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Texas’ Republican-led House of Representatives launched historic impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday as Donald Trump defended the scandal-plagued GOP official from a vote that could lead to his ouster.

The House convened in the afternoon to debate whether to impeach and suspend Paxton from office over allegations of bribery, abuse of public trust and that he is unfit for office — just some of the accusations that have trailed Texas’ top lawyer for most of his three terms.

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The hearing sets up what could be a remarkably sudden downfall for one of the GOP’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn President Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of Trump. Only two officials in Texas’ nearly 200-year history have been impeached.

Paxton, 60, has called the impeachment proceedings “political theater” based on “hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims,” and an attempt to disenfranchise voters who reelected him in November. On Friday, he asked supporters “to peacefully come let their voices be heard at the Capitol tomorrow.”

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As the proceedings began, Paxton supporters mixed in the House public gallery with visitors just curious to see the government in action.

“This is a coup,” said Kathie Glass of Houston, who waited in line for an hour to get a seat. Dimitri Nichols, of Austin, said: “Texas voters were aware of these allegations.”

In opening statements, Rep. Charlie Geren, a member of the committee that investigated Paxton, said the attorney general had called lawmakers and threatened them with political “consequences.” As the charges against Paxton were read, some lawmakers shook their heads. Impeachment is expected to be debated for four hours, followed by closing remarks and the vote.

Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, though he has yet to stand trial. Until this week his fellow Republicans have taken a muted stance on the allegations.

Impeachment requires just a simple majority in the House. That means only a small fraction of its 85 Republicans would need to join 64 Democrats in voting against him.

If impeached, Paxton would be removed from office pending a Senate trial, and it would fall to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to appoint an interim replacement. Final removal would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, where Paxton’s wife’s, Angela, is a member.

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Texas’ top elected Republicans had been notably quiet about Paxton this week. But on Saturday both Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to his defense, with the senator calling the impeachment process “a travesty” and saying the attorney general’s legal troubles should be left to the courts.

“Free Ken Paxton,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, adding that if House Republicans proceed with the process, “I will fight you.”

Abbott, who lauded Paxton while swearing him in for a third term in January, is among those who have remained silent. The governor spoke at a Memorial Day service in the House chamber about three hours before the scheduled start of the impeachment proceedings. Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan also attended but the two appeared to exchange few words, and Abbott left without commenting to reporters.

In one sense, Paxton’s political peril arrived with dizzying speed: The House committee’s investigation of him came to light Tuesday, and by Thursday lawmakers issued 20 articles of impeachment.

But to Paxton’s detractors, the rebuke was years overdue.

In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law, and a year later he was indicted on securities fraud charges in his hometown near Dallas, accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He pleaded not guilty to two felony counts carrying a potential sentence of five to 99 years.

He opened a legal defense fund and accepted $100,000 from an executive whose company was under investigation by Paxton’s office for Medicaid fraud. An additional $50,000 was donated by an Arizona retiree whose son Paxton later hired to a high-ranking job but was soon fired after displaying child pornography in a meeting. In 2020, Paxton intervened in a Colorado mountain community where a Texas donor and college classmate faced removal from his lakeside home under coronavirus orders.

But what ultimately unleased the impeachment push was Paxton’s relationship with Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

In 2020, eight top aides told the FBI they were concerned Paxton was misusing his office to help Paul over the developer’s unproven claims that an elaborate conspiracy to steal $200 million of his properties was afoot. The FBI searched Paul’s home in 2019, but he has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. Paxton also told staff members he had an affair with a woman who, it later emerged, worked for Paul.

The impeachment accuses Paxton of attempting to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul. Its bribery charges allege that Paul employed the woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help and that he paid for expensive renovations to the attorney general’s home.

A senior lawyer for Paxton’s office, Chris Hilton, said Friday that the attorney general paid for all repairs and renovations.

Other charges, including lying to investigators, date back to Paxton’s still-pending securities fraud indictment.

Four of the aides who reported Paxton to the FBI later sued under Texas’ whistleblower law, and in February he agreed to settle the case for $3.3 million. The House committee said it was Paxton seeking legislative approval for the payout that sparked their probe.

“But for Paxton’s own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement over his wrongful conduct, Paxton would not be facing impeachment,” the panel said.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman to deliver a commencement speech at West Point, lauded graduating cadets Saturday for their noble sacrifice in serving their country, but noted they were entering an “unsettled world” because of Russian aggression and the rising threats from China.

“The world has drastically changed,” Harris told the roughly 950 graduating cadets. She referred to the global pandemic that took millions of lives and the fraught shifts in global politics in Europe and in Asia.

“It is clear you graduate into an increasingly unsettled world where long-standing principles are at risk,” she said.

As the U.S. ended two decades of war in Afghanistan, the longest in the country’s history, the vice president again condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the first major ground war in Europe since World War II.

She also warned cadets to be wary of China, as it rapidly modernizes its military and muscles for control of parts of the high seas, ostensibly referring to the brewing disputes over the South China Sea.

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Harris made no mention in her address about the ongoing skirmishing in Washington, where the White House and congressional Republicans try to avert a debt crisis.

In her speech, Harris touched on the importance of having institutions reflect the diversity of the broader United States, making the comment at an institution that has made slow progress diversifying its ranks in the four decades since the first class of female cadets graduated.

Today, about one quarter of the student body are women. Only a few dozen graduates each year are Black women, like Harris, though the number has ticked up in recent years. The academy didn’t admit women until 1976 and had its first female graduates in 1980.

Upon graduation, the cadets will be commissioned as Army second lieutenants.

West Point dates to 1802. Since then, the college has educated future military leaders including Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Gen. George Patton and Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Harris’ visit is her first to the U.S. Army academy. That she is the first woman to be the featured speaker at the storied military academy was purely a matter of circumstance. Commencement speakers at the country’s military academies are usually delivered by the president, vice president or high-ranking military official — which until Harris’ election meant speakers have always been men.

Harris was joined at the commencement by Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, who in 2021 became the first woman to hold the military service’s top civilian post.

While Harris visited West Point, about 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of Manhattan, President Joe Biden heads to Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Thursday to address graduates at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III addressed the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, on Friday.

Last year, Harris addressed graduates at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.

President Joe Biden said a deal to resolve the government’s debt ceiling crisis seemed “very close” late Friday, even as the deadline for a potentially catastrophic default was pushed back to June 5 and seemed likely to drag negotiations between the White House and Republicans into another frustrating week.

The later “X-date,” laid out in a letter from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, set the risk of a devastating default four days beyond an earlier estimate. It came as Americans and the world uneasily watched the negotiating brinkmanship that could throw the U.S. economy into chaos and sap world confidence in the nation’s leadership.

Yet Biden was upbeat as he left for the Memorial Day weekend at Camp David, declaring, “It’s very close, and I’m optimistic.”

With Republicans at the Capitol talking with Biden’s team at the White House, the president said: “There’s a negotiation going on. I’m hopeful we’ll know by tonight whether we’re going to be able to have a deal.”

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In a blunt warning, Yellen said failure to act by the new date would “cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests.”

Anxious retirees and others were already making contingency plans for missed checks, with the next Social Security payments due next week.

Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy seemed to be narrowing on a two-year budget-slashing deal that would also extend the debt limit into 2025 past the next presidential election. After frustrating rounds of closed-door talks, a compromise had appeared to be nearing on Friday.

Republicans have made some headway in their drive for steep spending cuts that Democrats oppose. However, the sides are particularly divided over McCarthy’s demands for tougher work requirements on government food stamp recipients that Democrats say is a nonstarter.

Earlier Friday, McCarthy said his Republican debt negotiators and the White House had hit “crunch” time, straining to wrap up an agreement. He left late Friday night without comment.

Any deal would need to be a political compromise, with support from both Democrats and Republicans to pass the divided Congress. Failure to lift the borrowing limit, now $31 trillion, to pay the nation’s incurred bills, would send shockwaves through the U.S. and global economy.

But many of the hard-right Trump-aligned Republicans in Congress have long been skeptical of Treasury’s projections, and they are pressing McCarthy to hold out.

As talks pushed into another late night, one of the negotiators, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., called Biden’s comments “a hopeful sign.” But he also cautioned that there’s still “sticky points” impeding a final agreement.

While the contours of the deal have been taking shape to cut spending for 2024 and impose a 1% cap on spending growth for 2025, the two sides remain stuck on various provisions.

A person familiar with the talks said the two sides were “dug in” on whether or not to agree to Republican demands to impose stiffer work requirements on people who receive government food stamps, cash assistance and health care aid.

House Democrats have called such requirements for health care and food aid a nonstarter.

Asked if Republicans would relent on work requirements, Republican negotiator Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana fumed, “Hell no, not a chance.”

House Republicans displayed risky political bravado in leaving town for the holiday. Lawmakers are tentatively not expected back at work until Tuesday, but now their return date is uncertain.

“The world is watching,” International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said after meeting Friday with Yellen. “Let’s remember we are now in the 12th hour.”

Weeks of negotiations between Republicans and the White House have failed to produce a deal — in part because the Biden administration resisted negotiating with McCarthy over the debt limit, arguing that the country’s full faith and credit should not be used as leverage to extract other partisan priorities.

“We have to spend less than we spent last year. That is the starting point,” said McCarthy.

One idea is to set the topline budget numbers but then add a “snap-back” provision to enforce cuts if Congress is unable during its annual appropriations process to meet the new goals.

On work requirements for aid recipients, the White House is particularly resisting measures that could drive more people into poverty or take their health care, said the person familiar with the talks, who was granted anonymity to describe behind-closed-door discussions.

Over the Republican demand to rescind money for the Internal Revenue Service, it’s still an “open issue” whether the sides will compromise by allowing the funding to be pushed into other domestic programs, the person said.

In one potential development, Republicans may be easing their demand to boost defense spending beyond what Biden had proposed in his budget, instead offering to keep it at his proposed levels, according to another person familiar with the talks.

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The teams are also eyeing a proposal to boost energy transmission line development from Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., to facilitate the buildout of an interregional power grid.

They are all but certain to claw back some $30 billion in unspent COVID-19 funds now that the pandemic emergency has officially been lifted.

Meanwhile, McCarthy is feeling pressure from the House’s right flank not to give in to any deal, even if it means blowing past the Treasury deadline.

McCarthy said Donald Trump, the former president who is again running for office, told him, “Make sure you get a good agreement.”

Watchful Democrats, though, are also pressing Biden. The top three House Democratic leaders, led by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, spoke late Thursday with the White House.

McCarthy has promised lawmakers he will abide by the rule to post any bill for 72 hours before voting. The Democratic-held Senate has vowed to move quickly to send the package to Biden’s desk, right before next Thursday’s possible deadline.

Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings agency placed the United States’ AAA credit on “ratings watch negative,” warning of a possible downgrade.

The White House has continued to argue that deficits can be reduced by ending tax breaks for wealthier households and some corporations, but McCarthy said he told the president as early as their February meeting that raising revenue from tax hikes was off the table.

While Biden has ruled out, for now, invoking the 14th Amendment to raise the debt limit on his own, Democrats in the House announced they have all signed on to a legislative “discharge” process that would force a debt ceiling vote. But they need five Republicans to break with their party and tip the majority to set the plan forward.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration stripped one of the nation’s largest drug distributors of its license to sell highly addictive painkillers Friday after determining it failed to flag thousands of suspicious orders at the height of the opioid crisis.

The action against Morris & Dickson Co. that threatens to put it out of business came two days after an Associated Press investigation found the DEA allowed the company to keep shipping drugs for nearly four years after a judge recommended the harshest penalty for its “cavalier disregard” of rules aimed at preventing opioid abuse.

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READ AP’S INVESTIGATION
– DEA’s failure to punish distributor blamed in opioid crisis raises revolving door questions
The DEA acknowledged the time it took to issue its final decision was “longer than typical for the agency” but blamed Morris & Dickson in part for holding up the process by seeking delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its lengthy pursuit of a settlement that the agency said it had considered. The order becomes effective in 90 days, allowing more time to negotiate a settlement.

DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in the 68-page order that Morris & Dickson failed to accept full responsibility for its past actions, which included shipping 12,000 unusually large orders of opioids to pharmacies and hospitals between 2014 and 2018. During this time, the company filed just three suspicious order reports with the DEA.

Milgram specifically cited testimony of then-president Paul Dickson Sr. in 2019 that the company’s compliance program was “dang good” and he didn’t think a “single person has gotten hurt by (their) drugs.”

“Those statements from the president of a family-owned and operated company so strongly miss the point of the requirements of a DEA registrant,” she wrote. “Its acceptance of responsibility did not prove that it or its principals understand the full extent of their wrongdoing … and the potential harm it caused.”

An automatic system drops pharmaceutical orders on a conveyor belt to be placed into boxes at Morris and Dickson Co., in Shreveport, Wednesday, July 13, 2016. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has allowed one of the nation’s largest wholesale drug distributors to keep shipping opioid painkillers for nearly four years after a judge recommended in 2018 it lose its license for its “cavalier disregard” of thousands of suspicious orders fueling the opioid crisis. (Henrietta Wildsmith/The Shreveport Times via AP)
An automatic system drops pharmaceutical orders on a conveyor belt to be placed into boxes at Morris and Dickson Co., in Shreveport, July 13, 2016. (Henrietta Wildsmith/The Shreveport Times via AP)
Shreveport, Louisiana-based Morris & Dickson traces its roots to 1840, when its namesake founder arrived from Wales and placed an ad in a local newspaper selling medicines. It has since become the nation’s fourth-largest wholesale drug distributor, with $4 billion a year in revenue and nearly 600 employees serving pharmacies and hospitals in 29 states.

In a statement, the company said it has invested millions of dollars over the past few years to revamp its compliance systems and appeared to hold out hope for a settlement.

“Morris & Dickson is grateful to the DEA administrator for delaying the effective date of the order to allow time to settle these old issues,” it said. “We remain confident we can achieve an outcome that safeguards the supply chain for all of our healthcare partners and the communities they serve.”

Morris & Dickson’s much larger competitors, a trio of pharmaceutical distributors known as the Big Three, have already agreed to pay the federal government more than $1 billion in fines and penalties to settle similar violations. Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson also agreed to pay $21 billion over 18 years to resolve claims as part of a nationwide settlement.

Pharmaceutical orders fall into boxes as workers make sure the orders are complete at Morris and Dickson Co., in Shreveport, Wednesday, July 13, 2016. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has allowed one of the nation’s largest wholesale drug distributors to keep shipping opioid painkillers for nearly four years after a judge recommended in 2018 it lose its license for its “cavalier disregard” of thousands of suspicious orders fueling the opioid crisis. (Henrietta Wildsmith/The Shreveport Times via AP)
Pharmaceutical orders fall into boxes as workers make sure the orders are complete at Morris and Dickson Co., in Shreveport, July 13, 2016. (Henrietta Wildsmith/The Shreveport Times via AP)
While Morris & Dickson wasn’t the only drug distributor who the DEA accused of fueling the opioid crisis, it was unique in its willingness to challenge those accusations in the DEA’s administrative court.

In a scathing recommendation in 2019, Administrative Law Judge Charles W. Dorman said Morris & Dickson’s argument that it has changed its ways was too little, too late.

Anything less than the most severe punishment, the judge said, “would communicate to DEA registrants that despite their transgressions, no matter how egregious, they will get a mere slap on the wrist and a second chance so long as they acknowledge their sins and vow to sin no more.”

But as the ensuing years passed, neither the Biden-nominated Milgram nor her two predecessors took any enforcement action. Past DEA officials told the AP such decisions usually take no more than two years.

In this image from video provided by the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram speaks during a meeting with the committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday, April 27, 2023. During the session, lawmakers questioned Milgram over millions of dollars in no-bid contracts that are the subject of a watchdog probe into whether the agency improperly hired some of her past associates. (U.S. House Appropriations Committee via AP)
In this image from video provided by the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram speaks during a meeting with the committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 27, 2023.
As the pills kept flowing, Morris & Dickson attempted to stave off punishment, appealing directly to Milgram to order a reopening of the proceedings, arguing it would introduce new evidence showing it had implemented an “ideal” compliance program with the help of a consultant who is now second-in-command at the DEA, Louis Milione. The DEA said that Milione has recused himself from all agency business related to Morris & Dickson.

Milione retired from the DEA in 2017 after a 21-year career that included two years leading the division that controls the sale of highly addictive narcotics. Like dozens of colleagues in the DEA’s powerful-but-little-known Office of Diversion Control, he went to work as a consultant for some of the same companies he had been tasked with regulating.

Milione was hired by Morris & Dickson in 2018 as part of a $3 million contract and later testified that the company “spared no expense” to overhaul its compliance systems, cancel suspicious orders and send daily emails to the DEA spelling out its actions.

A footnote of the DEA’s order Friday said that since Milione returned to the DEA as principal deputy administrator in 2021, he has not had any contact with Milgram or other agency staff about the Morris & Dickson case due to his prior involvement with the company.

Two years ago, signing a bill intended to punish Twitter and other major social media companies, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blasted the platforms as “suppressing ideas” during the COVID-19 pandemic and silencing conservative voices.

What a turnaround.

The new Elon Musk-owned version of Twitter helped DeSantis launch his bid for the Republican presidential nomination Wednesday. Though it was marred by technical glitches and skewered by the candidate’s critics, the forum nevertheless underscored Twitter’s unmistakable shift to the right under Musk, who bought it for $44 billion and took over in October.

“The truth was censored repeatedly, and now that Twitter is in the hands of a free speech advocate, that would not be able to happen again on this Twitter platform,” DeSantis said during the Twitter Spaces event.

Musk, co-hosting the event, responded to the praise by saying, “Twitter was indeed expensive, but free speech is priceless.”

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RON DESANTIS
Get caught up in 1 minute
Elon Musk wants to build a digital town square. But his debut for DeSantis had a tech failure.
Trump and DeSantis’ rivalry intensifies as Florida governor formally enters 2024 presidential race
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While Musk has promoted his platform as a haven for free expression, the site has been flooded with extremist views and hate speech since he bought it and fired or laid off roughly 80% of its staff.

That is raising alarms that Twitter — heavily used by candidates and government agencies, including those providing voting information — will become an open forum for conspiracy theories, fake content and election misinformation as a bitterly divided country heads into the 2024 presidential election.

Many Republicans have hailed Musk’s takeover of Twitter as creating one of the last mainstream online spaces where they can share their views without fear of removal. Prominent figures in conservative media, like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the podcasts hosts of The Daily Wire, say they plan to start streaming content on the site.

Democrats and anti-hate watchdogs, meanwhile, say Musk’s partisan comments and policy changes have effectively given a megaphone to far-right extremists.

Since Musk bought Twitter, he has overhauled the site’s verification system, removing safeguards against impersonation for some government accounts and political candidates. He also has personally indulged in far-right conspiracy theories on the site, reinstated accounts with a history of extremist rhetoric and gutted the team that had been responsible for moderating the content flowing across the platform.

That has coincided with a deluge of conspiracy theory rhetoric, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which reported that QAnon hashtags surged 91% on Twitter between May 2022 and May 2023, with about three-fourths of those messages posted after Musk’s takeover.

Several believers of the baseless QAnon theory, centered on the idea that former President Donald Trump is waging a secret war against “deep state” enemies and pedophiles, have committed acts of violence, including the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Musk’s decision to reinstate influential Twitter accounts with a history of spreading extremist views also has created spaces in their tweet reply threads where users are sharing antisemitic tropes, conspiracy theories and other types of hate, the ADL reported Wednesday.

The group’s vice president Yael Eisenstat, who leads its Center for Technology and Society, said Musk’s content moderation choices have “served to silence marginalized voices” by giving harassers and internet trolls free reign.

“It is one thing to say we want free speech on the platform,” she said. “It’s another thing to say we are going to allow extremists — conspiracy theorists — to contribute to normalizing this kind of rhetoric and antisemitism and racism.”

Twitter didn’t provide comment after repeated requests. It sent automated replies instead, as it does to most media inquiries.

Musk’s free speech rhetoric also has attracted conservatives who have been knocked off other platforms — or fired, in the case of Carlson.

Shortly after his ouster, Carlson went on Twitter May 9 to announce that he would be doing some version of his show on that platform. It’s still not clear what that would entail, or when he would start.

“There aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech,” Carlson said in a two-minute message viewed more than 132 million times. “The last big one remaining in the world, the only one, is Twitter, where we are now.”

Free speech and truth aren’t the same thing, however, and Carlson had been accused of spreading misinformation on his Fox show, most recently about the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

DeSantis has been a frequent guest on Fox News, and on the night of his presidential campaign announcement he appeared on the network for an interview — after the Twitter event.

Though DeSantis’ Twitter launch was severely delayed with site crashes and strained servers, his choice to debut his campaign on the platform illustrates that Fox will have more competition as a Republican kingmaker. His campaign said it had taken in $1 million online in the first hour after the announcement. Fox’s ratings have declined dramatically during its 8 p.m. Eastern hour, which Carlson used to fill.

The Daily Wire, whose podcast hosts include popular conservative influencers such as Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens, said Tuesday that it would bring its shows to stream on Twitter starting next week.

Doug Heye, a Republican strategist and former Republican National Committee communications director, said Twitter is “certainly going to be an increasing part” of GOP campaign strategies for the 2024 presidential primary.

“And that’s all because of what Elon Musk has said over the past few months as he’s taken Twitter over and sought to make it a space more friendly to conservatives,” he said.

Musk has leaned into Republican politics, tweeting in 2022 that Democrats “have become the party of division & hate.” While he has tweeted support for both DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who also entered the GOP field this week, he said Tuesday he was not yet endorsing any particular presidential candidate.

Even as Democrats wince at the direction Musk has taken Twitter, most are staying put — at least for now. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that when looking to the future, just slightly more Democratic users than Republicans said it’s unlikely they will be on Twitter in a year.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said he has been experimenting with the Twitter alternative BlueSky as a “more casual, fun and positive environment” than Twitter. But he also has continued to use Twitter to communicate with his constituents.

A defiant House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday the debt ceiling standoff was “not my fault” as he sent Republican negotiators to the White House to finish out talks, but warned the two sides need more time as they try to reach a budget deal with President Joe Biden.

McCarthy said he remained optimistic they could reach an agreement before a deadline as soon as next week, when the Treasury Department could run out of cash to pay its bills. Financial markets are teetering as Washington edges closer to a debt default crisis that would be unprecedented in modern times, sending shockwaves around the globe.

Late in the day, Fitch Ratings agency placed the United States’ AAA credit on “ratings watch negative,” warning of a possible downgrade because of what it called the brinkmanship and political partisanship over lifting the debt ceiling.

The White House blamed the Republicans led by McCarthy for risking a devastating default that would hit “every single part of the country” as they demand “extreme” spending cuts that would hurt millions of Americans.

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POLITICS
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“We’re not going to default,” McCarthy, R-Calif., assured.

The Republican speaker said the negotiators “made some progress” at the White House. “I want to work as hard as we can and not stop.”

Debt ceiling negotiations are locked on a classic problem that has divided and disrupted Washington before, particularly the last time Republicans used the borrowing limit as leverage to extract priorities a decade ago: Republicans want to roll back federal government spending, while Biden and other Democrats do not.

From the White House, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre decried what the administration called a “manufactured crisis” set in motion by Republicans pushing “extreme proposals” that would hurt “every single part of the country, whether you’re in a red state or a blue state.”

Time is short to strike a deal. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Wednesday that “it seems almost certain” that the United States would not make it past early June without defaulting. That would be catastrophic, as the government risks running out of cash to pay its bills as soon as June 1.

“We are seeing some stress already in Treasury markets,” Yellen said at a Wall Street Journal event.

Failure to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, now at $31 trillion, would risk a potentially chaotic federal default, almost certain to inflict economic turmoil at home and abroad. Anxious retirees and social service groups are among those making default contingency plans.

While Biden has ruled out, for now, invoking the 14th Amendment to raise the debt limit on his own, Democrats in the House announced they have all signed on to a legislative “discharge” process that would force a debt ceiling vote. But they need five Republicans to break with their party and tip the majority to set the plan forward.

“Sign the bill!” Democrats yelled on the House floor after Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., announced lawmakers could keep plans to recess on Thursday, but could be called back for votes.

Dragging into a third week, the negotiations over raising the nation’s debt limit were never supposed to arrive at this point.

The White House insisted early on it was unwilling to barter over the need to pay the nation’s bills, demanding that Congress simply lift the ceiling as it has done many times before with no strings attached.

The newly elected speaker visited Biden at the Oval Office in February, urging the president to come to the negotiating table on a budget package that would reduce spending and the nation’s ballooning deficits in exchange for the vote to allow future debt.

Cheered on by a hard-charging conservative House majority that hoisted him to power, McCarthy was not swayed by a White House counter-offer to freeze spending instead. “A freeze is not going to work,” McCarthy said.

“We have to spend less than we spent last year. That is the starting point.”

Negotiations are focused on finding agreement on a 2024 budget year limit. Republicans have set aside their demand to roll back spending to 2022 levels, but say that next year’s government spending must be less than it is now. But the White House instead offered to freeze spending at current 2023 numbers.

By sparing defense and some veterans accounts from reductions, the Republicans would shift the bulk of spending reductions to other federal programs, an approach that breaks a tradition in Congress of budget cap parity.

Agreement on that topline spending level is vital. It would enable McCarthy to deliver spending restraints for conservatives while not being so severe that it would chase off the Democratic votes that would be needed in the divided Congress to pass any bill.

But what, if anything, Democrats would get if they agreed to deeper spending cuts than Biden’s team has proposed is uncertain.

McCarthy and his Republican negotiators said what the Democrats get is a debt ceiling increase — typically something both parties take responsibility for doing.

“The problem is not the White House. The problem is Kevin McCarthy and the extreme Republicans,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chair of the progressive caucus. “They are the ones holding this economy hostage, that are putting all these cuts on the American people.” The White House has continued to argue that deficits can be reduced by ending tax breaks for wealthier households and some corporations, but McCarthy said he told the president at their February meeting that raising revenue from tax hikes is off the table.

The negotiators are now also debating the duration of a 1% cap on annual spending growth going forward, with Republicans dropping their demand for a 10-year cap to six years, but the White House offering only one year, for 2025.

Republicans, however, are pushing additional priorities as the negotiators focus on the $100 billion-plus difference between the 2022 and 2023 spending plans as a place to cut.

They want to beef up work requirements for government aid to recipients of food stamps, cash assistance and the Medicaid health care program that the Biden administration says would impact millions of people who depend on assistance.

All sides have been eyeing the potential for the package to include a framework to ease federal regulations and speed energy project developments. They are all but certain to claw back some $30 billion in unspent COVID-19 funds now that the pandemic emergency has officially been lifted.

The White House has countered by keeping defense and nondefense spending flat next year, which would save $90 billion in the 2024 budget year and $1 trillion over 10 years.

McCarthy promised lawmakers he will abide by the rule to post any bill for 72 hours before voting, making any action doubtful until the weekend — just days before the potential deadline. The Senate would also have to pass the package before it could go to Biden’s desk to be signed.

A Republican-led investigation on Wednesday accused Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton of committing multiple crimes in office — including felonies — during an extraordinary public airing of scandal and alleged lawbreaking that plunged one of the GOP’s conservative stars into new political and legal risk.

For more than three hours, investigators presented findings alleging Paxton sought to hide an affair, misused his office to help a donor, skirted protocols “grossly outside” norms and built a culture of fear and retaliation in his office. Investigators told the GOP-led House General Investigating Committee that there was evidence that Paxton repeatedly broke the law over the years, including by misusing official information, abusing his official capacity and retaliation.

The dramatic turn of events in the Texas Capitol unleashed a new test of Paxton’s durability in a way the conservative firebrand has not previously confronted despite a felony indictment in 2015 and an ongoing FBI investigation. The House committee’s investigation has been quietly going on for months and did not come to light until Tuesday.

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POLITICS
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The committee ended Wednesday’s hearing without acting on the findings. The panel is led by Republican state Rep. Andrew Murr, who afterward declined to discuss next steps or whether a recommendation to impeach or censure Paxton was possible.

The hearing began as Paxton sought legislative approval for more than $3 million in taxpayer dollars to a settle a whistleblower lawsuit with top aides who accused him of corruption. Republican House leaders have signaled unease with approving the payout. The legislative session ends Monday and any action against Paxton would have to be taken by then, unless GOP Gov. Greg Abbott calls a special session. In Texas, unlike in the U.S. government, an official who’s impeached by the House is suspended from office pending the outcome of a Senate trial. The governor can appoint an interim to fill the vacant post.

Wednesday’s hearing amounted to a remarkable rebuke from Republicans in a building where Paxton has long maintained defenders and allies, including Abbott, who lauded Paxton while swearing him in to a third term in January.

Paxton called the hours of testimony by investigators “false,” accused the committee of misleading the public and attacked Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan as a “liberal.” Paxton also has claimed repeatedly since Tuesday that Phelan has been drunk on the job, something Phelan’s office has brushed off as an attempt by Paxton to “save face.”

“It is not surprising that a committee appointed by liberal Speaker Dade Phelan would seek to disenfranchise Texas voters and sabotage my work as Attorney General,” Paxton said in a written statement.

Accusations laid out by investigators surround actions by Paxton that previously have been uncovered by reporters or disclosed in court records. Despite the cloud that has hung over Paxton, he has remained popular with GOP voters in Texas and elevated his profile nationally through lawsuits against President Joe Biden’s administration and through his defense of former President Donald Trump.

Paxton’s former staff members reported him to the FBI in 2020 on accusations of breaking the law to help a campaign contributor. The donor, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, employed a woman with whom Paxton acknowledged having had an extramarital affair. In February, the Justice Department’s Washington-based Public Integrity Section took over the federal criminal investigation of Paxton.

Since April, the House committee has issued at least 12 subpoenas for testimony and information to people and entities as part of its probe, according to meeting minutes that note the parties were left anonymous to “prevent reprisal and retaliation.”

During Wednesday’s hearing, state Rep. Ann Johnson, a Houston Democrat and vice chair of the committee, asked whether “it was fair to say” that the attorney general’s office “was effectively hijacked for an investigation by Nate Paul through the attorney general.”

“That would be my opinion,” replied attorney Erin Epley, one of the investigators.

Lawyers for Paul did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Each of Paxton’s accusers later quit or was fired. In the years since, his agency has come unmoored by disarray behind the scenes, with seasoned lawyers quitting over practices they say aim to slant legal work, reward loyalists and drum out dissent. But until now, GOP lawmakers had shown little appetite for looking into Paxton.

Among the new revelations Wednesday were details of Paxton’s high-end home renovation, which previously came under FBI scrutiny, and that his affair continued longer than previously known.

It ended “briefly” in 2019 when Paxton’s wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, found out, “but then it resumed and was underway again by 2020,” said Epley, a former state and federal prosecutor.

That year, Paxton renovated his million-dollar Austin home. Epley said an attorney general’s employee overheard Paxton telling a contractor that his wife wanted granite countertops. According to Epley, the contractor replied that the counters would cost $20,000 and said, “I’ll have to check with Nate.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, an outspoken cultural conservative long seen as Donald Trump’s leading rival for the Republican nomination, is set to launch his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday.

The 44-year-old Republican governor plans to announce his decision in an online conversation with Twitter CEO Elon Musk, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the announcement publicly.

The audio-only event will be streamed on Twitter Spaces beginning at 6 p.m. EDT. He will follow up with a round of prime-time appearances on conservative programs, including Fox News and Mark Levin’s radio show.

DeSantis will join a crowded Republican contest to decide whether the party will move on from Trump in 2024 as it works to retake the White House from President Joe Biden.

Beyond Trump, those already in the GOP field include former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. Former Vice President Mike Pence is expected to announce his candidacy in the coming weeks.

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RON DESANTIS
Get caught up in 1 minute
Musk gadfly has a new jet to track – the one used by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
DeSantis plans to announce 2024 bid Wednesday on Twitter Spaces with Elon Musk, sources tell AP
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DeSantis has embraced Trump’s combative style and many of his policies, but casts himself as a younger and more electable version of the former president.

In choosing Twitter, DeSantis is taking a page out of the playbook that helped turn businessman-TV celebrity Trump into a political star.

The timing of DeSantis’ long-expected announcement has been shrouded, with various iterations of plans being leaked over the past few days. Some close to him suspected that he was providing conflicting information about the timing and location to root out leakers. Others believe he changed his initial preparations after news reports came out about them.

Musk, speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit event in London on Tuesday, seemed to confirm the Wednesday event, saying DeSantis would be making “quite an announcement” on Twitter. “The first time something like this is happening on social media,” he said, with live questions and answers.

The news of DeSantis’ impending announcement came as Trump was making a video appearance in a New York courtroom as part of his criminal case. A judge tentatively scheduled Trump’s trial to begin March 25, which falls in the heart of the presidential primary season. Trump pleaded not guilty last month to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records at his family company, the Trump Organization.

DeSantis was expected to meet with donors Wednesday at the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami before the evening Twitter conversation.

While it is common for campaigns to publicize their announcements in videos shared on social media, it is far more unusual — and perhaps unprecedented — to hold a campaign announcement in a live social media forum.

“Big if true …,” DeSantis’ wife, Casey, posted Tuesday on Twitter, linking to a Fox News story on the announcement and adding a smiley face.

DeSantis has emerged as a national star in Republican politics as an unapologetic leader on controversial cultural issues.

The governor sent dozens of immigrants from Texas — by way of Florida —to a small island off the Massachusetts coast to draw attention to the influx of Latin American immigrants trying to cross the Southern border. He signed and then expanded a Parental Rights in Education bill — known by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law — which bans instruction or classroom discussion of LGBTQ issues in Florida public schools for all grades.

More recently, he signed a law banning abortions at six weeks, which is before most women realize they’re pregnant. And he removed an elected prosecutor who vowed not to charge people under Florida’s new abortion restrictions or doctors who provide gender-affirming care.

Trump’s allies mocked DeSantis’ announcement plans.

“This is one of the most out-of-touch campaign launches in modern history. The only thing less relatable than a niche campaign launch on Twitter, is DeSantis’ after party at the uber elite Four Seasons resort in Miami,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump’s super PAC.

Trump himself frequently dismisses his rival as Ron “DeSanctimonious.”

In choosing to announce with Musk, DeSantis is linking his presidential announcement to one of the world’s richest men, who has emerged as a conservative cult hero of sorts.

Since buying Twitter last October, Musk has reinstated the accounts of prominent Republicans, including Trump and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had been removed. Popular conservative broadcasters have flocked to Twitter, with ousted Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the podcast hosts of The Daily Wire announcing they will start streaming on the platform.

Musk himself has promoted far-right conspiracy theories on Twitter, including misleading claims questioning a Texas mall shooter’s background and a debunked rumor that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband had a relationship with an assailant who attacked him.

Earlier this month, Musk’s tweets likening billionaire philanthropist George Soros to a Jewish supervillain were met with criticism from the Anti-Defamation League, which said they would embolden antisemitic extremists. Musk said he would “be more thoughtful in the future.”

Twitter was once Trump’s most important megaphone — one he used to dominate his rivals in the 2016 primary and to command the news cycle for years. Trump was barred from the platform after a mob of his supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with Twitter citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.” Although his access was reinstated shortly after Musk took over, he has yet to tweet.

About 1 in 5 U.S. adults say they use Twitter, the Pew Research Center found last year.

Democrats are somewhat more likely than Republicans to say they have Twitter accounts, according to a Fox News poll from December. Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say Musk buying Twitter was a good thing and to have a favorable view of him.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott launched his presidential campaign on Monday, offering an optimistic and compassionate message he’s hoping can contrast the two figures who have used political combativeness to dominate the early GOP primary field: former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The Senate’s only Black Republican, Scott kicked off the campaign in his hometown of North Charleston, on the campus of Charleston Southern University, his alma mater and a private school affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. He repeatedly mentioned his Christian faith in his kickoff speech, crying, “Amen! Amen! Amen!” and at several points electing responses from the crowd, who sometimes chanted his name.

But Scott also offered a stark political choice, saying “our party and our nation are standing at a time for choosing: Victimhood or victory” and adding that Republicans will also have to decide between “Grievance or greatness?”

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“I choose freedom and hope and opportunity,” Scott said. He went on to the crowd that, ”We need a president who persuades not just our friends and our base” but seeks “commonsense” solutions and displays “compassion for people who don’t agree with us.”

That was a far cry from Trump, who has played to the GOP’s most loyal supporters with repeated lies about how he was denied a second term by widespread fraud that did not occur during the 2020 presidential election. DeSantis, meanwhile, has pushed Florida to the right by championing contentious new restrictions on abortion, LGBTQ rights and by seeking to limit the corporate power of Disney, one his state’s most powerful business interests.

Scott, 57, planned to huddle with home-state donors then begin a two-day campaign swing to Iowa and New Hampshire, which go first in GOP presidential primary voting.

His announcement event featured an opening prayer by Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate Republican, who said, “I think our country is ready to be inspired again.” Republican Sen. Mike Rounds, South Dakota’s other senator, has already announced his support for Scott.

A number of high-profile GOP senators have already backed Trump’s third bid for the White House, though, including Scott’s South Carolina colleague, Lindsey Graham. Trump nonetheless struck a conciliatory tone, welcoming Scott to the race in an online post Monday and noting that the pair worked together on his administration’s signature tax cuts.

A source of strength for Scott will be his campaign bank account. He enters the 2024 race with more cash on hand than any other presidential candidate in U.S. history, with $22 million left in his campaign account at the end of his 2022 campaign that he can transfer to his presidential coffers.

Scott also won reelection in firmly Republican South Carolina — which has an early slot on the Republican presidential primary calendar — by more than 20 points less than six months ago. Advisors bet that can make Scott a serious contender for an early, momentum-generating win.

But Scott is not the only South Carolina option. The state’s former governor, Nikki Haley, who also once served as Trump’s former United Nations ambassador, is also running.

Ben LeVan, a business professor at Charleston Southern who attended Monday’s event, said he’d not decided who to support in the GOP primary but didn’t plan to back Trump.

“I really do hope that we can bring some civility back in politics,” LeVan said. “That’s one of the nice things about Tim Scott, and quite frankly, Nikki Haley, and some of the other candidates as well. They’re more diplomatic, and that is something that I appreciate.”

Like others in the GOP race, including former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and “Woke, Inc.” author Vivek Ramaswamy, Scott’s initial task will be finding a way to stand out in a field led by Trump and DeSantis, the latter of whom could announce his own bid as early as this week.

One way Scott hopes to do that is his trademark political optimism. Scott often quotes Scripture at his campaign events, weaving his reliance on spiritual guidance into his speeches calling his travels before the campaign’s official launch, the “Faith in America” listening tour.

Scott said Monday that America’s promise means “you can go as high as our character, our grit, and our talent will take you.”

The Democratic National Committee responded to Scott’s announcement by dismissing the notion that Scott offers much of an alternative to Trump’s policies. DNC chair Jamie Harrison, who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in South Carolina in 2020, released a statement calling the senator “a fierce advocate of the MAGA agenda,” a reference to the former president’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

On many issues, Scott does indeed align with mainstream GOP positions. He wants to reduce government spending and restrict abortion, saying he would sign a federal law to prohibit abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy if elected president.

But Scott has pushed the party on some policing overhaul measures since the killing of George Floyd, and he has occasionally criticized Trump’s response to racial tensions. Throughout their disagreements, though, Scott has maintained a generally cordial relationship with Trump, saying in his book that the former president “listened intently” to his viewpoints on race-related issues.

When he was appointed to the Senate by then-governor Haley in 2012, Scott became the first Black senator from the South since just after the Civil War. Winning a 2014 special election to serve out the remainder of his term made him the first Black candidate to win a statewide race in South Carolina since the Reconstruction era.

He has long said his current term, which runs through 2029, would be his last.

Scott has long rejected the notion that the country is inherently racist. He’s also routinely repudiated the teaching of critical race theory, an academic framework that presents the idea that the nation’s institutions maintain the dominance of white people.