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Trump Suggests Elon Musk’s White House Tenure Nearing End Amid GOP Concerns

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President Donald Trump has informed close advisers, including Cabinet members, that Elon Musk is set to step back from his high-profile role in the administration in the coming weeks. Musk has been a key figure in the administration—spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), championing Trump’s agenda, and making waves as an unapologetically aggressive political operative in Washington.

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Adam Kinzinger Becomes First GOP Member To Call For Matt Gaetz’s Resignation 

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Illinois Representative Adam Kinzingler became the first congressional Republican to call on Florida Representative Matt Gaetz to resign and face a federal investigation into the sex trafficking allegations made against him. 

Kinzinger simply tweeted this week that “Matt Gaetz needs to resign” along with a link to a Daily Beast article that explained the allegations against Gaetz; many other major news outlets are still working to confirm the allegations and their source. 

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This isn’t Kinzingler’s first time speaking out against his own party either. During the end of 2020 especially, he constantly condemned former president Donald Trump and his administration for heavily pushing baseless claims of election fraud that aimed to attack the foundation of America’s democracy. 

No official charges have been made against Gaetz, and he has since denied all allegations made against him. Hours after the investigation and allegations were made public Gaetz was on Fox News denying any wrongdoing and claimed he was the victim of an “elaborate extortion scheme.” 

Gaetz then went on to write an op-ed piece declaring that he would “absolutely not be resigning,” and discussed how his campaign sent out fundraising pleas which blamed the media for trying to take him down. Very little GOP allies have spoken out against, or with, Gaetz, most are keeping quiet as the possibility of a federal investigation still lingers. 

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Individuals working on the potential investigation told the media that “federal investigators are seeking to determine whether Gaetz was provided travel and women in exchange for political favors as part of a broader probe. The investigation includes scrutiny of a trip to the Bahamas and whether women were paid to travel for sex with the Florida Republican congressman and others, a potential federal crime,” according to the sources. 

CNN also has previously reported on investigators looking into allegations that Gaetz had sex with an underage girl who was 17 at the time, and with other women who “provided drugs and money in violation of sex trafficking and prostitution laws.”

CBS News, which first reported on the investigation, was told by a spokeswoman: “Rep. Gaetz has never paid for sex, nor has he had sex with an underage girl. What began with blaring headlines about ‘sex trafficking’ has now turned into a general fishing exercise about vacations and consensual relationships with adults.”

Investigators are currently considering Gaetz’s connections to several associates and other government leaders in Florida who may have benefited politically from the congressman in exchange for things like campaign donations, travel, and escorts. Gatz’s lawyers have declined to comment.

US Covid Vaccine

President Biden Urging Governors To Be Patient With Vaccine Rollouts As Reopenings Begin

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Biden warned the nation this week that we must remain vigilant and protect one another from Covid-19 spreading any further while we wait to be vaccinated.

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Bernie Sanders Wins Support From Nurses Union In Major Boost For His 2020 Presidential Campaign

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Senator Bernie Sanders has received a major boost to his 2020 presidential campaign from the country’s biggest nurses’ union.

Following their endorsement of Mr. Sanders in 2016, National Nurses United have chosen to support him ahead of Elizabeth Warren, who has also laid out her own Medicare for All plan as part of her own campaign.

Members of National Nurses United have been keen advocates in Democratic politics since they started supporting Mr. Sanders and have attended his rallies and events in red t-shirts as well as canvassing neighbourhoods in swing congressional districts. This is mainly due to Mr. Sanders’ plan for a nationalized health insurance system.

There was never any real doubt that the nurses’ union were going to endorse any other candidate after being so loyal to Mr. Sanders in 2016, however he was also the only candidate to attend an in-person interview with them asking for endorsement; Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, sent a three minute video, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts spoke with them via a video call while former Vice President Joseph R Biden Jr and Senator Kamala Harris of California both declined the union’s offer to interview completely.

Mr. Sanders’ biggest rival, Ms. Warren, has also announced plans for a single-payer health insurance but despite her plans the union has decided they actually prefer the original layout of Medicare for all and therefore have stayed true to Mr. Sanders.

Who are National Nurses United?

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Created from a merger of three smaller unions in 2009, National Nurses United has around 155,000 members and is a major advocate of the liberal policies Mr. Sanders is proposing. They also played a large part in providing healthcare to the Occupy Wall Street protesters who were situated in Lower Manhattan in 2011, as well as campaigning for a financial transaction tax and single-payer health care.

And it’s not just the union that has endorsed Mr. Sanders. It also comes with the support of the union’s super PAC, a difficult situation seeing that Mr. Sanders disavowed support from super PACs, as have most of the Democrats seeking the party’s 2020 nomination.

During the 2016 campaign the union’s super PAC spent $5 million backing Mr. Sanders in his campaign against Hillary Clinton, which although it sounds like a great sum Jeb Bush had $87 million spent supporting him during the same campaign.

Bonnie Castillo, the union’s Executive Director said the super PAC ‘will be activated’ on Mr. Sanders’ behalf, however none of the union members nor the super PAC would attack or criticize any of his Democratic presidential nomination rivals.

“We’re not going negative. We are a very positive force. It’s a reflection of who we are as a profession. We are healers.”

Mr. Sanders has vowed to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling that opened the door to the super PAC era, rallying against the influence of money in politics. And thanks to Mr. Biden dropping his resistance to accepting support from these groups recently, Mr. Sanders has become even more vocal.

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At a recent event in Marshalltown, Iowa, he was quoted as saying, “I don’t need a super PAC. I am not going to be controlled by a handful of wealthy people. I will be controlled by the working people of this country.”

He backed this up by saying ‘We don’t have a super PAC’ while attending a rally in Coralville, Iowa.

Yet Mr. Sanders has not denied any support from the nurses’ unions’ super PAC in 2016, although he has repeatedly pointed out that he does not have one of his own. In fact last Monday he was eager to thank National Nurses United for their support while ignoring its super PAC.

“What the nurses understand is that the current healthcare system is not only dysfunctional but extraordinarily cruel. Together we are finally going to do what should have been done decades ago and make sure that every man, woman and child in this country has quality health care as a human right.”

Currently there have not been many major labor unions endorsing and of the 2020 presidential candidates although Mr. Biden has received the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters, while The National Union of Healthcare Workers have not only endorsed Ms. Warren but also Mr. Sanders – with Mr. Sanders also receiving the backing from The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.

National Nurses United co-president Deborah Burger has confirmed that they will continue to fight for the winner of the party’s nomination against President Trump, even if that is not Mr. Sanders, stating, “We have made a commitment to endorse Bernie Sanders, but in the end we have made a commitment to our communities that we live in that we will do whatever it takes to defeat Donald Trump.”

Major Democrat Victories in Kentucky, Virginia

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It can be tricky to try to predict the results of a presidential contest based on the results of an off-year election like the one held yesterday in the United States. But while the most recent election was not as consequential as midterm or presidential elections, the results nonetheless gave reasons for Democrats to celebrate and for Republicans to be concerned. In Kentucky, a usually deep red state and home to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is up for reelection next year, Democrat Andy Beshear beat Republican incumbent governor Matt Bevin by a slim margin. And in Virginia, as a likely consequence of a court-ordered redrawing of gerrymandered districts, Democrats won full control of the state’s government, paving the way for major policy changes including a higher minimum wage, stricter gun control laws, and the potential passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment that would ensure men and women are given equal rights under the law throughout the country.

Although Democrats have much to celebrate today, Republicans also saw some noteworthy victories. Perhaps most significantly, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves defeated Attorney General Jim Hood by about five percentage points for the position of Mississippi state governor, and the Republican party also gained some legislative seats in New Jersey. But on the whole, Democrats came out on top yesterday, making substantial gains in states across the country, including electoral victories in Pennsylvania, a state that could potentially be decisive for Trump’s reelection.

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Though Governor Matt Bevin has not yet conceded the race, the results of the election in Kentucky are unambiguous, and major news networks have called the race for challenger Andy Beshear. Bevin’s loss is particularly remarkable because of how it is connected to Donald Trump; Bevin ran his campaign by portraying himself as an ally of Trump’s, and the president even appeared in Kentucky to support the incumbent governor’s reelection. Bevin’s governing style, too, has been compared to Trump’s, as he is known for picking fights with groups who have opposed his policies, including teachers and police in the state. He also attempted to dismantle key provisions of the Affordable Care Act, which proved to be unpopular with Kentucky voters. 

Yesterday’s results show how gerrymandering, when left unchecked, can totally transform the politics of an entire state in favor of the minority party.

As such, several commentators view Bevin’s loss as a rebuke of Trumpism, and have opined that suburban voters are revolting against the GOP in the wake of impeachment proceedings and a deeply unpopular president. However, supporters of the president argue that Bevin was a uniquely troubled candidate, who lost despite Trump’s assistance, and point out that the Republican party overall did much better in the state for more local candidates farther down the ballot. That being said, the news of the upset in Kentucky is certainly cause for concern among Republicans, who normally expect easy victories in the state. The full implications of their loss remain to be seen, but the results certainly don’t give Republicans any cause for optimism in 2020, particularly because of what they mean for Mitch McConnell, perhaps the most powerful figure currently occupying the Senate.

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The most substantial governmental change undoubtedly happened in Virginia, a state where elections for legislative and executive roles are held on off years like this one. Virginia has been in the news lately for the battle over gerrymandered districts which was recently decided by the state’s courts. In Virginia, courts ordered district lines to be completely redrawn after the 2017 election, after which Republicans maintained control of significant parts of the government despite losing the popular vote overall as a result of having drawn electoral maps in their favor, in a process called “gerrymandering.” After Virginia courts ruled that the gerrymandered districts unfairly favored Republicans who drew the maps in question, these maps were redrawn, paving the way for yesterday’s Democratic victory in the state.

Yesterday’s results show how gerrymandering, when left unchecked, can totally transform the politics of an entire state in favor of the minority party, and how court-ordered redrawing of districts can cause election results to line up more closely with popular sentiments. They also suggest that impeachment is not as effective as a rallying cry as Republican strategists have hoped, and that anti-Trump sentiment helps to turn out Democratic voters even in deep red states like Kentucky. Although Virginia went for Clinton in 2016 and winning the state is not essential for Trump’s reelection, the tendency for courts to redraw gerrymandered districts in states like Virginia has ominous implications for the Republican party, who depend on gerrymandered districts to maintain in both state and national positions, and are already beleaguered by rising national support for impeachment and removal of the president from office.