Politics

“I will kill you if you fucking shut down TikTok,” a teenage boy warned to a member of Congress in a voicemail reviewed by The Spectator. “I will really really fuck you up. So don’t shut down TikTok. Bye bye!”  This week, Capitol Hill was inundated with a series of unusual callers — children, some as young as six years old. They had been enlisted by TikTok to forcibly push back against a bill that’s on track to sail through the House next week which forces the divestiture of a series of companies owned by foreign adversaries, like China in the case of the globally popular video app.

One of the first things I noticed last night as I arrived on Capitol Hill to cover President Joe Biden’s fourth State of the Union address was the insane amount of security. Multiple blocks of streets surrounding the Capitol were fenced off by police and cop cars with their flashing lights on were ubiquitous. I hadn’t seen anything like it in downtown DC since the Capitol complex was locked down in the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riot. Except then, staff and press were allowed to enter the gates with a valid ID badge. This time, we all had to make the trek around the massive perimeter in the hopes of finding one open door to get into a congressional building and then snake through the tunnels to the Capitol.

Tonight President Joe Biden is set to deliver one of what may be his final major speeches as president: the State of the Union. After a completely empty schedule today, the president will address both Houses of Congress — but rivals are speculating if he’ll even make it through the evening. “Will the president be juiced enough to appear to be coherent?” Representative Darrell Issa wonders. And, “how will he deal with immigration. Those are the two issues that I think are on everyone’s mind,” he said. Prior to the speech, the House Republican Conference hosted a media row where dozens of lawmakers spoke about their expectations heading into tonight’s speech. “Border, border, border,” is what some, such as Oklahoma’s Kevin Hern, want to hear from the president.

It’s (basically) officially over: former president Donald Trump and President Joe Biden will face off again this November. Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, the only remaining viable challenger to Trump, dropped out of the race this morning after eking out just one Super Tuesday victory in Vermont’s open primary. (And Biden challenger Dean Phillips suspended his campaign as well). It wasn’t exactly a surprise. One of her biggest donors, Americans for Prosperity, pulled support last week; she had no public events scheduled in South Carolina as reporters holed up in hotel rooms rather than flocking to watch parties, and she was eerily quiet for hours as results poured in.

In what may be the most obvious catfishing scam of all time, a contractor for the Air Force was caught sharing military secrets with an individual posing as a Ukrainian woman on a foreign dating app.   David Franklin Slater, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who was serving as a US Air Force civilian employee at the time of the catfishing, was arrested Saturday on three charges of conspiracy and disclosing national defense information.  Slater held a top-secret security clearance from August 2021 until April 2022 which gave him access to briefings about the Russo-Ukraine War.

Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley finally notched her first win in the GOP presidential primary, winning the Washington, DC contest by about thirty points, or 598 votes. Haley picked up nineteen delegates in the contest and now trails Donald Trump by 201 delegates.  The nation’s capital is arguably the worst place Haley could have achieved her first victory. The Trump campaign immediately used it as proof that she is in bed with the political establishment and fundamentally a candidate that can only win with the support of the consultant and donor class.

President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump made dueling visits to the southern border this Thursday, as the issue of immigration becomes the political priority of millions of Americans. The latest Gallup survey (February 1-20) reveals that immigration ranks as the most important problem ahead of the 2024 presidential election. For context, 28 percent of Americans see the issue as the most crucial one, which is more than the following issues combined: federal deficit (3 percent), crime and violence (3 percent), foreign policy/foreign aid/focus overseas (3 percent), poverty/hunger/homelessness (6 percent) and inflation (11 percent).

Welcome to Thunderdome, where this week the biggest news in politics has nothing to do with the presidential election — it’s the decision by Mitch McConnell to step down after leading the Senate Republicans for seventeen years. McConnell’s choice to exit was inevitably going to come at some point, and announcing it this early allows him to escape the many questions about how he’d potentially work with President Trump in the future. McConnell doesn’t want to have to play pretend, and after his bout with recent health issues, he also eliminates the ability of Democrats to play games of comparison around Joe Biden’s age and enfeebled nature. It’s going out in a time of his own choosing — in sports, business and politics, that’s a rare thing to accomplish.

Hunter Biden, the Biden family’s Mr. Worldwide, spent much of today behind closed doors in the Capitol for a deposition in front of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. The younger Biden accused Republicans on the committee of peddling lies and operating on the “false premise” that his father, President Joe Biden, had any involvement with his foreign business dealings, a focal point of the GOP’s impeachment inquiry.“I did not involve my father in my business,” Hunter said. “Never.” The first son has been on an image rehab tour, recently sitting down with Axios to discuss how his continued sobriety is essential in the “fight for the future of democracy.” Today’s deposition was a substantial departure from Biden’s previous Capitol Hill trip.

Ronna Romney McDaniel confirmed months of reporting on Monday by officially announcing her resignation as chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. She will step aside on March 8, a few days after the Super Tuesday primary contests.  “I have decided to step aside at our Spring Training on March 8 in Houston to allow our nominee to select a chair of their choosing,” McDaniel said in a statement. “The RNC has historically undergone change once we have a nominee and it has always been my intention to honor that tradition.” Given that former president Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee — and that he has received McDaniel’s endorsement — he will choose her successor.

“I’m running to be the senator to the Romanian diaspora,” I overheard a man tell the leader of Spain’s right-wing Vox Party, Santiago Abascal. “I’m running for congress in the Dominican Republic,” Fernando Abreu told me. Argentinians, Salvadoreans, Venezuelans, Brits, Hungarians — all of them were at CPAC 2024. At times it seemed that half of attendees weren’t American. The most interesting foreigners, though, were not just there for the speeches. On the sidelines, they dined, laughed and planned. In a VIP Latin America Luncheon thrown by the Center for a Secure Free Society, a small group of leaders, Heritage Foundation fellows and experienced policymakers met to talk about what’s next for the region.

Former president Donald Trump is getting support from an unlikely ally: former Florida governor and presidential candidate Jeb Bush. Bush co-wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday arguing that the judgment in the New York civil fraud case is an example of “dangerous judicial rulings” against the left’s political opponents.“The unusual New York law Ms. James used to investigate and sue Mr. Trump didn’t require her to prove that he had intended to defraud anyone, or even that anyone lost money. The Associated Press found that of the twelve cases brought under that law since its adoption in 1956 in which significant penalties were imposed, the case against Mr. Trump was the only instance without an alleged victim or financial loss,” Bush wrote.

National Harbor, Maryland “Oh, that’s Liz Truss,” a young attendee says as the former British PM passes us in the corridor at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “She sucks. What’s she doing here?” Trying to sell books, apparently. Truss is one of two Brits — alongside mainstay Nigel Farage — addressing CPAC. Her visit forms part of the promotional tour for the US release of her book Ten Years to Save the West: Lessons From the Only Conservative in the Room, which has been handily retitled for US audiences: “Leading the Revolution Against Globalism, Socialism and the Liberal Establishment.

Former president Donald Trump helped out the GOP establishment with his latest round of congressional endorsements — including one particularly notable one where he passed over a guy he endorsed in the last election cycle.Just two years ago, Trump endorsed Darren Bailey for governor of Illinois, snubbing the state’s GOP establishment, which had been firmly behind Aurora mayor Richard Irvin. Bailey blew Irvin out of the water in the primary — thanks to additional support from Democrats who successfully meddled in the primary —and was dismantled by J.B. Pritzker in November.This time around, Trump is backing Congressman Mike Bost, who’s been fending off a primary bid from Bailey.

While Donald Trump’s excessive rhetoric often evokes eye rolls, in the case of Friday’s record-setting $350 million judgment against the Trump Organization, he is spot on. “Disgraceful.” “Lawfare.” “Banana republic.” All three apply.  It’s hard to imagine a more perverse and vindictive misuse of the justice system than that which New York attorney general Letitia James has committed. While campaigning in 2018, James promised to vigorously investigate Trump and his business. True to her word, once in the office James spent three years seizing and scouring through Trump’s tax and financial records for anything she could use as the basis for legal action.