Tennessee Republicans Block Gun Reform, Abruptly Adjourn Until Next Year

The Tennessee House of Representatives burst into chaos Tuesday when Republicans voted to adjourn a special session on public safety, after ignoring widespread demands for increased gun control.

The state legislature convened the special session last week in response to a mass shooting in March, when a gunman opened fire on an elementary school and killed three children and three adults. State Republicans have insisted that there is nothing they could have done or could do differently to prevent such a tragedy—and they appear determined to make good on that claim.

The Senate had adjourned earlier Tuesday, closing the chamber until January. House Republicans forced through a motion to adjourn the chamber, also until January, moments before Democratic Representative Justin Jones—one of the formerly expelled Tennessee Three—could call for a vote of no confidence of Speaker Cameron Sexton. When Sexton gaveled through the motion adjourning the House, the chamber erupted.

Spectators began to chant, “Vote them out!” and “Shame!” As Sexton tried to leave, Jones and Democratic Representative Justin Pearson, another member of the Tennessee Three, followed him, waving protest signs. At one point, Sexton’s shoulder appeared to bump Pearson. Another Republican blocked Pearson from getting closer, while Sexton wheeled around and shouted at him, waving his finger in Pearson’s face.

Jones then went up to the speaker’s podium, banged the gavel, and shouted, “This House is out of order!” Pearson joined the protesters outside the chamber in the Capitol rotunda.

Democrats were infuriated by Republicans’ refusal to pass any gun control measures. “No one should leave this building today saying we made Tennessee safer,” Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari said. “Because that is simply not true. We didn’t enact any new policies, we didn’t meet the needs of these parents, who are just crying out for us to do something.”

“How long? How much longer will we allow ourselves to remain in this state?”

The special session has been tense from the start, when Republicans tried to ban signs from the House chamber, a direct response to the many protesters demanding increased gun control. Republicans also voted Monday to silence Jones for the day, prompting Democrats to walk out of the session in solidarity.

This was not the first time Republicans had tried to silence Jones. The GOP voted in March to expel Jones and Pearson, both of whom are Black, for allegedly breaking House rules by joining thousands of pro–gun control protesters. Republicans fell one vote short of expelling Gloria Johnson, a white woman, who also joined the protest.

Jones and Pearson were unanimously reinstated by their district councils and then reelected in landslide victories in a special election earlier this month.

Jack Smith has been asking witnesses whether Rudy Giuliani was regularly drunk on and after Election Day 2020. If he was, and Donald Trump knew, then it could undermine one of the former president’s main defenses in his federal election interference lawsuit.

Trump was indicted for his role in the January 6 insurrection and other attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, one of four indictments. He is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against the right to vote. One of his main defenses has been that he really believed he had won the election and was acting on the advice of his counsel—in this case, Giuliani.

But investigators for Smith, who is probing Trump for election interference and for allegedly mishandling classified documents, have repeatedly asked whether Giuliani was drunk in the weeks he was advising Trump about how to stay in office, Rolling Stone reported Tuesday, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.

The investigation team has asked whether Trump ever mentioned Giuliani’s drinking habits or complained that the drinking affected Giulinia’s decision-making process. Investigators also asked whether Trump was warned about Giuliani’s allegedly excessive drinking, especially after the 2020 election.

Some witnesses reportedly told Rolling Stone that they saw Giuliani drinking heavily or could smell alcohol on his breath, including on Election night, and that his behavior changed before and after he drank. Some witnesses also said that Trump had previously spoken negatively about Giuliani’s drinking.

If Smith’s team can prove this in court, then they could undermine Trump’s advice-of-counsel defense. If Trump relied on a lawyer that he knew was drunk and acting recklessly, then that would add to the prosecutors’ argument that Trump was acting with willful recklessness in his attempts to overturn the election.

Giuliani denied the allegations of drunkenness. “It’s unfortunate that political opponents would use a serious problem like alcoholism as part of their efforts to smear Mayor Rudy Giuliani—a man who took down the Mafia, cleaned up New York City, and comforted the world following the September 11th terrorist attacks,” Giuliani’s political advisor Ted Goodman said in a statement to The New Republic.

This isn’t the first time that Giuliani’s alleged drunkenness has come up in a lawsuit. Giuliani’s former associate Noelle Dunphy sued him in May, accusing him of promising to pay her a $1 million annual salary but instead raping and sexually abusing her over the course of two years. Her lawsuit alleges that Giuliani was constantly drunk, talked openly about trying to overturn the 2020 election, and even plotted to sell pardons with Donald Trump for $2 million each.

This article has been updated.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s past as a sensible young college student is coming back to haunt him.

An old video of a young Ramaswamy asking Democratic presidential candidate Reverend Al Sharpton about his lack of “political experience” has quickly gone viral.

“My question for you is, of all the Democratic candidates out there, why should I vote for the one with the least political experience?” an 18-year-old Ramaswamy asked Sharpton during a 2003 town hall on MSNBC’s Hardball With Chris Matthews.

Sharpton was quick to fire back, “Well you shouldn’t, because I have the most political experience!”

Ramaswamy’s question is more than a little ironic now, seeing as Ramaswamy entered the 2024 presidential race with no political experience.

Ramaswamy responded to the video going viral on Twitter. “I’ll give the 18-year-old version of myself a pat-on-the-back for eliciting the most sensible words ever to come from that man’s mouth,” Ramaswamy wrote. “20 years later, it’s funny how the tables have turned.”

Yes, it is funny that at one point Ramaswamy understood the importance of voting for the candidate with political experience, but any such wisdom has since evaporated from his mind.

Representative Barry Loudermilk came so close to blaming climate change for hurricanes on Fox News.

The Georgia Republican nearly made the connection on Fox News Monday night, while discussing Hurricane Idalia, a Category 1 hurricane that is rapidly approaching the Florida coast; experts say Idalia could strengthen into a Category 3 storm before it is expected to make landfall Wednesday. Loudermilk compared the storm to Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on the Gulf Coast 17 years ago almost to the day.

“I think we’re on the anniversary of Katrina, today, one of the worst storms in history,” Loudermilk said. “If it was climate change, if it’s continuing to get worse, then would you not see more and more of this storm being worse and worse?”

Well put, Loudermilk, even if it was a total accident.

Loudermilk is, of course, a climate change denier. In 2014, Loudermilk told The Atlanta Journal Constitution, “I believe that climate change is a function of nature; the climate has been changing as long as the Earth has existed.” He supported President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017.

But his words on Fox news are true: These storms are in fact getting worse thanks to climate change.

Hurricanes strengthen over warm ocean waters—storms need a temperature of around 82 degrees to start forming—while warmer air holds more moisture and can also help intensify storms. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday that parts of the ocean off Florida’s coast are more than four degrees hotter than the usual average for August; one measurement taken off the Florida Keys showed that the water was a shocking 91.2 degrees. Following one of the hottest summers on record, the “wildly hot” waters in the Gulf of Mexico are expected to rapidly intensify Hurricane Idalia. The Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly affirmed that rising sea surface temperatures caused by climate change have led to an increase in tropical cyclone intensity, duration, and frequency.

Conservative activist Matt Schlapp tried to settle the multimillion-dollar sexual battery and defamation lawsuit against him, but his offer was denied.

Schlapp is the head of the American Conservative Union, which organizes the annual Conservative Political Action Committee Conference. He and his wife are being sued by Republican strategist Carlton Huffman, who accused Schlapp of groping him while Huffman was working as a staffer on Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign.

Schlapp in March offered Huffman a sum in the low six figures to settle the suit, The Daily Beast reported Tuesday, citing anonymous sources with direct knowledge of the situation. Huffman countered with a significantly higher amount, which Schlapp turned down.

The Schlapps’ publicist denied that they had offered to settle, telling The Daily Beast, “From the outset Mr. and Mrs. Schlapp have been and remain prepared to go to trial and are confident of prevailing in court.”

Huffman’s lawyer called the denial “categorically false.”

Huffman alleges that Schlapp made “sustained and unwanted and unsolicited” sexual contact with him while he was driving the ACU chief back from an Atlanta bar in October. Huffman says Schlapp bought him drinks at two different bars and then proceeded to grope his crotch on the drive back to Schlapp’s hotel. When they arrived at the hotel, Schlapp allegedly invited Huffman to his room.

Huffman recorded several tearful videos of himself describing what happened. “Matt Schlapp of the CPAC grabbed my junk and pummeled it at length, and I’m sitting there thinking what the hell is going on, that this person is literally doing this to me,” he says in one video.

“From the bar to the Hilton Garden Inn, he has his hands on me. And I feel so fucking dirty. I feel so fucking dirty.”

The revelation of Schlapp’s settlement offer may cause more people to doubt his denials. He reportedly made the offer without consulting the ACU board. While a settlement is not technically an admission of guilt, this is the latest step Schlapp has taken without including the ACU.

In addition to not letting the board vote on the settlement offer, Schlapp has refused to allow for an internal investigation and has gone out of his way to avoid discussing the accusation during board meetings. Multiple sources described his actions to The Daily Beast as “bizarre.”

Schlapp’s behavior is also starting to alienate former allies. Charlie Gerow, who resigned as ACU vice president on Friday, used to be a full-throated Schlapp defender. But when he resigned, he urged the board to investigate any and all allegations against Schlapp. The next day, two more sexual misconduct accusations were revealed to have been made.