Katelyn Jetelina: “We have more evidence than for any other vaccine or disease in the history of humans that the benefits of Covid-19 vaccines greatly outweigh the risks.”
DeSantis Inauguration Sponsored by Companies He Bashes
“Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has built his national profile, and possibly a future presidential run, on challenging major companies on controversial social issues,” the Washington Post reports.
“But some of those same companies and their lobbyists bankrolled his inaugural festivities this month.”
Trump Hush Money Probe Heats Back Up
“The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Tuesday took a significant step forward in its investigation of Donald Trump, meeting with his former personal lawyer about hush money paid to a porn star who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump,” the New York Times reports.
“The questioning of the lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, offered the clearest sign yet that the district attorney’s office was ramping up its investigation into Mr. Trump’s role in the $130,000 hush money deal. Mr. Cohen has said publicly that Mr. Trump directed him, in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign, to buy the silence of Stephanie Clifford, the actress known as Stormy Daniels.”
“While the hush money was an impetus for the district attorney’s investigation, which began in 2018, prosecutors had shifted in recent years to a broader examination of Mr. Trump’s business practices. In recent months, however, the prosecutors returned to the payments, seeking to breathe new life into the investigation.”
White House Says It Won’t Negotiate on Debt Ceiling
Playbook: “It’s a posture rooted in hard-won lessons for Democrats. Brinkmanship during Barack Obama’s presidency upended the financial markets and only encouraged more hostage-taking, the thinking goes. But many Republicans took the opposite lesson — the brinkmanship, after all, resulted in significant curbs on federal spending, even though future Congress voted repeatedly to undermine them.”
“With the debt standoff likely to underpin most every interbranch interaction in the coming months, the question we’re pondering is: How do you hammer out a deal when the two sides can’t even agree on whether there will be any hammering?”
Politico: “Concessions over the debt ceiling were a vital part of the deal that McCarthy negotiated with his 20 conservative holdouts to finally attain the speakership. He agreed that the GOP House wouldn’t move to lift the debt ceiling unless Congress slashes at least $130 billion in federal spending next fiscal year or addresses broader fiscal reforms that tackle the ballooning debt, as many Republicans argue it threatens the nation’s economic security and future.”
Elon Musk Wasn’t Invited to Davos Despite What He Says
“The World Economic Forum says billionaire Elon Musk wasn’t on the guest list for the annual meeting of business executives, global leaders and cultural trend-setters in Davos, Switzerland — despite what the Twitter owner claims,” the AP reports.
Top Michigan Republicans Move to Draft DeSantis
“A group of prominent Michigan Republicans are encouraging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to jump into the 2024 presidential race — a significant and thinly veiled shot at the only announced Republican candidate: former President Donald Trump,” Politico reports.
What We Still Don’t Know About the Biden Documents
Associated Press: “Among the questions still unanswered by the White House or Biden’s private attorneys: Exactly how many documents were found; whether there may be other documents out there, what was contained in them and why the public wasn’t notified until months after they were discovered.”
NBC News: After criticism for silence, Biden White House takes questions about classified documents.
McCarthy’s Bill Comes Due
Heather Cox Richardson: “Today the bill for the elevation of Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to House speaker began to come due. McCarthy promised the far-right members of his conference committee seats and far more power in Congress to persuade them to vote for him.”
“Now they are collecting.”
“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who was removed from committee assignments in the last Congress for her racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories as well as her encouragement of violence against Democrats, has a spot on the Homeland Security Committee. Such spots are usually filled by those with experience in either the military or intelligence, neither of which she has. And security is an odd fit for her: voters in her district tried to get her disqualified from running in 2022 because of her participation in the attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.”
NBC News: What the 21 McCarthy holdouts got in committee assignments.
Alaska House Remains in Disarray
“The first day of Alaska’s legislative session ended with the House still in disarray — with no speaker elected and no clear idea of who will form the chamber’s majority,” the Anchorage Daily News reports.
“Members of the Legislature were sworn in Tuesday, but the House’s 21 Republicans, 13 Democrats and six independent members were unable to reach the 21-representative threshold needed to elect a speaker and set an agenda for the chamber.”
How Biden’s Document Controversy Could Help DeSantis
“The furor over President Biden’s handling of sensitive documents could have an unexpected beneficiary: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R),” The Hill reports.
“The reason is simple. While the controversy self-evidently makes Biden more vulnerable, it also ensures endless mentions of former President Trump’s own troubles with apparently classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.”
Veteran Says George Santos Took $3K From Dying Dog
Rep. George Santos (R-NY) “claims he has no knowledge of a purported scheme in which he allegedly used a fake animal charity to scam a disabled veteran by raising money for their sick dog’s cancer treatment and then disappearing with the funds,” Semafor reports.
“The accusations, detailed in a story on Patch.com that contained alleged text messages and social media exchanges with Santos, are perhaps the darkest turn yet in the Congressman’s story.”
Sinema and Manchin High-Five Over Keeping Filibuster
“Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin — who foiled Democrats’ efforts to pass a voting-rights overhaul by a simple majority — shared a high-five on the stage in Davos as they reaffirmed their opposition to overturning the Senate’s filibuster rule,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Sinema: “Joe and I were not interested in sacrificing that important guardrail. That massive voting-rights bill was not passed through Congress, and then we had a free and fair election all across the country.”
Judge Says Rioter Was Following Trump’s Direction
A federal judge said that a California woman who breached the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection “followed then-President Trump’s instructions” in breaking the law, Axios reports.
DeSantis Moves to Permanently Ban Covid Protocols
“Despite facing pushback from medical professionals and businesses, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced legislation Tuesday that would make permanent a law to penalize companies that require employees to wear masks or be vaccinated for Covid-19 and added a new ban on medical boards reprimanding doctors for spreading Covid misinformation,” the Miami Herald reports.
Said DeSantis: “This is just nuts that we’re still doing this. We need to be leading on this by making all of these protections permanent in Florida statute as we need to do in the upcoming legislative session.”
McConnell Spends No Time Thinking About Trump
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) gave an interview on Kentucky radio and had some interesting comments on Donald Trump, Punchbowl News reports.
When asked whether he reads what former President Donald Trump says about him: “Most of the time, no… I’ve got better things to do with my time than read the daily tweets and expressions of opinion, and I don’t spend any time thinking about him.”
On Trump’s chances in 2024: “Let me just say this about the ‘24 election, it’s gonna be wide open. There’s gonna be a lot of competition. And I hope we nominate somebody who can win in ‘24. And so the voters in the primaries are going to make that decision without any assistance from me. They don’t need any advice from me about how to vote.”
North Dakota Mulls Ban of ‘Sexually Explicit’ Books
“Books containing ‘sexually explicit’ content — including depictions of sexual or gender identity — would be banned from North Dakota public libraries under legislation that state lawmakers began considering Tuesday,” the AP reports.
“The GOP-dominated state House Judiciary Committee heard arguments but did not take a vote on the measure, which applies to visual depictions of ‘sexually explicit’ content and proposes up to 30 days imprisonment for librarians who refuse to remove the offending books.”
Montana Lawmaker Seeks to Overturn Abortion Ruling
“The Montana legislature is considering a proposal that would would interpret the state’s constitutional right to privacy to mean that it does not protect the right to an abortion, a move that would echo others in several states to severely restrict or ban abortion,” the AP reports.
Maine Moves to Expand Abortion Access
Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) and legislative leaders “want to expand access to abortion — allowing abortions after 24 weeks with a doctor’s approval — and take steps to protect health care providers,” the AP reports.
