Evening summary
We’re wrapping up our live politics coverage for tonight. A recap of today’s key events is below. Tomorrow, the supreme court will hear oral arguments on whether Donald Trump is eligible to run for office, a case that represents the culmination of years of work by left-leaning watchdog groups who argue that Trump’s conduct on 6 January amounts to insurrection against the US government, and should bar him from holding office.
From today:
Senate Republicans rejected a bipartisan compromise bill that combined changes in US immigration policy and additional security measures at the US-Mexico border with nearly $100bn in foreign aid, including to Ukraine and Israel.
The Biden-backed bipartisan compromise had been denounced by immigrant rights and human rights groups like Amnesty International, who called the proposals cruel, inhumane, and likely to lead to more suffering and death.
Congressional Republicans faced criticism, including from their own members, for internal dysfunction after the failure of the bipartisan border compromise bill followed the flopped House GOP attempt to impeach Democratic homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Democrats are now using the GOP votes against a border deal to campaign against Republicans, arguing that party members caved to Trump, who had publicly urged them not to pass the deal. “You do not let a fire burn so that Donald Trump can campaign on the ashes,” Democratic senator Patty Murray said.
The Senate planned to move ahead with votes to advance a simpler bill that would simply provide foreign military aid to Ukraine and Israel, a measure that Biden said he would support. But as Republicans negotiated over whether they could add back in some border policy measures to the foreign aid bill, and the clocked ticked later into evening, forward movement stalled.
But independent Sen. Bernie Sanders had already said earlier he would oppose legislation to provide military aid to Israel: “Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas’s terrorism, but it does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people,” Sanders said, saying “over 27,000 Palestinians have been killed and 67,000 wounded – two-thirds of whom are women and children” since the war began.
Still waiting….
It is now nearly 5:30pm in Washington.
The Senate is still working on its 2:30p vote.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) February 7, 2024
Human rights groups denounce failed Senate deal on border policies and foreign aid
The failed bipartisan compromise bill that paired US “border security” provisions with billions in military aid for Ukraine and Israel had been sharply criticized by advocacy groups that support immigrant rights and human rights.
“Immigrants are essential members of our communities who move the country forward. Throwing immigrants under the bus in exchange for short-term, unrelated foreign aid is an enormous political and moral miscalculation,” Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center and the NILC Immigrant Justice Fund, said in a statement in response to the bill’s failure. Matos criticized Democrats for making a bipartisan deal with Republicans on border policy, arguing “It has long been clear that Republicans in Congress were never serious about resolving the issues in our immigration system and are only interested in weaponizing fear to score political points.”
Amnesty International had also denounced the now-failed bipartisan compromise, saying it included “the most extreme anti-immigrant proposals this country has seen in 100 years” and that the policies were “draconian and antithetical to human rights” and “will only lead to more suffering, more cruelty, and more death.”
Actually, this agreement will
— Amnesty International USA (@amnestyusa) February 6, 2024
❌End the legal right to asylum
❌Fail to protect the most vulnerable
❌Fund the detention of 50,000 people
❌Build a border wall
This is the most extreme anti-immigrant proposal this country has seen in 100 years. https://t.co/ZM0t5T4ML5
Amnesty also criticized US senate support for “billions of dollars in unconditional military and security funding” to Israel “at a moment when there’s concern about atrocities, including war crimes.”
Updated
Frustration as GOP rejects a bipartisan border compromise, only to demand another
If you’re just catching up on today’s senate Republican vote to reject a bipartisan border deal, followed by GOP demands that amendments with border provisions be allowed for a standalone foreign military aid bill, here are some perspectives:
So, to recap:
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) February 7, 2024
Republicans demanded border provisions
Today they killed a bill that included them
And now they’re demanding border again https://t.co/vKDWPMkDqO
Sen. Kelly: “How crazy is that? We had a bipartisan deal, they should have voted for the thing the first time.”
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) February 7, 2024
And from a bit earlier:
GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said it was unclear who could trust the GOP to negotiate after they scuttled the bipartisan border bill.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 7, 2024
She told me: “I’ve gone through the multile stages of grief. Today I’m just pissed off.”
“I have a difficult time understanding again how anyone else in the future is going to want to be on that negotiating team — on anything —- if we are going to be against it,” Murkowksi added.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 7, 2024
Still waiting on a Senate vote on $95bn foreign aid package
This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live politics coverage from Los Angeles.
We are still waiting on a vote to see whether the senate will proceed with debate over a proposed $95b military assistance bill for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.
Some details on the current conversations among Republican senators from Punchbowl News and HuffPost:
Sen. Tillis says there are some demands for an amendment vote on the Afghan Adjustment Act, which fell off the supplemental when the border piece was scrapped.
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) February 7, 2024
He says most amendment demands are “generally with the intent of trying to pass it” in the end https://t.co/NPPK5Wk4rm
“I don’t think we need them,” Young says. “I don’t think they’ll pass and in the end, we’d have the same people voting yes and no.” https://t.co/ctBw50f9fg
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) February 7, 2024
Updated
The focus will shift to the US supreme court tomorrow, where justices will consider a case challenging Donald Trump’s ability to appear on presidential ballots, after advocacy groups argued his involvement in the January 6 insurrection should disqualify him. Here’s the Guardian’s Rachel Leingang with more on those efforts:
A US supreme court case that could remove Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot is the culmination of several years of work by left-leaning watchdog groups to reinvigorate the 14th amendment and its power.
A Colorado case that found Trump couldn’t run for re-election there was filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), though other groups and individuals have filed lawsuits and petitions in many states trying to remove Trump under the 14th amendment’s third clause. The clause says that people who were in office and participated in an insurrection against the US can’t hold office again.
Some of the challenges have gone through the courts, while others have appealed directly to elections officials in charge of placing candidates on the ballot. Colorado was the first ruling to decide against Trump, so it is headed to the supreme court at the former president’s behest. Because of how consequential and rare the issue is, it was expected that the high court would eventually be the arbiter of how the clause applied in the modern era.
The Senate is now voting on whether to begin debate on the $95b military assistance bill for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.
That vote needs only a simple majority to succeed, but the story doesn’t end there. Fox News reports that Democrats want the measure to pass quickly, but, as with most legislation in the Senate, will need at least nine Republican votes to do that. The GOP is demanding that majority leader Chuck Schumer allow amendments be made to the bill – including some measures dealing with immigration, even after the party just a few minutes ago voted down a bill to make major changes to how the US deals with migrants and asylum seekers:
4) But Democrats don’t want Republicans to dither too long – considering the experience earlier on the border package.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) February 7, 2024
5) Ironically, Democrats tell Fox that Republicans are actually insisting on BORDER AMENDMENTS for the foreign aid package – even though most Republicans JUST VOTED TO KILL THE BORDER BILL.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) February 7, 2024
As we wait to find out if Republicans will vote to provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel without hardline border policies, Punchbowl News reports that a key GOP lawmaker is warning that approving the bill could hurt the party’s chances in the November elections.
That’s the argument made in a party strategy meeting by senator Steve Daines of Montana, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is tasked with winning the party seats in Congress’s upper chamber:
INSIDE THE ROOM—Sen. Daines, the NRSC chair, told Republican senators that passing the foreign aid portion without a border component would kneecap GOP candidates in key races who have been calling for no foreign aid w/o border, per two attendees.
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) February 7, 2024
Also: Romney & Cruz got heated
Republicans are tipped to retake control of the Senate in November. For Democrats to maintain their one-seat majority, Joe Biden would have to win re-election, and the party would have to win two of the three seats they are defending representing Ohio, West Virginia and Montana – all red states. That’s assuming their lawmakers in safer seats are re-elected, and the Democrats fail to defeat Republican senators representing Texas, Florida, or any other red state.
Border and foreign aid bill blocked in Senate
The bipartisan bill combining an overhaul of US immigration policy and security measures at the US-Mexico border with nearly $100bn in foreign aid on Wednesday has failed to garner enough votes to move forward in the US Senate, although voting continued.
More details as they happen. There are already 49 No votes. Sixty Yes votes in the 100-strong chamber are needed to pass bills.
Updated
International call for more aid from US for Ukraine
The White House is focused on getting a Ukraine aid package through the US Congress, the White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday, adding there was no “plan B”, Reuters reports.
We believe we still can and will deliver aid for Ukraine,” Sullivan told reporters during a joint press conference with the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg.
Stoltenberg said it was vital Congress agreed on continued support for Ukraine in the near future.
Stoltenberg said there was no imminent threat to any Nato ally, but added:
We must sustain our support and that is a responsibility for all allies.”
The US Senate is currently voting on the bipartisan border and foreign aid bill that a group of lawmakers has been working on for months and unveiled on Sunday. But the bill appears doomed, despite Republicans having insisted on immigration reform to tighten security at the US-Mexico border. Legislation needs 60 votes to pass the 100-member Senate, where Democrats hold a wafter-thin majority, so GOP support is needed to pass bills.
Updated
Arizona independent US senator Kyrsten Sinema just told the chamber that the Republican abandonment of efforts to pass immigration reform legislation was “shameful”.
Sinema (who switched from the Democratic party to become an independent not long after the midterm elections in 2022, when Republicans won control of the House), said that many Republican senators may just want to ignore a bill involving tightening border security, but Arizona could not afford that as it is dealing with the increase in migration every day.
Updated
Republican senator James Lankford of Oklahoma spoke on the floor of the Senate moments ago to say that Americans were telling Congress to “do something” about the increase in migration at the US-Mexico border.
“We have to decide if we are going to do that or not, if we are going to do nothing, or do something,” he said.
He said the bill that looks doomed is “a bill put together by a bipartisan effort – welcome to the US Senate”.
Lankford worked across the aisle with Democrats Patty Murray and Chris Murphy and independent senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to prepare the complex bill that implements immigration reforms, toughens the US-Mexico border, and funds more aid for Ukraine, Israel and allies in the Indo-Pacific region such as Taiwan. At almost 400 pages, he said it took months of complicated work.
But he said he had Republican colleagues who believed lies they read on social media rather than the text of the bill itself. One unnamed fellow GOPer told him: “If you are trying to move a bill that solves the border crisis during the election, I will do everything to destroy you,” Lankford said. And they have done so, he said, by signaling they would not support a bill Republicans had said was sorely needed.
Updated
'You don't let a fire burn because Trump wants to campaign on ashes' – senator
Washington state’s Democratic senator Patty Murray is on the floor of the US Senate now, lambasting Republicans who are obstructing the border and war aid spending legislation, and thanking her Republican fellow senator, James Lankford, of Oklahoma, who just spoke passionately.
Murray talked of Ukraine’s defense against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s offensive against Hamas, and the need for more US funds for those allies, and said: “Today is a critical vote. Today is a critical day to decide.” She asked if senators would keep their word when they negotiate with each other.
Both she and Lankford are lamenting the fact that legislation in front of the Senate to implement border reforms and boost funds for Ukraine and Israel is on the brink.
“And lets not forget there is the [US-Mexico] border,” she said. “The site of so many Republican photo ops.”
“That’s the moment we are in, by voting it down, Republicans will be telling our allies our word cannot be trusted, telling dictators like Putin that our threats are not serious,” she said.
“And telling the American people they do not want to solve the crisis at the border, they want to campaign on it – you do not let a fire burn so that Donald Trump can campaign on the ashes,” Murray said.
Updated
The day so far
Hours after the House descended into farce yesterday evening when Republicans failed to impeach the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, and blocked legislation to send military aid to Israel, the Senate is taking a crack at approving a complex bill to tighten immigration policy while assisting both Israel and Ukraine. If that legislation does not pass, and there’s plenty of reason to believe it will not, since Republicans say they no longer like the border security changes, the Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said they’ll vote on a bill that solely contains funds for Kyiv, and for the counterattack against Hamas. Will that attract the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate, and, if it does, will it make through the House, where Ukraine foes are plenty? We’ll find out soon enough.
Here’s what else is going on today:
Joe Biden says he will support the Israel-Ukraine aid bill, even if it does not include immigration policy changes.
The Mayorkas impeachment will die in the Senate, predicted Oklahoma’s Republican senator James Lankford, who negotiated the ill-fated immigration policy bill.
Nikki Haley had a terrible night in Nevada, where she came in second in the primaries to “none of these candidates”. This morning, she blamed the Republican party’s problems on Donald Trump, who appears on course to win its presidential nomination.
Updated
The big question looming over the Senate is: will either version of the Israel-Ukraine aid bill, one of which contains immigration policy changes, the other which does not, receive enough votes to pass?
To succeed, either legislation will need to receive 60 votes, meaning at least some Republicans will have to sign on.
Punchbowl News reports that John Thune, the number-two Republican in the Senate, was mum about how his lawmakers were feeling:
Thune noncommittal on whether there will be 60 votes to advance the foreign aid package without border. “Stay tuned,” he says
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) February 7, 2024
Independent senator Bernie Sanders says he will oppose the legislation to provide military aid to Israel, citing the widespread destruction and civilian casualties caused by its invasion of Gaza.
“Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas’s terrorism, but it does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people. Since this war began over 27,000 Palestinians have been killed and 67,000 wounded – two-thirds of whom are women and children. Over 1.7 million people have been driven from their homes and have no idea as to where they will be in the future. Almost 70% of the housing units in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged,” the Vermont lawmaker said.
“This bill provides $10bn dollars more in US military aid for the Netanyahu government to continue its horrific war against the Palestinian people. That is unconscionable. That is why I will be voting NO.”
Updated
White House says Biden supports Israel, Ukraine aid without immigration changes
Joe Biden will sign legislation to send new military aid to Ukraine and Israel, even if it does not contain policy changes intended to stop migrants from crossing the southern border, the White House announced.
Here’s what spokesman Andrew Bates had to say:
We support this bill which would protect America’s national security interests by stopping Putin’s onslaught in Ukraine before he turns to other countries, helping Israel defend itself against Hamas terrorists and delivering live-saving humanitarian aid to innocent Palestinian civilians. Even if some congressional Republicans’ commitment to border security hinges on politics, President Biden’s does not. We must still have reforms and more resources to secure the border. These priorities all have strong bipartisan support across the country.
Whether the Senate manages to pass any legislation today is a different matter.
Top Democrat Schumer tees up two Senate votes on Israel, Ukraine aid, one with border security, one without
The Senate will this afternoon take two votes on approving aid to Israel and Ukraine, one on a bill that will include hardline immigration policies, and one without, the chamber’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer announced.
“I have scheduled a vote on the supplemental that includes strong bipartisan border reforms that Republicans have demanded for months,” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor. He went on:
Now, if Republicans blocked this national security package with border legislation that they demanded later today, I will give them the opportunity to move forward with the package without border reforms. This package will otherwise be largely the same. It will have strong funding for Ukraine, funding for Israel, help for innocent civilians in Gaza and funding to the Indo Pacific. The legislation on the floor today is one of the most important security packages the Senate has considered in a very long time. So the onus is on Senate Republicans to finally take yes for an answer.
Last year, Republicans blocked Senate passage of a bill to provide aid to Israel and Ukraine, demanding that the Democrats agree to pass a law to stem the flow of migrants across the US border with Mexico. But after Joe Biden and his allies announced their support this week for hardline policies intended to do that, the GOP said they were no longer interested – reportedly because Donald Trump pressured them to do so.
It’s unclear how Senate Republicans will vote today. In his speech, Schumer warned the party that they would be doing Trump’s bidding and harming national security if they block both pieces of legislation.
“It would be an embarrassment for our country, an absolute nightmare for the Republican party if they reject national security funding twice in one day. Today is the day for Republicans to do the right thing when it comes to our national security,” Schumer said.
“Why are the Republicans doing all this? Why have they backed off on border when they know it’s the right thing to do? Two words, Donald Trump.”
The House GOP may one day get its act together and impeach the homeland security chief, Alejandro Mayorkas.
But the effort will almost certainly go no further than that. Two-thirds of the Senate would have to vote to convict him, and with Democrats in the majority, that margin appears impossible to obtain. Don’t take it from us – take it from Oklahoma’s Republican senator James Lankford, who said as much just now:
Lankford on House Republicans trying to impeach Mayorkas again
— Alan He (@alanhe) February 7, 2024
“It’ll fail in the Senate. If I could use the House term, it’ll be dead on arrival when it comes over.…” pic.twitter.com/Mq4twZPzIQ
One wonders if Lankford isn’t feeling a little bit bitter at the moment. He spent weeks bargaining with Democrats on the immigration policy compromise that would have seen hardline policies put in place in exchange for aid to Ukraine and Israel being passed. But that deal was shot down by his fellow Republican lawmakers, aided by Donald Trump, almost as soon as it was announced, meaning all that negotiation was probably for nothing.
Updated
Johnson acknowledges 'mess' in the House, again vows to impeach Mayorkas
In remarks to reporters in the Capitol, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, said Republicans will try impeaching homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas again, but did not say when that would happen:
Last time was a setback, but democracy is messy. We live in a time of divided government. We have a razor-thin margin here and every vote counts. Sometimes, when you’re counting votes, and people show up when they’re not expected to be in the building, that changes the equation. But, listen, we have a duty and a responsibility to take care of this issue. We have to hold the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security accountable, and Mayorkas needs to be held accountable. The Biden administration needs to be held accountable, and we will pass those articles of impeachment. We’ll do it on next round.
Last night’s defeat of the impeachment effort was an embarrassment for Johnson, who has only been in the speaker’s job for about three months. Asked to respond to comments from a fellow House Republican that it was a mistake to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House, Johnson said: “It was a mess, what happened here, but we’re cleaning it up.”
He was also noncommittal about how the House would react if the Democratic-led Senate approves a bill that would fund aid to Israel and Ukraine. “We’ll see what the Senate does. We’re allowing the process to play out and we’ll handle it as it is sent over,” he said.
Updated
Fresh off her not-victory in the Nevada primaries, Nikki Haley is pinning the blame for the GOP’s woes on Donald Trump:
Republicans keep doing the same thing and getting the same result: chaos. That's the definition of insanity.
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 7, 2024
This week:
❌RNC imploded
❌GOP House can’t pass ANYTHING
❌Trump lost another court case & threw another temper tantrum
A vote for Trump is a vote for more chaos.
Trump’s hand is indeed being felt in Congress, where he played a major role in torpedoing an immigration policy compromise Republicans had themselves demanded in exchange for their votes to approve new aid to Ukraine and Israel. Congress now appears to be deadlocked on the issue, after the House GOP tried and failed to pass a standalone bill for Israel yesterday.
Haley, meanwhile, is expected to make what may be the last stand of her presidential campaign in South Carolina’s primaries on 24 February.
That Democrats wanted to see the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas torpedoed isn’t much of a surprise.
More notable are the defections of three Republicans who voted against the charges, dooming the effort. In the Wall Street Journal, Mike Gallagher, one of the trio, said he voted against the charges because they would “pry open the Pandora’s box of perpetual impeachment”:
Impeachment not only would fail to resolve Mr Biden’s border crisis but would also set a dangerous new precedent that would be used against future Republican administrations.
The first article of impeachment lays out in grueling detail Mr Mayorkas’s manifest incompetence. But incompetence doesn’t rise to the level of high crimes or misdemeanors. Proponents of impeachment concede the framers rejected the idea that policy disputes or ‘maladministration’ constitute grounds for impeachment. They argue instead that Mr Mayorkas’s underenforcement goes beyond maladministration, even though it doesn’t reach the level of a criminal offense.
In an appearance on C-SPAN, Tom McClintock, who also rejected the charges, worried that impeaching Mayorkas would set a precedent that could backfire:
Watch: @RepMcClintock (R-CA) responds to comments by @RepMTG (R-GA) that "he's failing his oath of office… He needs to grow some courage and read the room." pic.twitter.com/aGVX0gGcVj
— Washington Journal (@cspanwj) February 7, 2024
Updated
Top House Democrat accuses GOP of acting like a cult after Mayorkas impeachment debacle
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, took something of a victory lap this morning, after his party successfully mobilized to block the impeachment of the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, with the help of three Republican defectors.
Addressing the press, the New York congressman called on House Republicans to drop what he characterized as partisan stunts, such as the charges against Mayorkas, who faced no threat of being convicted by the Senate. Here’s what Jeffries had to say:
.@RepJeffries on failed impeachment: "A victory for decency, democracy and determination to put the American people's interest first and to put aside sham political stunts...the American people deserve more common sense, less chaos, less confusion and less cult-like behavior." pic.twitter.com/3H9pjIka5t
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 7, 2024
Updated
Nikki Haley’s struggles are fueling a behind-closed-doors campaign by the Republican National Committee to get her to exit the race so it can collaborate with Donald Trump, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:
Top officials at the Republican National Committee want Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, to drop out of the race for the GOP nomination so it can launch a joint fundraising committee with Donald Trump to bolster its finances, according to people familiar with the situation.
The RNC last week reported $8m in cash to spend in its year-end filing, an amount less than half of what it had when Trump was running for the presidency in 2016 and below what it needs to stand up operations as it prepares to take on Joe Biden in the general election.
The issue for the RNC has been the lack of direct revenue, with small-dollar donors seen to generally prefer to donate directly to the Trump campaign and larger, institutional donors who dislike Trump preferring to donate directly to challengers like Haley, the people said.
While the RNC was slightly buoyed with a $12m haul in January, RNC leadership has discussed in recent weeks the need for Haley to exit the race so they can as soon as possible launch a joint fundraising committee with Trump, which would allow wealthy donors to write checks larger than $800,000.
The RNC does not technically need Haley to drop out to do joint fundraising agreements – it partnered with Trump in 2016 before the former Ohio governor John Kasich dropped out – but, the thinking goes, if Haley were out, the RNC could pick up her large-dollar donors who want to support the party but not Trump directly.
Updated
The Nevada primary did not go as planned for Nikki Haley, but it went just fine for Joe Biden, who handily won the state’s Democratic primary with 89% of the vote, based on ballots counted so far.
With the power of incumbency, the president is not expected to have any trouble winning the Democratic party’s presidential nomination. On Saturday, he overwhelmingly won in South Carolina against his two challengers, Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson, and in January triumphed in New Hampshire, even though he did not campaign there.
“I want to thank the voters of Nevada for sending me and Kamala Harris to the White House four years ago, and for setting us one step further on that same path again tonight. We must organize, mobilize, and vote. Because one day, when we look back, we’ll be able to say, when American democracy was a risk, we saved it – together,” Biden said in a statement following his win in Nevada.
Updated
House members weren’t the only Republicans getting humiliated yesterday. As the Guardian’s Maanvi Singh reports, Nikki Haley managed to lose Nevada’s presidential primary to nobody:
Nikki Haley suffered an embarrassing defeat in Nevada’s Republican presidential primary contest, when she was beaten by the “none of these candidates” option, despite Donald Trump’s absence from the ballot.
Joe Biden, meanwhile, secured another primary victory after his nearest challenger, Marianne Williamson, registered only in the low single digits. The AP called the results about two hours after polls closed on a soggy and subdued election day in Nevada.
The “none of these candidates” option beat Nikki Haley in the state’s Republican presidential primary contest, the AP projected, an embarrassing result for the former UN ambassador who was the only major candidate on the ballot.
The race is essentially meaningless in the nominating process, however, as the big event for Republicans is on Thursday, when the GOP will hold caucuses with Donald Trump on the ballot that will determine the actual delegates sent to the Republican national convention.
Updated
House GOP pledges to try impeaching Mayorkas again, but may not be able to for days
Last night, House Republicans and their speaker, Mike Johnson, were humiliated when their attempt to impeach the homeland security chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, failed on the House floor. Here’s the moment Johnson personally delivered the bad news:
214-216: The GOP-led House vote to impeach DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border fails. Four Republicans joined all Democrats in voting no.
— The Recount (@therecount) February 6, 2024
This is the first time in U.S. history that an impeachment vote against a Cabinet member has failed. pic.twitter.com/pA7U0YufKy
Those are Democrats you can hear cheering.
Nonetheless, Johnson’s spokesperson says the speaker will try again to bring charges against Mayorkas over his handling of migration at the southern border:
House Republicans fully intend to bring Articles of Impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas back to the floor when we have the votes for passage.
— Raj Shah (@RajShahDC) February 7, 2024
But when? The reason Republicans lost last night is that all Democratic lawmakers showed up to vote, while three of the GOP’s own members voted against impeachment. Republicans should be able to win a second vote once majority leader Steve Scalise returns from cancer treatment, but Politico reports he won’t be back until next week, at the earliest.
That creates the scenario of the impeachment effort’s fate becoming entwined with the 13 February special election in New York’s suburbs to fill the empty seat created after the House expelled fabulist George Santos. A victory by Republican Mazi Pilip could prove decisive to the success of a second impeachment vote – but if Democrat Tom Suozzi wins, Republicans could find that they once again don’t have the votes to succeed.
Updated
Senate Democrats plan renewed push for Ukraine and Israel aid after House GOP debacle
Good morning, US politics blog readers. What a fiasco yesterday was for Republicans in Congress. First, the GOP turned against a deal they had demanded to impose hardline immigration policies and provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel, reportedly because Donald Trump wants to campaign on the issue. It was an embarrassing defeat for Mitch McConnell, the top Senate Republican who supports both countries’ causes. But whatever mortification he felt was eclipsed by the farce that occurred late in the day in the House of Representatives. The Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, barreled ahead with a floor vote on impeaching the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, thinking it had the support to pass. Little did he know that it, in fact, did not, after Democrats united against it and three Republicans defected. But Johnson’s bad night wasn’t over yet. He teed up a vote on a standalone package to fund Israel’s military, thinking he could sway the country’s Democratic backers into voting for it. They did not take the bait, and that legislation also failed to pass.
The House GOP has vowed to press on with the Mayorkas impeachment, bringing the measure back up as soon as today, though it remains unclear if they have the votes to actually do that. Meanwhile, the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer is going on the offensive, reportedly by planning a vote on military aid to Israel and Ukraine, without the border crackdown the GOP, at one point, pressed for. We’ll see if that goes anywhere.
Here’s what else is happening today:
Nikki Haley managed to come in second to “none of these candidates” in Nevada’s low-stakes presidential primary, raising further questions about the viability of her challenge to Trump for the Republican nomination.
Matt Gaetz and Elise Stefanik, two big Trump fans in the House, plan to introduce a resolution saying that he did not engage in an insurrection.
Trump yesterday was denied immunity by an appeals court for his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election. His campaign says he will appeal.
