Hello it's the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕

If the beltway publications are to be believed, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) pulled off a stunning, totally unexpected legislative victory that will force President Joe Biden to shuffle up to the negotiating table, head hung, where Republicans have been waiting, patiently and maturely.

No.

McCarthy — by the barest of margins and after having feted undecided Republicans in the speaker suite for hours — passed a Republican wishlist that would repeal swaths of the Inflation Reduction Act, weaken federal agencies and make it harder for low-income people to get health care and food stamps.

Now Republicans are claiming — and many news outlets are helpfully echoing — that it's on Democrats to negotiate, since Republicans have handed over a ransom note. These outlets tend to suggest less that perhaps Republicans should just help lift the debt ceiling (which is completely divorced from future spending), avert economic catastrophe, then fight with Democrats about government spending when it comes time to pass the budget. But that wouldn't provide the breathless, kinetic coverage opportunities of throwing the onus from one party to the other.

Fundamentally, nothing has changed. Republicans still want to use the debt ceiling as leverage; Democrats still want to pass a clean extension/raise. If anything, Republicans have made it less likely that Democrats will bow to their will, given how replete with poison pills their wishlist is.

It's a dangerous situation. As the Republican Party has marched to the right, it only makes it more likely that its members won't do the responsible thing at the last minute, that they'll drive the country off of a cliff. And Democrats have learned the lessons of administrations past, and are less likely than ever to keep rewarding Republicans for playing with fire.

But at the very least, we can be honest about what's going on here. Republicans are willing to gamble the American, and global, economy. McCarthy did not end this week with a massive victory — he only pushed us closer to the brink.

More on other news below. Let's dig in. 

— Kate Riga

Tuckered Out

A lot of the Tucker Carlson coverage this week read like an obituary; RIP to the Father Coughlin of Fox, farewell to the crown prince of the accelerationist right. What was the cause of his passing? Angering Rupert? Misogynistic text messages? Tanking the Dominion lawsuit?

I think that treatment is partly due to the nature of the beast — he was chained to his lucrative primetime time slot on Fox, and with that gone, so is he. But it's also a function of the nature of what he produced. Tucker managed to get the followings that he did in a similar way to how social media platforms like YouTube once did: by feeding people ever-more shocking narratives, bringing them down an addictive rabbit hole.

It's never boring, is one thing, and is often surprising. Maybe Tucker would make a feint towards aggressive anti-trust policy; maybe he would suggest that whites are slowly being replaced by immigrants as part of a global cabal. So in that way, his departure feels more pronounced because with him goes the shocks that he produced. But it makes me wonder how Fox News plugs the whole — and retrieves the audience — that his departure will leave behind.

— Josh Kovensky

'Florida Laid A Trap For Its Citizens'

The League of Women Voters of Florida filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration for failing to update its voter registration process, which has become a minefield for formerly incarcerated residents. "Florida enacted a byzantine statutory scheme for the restoration of voting rights following felony convictions that made it 'sometimes hard, sometimes impossible' for returning citizens (Floridians with past felony convictions) to determine their eligibility to vote," their complaint said.

The voter registration application requires formerly incarcerated applicants to check a box stating "I affirm that I am not a convicted felon, or if I am, my right to vote has been restored," with the expectation that they're familiar with the rules. The application does not, however, explain those rules: Former felons' rights are automatically restored upon completion of their sentences, including probation, parole or payment of any court-ordered financial obligations, while those convicted of murder or sex crimes can have their rights restored through clemency. As a result, dozens of Floridians have been arrested for voting illegally, even though they thought their rights were restored.

Since voters passed Amendment 4, a ballot initiative reinstating former felons' right to suffrage, back in 2018, Florida Republicans have actively sought to muck up the process by modifying the legislation to limit its reach. But they've used inaction to their advantage as well: The application hasn't been updated since it was adopted in 2013 to account for the sea change in eligibility rules. As the Campaign Legal Center's Blair Bowie told TPM: "Florida laid a trap for its citizens."

— Kaila Philo

Don't Bring An Off-The-Rack to A Bespoke Fight

I tend to believe much of contemporary conservative politics is predicated on misunderstanding something and then immediately getting very mad about it. There are serious examples of this sort of thing — like attempts to ban Critical Race Theory and Trans people. But there are also low stakes instances that don't involve human rights abuses, which can be both entertaining and educational. Enter: Jackson Hinkle who seems to be the offspring of Grift and Performative Masculinity. His identity is a Gen Z MAGA guy who says things like "Gen Z is pro-gun." Hinkle was recently the victim of some good ol' fashion citizen journalism in which he was called out for either lying or not knowing what "bespoke" means.

One can never be sure.

You could say, who cares about Hinkle? And I'd say, yea, I hear you. But this really inane interaction is a good example of a cycle often used for more important issues: Make a claim, get called out for it, belittle the person calling you out as "making it political", and then ride off into the sunset a victor. Fortunately, Hinkle can't pull it off. But others can, and do.

— Joe Ragazzo

"People like you need to admit that you're just a political activist. Not a teacher, not a mother and not a medical doctor." 

That's Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) attacking American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten during a congressional hearing on school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The MAGA-aligned conspiracy theorist congresswoman's attacks are simply based on the fact that Weingarten is a "mother by marriage."

Unsurprisingly, MTG has made similar comments before, claiming someone is not really considered a mother unless they give birth to the child in question.

Last summer she went on a bizarre rant, saying that children are in great danger because of "fake mom and fake dad(s)." In her definition that's anyone who's parenting a non-biological child.

Quite a stance to take for someone who claims to be pro-life.

— Emine Yücel 

Hello it's the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕

For years, abortion served as a critical electoral carrot for Republicans, helping them juice turnout even for flawed candidates based on the driving imperative to a) overturn Roe and b) ban the procedure.

The chickens have come home to roost.

As election after election proves that voters are punishing Republicans for their extreme stances on abortion, 2024 candidates are facing an extremely difficult dilemma. They have to find a way to appease their anti-abortion stalwarts, while positioning themselves on the issue in a way that's palatable to a more moderate general election audience.

So far, they've struggled.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) finally made mention of the six-week ban he just signed at a Heritage Foundation speech Friday — after signing the bill behind closed doors and avoiding mentioning it even before a friendly Liberty University crowd.

Former President Donald Trump tried to thread the needle on the issue this week, his campaign telling the Washington Post that the Supreme Court got it right when it left the issue to the states. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a major anti-abortion organization, was … not happy. The group said it would oppose any presidential candidate that didn't support a 15-week national ban.

This difficulty is even evident in elected Republicans' resounding silence after recent anti-abortion decisions on mifepristone, which Democrats are yelling about from the rooftops.

For years, Republicans have worked to craft a judiciary that would deliver on their anti-abortion aims. Well, now they've got it. 

More on other news below. Let's dig in. 

— Kate Riga

An Infinite Loop of Bad Faith

At Fox News, it's always the week after the 2020 election, the day Clinton email fever was at its highest pitch, the hour when the left stumbles over itself in corruption and incompetence and the right remains the bastion of sturdy old values.

It's an editorial stance which has been incredibly effective in forming an alternate reality for millions of Americans, stoking real, deep emotions that keep its audience oriented towards the GOP's priorities. But over the past decades, Fox News has typically been able to walk the line between the kind of mendacity that serves as a particularly effective messaging wing of the Republican party and the makings of a massive defamation case.

But Donald Trump becoming the ringmaster of the Republican Party — and, by extension, — Fox News' base, flipped that equation. Instead of Fox News leading its viewers, the audience, led by Trump's ego, could exert enough pressure to guide Fox News into, let's say, a series of multi-billion dollar lawsuits with aggrieved voting machine companies.

That's what happened after the 2020 election when, messages obtained and released by Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation lawsuit against Fox show, the news network boosted claims about Dominion's involvement in comically absurd claims of voter fraud in order to retain market share among its Trump-loving base.

Fox and Dominion agreed to settle this week for $787.5 million. But by all indications, the underlying relationship between Fox, its content, and its audience has not changed. And it's far from clear that the settlement itself — while enormous — will cause any change, or push any of Fox's investors to change.

What might effect that, some have noted, is the prospect of these kinds of defamation suits becoming a regular expense for right-wing news networks — the prospect of having to regularly fund nine-figure defamation settlements could cause some investors to push for change. Less optimistically, as the Dominion records showed, those within Fox understood the bargain between them, Trump, and their audience perfectly clearly. The lies, and the $787.5 million, are just the cost of business.

— Josh Kovensky

Will GOP Obstruction Continue In Feinstein Saga?

The saga around longtime Sen. Diane Feinstein's (D-CA) Judiciary Committee seat put Republicans in the spotlight this week, forcing some of them to make a commitment not to break from established procedures.

It all started when Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) set off alarm bells around the Capitol on Wednesday when he said there's a strong possibility Senate Republicans would refuse to fill the vacancy on the Judiciary Committee even if Feinstein (D-CA) were to resign. Tester's suggestion that Republicans might try to block Democrats from getting back their majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee — and block them from confirming Biden's judicial nominees — ricocheted around the Capitol like a heat-seeking missile this week, according to a Democratic senator's senior aide who talked to TPM.

But top Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans — including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John Cornyn (R-TX) —  have been insisting they would not go that far – likely because blocking a replacement for a retiring senator would be a dramatic break from precedent and could very well come back to bite them in the ass in the future. So Republican Senators, at least for now, are saying they will let Democrats fill Feinstein's seat on the Judiciary Committee if she decides to retire. But as always best to take that with a grain of salt.

— Emine Yücel

Ron's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Very Bad Week

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) had a pretty bad week. Florida House Republicans, like Reps. Anna Paulina Luna and Byron Donalds, were lining up to endorse Donald Trump for president in 2024, so his team reached out to a handful of their compatriots in Florida's Republican congressional delegation to delay their endorsements in the near future.

It (mostly) didn't work. Rep. Laurel Lee, who used to be his secretary of state, announced that she would endorse him, but the week saw a steady parade of congress members opting for Trump instead. Since Monday, the former president has been collecting endorsements from Florida's congressional delegation like Infinity Stones: Reps. Brian Mast, Michael Waltz, Gus Bilirakids, Greg Steube, Carlos Gimenez, and more all announced their intentions to support the Trump campaign. They even had a celebratory dinner.

DeSantis, meanwhile, has been losing favorability on his home turf: Politico reported on Thursday that Republicans in the state legislature have grown tired of acting like "the party of cancel culture" for the governor's developing campaign. So far, #DeSantis2024 is looking real Jeb!-ish.

— Kaila Philo

"I don't want to break all expectations. I want you to follow it. I want you to be on the floor. I want the anticipation. I want you to see. I want you to see as the clock goes up. I want you to write stories like I'm teetering, whether I can win or not. The whole world hangs in the balance and then I want you to write a story after it passes with the President sit down and negotiate." 

That's House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) this week when a reporter asked him if he has the votes to pass the spending cuts bill — which he finally released on Thursday after months of yelling about amorphous "CUTS" and disingenuously tying the debt ceiling to spending — and to free the debt ceiling from his own hostage taking.

If you were reluctant to take our word for it the past couple of months, here is — in McCarthy's own words — why he and House Republicans manufactured this fake crisis around the debt ceiling.

They want the attention. They want to be able to claim Democrats are unreasonable and unwilling to negotiate on something they don't have to negotiate on. He wants the headlines and the fake pressure campaign and the drama. All while risking economic damage around the globe. 

— Emine Yücel 

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