Santos survives expulsion vote, Greene rages after effort to censure progressive Democrat Tlaib rejected
Good morning, US politics blog readers. As evening arrived yesterday, lawmakers in the House of Representatives were presented with the opportunity to expel admitted fabulist George Santos, and censure both progressive Democrat Rashida Tlaib and rightwing Republican Marjorie Taylore Greene. But none of those things ended up happening. Despite the fact that Santos is facing 23 federal fraud charges, and lied about most his qualifications for the job, an ideologically mixed group of Democrats and Republicans voted against removing him from his seat. Many argued doing so would set a bad precedent since he has not been convicted of a crime – the usual bar for booting a lawmaker.
Meanwhile, several of Greene’s fellow Republicans joined with Democrats to oppose her resolution against Tlaib, which led Becca Balint, the Democratic sponsor of the measure to censure Greene, to withdraw her resolution. But that wasn’t enough for the Georgia lawmaker, who is spending her morning tweeting in fury at GOP colleagues she feels betrayed her. They may no longer be fighting over who their speaker should be, but the episode makes plain the House Republican conference remains a fractious place.
Here’s what else is going on today:
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Minnesota’s supreme court will begin considering whether to remove Donald Trump from its presidential ballot for taking part in an insurrection.
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Senators will vote on three high-ranking military officers whose promotions have been blocked for months by Republican Tommy Tuberville in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy.
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White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and reporters meet at 1.30pm eastern time. National security council spokesman John Kirby will attend as well, and likely speak about the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
Key events
Who else was talking about due…
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