Republican leaders are scrambling to avoid a government shutdown after the House failed to pass a funding bill this week. The events have raised new questions about Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership and ability to keep members of his party in line.
Facing pressure from the Freedom Caucus, Johnson introduced a bill to fund the government for the next six months along with an additional bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Now his speakership could be in jeopardy: Johnson’s “political headache is not going away,” Zolan Kanno-Youngs said last night. Washington Week with The Atlantic.
Beyond Washington, Republicans face the problem of candidate quality. A CNN report this week said North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has called himself “a black Nazi” in addition to a long history of racist and anti-Semitic comments. Robinson, also a Republican candidate for governor, has denied the comments and insisted he will continue his campaign.
Robinson’s story is a microcosm of the forces at work in the Trump-era Republican Party, McKay Coppins said last night: Donald Trump has had this mass desensitizing effect on voters … provoking people. And there is a high tolerance for inflammatory rhetoric. “
And in the wake of the former president’s comments about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, Trump has increasingly campaigned using xenophobic rhetoric. “This is not a stretch about being tough on immigration by any stretch of the imagination,” said Caitlin Dickerson. “When he points to people from the Congo, the Middle East and Asia and then says they’re destroying the fabric of our country, what does that fabric mean? He’s referring to whiteness.”
Joining the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic OceanJeffrey Goldberg, to discuss this and more: Leigh Ann Caldwell, anchor The Washington Post Live; Staff writers for The Atlantic Ocean McKay Coppins and Caitlin Dickerson; and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, White House correspondent The New York Times.
Watch the full episode Here.