Watch Republican Senators Melt Down Over Hurricane Relief

Republican Senators Rand Paul and Thom Tillis got into a heated exchange Thursday over aid for hurricane victims in Virginia and North Carolina.

Tillis asked for an aid bill to be passed by unanimous consent during a floor speech, but Paul had other ideas, pushing for an amendment that the relief be paid for with green energy funds and complaining about unrelated funds to Ukraine. In effect, Paul’s amendment would block the aid bill, which drew Tillis’s ire. The North Carolina senator then asked the Kentucky senator to yield his time for questions, setting off an argument.

“Look, our state motto is Esse quam videri,” Tillis, who represents North Carolina, said. “It says to ‘be’ rather than to ‘seem.’ This is a disingenuous offer to amend my bill.”

Tillis suggested that Paul was grandstanding and perhaps planning to use his rant, which attacked the Green New Deal, in a fundraising email. “This bill, if it got amended, has no prayer,” Tillis said. “I came to the Senate to make a difference, not to make a point.

“I assume that Senator Paul knows how to count votes,” Tillis added. “He has to know that he doesn’t have the votes to get this bill done if it’s amended. To be rather than to seem. I’m focused on trying to get North Carolina back on track and not playing a game on the Senate floor.”

Paul stuck to his guns, insisting that the funds weren’t available thanks to the “accumulation of $35 trillion worth of debt,” prompting a response from Tillis that Paul was “playing a game of being disingenuous.” The North Carolina senator noted that the House, which is controlled by Republicans, would find a way to pay for the aid relief and that Paul was “putting a poison pill” that would prevent the bill from passing in the Senate.

Paul used debate over the bill to expound upon a favorite Republican punching bag, the Green New Deal, missing the irony that the environmental plan seeks to reduce the greenhouse emissions that are a major factor in increasingly severe hurricanes. Tillis has a point—people who have suffered because of Hurricane Helene care more about immediate relief than funding technicalities.

It’s only been a week since Republicans had a successful election in which they won the presidency as well as Congress, and they are already having trouble passing a simple aid relief bill for hurricane victims that even had Democratic support. If this is how Congress is going to function when the GOP takes full control next year, we can expect more gridlock and hardly any bills being passed.

For anyone who was worried that Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Representative Matt Gaetz to be the next attorney general seemed a little half-baked, that’s because it was: The plan came together within the span of only a few hours, Politico reported Thursday.

At the beginning of Wednesday, Gaetz wasn’t even on Trump’s short list for the position, but the president-elect wasn’t quite feeling his spate of options, according to Politico’s Playbook.

Then Gaetz boarded Trump’s plane Wednesday morning, and Boris Epshteyn, the Trump team’s top lawyer, went to work convincing Trump that the Florida Republican, who’d previously been investigated by the Justice Department, should now be its leader. (Epshteyn is accused of assisting Rudy Giuliani’s fake electors scheme in Arizona and obstructing the certification of the 2020 election result. He pleaded not guilty, but the case is still ongoing.)

One Trump adviser told The Bulwark that Trump liked Gaetz, who has no experience as a government attorney or judge, for his unorthodox, extrajudicial style.

“None of the attorneys had what Trump wants, and they didn’t talk like Gaetz,” the adviser said. “Everyone else looked at AG as if they were applying for a judicial appointment. They talked about their vaunted legal theories and constitutional bullshit. Gaetz was the only one who said, ‘Yeah, I’ll go over there and start cuttin’ fuckin’ heads.’”

It seems that Trump didn’t actually want a lawyer; he wanted a loyal mercenary. Meanwhile, Gaetz’s nomination, and subsequent resignation, has raised a considerable ruckus on the Hill.

The House Ethics Committee was planning to release a report on its multiyear investigation into Gaetz Friday. Gaetz is being investigated for alleged sexual misconduct and a spate of other alleged ethics violations.

He was previously investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly having an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old girl and violating sex trafficking laws, but he was never formally charged—though the probe still might explain his take-no-prisoners attitude toward the attorney general spot.

John Clune, the attorney representing the underage girl, on Thursday urged the House Ethics Committee to release its report. “She was a high school student and there were witnesses,” he wrote on X.

House Ethics Chair Michael Guests insisted he had no plans to release the report, though not all Republicans agree. Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin demanded that the report be shared with his committee, and Republican Senator John Cornyn also urged its release. Some GOP sources suggested that the report will be leaked as early as Thursday, per Pablo Manriquez.

Alex Jones is having a full meltdown on the cusp of InfoWars’ extinction.

The far-right conspiracy network was auctioned off to the satirical outlet The Onion, ending what was arguably Jones’s most successful endeavor while marking the beginning of his descent into irrelevancy.

During a breathless rant on Steve Bannon’s War Room from the InfoWars studio, Jones called the news of The Onion’s acquisition “ridiculous,” referred to U.S. regulators as “imperial troops,” and insisted that the auction rules had been changed at the last minute by the “deep state.”

“They are in the building, they told the office manager, and they’re calling me right now, that they have ordered the I.T. providers to cut all the I.T. off to shut InfoWars off,” Jones said. “I could get on a live camera right now and go show you the U.S. trustee and the auctioneer.”

“It’s confirmed now that they’re going to cut the power,” Jones said before busting into a grueling laugh. “We are literally sinking, tied up to the new boat, and we’re taking both ships right now, Steve Bannon, God bless you.”

“They’re in the control room.… Imperial troops are through the glass,” Jones said before standing up and walking off camera. “It is a distinct honor to be here in defiance of the tyrants.”

Bannon then suggested that Jones and his crew should put a microphone in front of the regulators as they comb through Jones’s assets.

At one point during the live broadcast, Jones attempted to project that he had made peace with the major loss, encouraging his viewers to tune in to his new news site.

“All you’re doing is shutting down the building and taking away AlexJones.com and the Infowars store,” he said. “We got funds coming in. We got high-powered lawyers. We’re moving forward. The tide has turned.”

In the run-up to the auction, Jones had appeared to be under the impression that “good guys” on the right would buy the fringe network, though he did not reveal who they were. Several groups expressed interest in InfoWars assets, including a coalition of liberal and anti-disinformation watchdog groups, according to The Daily Beast, as well as some of Jones’s own supporters, like Donald Trump ally Roger Stone.

The Onion’s monumental media scoop was made in partnership with the families of Sandy Hook victims, whom Jones owes at least $85 million after he lost a $1.5 billion case for claiming that the massacre, which claimed the lives of 20 first graders and six adults, was a hoax.

Ben Collins, The Onion’s CEO, playfully shared the news on social media, asking if anyone needed “millions of dollars worth of supplements.” As the news broke, The Onion—in true form—published an article by Bryce P. Tetraeder, the so-called CEO of Global Tetrahedron (The Onion’s “parent company”), in which the faux executive praised the conspiracy network as an “invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses.”

“With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal,” the satirical piece read.

Donald Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general is not just drawing backlash from Senate Republicans—even Fox News hosts aren’t fans. 

On Fox & Friends Thursday morning, Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade didn’t hold back their misgivings about Gaetz potentially ascending to the post, pointing out the House Ethics Committee investigation against him over sexual misconduct, drug use, and public corruption. 

“The report has been written, apparently, and Washington, D.C., leaks like a sieve. And you can bet, dollar to donuts, if he is … undergoes the confirmation hearing process as is standard, somebody is going to read verbatim from whatever it says,” Doocy said.

Kilmeade pointed out that Gaetz was “solely responsible for blowing up the House last year,” referring to his leading role in ousting former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and said he had “no plan” to fix the situation before House Republicans coalesced around Representative Mike Johnson. Later, Kilmeade called out Gaetz for being part of the “clown car.” 

“I always thought when Susie Wiles took the job [of chief of staff], you heard, she says, ‘The one thing I would say is I don’t want to see any of the clown car,’” Kilmeade said. “I always thought Matt Gaetz was in the clown car, so I’m surprised he’d be part of the starting lineup.” 

Gaetz abruptly resigned from Congress Wednesday after being named by Trump to the attorney general post, only two days before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on releasing its report about the investigation into Gaetz. While the move ends the investigation, it has raised more questions about what Gaetz is trying to hide. On Thursday, a “close friend” of Gaetz is petitioning a court to destroy records detailing a drug-fueled sex party that a trafficked 17-year-old and Gaetz allegedly attended in 2017. 

With Gaetz taking heat from Republicans and conservative media alike, it’s unclear if he’d be able to make it through the Cabinet confirmation process. The investigation into his alleged misdeeds must contain damning information for Gaetz to take a drastic step such as resigning, especially since the contents of the House committee’s report will likely come out before or during his confirmation hearings. In any case, it’s an inauspicious start for any Cabinet nominee, let alone one who is vying to be the nation’s top law enforcement officer.   

Florida Representative Matt Gaetz’s shocking attorney general nomination now has Dick Durbin demanding to see Ethics Committee receipts. 

The deeply divisive hardcore Trump loyalist was nominated for attorney general on Wednesday, leaving members of both parties aghast. Gaetz drew his colleagues’ ire after forcing out Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and has been accused of trafficking and having sex with a 17-year-old girl at a drug-fueled party in 2017. Gaetz’s friend Joel Greenberg has already confessed to having sex with the underage victim and claimed that Gaetz paid him to bring her. Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend has also told the court that he was indeed present at the party. Gaetz has repeatedly denied the allegations, which could potentially upend his nomination to the position of highest attorney in the land.  

The House Ethics Committee was investigating the Florida representative for these allegations, but that probe—which was slated to be released soon—closed as soon as Gaetz resigned from his House seat to prepare for the confirmation process.

After Gaetz’s resignation, Senate Democrat and Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin called upon the House Ethics Committee to “preserve and share their report and all relevant documentation on Mr. Gaetz with the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

“We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people,” the Democratic senator said. “Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetz’s confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States.”

Conservatives would rather sweep the Ethics Committee investigation under the rug than allow Durbin to air out Gaetz’s very dirty laundry. Republican House Ethics Committee Chair Mike Guest explained to Punch Bowl’s Max Cohen that he didn’t have the jurisdiction to release the report. “What happens in ethics is confidential. We’re going to maintain that confidentiality,” he said. The other Republican senators on the committee—Lindsey Graham, Thom Tillis, and Josh Hawley—agree. CBS News’s Robert Costas reported that Republicans don’t have much energy for “pushing back” against the controversial nomination. “Trump runs the show,” Costas wrote on X. “If Gaetz can reassure them, they’re open to backing him.”

But as Republicans move to hush Gaetz’s sex trafficking allegations, others note that this mess is likely far from over. “Mr. Gaetz’s likely nomination as attorney general is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events,” tweeted John Clune, the lawyer representing the underage victim. “We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.” 

Matt Gaetz’s sex trafficking allegations aren’t going away—but Republicans and those close to the embattled Florida man are doing everything they can to bury them. 

Rolling Stone reports that a “close friend” of the Florida representative asked a court to destroy records that detail the drug-fueled sex party that a trafficked 17-year-old and Gaetz allegedly attended in 2017. Christopher Dorworth, a friend of Gaetz caught up in the probe, filed two motions to have these details “stricken from the judicial record,” and Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

The 17-year-old victim in the case has said that Gaetz attended the 2017 party. Another friend of Gaetz’s, former Florida tax collector Joel Greenberg, has already admitted to having sex with the victim when she was 17, even writing a confession stating that Gaetz paid him to bring women in for sex and that (at least) one of them was under 18. Other court documents have also placed Gaetz at the party based on testimony from his ex-girlfriend, NOTUS reported. Greenberg pleaded guilty to six federal charges: sex trafficking of a child, production of a false identification document, aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, stalking, and conspiracy, in 2021. He is currently in prison.

Dorworth’s request comes after Gaetz was tapped by Trump to lead the Department of Justice in his new administration. The potential attorney general has been a hard-core Trump loyalist who has drawn the ire of his fellow Republicans, who referred to him as a childish, “disgraceful,” and “vile” person after his ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy just over a year ago. Then-Representative Markwayne Mullin, now a senator, candidly told CNN last year that Gaetz bragged about having sex with young women to other members on the floor of the House of Representatives. 

“We had all seen videos … of the girls that he had slept with,” Mullin said. “He’d crush [erectile dysfunction] medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night.” Mullin, now a Senator, has done a total 180 on this, saying on Wednesday that he “completely” trusts Trump’s decision to nominate Gaetz.

It remains to be seen if these allegations will derail Gaetz’s confirmation process. But one of the judges on the case, Daniel Irick, thinks it should. 

“This is a case of public importance,” Irick said in August, according to NOTUS. “It is one that there may be media interest in, and it’s one that involves important issues.… I’m not seeing any confidentialities that would really overwhelm the First Amendment right for the public to see this case, especially when a plaintiff brings claims in relation to their marriage and spouses and the kind of intimate issues in this case which are laid out in extreme detail in the … complaint. I am unlikely to seal anything because it all seems relevant.”

As attorney general, Gaetz will be fully empowered to carry out Trump’s—and his own—incindiary mandate, litigating culture wars and carrying out personal vendettas. Republican Senator Thom Tillis put it aptly: “I’m sure it’ll make for a popcorn-eating confirmation.”  

Senator Tommy Tuberville threatened to oust Republican senators who don’t vote to approve former Representative Matt Gaetz’s nomination to be the next attorney general.

During an interview on Fox Business Wednesday, the Alabama senator criticized Republicans reluctant to get behind Donald Trump’s recent mind-boggling nomination of Gaetz, who is the subject of a multiyear House Ethics Committee investigation for sexual misconduct, among a spate of other allegations.

When asked whether Gaetz would be confirmed by the Senate, Tuberville replied, “I don’t know, you’re finding all the swamp creatures coming out right now.”

“Everybody’s got an opinion up here, but at the end of the day, President Trump was elected by an enormous vote and he deserves a team around him that he wants, it’s not us to determine that,” Tuberville said. In reality, vetting the president’s Cabinet appointees is one of the Senate’s main responsibilities.

“We’ve got 53 votes in the Senate, we can confirm with 51. I’ve already seen where a couple of ‘em says, ‘I’m not voting for him.’ Wait a minute, you are not the United States of America, you have one vote in the U.S. Senate, you did not get elected president,” Tuberville continued, still appearing totally confused about what his job actually requires him to do.

“If you want to get in the way, fine. But we’re gonna try and get you out of the Senate too if you try to do that,” Tuberville added.

It’s a big 180 for Tuberville, who upon hearing that Gaetz had been nominated Wednesday, had initially responded, “Holy cow,” adding that he did not see this one coming.

Meanwhile, President-elect Trump is pushing for Senate leadership to approve recess appointments, which might allow him to install whoever he wants to his Cabinet without Senate approval. This could be really handy for forcing through his unsavory and unqualified picks, like Gaetz, and Fox and Friends host Pete Hegseth, with his arguably white supremacist tattoos and extremist rhetoric.

Rudy Giuliani’s attorneys are walking off the job.

The disgraced New York politico’s lead counsel, Kenneth Caruso, and attorney, David Labkowski, dropped him as a client on Wednesday, declaring in a motion in federal court that they had reached a “fundamental disagreement” with Giuliani.

The legal duo argued that they were entitled to peel away from their client, citing a New York rule that grants attorneys the ability to withdraw when a client “insists upon taking action with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement,” when the client insists on “presenting a claim or defense that is not warranted under existing law and cannot be supported by good faith argument,” or when “the client fails to cooperate in the representation or otherwise renders the representation unreasonably difficult for the lawyer to carry out employment effectively.”

Giuliani’s spokesperson, Ted Goodman, told The Independent that the Donald Trump ally had not been made aware of his legal representation’s recusal.

“Surely Mr. Caruso would talk to the mayor, or at the very least inform him, of such a decision,” Goodman told the publication.

Giuliani is still in court proceedings as he tries to worm his way out of paying up some $150 million in damages that he owes to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a pair of 2020 Georgia poll workers that he repeatedly defamed while pushing Trump’s Georgia election conspiracy.

Last week, the former gang-busting federal prosecutor tried out a new legal defense, arguing in a Manhattan courthouse that he couldn’t possibly hand over his assets to Freeman and Moss because he simply didn’t know where they were. Some of those assets include his Manhattan penthouse, a famously immovable object, as well as his Mercedes convertible, which he was seen driving in Florida on Election Day.

In response, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman said that the idea that neither Giuliani nor anyone else in the world has knowledge about the location of his assets was “farcical,” reported Reuters.

Amazingly, the $148 million debt is just the tip of the iceberg for Giuliani’s legal woes. Over the past year, the former Trump attorney unsuccessfully filed for bankruptcy, lost his accountant over his insurmountable debts, begged Trump for help settling his seven-figure legal fees (he refused), had his WABC radio show canceled for spewing 2020 election lies, and miserably started his own coffee brand, “Rudy Coffee,” in an effort to funnel in some extra cash. He ultimately lost his bankruptcy case due to his outlandish spending habits, with the presiding New York judge branding the former city mayor a “recalcitrant debtor.”

Giuliani is also under the gun for a lawsuit from his former legal representation, who accused him of failing to pay his bill and allegedly only dishing out $214,000 of nearly $1.6 million in legal expenses. Giuliani, meanwhile, claimed he was stiffed by his favorite client, Trump, to the tune of millions of dollars.

But wait, there’s more: The MAGA henchman is also one of 19 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case and was named in April in an Arizona indictment charging another slew of Republican officials and Trump allies for their alleged involvement in a scheme to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results. In October, an Arizona judge torched a legal filing Giuliani made in the case, ruling that the ex–Trump aide had “not one scintilla” of evidence to question the legitimacy of a grand jury assigned to his lawsuit.

But if the ex–Trump attorney can drag out his legal woes for long enough to obtain a pardon from Trump during the MAGA leader’s forthcoming second administration, he may not have to pay up at all.

Alex Jones’s conspiracy-laden media properties, including the website InfoWars, have been purchased at a bankruptcy auction by an unlikely entity: the satirical news outlet The Onion. 

The satirical magazine, which refers to itself as “America’s Finest News Source,” had the backing of the families of eight victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, who successfully sued Jones for defamation in 2022. The Onion now owns all of InfoWars’ intellectual property, including its website, social media accounts, production equipment, as well as customer lists and inventory. 

“The Onion is proud to acquire Infowars, and we look forward to continuing its storied tradition of scaring the site’s users with lies until they fork over their cold, hard cash,” Onion CEO Ben Collins told CNN. “Or bitcoin. We will also accept bitcoin.” 

The Onion will close down InfoWars and reboot the website, NBC reports, citing a person close to the sale. In a video posted to X, Jones seemed to hold out hope that his media properties were not lost, claiming, “They’re supposed to have a court order.” 

In order to help The Onion’s bid, the Sandy Hook families “agreed to forgo a portion of their recovery to increase the overall value of The Onion’s bid, enabling its success,” they said in a statement. Jones and InfoWars repeatedly alleged various false details about the school shooting, claiming that it was a “false flag” operation staged with “crisis actors,” in which no children were actually killed. Jones’s lies led to his listeners and fans harassing the family members of the children and teachers who were killed.

In true Onion fashion, the website posted a fake article announcing the news from a made-up CEO of their parent company Global Tetrahedron, Bryce P. Tetraeder, praising InfoWars as “an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses.”

“Make no mistake: This is a coup for our company and a well-deserved victory for multinational elites the world over,” the article said.  

Shortly after Donald Trump made the shocking announcement to nominate Representative Matt Gaetz for attorney general on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that Gaetz had already resigned from his congressional seat.

While the Florida representative’s sudden exit may appear to be premature, as Gaetz still needs to be confirmed to the position by the very same Republican senators he pissed off by voting to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year, it seems that Gaetz had another reason to cut his tenure short.

Gaetz’s resignation came just two days before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on releasing a report outlining its multiyear investigation into the MAGA Republican over his alleged sexual misconduct and drug use, according to Punchbowl News.

Gaetz’s departing his seat means that the House Ethics panel has lost its jurisdiction over him and must end its investigation. Representative John Rutherford, who sits on the committee, said Thursday that the ethics report “can’t” be released but did not explain why.

The secretive panel has been investigating Gaetz since 2021 over a slew of allegations, including sexual misconduct, sharing inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, and converting campaign funds for personal use.

Gaetz was previously investigated by the Justice Department over allegations that he’d engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old girl and violated sex-trafficking laws, but no charges were ever formally filed against him. Now Gaetz will head the agency that once tried to investigate him.

After Gaetz’s nomination to run the Justice Department was announced Wednesday, many Republicans in Congress were left in a state of shock. Current and former DOJ officials called his pick “insane” and “stunning,” and one person called him “the least qualified person ever nominated for any position in the Department of Justice,” according to NBC News.

Gaetz’s sudden resignation also demonstrates just how serious Trump is about his demand for Senate leadership to approve recess confirmations, which would allow him to appoint Cabinet members without investigation or approval from Congress.

This story has been updated.