House Republicans Proudly Endorse National Abortion Ban, Limits to IVF

House Republicans have released their proposed budget for 2025, and it includes giving rights to embryos—despite the GOP’s big statements about how much they support in vitro fertilization.

The budget, released Wednesday by the Republican Study Committee, or RSC, states that the party backs the Life at Conception Act, “which would provide 14th amendment protections at all stages of life.”

This bill has become highly contentious in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that classified fertilized embryos as human children. First introduced in 2021 with 166 Republican co-sponsors and then again in 2023 with 124, the Life at Conception Act would have established that life begins at fertilization.

Like the Alabama ruling, the act would have severely restricted—if not effectively banned—IVF treatments, because it grants “equal protection” to “preborn” humans, including embryos. Since it’s common for fertilized eggs not to survive the IVF process, the act would put doctors at risk of being charged for wrongful death of embryos. That risk would be enough to scupper the IVF industry.

In the weeks after the Alabama ruling, Republicans rushed to say that they support access to IVF. Seven House Republicans—five of whom represent vulnerable swing districts—introduced a resolution expressing their support for IVF and urging elected officials to protect the treatment.

But the resolution was nonbinding, meaning that those seven elected officials weren’t really doing anything to protect IVF. And now, the RSC, which comprises about three-quarters of the House Republican caucus, has explicitly stated that it supports legislation that would decimate access to IVF nationwide.

The RSC budget also took aim at abortion, backing another bill for a 15-week national abortion ban and recommending a measure that would ban the sale of mifepristone, one of the drugs used to induce abortions. The question of mifepristone’s decades-old approval for market goes before the Supreme Court next week.

The budget backed a bill that would ban abortion access on college campuses, as well as prohibit the Department of Defense from reimbursing travel costs for service members who have to travel for an abortion. The department policy has been a major Republican target of late, particularly from Senator Tommy Tuberville, who single-handedly held up hundreds of military promotions last year in an attempt to protest the program.

The RSC’s proposed budget is unlikely to pass unscathed. The government is currently avoiding a shutdown on a weekly basis due to Congress’s inability to agree on a federal budget. But the entire proposal highlights Republican hypocrisy on reproductive health.

Despite proclaiming themselves the “pro-life” party, Republicans continue to do everything they possibly can to limit access to IVF, a procedure that would allow people to have children, and to force people into life-threatening situations.

Judge Aileen Cannon has been moving alarmingly slowly in setting up a trial date for Donald Trump’s classified documents criminal case—but it may not be a bid to help out the man who appointed her.

As of Thursday, the Florida judge had lost at least two law clerks in the last six months, who up and quit on her rather than finish out their one-year terms, according to several sources within Cannon’s legal circuit that spoke with attorney David Lat.

It’s incredibly rare for multiple clerks to leave their posts, especially considering that judges typically hire just two or three clerks per annum. As Lat notes in his Substack Original Jurisdiction, “a law clerk’s role is substantive, not clerical or administrative.” Clerks are more like a judge’s right and left hands—they help the judiciary conduct research, prepare for trials, and draft opinions. Clerkships are highly competitive, and one serving a federal judge would otherwise be considered résumé gold, so it’s certainly curious that they seem to be fleeing her bench.

“Because a clerkship typically lasts one year and is an extremely valuable credential, most clerks will ‘ride it out’ instead of quitting, even if they’re miserable or have issues with their judge,” Lat posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, adding that it’s “highly disruptive to the work of a chambers when even one clerk quits, to say nothing of two.”

“Judges in busy districts like [the Southern District of Florida] have heavy caseloads. To be short-staffed can generate a backlog VERY quickly,” Lat wrote.

Both clerks reportedly quit in October and December 2023, around the time that Cannon made clear she was open to delaying Trump’s trial past its original May start date. Cannon’s chambers, as of now, are fully staffed. But details on the ones who left are still emerging. So far, one clerk vacated their position on personal terms—they left roughly halfway through their two-year term to raise their child. Another clerk’s exit is still shrouded in mystery, though Lat notes that “this person’s law-school classmates have been buzzing about the news.”

Donald Trump hasn’t ruled out being bought by foreign powers—according to his legal team.

On Thursday, the GOP presidential nominee’s attorney, Alina Habba, failed to say that Trump definitely would not turn to a foreign country if it meant he could secure bond money to cover his $464 million bank fraud penalty.

“Is there any effort on the part of your team to secure this money through another country, Saudi Arabia or Russia, as Joy Behar seems to think?” asked Fox News’s Martha MacCallum, referring to a recent episode of The View in which Behar speculated that such a move—that is, having a president bought and sold by potentially hostile foreign powers—could be a cataclysmic national security threat.

But none of that fazed Habba, who completely sidestepped answering the question and failed the very basic test of answering “no.”

“Well, there’s rules and regulations that are public,” Habba replied. “I can’t speak about strategy, that requires certain things and we have to follow those rules. Like I said, this is manifest injustice. It is impossible, it’s an impossibility. I believe they knew that.”

“I think everything is done intentionally. I do not doubt that the witch hunt that the election interference goal is what was ringing steady and loudly and true throughout all these trials, frankly. And we’re seeing it. It’s the demise of our country, not the demise of Trump,” she added.

So far, Trump has approached several brokers and 30 suretors for help securing a bond, though it didn’t seem to work out for him, according to a filing by Trump’s attorneys, who admitted that suretors refused to accept Trump’s real estate as collateral. Instead, they would only accept cash to the tune of $1 billion, which Trump said he and his businesses just don’t have.

In a nearly 5,000-page document filed on Monday, Trump’s attorneys argued that the fine was “grossly disproportional” to Trump’s offenses, which included defrauding banks, insurance companies, and investors by falsely inflating his wealth and the value of his properties.

But on Wednesday, an attorney for New York Attorney General Letitia James urged an appeals court to ignore the self-purported billionaire’s attempts to worm out of the nearly half-billion-dollar disgorgement.

The former president has until Monday to come up with nearly half a billion dollars before he’s legally allowed to appeal the case—and before James can begin seizing his assets to cover the debt, including 40 Wall Street and Trump Tower.

It turns out that Donald Trump’s millions of dollars worth of legal bills aren’t the only financial struggles on his mind. The former president has raised just a fraction of the money that his opponent has on the campaign trail.

Trump’s presidential campaign raised $10.9 million in February, bringing his war chest to a grand total of $33.5 million, according to campaign disclosures. In comparison, President Joe Biden’s campaign raised $21.3 million, giving him a total of $71 million in campaign spending money. And he plans to use it to drown Trump in attack ads, Politico reported late Wednesday.

It’s a similar situation at the party level. The Republican National Committee raised $10.7 million in February, for a total of just $11.3 million fundraised overall. Poor fundraising was one of the main reasons that former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel was forced to step down.

The Democratic National Committee, on the other hand, raised $16.6 million, for a total of $26.5 million cash on hand, according to Politico.

Trump’s money situation isn’t helped by the fact that most of what he fundraises has had to go towards his myriad legal struggles. A pro-Trump super PAC called MAGA Inc. has reportedly sent more than $50 million to Save America, Trump’s leadership PAC, since last year to help cover the former president’s legal bills. And it’s unclear how much longer that can continue.

Save America spent $5.6 million on legal expenses in February alone, and it was only kept going by a $5 million refund from MAGA Inc. The super PAC now has just $7.75 million more it can refund to Save America, which only has about $4 million in cash left.

So it’s no wonder that Trump has had to resort to hawking ugly sneakers and promoting fan-supported GoFundMe campaigns to raise money. He has only days left to post a nearly half-billion-dollar bond in his New York civil fraud case before the state attorney general can start seizing his assets as repayment.

Trump recently posted a $91.6 million bond in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit, which was guaranteed by the Chubb Corporation, much to the insurance group’s clients’ dismay. He still owes Carroll $5 million from her first lawsuit.

Trump also owes nearly $400,000 to The New York Times, thousands of dollars for gag order violations, and $382,000 to Orbis Business Intelligence, the consulting firm owned by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Trump had sued Orbis over a dossier Steele compiled in 2016 that alleged Trump and members of his inner circle had been “compromised” by Russia’s security service.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tore into Tony Bobulinski during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday, pressing conservatives’ so-called “deadly witness” on his ability to point to any illegal activity conducted by President Joe Biden—and in doing so, urging Republicans to admit that the whole proceeding was “based on false charges.”

“I have a quick question. Simple. Is it your testimony today that you personally witnessed President Joe Biden commit a crime?” the New York lawmaker asked.

“I believe the fact that he was sitting with me while I was putting together—” Bobulinski started, before Ocasio-Cortez cut in, narrowing her question.

“Did you witness the president commit a crime? Is it your testimony today?” she prompted.

“Yes,” Bobulinski replied.

“And what crime did …  you witness?” Ocasio-Cortez continued.

In the ensuing back-and-forth, Bobulinski vaguely responded with categories of crimes rather than specific ones, flagrantly patronizing Ocasio-Cortez for not understanding corruption statutes like RICO, only to then be schooled by her explanation that RICO is simply an umbrella category and not a specific crime.

“Clearly what we are seeing here today is a continuation of the 15-month saga of the Republican majority lost in the desert,” Ocasio-Cortez said, starting a speech that would lean into her conservative colleagues for pushing forward with an impeachment probe based on meritless claims that have since been thoroughly debunked—including by one of the investigation’s supposed star witnesses, Alexander Smirnov, who is currently in prison after admitting that he spun the story with the help of top Russian intelligence.

“What we are seeing is that this committee was warned about the falsehoods of these allegations long before that, warned by Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “And yet they proceeded anyway. The chairman proceeded anyway. This committee was warned by a Rudy Giuliani associate right here, Lev Parnas. After that document, about the falsehoods of this, then held hearings where your own expert witnesses said that there was no grounds for impeachment, and you proceeded anyway.”

“At this point, the story is not the fact that the basis of this impeachment inquiry is wrong. The story is why it’s proceeding anyway. Why is this committee proceeding based on false charges?” she added.

Of course, some of her colleagues across the aisle didn’t take so kindly to her laying it all out on the table, deciding instead that the best course of action—rather than respond frankly—would be to attempt to twist Ocasio-Cortez’s vocal offense into fodder for their social media followers.

“Weekly meltdown by Rep. AOC,” posted South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace, sharing a clip of the speech. “Someone needs to remind the Left, just because you are loud, does not mean you are right.”