fall that they were open to extending Obamacare subsidies, but only if Democrats agreed to abortion restrictions on insurance plans.
During his remarks to House Republicans, Trump reiterated his argument of making direct payments to people’s health care accounts to pay for rising medical costs, as opposed to having Affordable Care Act subsidies go to insurance companies.
“Let the money go in a health care account, however you do it. Let the money go directly to the people,” he told House Republicans.
The House is expected to vote this week on a three-year extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, with a final passage vote planned for Thursday, a Democratic leadership aide said yesterday.
Trump has opposed extending the tax credits.
Trump urged House Republicans to win the midterm elections or he said he would be impeached by Democratic lawmakers.
“You got to win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump warned. “I’ll get impeached.”
Trump is the only president to have been impeached twice.
The president spoke to House Republicans at their policy retreat for more than one hour, touching on an array of subjects, including tax and health care policy, transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports, the border and crime.
Trump touted his administration’s law enforcement take-over of Washington, D.C., over the summer during his remarks to House Republicans, including a false claim that there have been no murders in D.C. in the last seven months.
“You know, we would have on average two murders a week in Washington,” Trump said.
“I don’t even like talking about it. Two murders a week in Washington,” he added. “We haven’t had one in seven months.”
Crime data from the Metropolitan Police Department shows there have been about 59 homicides during that time period. In addition, a National Guard member from West Virginia was killed and another was wounded in the capital in a shooting in November.
The number of homicides is significantly down, however, from the same period during the previous year, as are cases of assaults with dangerous weapons and robberies, according to the police department data.
Reached for comment, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson didn’t address the discrepancy, but said, “After years of DC’s crime problem being ignored by local Democrats, President Trump finally stepped in to do what everyone else refused to: Make DC Safe Again. Despite unrelenting opposition and criticism from local and national Democrats, President Trump’s efforts have objectively made DC safer for residents and visitors.”
Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins again dismissed Republican hopes for a redrawn congressional map in the state yesterday after lawmakers declined to call a special session to address redistricting last fall.
“We don’t have the votes,” Hawkins said in an interview with the Sunflower State Journal on Monday. “We’re a long ways away from the votes.”
Republicans control both chambers of the Kansas Legislature, but they would likely need two-thirds support for a new map to override a potential veto from Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.
“I have always said that if we can’t pass something big like that, why have the vote. And that’s my position” Hawkins said. “I’m a long ways off from being able to pass it.”
Republicans control three of Kansas’ four congressional districts.
Trump and national Republicans have pressured state lawmakers around the country to pursue mid-decade redistricting efforts to help the party shore up its narrow House majority in this year’s midterms. They were dealt a setback last month with Indiana Republicans voted down a redrawn map.
On the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6, Trump made the false claim during his remarks at the Kennedy Center that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged.”
“The election was rigged. You ought to have voter ID. You ought to insist on it,” Trump told the House Republican Conference at their annual retreat.
“We got to straighten this out before it gets too crazy,” he said, adding that the country needs voter ID laws.
“When somebody says, ‘No, we don’t want voter ID,’ that means they’re crooked. And the public understands it,” he claimed.
The Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol building occurred amid Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Trump said in remarks at the House Republican retreat that Rep. Jim Baird, R-Ind., and his wife are recovering after a car accident.
“They’re going to be OK, but they had a pretty bad accident, and we’re praying that they get out of that hospital very quickly,” Trump said. “He’s going to be fine, she’s going to be fine, but it was bad accident.”
Baird’s office confirmed the incident, which was first reported by Fox News, saying in a press release that Baird’s “vehicle was struck in an accident.”
“Congressman Baird is in the hospital and is expected to make a full recovery, and he is extraordinarily grateful for everyone’s prayers during this time,” the release said. “Congressman Baird looks forward to continuing his work on behalf of Hoosiers.”
Trump has begun his remarks to House Republicans at the newly renamed Trump-Kennedy Center, opening his comments by touting the party’s policies and lamenting the death of Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., who died suddenly, according to House leaders.
“I want to express our tremendous sorrow at the loss of a great member, a great, great, great member, congressman Doug LaMalfa, who passed away yesterday, as you probably have heard,” Trump said.
Trump noted LaMalfa was the leader of the Western Caucus and was “a fierce champion on California water issues.” Trump added “our hearts go out to his wife Jill and his entire family” and said he was delivering his remarks in LaMalfa’s honor.
The lawmakers are gathered for a retreat as the House reconvenes.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting — which helped fund NPR, PBS and many local radio and TV stations — is officially shutting down, months after Congress passed spending cuts that stripped it of more than $1 billion in funding.
CPB’s board of directors voted to dissolve the private, nonprofit corporation after 58 years of service, the organization announced in a news release yesterday.
“For more than half a century, CPB existed to ensure that all Americans—regardless of geography, income, or background—had access to trusted news, educational programming, and local storytelling,” CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison said.
Read the full story here.
Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a rice farmer who served in political office in California for more than two decades, died suddenly, House GOP leaders said today. He was 65.
“Jacquie and I are devastated about the sudden loss of our friend, Congressman Doug LaMalfa. Doug was a loving father and husband, and staunch advocate for his constituents and rural America,” Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., the No. 3 House Republican, said in a post on X. “Our prayers are with Doug’s wife, Jill, and their children.”
The cause of death was not immediately clear.
LaMalfa’s death was a shock to friends and colleagues on Capitol Hill.
Read the full story here.
More than 2 million files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are still to be released, according to a court filling last night from the Justice Department, which said a team of 400 lawyers was reviewing the documents to ensure “victim privacy.”
The filing also said the department would review its procedures for evaluating the files after victims complained that some information posted should have been redacted.
The DOJ filing confirms reporting from NBC News last week that millions of files were being reviewed before their planned release. So far, only 12,000 documents containing 125,000 pages have been released in three tranches.
Read the full story here.
New York Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman, who served as a top lawyer in the House Democratic effort to impeach Trump in 2019 before winning a congressional bid three years later, announced he’s running for re-election.
Goldman’s announcement video leans heavily on his experience both in the Trump impeachment and in Congress, specifically noting legislative attempts to ban immigration arrests in courts, bar ICE agents from wearing masks during immigration arrests and prohibit congressional stock trades. He announced his decision on the fifth anniversary of the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which he invoked while criticizing Trump’s “attacks on our democracy.”
Goldman closed the video with an indirect swipe ahead of a primary challenge from former state Comptroller Brad Lander, an ally of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani who is running against Goldman from his left.
“With the stakes so high, we can’t mess around with empty promises from career politicians, we need experienced, decisive leadership,” Goldman said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., slammed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s announced overhaul yesterday of the childhood vaccine schedule that recommends fewer shots.
Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in a statement on X that as a doctor who treated patients for decades, his top priority is protecting children and families. He noted that multiple children have died or have been hospitalized after contracting measles and two kids died in his state from whooping cough.
“All of this was preventable with safe and effective vaccines,” Cassidy said. “The vaccine schedule IS NOT A MANDATE. It’s a recommendation giving parents the power. Changing the pediatric vaccine schedule based on no scientific input on safety risks and little transparency will cause unnecessary fear for patients and doctors, and will make America sicker.”
The CDC is recommending that all children get vaccines for 11 diseases, down from the 18 that were previously on the childhood schedule.
Trump will speak to House Republicans this morning at a meeting at the Kennedy Center that a source familiar with the matter said was aimed at rallying the party as it heads into a critical midterm election year.
The House returns from recess today. The meeting comes after the president’s handpicked board at the arts center voted to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center.
“A year ago it was in a state of financial and physical collapse,” Trump said of the center in a social media post this morning. “Wait until you see it a year from now!!!”
European NATO allies warned the United States today that they would “not stop defending” the values of sovereignty and territorial integrity following Trump’s threats against the Danish island of Greenland.
Trump and his team have ramped up hostile suggestions that they want to seize Greenland, a vast Artic island of just 50,000 people that has mineral and strategic significance. The U.S. attack against Venezuela and capture of President Nicolás Maduro — which the United Nations said undermined international law — has raised fears that this might not be an empty threat.
The European leaders were in Paris meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff and others, according to a White House official. It is the latest in frenzied rounds of shuttle diplomacy to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Read the full story here.
George Conway, the longtime conservative lawyer who became a prominent critic of Trump, is officially launching a Democratic campaign for Congress in Manhattan today, the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In an interview, Conway framed his campaign for New York’s 12th District squarely around Trump, calling for his impeachment and for the U.S. to undertake a “modern legal reconstruction” to “make sure this never happens again.”
“We’re at a crossroads in our country, and Donald Trump is the greatest threat to the Constitution and the rule of law and democratic government that we have ever seen in our lifetime,” Conway, 62, said. “And I want to fight that. He’s a criminal. He defies the law. He thinks he’s the law, and that’s not just an abstraction about the rule of law. He’s hurting people in this country and in my district by using his power to enrich himself instead of using it for the good of the people. He’s running the country like a mob boss.”
Read the full story here.
A man accused of vandalizing Vice President JD Vance’s home in Cincinnati now faces federal charges on top of previously filed local charges.
The Justice Department announced last evening that federal prosecutors have charged William D. DeFoor, 26, with damaging government property and engaging in physical violence against any person or property in a restricted building or grounds — crimes that are each punishable by up to 10 years in prison. DeFoor was also charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding federal officers, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
NBC News previously reported that DeFoor had been charged in Hamilton County Municipal Court with four counts of vandalism, criminal trespass, criminal damaging and obstructing official business. He will be arraigned on those charges today, according to the court docket.
Read the full story here.
Five years after he and his allies tried and failed to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Trump is using his time back in the White House to take a series of actions aimed at erasing or rewriting the Jan. 6, 2021, siege on the U.S. Capitol, with more likely to come.
Trump mass pardoned Jan. 6 rioters on his first day back in office. Justice Department officials and FBI agents involved in the massive investigation and prosecution were fired. Dozens of other supporters involved in efforts to overturn the election results have been pre-emptively pardoned.
A former Jan. 6 prosecutor said Trump’s actions — and the growing embrace of them by a broader swath of Americans — were “maddening.”
Read the full story here.
NBC News