Congress

Jeffries: Pelosi is not undermining me

Published

2 years ago

November 17, 2024

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries denied reports that he was growing frustrated with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, telling NBC’s Kristen Welker that he does not think she is undermining him with her public comments on the election results.

“I think Speaker Emerita Pelosi has been incredibly respectful of the entire leadership team. It’s an honor to stand on the shoulders of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an incredibly consequential public servant in the history of America,” the New York Democrat said Sunday on “Meet the Press.”

Jeffries was poised to become the first Black speaker of the House if Democrats had won the House majority. When asked if he thought Pelosi was undermining his leadership with her public pronouncements, he answered with a decisive: “No.”

“House Democrats, we’re proud of the new leadership team. We’re looking forward to confronting the challenges we have to face on the behalf of the American people,” he added.

Certain Democrats think Pelosi, who left the leadership after the 2022 elections, should step down to help Jeffries lead the caucus, Axios reported Friday. This follows an interview that Pelosi gave to the New York Times in which she suggested President Joe Biden should have dropped out of the race sooner.

Jeffries skirted around the same the question, praising Biden’s choice to drop out.

“I think that President Biden will go down in history as one of the most consequential presidents of all time and I was thankful for all the work we were able to do together. He did make the decision — it was a selfless decision — to pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris and she ran with it and did the best job she could under incredibly challenging circumstances and a little over 100 days,” he said. “She came close, but we fell short.”

Republicans have won 218 House seats for the next Congress, Democrats have won 212, and 5 remain undecided.

As a result of falling short, Democrats are now dealing with the fallout of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet choices, which many, from both the right and left, are critiquing.

“The incoming president throughout the campaign promised the American people that we would have the best economy, the best border security and the best administration possible,” Jeffries said. “The question that has to be asked is this the best that we can do?”

He continued: “Of course not. America deserves better. Hopefully, we’ll see the Senate Republicans do their job, scrutinize these picks, certainly confirm those that meet the basic level of qualifications and reject others.”

In specific reference to former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump picked as director of national intelligence, Jeffries said he would not characterize her as a Russian asset “at this particular juncture,” as his colleague Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) called her on Friday.

“I’m open to scrutinizing whatever information is presented to all of us, but this is going to fall on Senate Democrats and Republicans,” Jeffries said.

Congress

Trump-backed Marty O’Donnell wins primary for battleground Nevada House seat

Published

4 hours ago

June 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump-endorsed Marty O’Donnell won the GOP primary Tuesday to take on Democratic Rep. Susie Lee in Nevada’s battleground 3rd District.

The seat, which touches parts of Las Vegas, is one of Republicans’ targeted pickups this November since President Donald Trump carried it by less than 1 percentage point in 2024 after losing it by nearly seven points in 2020.

But O’Donnell — who also has the backing of the National Republican Congressional Committee — will face an uphill battle. He recently came under fire for hosting a neo-Nazi influencer on his podcast. Trump’s tariffs have hit the district hard, with Canadian tourism to Sin City down by 17 percent, leaving Democrats confident they can hold the seat.

O’Donnell is best known for his role as the audio composer for the “Halo” video game series. It’s his second run in the district after placing fourth in the 2024 Republican primary.

O’Donnell bested several candidates Tuesday, with businessperson Tera Anderson and former Ambassador to Iceland Jeff Gunter — who ran for Senate in 2024 — putting up the most significant challenges.

Congress

Sen. Lindsey Graham wins primary over ‘America First’ challenger

Published

7 hours ago

June 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is on his way to clinching his fifth term in the Senate.

Graham won the Republican primary for Senate on Tuesday, vanquishing five opponents that included businessperson Mark Lynch — who challenged the senator over his staunch support for the war in Iran and long history in Washington. Lynch also drew support from some of the president’s most prominent MAGA Republican critics.

But Graham won more than half the primary vote, allowing him to avoid an embarrassing two-week runoff sprint. He is expected to cruise to victory in November; a Democrat has not represented the state in the Senate since 2005, when longtime Sen. Fritz Hollings chose not to seek reelection.

The four-term senator spent big in the final weeks of the campaign to make sure he won, combining with his allies to spend over $18 million in television and digital ads touting his record and endorsement from President Donald Trump. That spending proved to be decisive in staving off Lynch’s challenge from the right.

He even called in the big guns for a last minute bump, bringing in Trump, who reaffirmed his support for his occasional frenemy in a telerally on the eve of the primary election.

Graham’s success is a loss for the strict “America First” wing of the GOP that has criticized the president’s new interventionist foreign policy streak, including former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and former counterterrorism official Joe Kent. They came out in support of Lynch during the final stretch of the campaign, though that was not enough to upset Graham, a fixture of Columbia and Washington politics.

Congress

20 House Republicans cross party lines to pass pro-union bill

Published

9 hours ago

June 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Twenty House Republicans broke with Speaker Mike Johnson to help pass a Democratic-led bill Tuesday aimed at making it easier for workers to form unions, widening the divide between a bloc of pro-labor Republicans and GOP leaders.

Democrats successfully used a discharge petition to sidestep Johnson and force the vote with the help of a handful of House Republicans, including Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Nick LaLota of New York.

“It’s passing,” Fitzpatrick said before the vote when asked about Johnson’s efforts to whip Republicans against the bill.

The Faster Labor Contracts Act aims to reduce the amount of time between workers voting to form a union and negotiating their first collectively bargained contract, in part by requiring the parties to more quickly enter federal mediation. It’s the latest in a series of employment bills that pro-union House Republicans have bucked their party on in recent months.

House Education and Workforce Chair Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) spoke out sharply against the bill on the floor Tuesday, saying it would “threaten jobs, kill growth and in some cases, shut business down entirely.” But a hefty subset of Republicans backed the bill nonetheless, joining all voting Democrats.