Four Republicans Defect From Mike Johnson to Force Health Care Vote

Four House Republicans have rejected the party line to give Obamacare more juice.

In a major act of defiance against House Speaker Mike Johnson, GOP Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Lawler, Robert Bresnahan, and Ryan Mackenzie signed Democrats’ Affordable Care Act discharge petition Wednesday morning.

They join every House Democrat in doing so, bringing the overall tally on the petition to the 218 signatures required to force a vote on whether to extend enhanced ACA subsidies for another three years.

Last week, Johnson granted Fitzpatrick and Representative Jen Kiggans an opportunity to vote on an amendment to extend the subsidies. But differing opinions over the amendment’s text had blocked efforts to make a deal.

Kiggans is not expected to sign the petition, people close to her told The Hill.

The successful effort does not translate into immediate action, however. Signatories on the petition will have to wait at least seven legislative days to recognize it, according to House rules, after which House leadership will have two days to respond. That would likely put the ACA vote on the agenda sometime around New Year’s Eve, but Johnson could voluntarily speed up the process if he wanted to.

Johnson did not respond when asked by CNN as to whether he would permit a vote before the year’s end.

The Obamacare subsidies that were enacted under the previous administration are slated to expire on December 31. Without them, health insurance premiums for more than 20 million Americans are expected to double.

If the subsidies completely lapse or expire—as most Republicans seemingly want them to do—practically everyone will feel the pain: Policy analysts expect a mass exodus from Obamacare plans altogether that could leave roughly four million Americans completely uninsured. The spike in uninsured Americans will spur a nationwide public health problem that has historically made premiums more expensive for the insured as hospitals look to recoup the lost cash.

But Johnson apparently doesn’t see that forthcoming domino effect.

“Here’s the false narrative: Democrats are pretending as though this affects everybody in the country,” Johnson told CNBC two hours before the Republican defection. “It affects 7 percent of Americans, this extended subsidy.”

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump got excited on Tuesday describing his bombing campaign against suspected drug boats, at a Hanukkah reception at the White House.

“The only time anybody could see those planes was when those bomb chutes open up, because it becomes totally un-stealth,” Trump began, making hand gestures to describe the airstrikes. “You’re going in, you go like this. And as soon as it goes like this, for some reason, the plane is totally visible, not good. And I watched it happening.”

Trump continued on, getting more animated, to scattered laughter in the crowd.

“And I watched it happening, it’s like I’m sitting home watching it, you know, it’s amazing, the situation room is an amazing place. But I watched ’em go bing, bing, it went bing, bing, and two massive hundred-thousand-pound bombs come pouring out, and the job they did was incredible,” Trump added, going on to call a particular strike “the single greatest military attack that anyone’s ever seen.”

Trump turns 80 next year, and is beginning to face more questions about whether he is physically and mentally up to the job of being president. Even though this is his second term in office, it’s evident that he has trouble understanding and explaining certain concepts. Trump won’t admit to any issues, though, lashing out reports of his cognitive decline.

It’s not good that Trump gets excited about dropping bombs and killing people, especially when the bombings are likely illegal and seem to be a prelude to regime change and war with Venezuela. And the fact that Trump seems to be experiencing early-stage dementia probably means that national security is in danger.

The price tag on the White House ballroom just keeps climbing.

Speaking at a Hanukkah reception at the White House Tuesday night, Donald Trump nonchalantly dropped that the cost of building the 90,000-square-foot dance pad had grown to $400 million.

“I think it’ll be the greatest ballroom anywhere in the world,” Trump said. “Who else but in our country would sue to stop a $400 million beautiful ballroom that people have been after for the White House?

“The White House has wanted a ballroom for 150 years,” he added.

But exactly who has been clamoring for the facility—which will dwarf the 55,000-square-foot mansion—is not clear. Even the architect of the project, James McCrery II, disagreed with the size and scope of Trump’s ginormous ballroom, claiming that its construction would violate basic architectural principles. But McCrery’s opinion eventually got him fired.

The project’s price tag has seemingly grown by 100 percent since Trump first pitched it in July. The original $200 million cost became $300 million in October, as soon as Trump started tearing into the White House East Wing. The historic wing has been completely razed in the process, despite the president’s initial promises to build the addition “near but not touching” the actual White House.

Since Trump’s other promises have fallen flat, there seems to be no guarantee that the cost of the development will actually be funded “100 percent” by Trump and “some friends” of his.

The White House suggested that the project would be paid for, in part, by some of the country’s wealthiest families and biggest corporations, including the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta.

Some major players in the defense industry with massive federal contracts have also pledged significant cash to develop the ballroom, including Lockheed Martin and Palantir.

Donald Trump bragged about one of his biggest donors, Miriam Adelson, donating $250 million to his campaign in 2024, at a White House Hanukkah event Tuesday night. Adelson then told the audience that Trump could run for a third term and whispered something in Trump’s ear. Trump smiled widely as he announced she’d offer him another $250 million.

Adelson, a staunch supporter of right-wing Israeli causes, said that a third term, which is unconstitutional, was possible for Trump with the help of disgraced attorney and Israel supporter Alan Dershowitz, who is implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein files.

“Miriam gave my campaign, indirectly and directly, 250 million, she was number one,” Trump told the crowd. “When somebody can give you 250 million, I think that we should give her the opportunity to say hello. And Miriam, make it quick, because 250 million is not what it used to be.”

Adelson then came to the stage and told the crowd about how she had recently “met Alan Dershowitz, and he said the legal thing about four more years.”

“And I say, Alan, I agree with you. So, we can do it. Think about it,” Adelson said. Trump pointed out that Dershowitz was in the crowd as the audience started to chant, “Four more years.”

The whole thing raises numerous issues, like the influence that rich donors have on the president and the open declaration of plans to flout the Constitution to keep Trump in office beyond 2028. Adelson’s money doesn’t come without strings, either: Just like in 2024, the billionaire widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson will likely push for the United States to recognize Israel’s annexation of the West Bank.

Last year, Trump told pro-Israel donors including Adelson that he would set back the pro-Palestinian movement by “25 or 30 years,” and so far, it seems that at least Adelson is happy with the job Trump is doing. Meanwhile, more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the last two years, including over 379 casualties two months after a ceasefire in Gaza was declared. But at least Trump will get paid to stay in office illegally, right?

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles may have just ruined any chance President Donald Trump had of reviving his administration’s indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James.

In a wildly candid interview with Vanity Fair published Tuesday, Wiles admitted that Trump’s effort to go after James over flimsy charges of mortgage fraud was his “one retribution.” (He has arguably had far more than one.)

Wiles explained that she hadn’t felt compelled to warn Trump off of James because “she had a half a billion dollars of his money.”

If the Trump administration ever wanted to seek an indictment against James again, it’s more than likely that the opposing legal team would simply have to cite Wiles to get the case tossed out again.

The Justice Department has tried three times to indict James—unsuccessfully in each instance, including one failed attempt as recent as last week. The original indictment against James was dismissed last month when a judge ruled that the Trump administration had improperly appointed the lead attorney, who had no prosecutorial experience at all.

Wiles was quick to claim that many of her quotes were taken out of context, but she’s already been caught lying about what she did and did not say. Multiple members of Trumpworld have voiced support for Wiles in the face of supposedly fake news. Meanwhile, Trump actually confirmed Wiles’s own wild comment about him.

Minnesota Republican Representative Tom Emmer was asked directly if he agreed with President Trump’s assessment that the thousands of Somali residents he represents are “garbage.” He couldn’t give a straight answer. 

“Mr. Emmer, do you agree with President Trump that say[s] 5,000 Somali residents in your district in St. Cloud are garbage?” Migrant Insider’s Pablo Manríquez asked Emmer while he walked down a hallway. 

The Republican majority whip offered a weak, political nonanswer. 

“I think what President Trump has done is raise an issue that is something that we’ve been trying to raise for almost three years,” he replied. “The press refuse to cover things that are right in front of them—”

“Donald Trump said that the Somalis are garbage; that’s what I’m asking you about,” Manríquez replied. 

“If you could let me finish, I’d love to answer your question,” Emmer said. “But apparently you wanna have an argument.” 

“Well, it’s a yes or no.” 

“Maybe you can find someone else that you can have the argument with. ’Cause I’m tellin’ ya, not all Somalis are bad—”

“Thank you.” 

“Ninety percent of the … crimes that have been charged are from the Somali community, and there’s nothing wrong, and nothing racist, about calling out crime.” 

There is no evidence that 90 percent of the crimes in Emmer’s district are committed by Somalis. Perhaps Emmer was trying to pivot to the scandal in Minnesota, in which the state’s social services system was defrauded out of more than $1 billion in taxpayer dollars. Federal prosecutors allege that nearly all of the perpetrators came from Minnesota’s Somali community. So far, prosecutors have convicted 59 people. There are about 80,000 Somali Americans in Minnesota.

Trump did much more than just “call out crime.” He smeared an entire group of people simply based on their origin, something he’s made a career out of.  

“When you look at what [Minnesota Governor Walz has] done with Somalia, which is barely a country … they have no anything, they just run around killing each other,” Trump said earlier this month. “I hear [Somalians] ripped off that state for billions of dollars … I don’t want ’em in our country, I’ll be honest with you. Somebody’ll say ‘Ooh that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t care. I don’t want ’em in our country. Their country’s no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don’t want ’em in our country.

“We’re gonna go the wrong way if we keep taking garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. Her friends are garbage.… When they come from hell, and they complain, and do nothing but bitch? We don’t want ’em in our country. Let ’em go back to where they came from and fix it.” 

Representative Ilhan Omar just called the Department of Homeland Security’s bluff after it denied that ICE agents had ever pulled over her son.

DHS claimed Tuesday that the agency had “absolutely ZERO record” of federal agents pulling over Omar’s son, after the Minnesota Democrat revealed over the weekend that her son had been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown targeting the Somali American community in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area.

“With no evidence, it is shameful that Congresswoman Omar would level accusations to demonize ICE as part of a PR stunt,” DHS said in a statement on X. The department denied that it had committed racial profiling, and said that federal law enforcement uses “reasonable suspicion” to make arrests.

But the Somali American congresswoman doubled down—and told DHS to bring receipts.  

“The congresswoman’s son and others were pulled over by ICE, racially profiled, and forced to prove their citizenship with a passport. ICE has long operated as a rogue agency beyond reform,” she said in a statement. “It’s no surprise that an agency known for disappearing people also can’t keep its records straight. ICE now claims it has records of all the stops, and our office would welcome the opportunity to review them.”

It’s pretty ironic that ICE would balk at claims that it engaged in racial profiling after it begged the Supreme Court to allow it to profile individuals based on race, ethnicity, and language in its efforts to detain immigrants. And of course, there are also plenty of well-documented reports of ICE and Border Patrol agents racially profiling people.

Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration had illegally lowered the standard for making immigration arrests when it instituted a policy of “reasonable suspicion” instead of “probable cause.” The judge barred federal officers from making warrantless arrests unless the person was in the country illegally and a flight risk.

Donald Trump has totally embraced the eyebrow-raising label given to him by his own chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

In a sprawling interview Vanity Fair published Tuesday, Wiles described the president as having “an alcoholic’s personality.” Trump, in turn, apparently agrees with that assessment.

“No, she meant that I’m—you see, I don’t drink alcohol,” Trump told the New York Post later Tuesday, defending Wiles’s comments. The 79-year-old routinely toasts with Diet Coke and claims that he doesn’t touch liquor due to his older brother, Fred Trump, who struggled with alcoholism for years before he died from a heart attack in 1981.

“So everybody knows that—but I’ve often said that if I did, I’d have a very good chance of being an alcoholic. I have said that many times about myself, I do. It’s a very possessive personality,” Trump continued.

“I’ve said that many times about myself. I’m fortunate I’m not a drinker. If I did, I could very well, because I’ve said that—what’s the word? Not possessive—possessive and addictive-type personality,” he said. “Oh, I’ve said it many times, many times before.”

Trump reiterated his faith in Wiles’s ability as his chief of staff, and suggested that if there was any fault to be had for the shocking value judgment, it would be on the interviewer. Trump claimed the reporter was “very misguided” even as he admitted that he did not read the piece.

The wide-ranging profile on Wiles’s first year atop the Trump administration sent shock waves through the political establishment Tuesday, and offered many Americans their first intimate glimpse into the inner machinations of Trump’s White House. Over the course of “many on-the-record conversations,” several of which took place after church on Sundays, documentary filmmaker and author Chris Whipple depicted a Cabinet structure that could not exist without the “ice maiden”’s direction and her unparalleled knack for translating the president’s agenda.

But, since he didn’t read the piece, Trump had no idea about its contents.

“Yeah, deceived—and he didn’t have great access, a couple of very short interviews,” Trump told the Post. “And Susie generally doesn’t do interviews.”

“If anybody knows the interviewer, and if they know Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair is a totally—it’s lost its way,” he said. “It’s also lost its readers, as you know. No, she’s fantastic.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is being sued by the Council on American-Islamic Relations after he signed an executive order last week labeling the civil rights group a “terrorist organization.” 

In a statement, CAIR litigation director Lena Masri said, “This is still America, where due process, free speech and other rights guaranteed by the Constitution matter.”

“We look forward to once again protecting the rights of all Americans—liberal and conservative, religious and secular—to engage in activism without fear of illegal government retaliation,” the statement read.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges that DeSantis is violating the Constitution, specifically the First Amendment. In his executive order, DeSantis accused CAIR of being “founded by persons connected to the Muslim Brotherhood” and claimed that people associated with the organization have been convicted for “conspiring to provide” support for terrorist organizations. 

In the lawsuit CAIR wrote, “The Executive Order identifies no criminal charges or convictions, relies on no federal designation, and inaccurately invokes statutory authority. It rests on political rhetoric and imposes sweeping legal consequences on a domestic civil rights organization because of its viewpoints and advocacy.”

DeSantis’s order prohibits CAIR, a national organization with chapters in states across the country, from receiving contracts, employment, or funding from state agencies. When asked for comment, a DeSantis spokesperson directed Politico to DeSantis’s posts on X, including one where he said legislation was being drafted “to stop the creep of sharia law, and I hope that they codify these protections for Floridians against CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood in their legislation.”

DeSantis is following the example of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who declared CAIR a terrorist organization in November, only to be sued by the nonprofit a few days later. In both cases, the motives appear to be based on bigotry, with DeSantis’s order claiming that through its supposed Muslim Brotherhood connections, CAIR is seeking to establish “a world-wide Islamic caliphate.” 

CAIR is also being attacked for allegedly supporting Hamas, but the organization said in its lawsuit that it has condemned Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel as well as Hamas’s other attacks. The use of the term “sharia law” evokes a conspiracy that right-wing groups have pushed for decades, claiming that Muslims are trying to set up a religious legal system. 

The sharia conspiracies have been repeatedly debunked, and laws targeting sharia and Islamic practices have repeatedly failed in court. CAIR’s lawsuits seem to have the Constitution behind them, especially since CAIR is not a proselytizing organization, but one working toward civil rights. Right-wing politicians and their allies in the courts will try to say otherwise and scapegoat the estimated 4.5 million Muslims in the United States.  

New York Representative Elise Stefanik is trying to completely erase her history with the New York Young Republican Club after they invited racists and German white supremacists to their annual party.

It became clear on Saturday that the club was willing to welcome even the fringiest members of the far right when white nationalists and Nazi slogan–chanting far-right German leaders attended the New York Young Republican Club’s annual gala.

In the days since, Stefanik—who “formally joined” the group in 2022, per a club announcement—has claimed that she was never affiliated with the group to begin with, according to Politico’s Jason Beeferman.

But that’s just not true. The club’s website listed Stefanik’s name on its member page as of October, though it no longer appears to. It is unclear when her name was removed from the site.

She’s also supported the Young Republican cohort financially. In an August 2021 post, the official New York Young Republican Club X account thanked Stefanik for being a “generous donor to our Clubhouse Fund,” referring to her as a “staunch supporter of the NYYRC’s activism.”

Even the people around her have profound ties to the organization, including her longtime senior adviser, Alex deGrasse, who wrote on X in 2021 that he was a “a proud member” of the club.

The convenient rebrand could be the result of Stefanik’s political ambitions: The 41-year-old Albany native is vying to become the state’s first Republican governor in two decades. Peeling away from the club’s beliefs could make her more palatable to the large liberal population in New York City required to win the gubernatorial race.

Albany’s current leadership—and Stefanik’s 2026 Democratic opponent—was unimpressed with the effort.

“This is not the first time Stefanik has been caught palling around with hateful antisemites, and it won’t be the last,” Kathy Hochul campaign spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki told The New Republic.

Stefanik was also affiliated with another youth Republican group bearing a strikingly similar name—the New York State Young Republican Club—which made national headlines in October when leaked screenshots from a private group chat revealed the race-based vitriol among its top members. In it, Young Republican leaders referred to Black people as monkeys and joked about rape, slavery, and the gas chamber.*

* This piece originally misstated which organization had the leaked group chat.