Republican Rep. Melts Down After Realizing Hunter Biden Showed Up to Hearing

Republican Representative Nancy Mace had a bit of a freak-out on Wednesday when she realized Hunter Biden had shown up to a congressional hearing about him.

The House Oversight Committee held a hearing to hold the younger Biden in contempt of Congress for refusing a subpoena to sit for a closed-door deposition. Biden, when defying the subpoena, offered to publicly testify before the American people instead—likely so that his words wouldn’t be twisted by Republicans.

Whatever concerns the president’s son may have harbored about his Republican inquisitors not treating him fairly were confirmed after Mace reacted to his presence by launching into a truly unhinged rant.

“My first question is who bribed Hunter Biden to be here today?” the South Carolina representative began, implying that Biden may have been paid to attend a hearing about him.

“Second question: You’re the epitome of white privilege. Coming into the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a congressional subpoena to be deposed. What are you afraid of? You have no balls to come up here today.”

A fight soon broke out in the committee as Democratic Representative Moskowitz pointed out that if Mace wanted to hear from Biden, he could testify publicly.

An outraged Mace began yelling back, “Are women allowed to speak in here or no?”

“I think that Hunter Biden should be arrested right here and right now and go straight to jail,” she demanded.

As a reminder: Mace often pretends to be a moderate, but she has a long record of being a dedicated Republican culture warrior. For example, while she publicly criticizes her party on abortion, she dutifully votes for every abortion ban that comes to the floor.

She has also distinguished herself as someone desperate for media attention, which may explain her wild rantings. Her internal staff handbook was leaked last year, revealing that Mace’s North Star is whatever gets her a media hit. In fact, one aide surmised that she probably voted to oust Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy for no real reason other than to go on television.

Perhaps this newest meltdown is intended to get the attention of Donald Trump. After all, she’s pitching herself as his V.P.

Donald Trump and his lawyers are presenting increasingly unhinged defenses of the former president’s claim that he should be immune from criminal proceedings, as his legal team appears to scramble to keep up the argument.

Trump’s lawyers presented his case for immunity to a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, and to say it went badly for Trump’s team was an understatement. At one point, lawyer John Sauer bizarrely argued that a president could face criminal prosecution—say, for ordering Seal Team 6 to assassinate someone—only if he had been impeached and convicted first.

Trump attorney Alina Habba, who seems to have a habit of saying things that actually hurt Trump’s various legal cases, tried to defend Sauer’s defense that evening. She argued that Judge Florence Pan, who asked about the Seal Team 6 assassination, was using “hypotheticals that do not currently exist.”

“The real facts are so easy to win that we have to now argue the slippery slope argument of, ‘If he kills someone, will he be held accountable?’” Habba said on Fox News. “He didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t cause an insurrection. He didn’t get charged for it. But they’re using hypotheticals to frighten America.”

Saying that Trump hasn’t killed anyone—but he has the right to get away with it as long as Congress doesn’t impeach him—is a terrible argument. Pan’s question, moreover, was intended to demonstrate that there are certain cases when a president does not have immunity from criminal prosecution.

It’s also unclear what Habba meant when she said Trump “didn’t get charged for” causing an insurrection, because he has been—twice. Once when the House voted in January 2021 to impeach him for incitement of insurrection and again in August when special counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump for his role in the January 6 riot.

Trump has repeatedly argued that former presidents can’t be criminally charged for actions related to their official responsibilities. He did not explain how overturning an election was related to official presidential duties.

Despite insisting all day Tuesday that the immunity hearing had gone well, Trump launched into a social media rant that evening, during which he presented some wild defenses of his own. First, he said that losing immunity would prevent a president from enjoying “HIS OR HER ‘GOLDEN YEARS’ OF RETIREMENT” because they would be bombarded with lawsuits.

Then Trump said that if he lost immunity, then Joe Biden would too, hampering the latter’s ability to function as president. Finally, Trump said that losing immunity would mean “‘OPENING THE FLOODGATES’ TO PROSECUTING FORMER PRESIDENTS.”

“AN OPPOSING HOSTILE PARTY WILL BE DOING IT FOR ANY REASON, ALL OF THE TIME!” he wrote on Truth Social.

Trump, however, is the first president in history to face this many lawsuits post-office, and the first to face charges of this nature.

A Florida Republican lawmaker has introduced a bill that would essentially ban abortions altogether, going even further than the already draconian restrictions on the procedure in the Sunshine State.

State Representative David Borrero filed a bill Monday that would ban anyone from performing an abortion except to save the patient’s life. There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or if the patient is a minor. The bill would establish that personhood exists from the moment of fertilization.

The measure (H.B. 1519) states that a qualifying medical emergency would be “an emergent physical condition in which an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of a pregnant woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.” The bill makes no mention of what a patient should do if they miscarry and need to have the fetus removed, or if the fetus develops a fatal anomaly.

Under the bill, “performing or attempting to perform an abortion” is classified as a third-degree felony. Doctors who conduct abortions for reasons other than those allowed by the measure could face up to 10 years in jail, up to $100,000 in fines, or both.

The Florida Senate minority leader, Democrat Lauren Book, slammed the bill as a “desperate attempt at relevancy by the bill sponsor.”

“We are in arm’s reach of getting abortion on the ballot and restoring the rights they stole,” she told the Sun Sentinel. “Republican leadership knows this is no longer a winning issue for their party. Voters of all political leanings have shown and will continue to show their overwhelming support for women’s right to healthcare privacy and reproductive freedom.”

Florida currently bans abortion after 15 weeks. That law went before the state Supreme Court in September. If the court upholds the law, then an even more restrictive measure banning abortion at six weeks—before most people know they are pregnant—will go into effect. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the hugely unpopular bill in April.

If Borrero’s bill becomes law—a possibility, with Republicans controlling both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s office—then it would supersede the six-week ban.

But there’s a chance that all of these laws will be defeated. Florida abortion advocates have collected enough signatures to put access to the procedure on the state’s 2024 ballot. The amendment would allow abortion access up until viability, or when the fetus can survive outside the uterus. This is generally estimated to happen at around 24 weeks.

The ballot initiative faces a major Republican challenge, though. State Attorney General Ashley Moody, a DeSantis ally, has asked the Florida Supreme Court to disqualify the amendment. She argues the language is misleading, claiming that the use of the word “viability” could have multiple meanings. The state’s high court will hear arguments on February 7.

A federal judge on Tuesday set strict limitations on what Donald Trump and his attorneys can say during the former president’s upcoming trial for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll.

Trump will go on trial starting next Tuesday for comments he made in 2019, when he said Carroll accused him of raping her just to promote her memoir. Presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan has already determined that Trump is liable for defamation, so the trial is primarily to set damages.

Kaplan issued an order Tuesday barring Trump and his lawyers from discussing Carroll’s choice of lawyer or who might be paying her legal fees. They are prohibited from making comments “concerning Ms. Carroll’s past romantic relationships, sexual disposition, and prior sexual experiences,” and they cannot argue that Trump did not sexually abuse Carroll or act with actual malice when making his comments about her.

Trump’s legal team has argued that Carroll’s lawsuits are just another witch hunt against the former president. They claim her lawyer Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) is biased because she has represented prominent Democrats, and that the whole lawsuit is being funded by a left-leaning billionaire.

Judge Kaplan had already ruled over the weekend that Trump can’t argue he didn’t rape Carroll. Although Trump was found liable for sexual abuse, Kaplan has repeatedly stated that Trump “‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”

In May, a jury unanimously found Trump liable for sexual abuse and battery against Carroll in the mid-1990s and for defaming her in 2022 while denying the assault. He was ordered to pay her $5 million in damages.

Kaplan ruled in September that since Trump has already been found liable for sexual abuse, his 2019 comments are by default defamatory. Carroll is now seeking up to $12 million in damages.

Legal analyst Lisa Rubin noted Tuesday that Kaplan’s latest ruling might convince Trump not to testify in next week’s trial. Rubin explained that Trump’s testimony could result in higher punitive damages, and he might violate the order while on the stand.

Trump has already shown it will be difficult for him not to bring up Carroll’s past sexual experiences. Carroll wrote a popular sexual advice column in Elle magazine for nearly three decades. Just last week, over the span of about 30 minutes, Trump made 31 posts about Carroll on Truth Social. Among the many things he shared were media interview clips and social media posts that appear to come from Carroll, all stripped of context so as to paint her as some sort of sexual deviant.

Less than three months into Mike Johnson’s tenure as speaker of the House, some House Republicans are already experiencing buyer’s remorse.

Texas Representative and Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy on Monday publicly raised the possibility of dumping Johnson as speaker.

Questioned by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Roy mentioned “colleagues that are really frustrated” with Johnson and alluded to “real conversations this week about what [House Republicans] need to do going forward,” calling the situation “[not] good.”

And Roy is not alone. As Punchbowl News reports, some House Republicans have “significant concerns” about whether Johnson—the least experienced speaker in 140 years—is “in over his head.” At least one Republican claimed Johnson is “getting rolled even more than [ousted former Speaker Kevin] McCarthy did.”

Conservative dissatisfaction with Johnson stems from what some see as his acquiescence to President Biden and House Democrats on spending. Johnson over the weekend agreed to a $1.59 trillion spending deal for 2024. Under the deal, fiscal spending will be limited to what was mostly laid out in June’s Fiscal Responsibility Act, which averted a government shutdown at the time but also angered the Freedom Caucus and in part led to McCarthy’s ouster.

In the green but hard-line Johnson, Republicans like Roy saw a figure more amenable to their brand of austerity and obstructionism. Facing his first real test, however, Johnson seems to have failed in the eyes of some of his colleagues.

Now concerns over Johnson’s ability to lead are trickling out via anonymous quotes from “VERY well connected” House members.

Johnson’s rise from little-known Louisiana congressman to speaker of the House in the 23 days following McCarthy’s removal was seen as a win for the party’s right wing; Johnson’s 2020 election denial and social conservatism (he opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage and sees his election as divinely ordained) allowed anti-McCarthy holdouts to coalesce around his candidacy.

But the one-member threshold for vacating a House speaker, which McCarthy implemented and which led to his own ousting, is still in place.

And now, it seems Johnson’s days as speaker may be numbered.