The $1.2 trillion government funding bill passed, avoiding a shutdown. Trump Media's merger with DWAC was approved, valuing Trump's shares at $3 billion. Before Jan 6, Trump told Pence certifying Biden's win would end his career. Princess Kate revealed her cancer diagnosis. Rep. Gallagher resigned, narrowing the House GOP majority. An ISIS attack in Moscow killed 133. Biden's approval remains low despite improved economic sentiment. Key events and controversies in U.S. politics.
1.) On Friday (22nd), as Congress aims to pass a bill to fund the government through September -
[without funding on the 22nd - a partial govt. shutdown will begin at midnight], Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA 14th) (per Jake Sherman at punchbowl) has filed a motion to vacate the House Speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA 4th). She said she has no timeline for calling a vote on the measure. If the vote happens, it takes a majority vote to vacate the speaker. I wouldn’t expect it today.
[TS] Another potential republican speaker, eh?
[CONTEXT]
[TS] After the midterm elections in 2022, Republicans gained control of the House. A new Congress began on Jan 3rd, 2023. By majority vote, The House representatives (435) vote in a Speaker to lead the House. Typically, these are uneventful as the Speaker is known beforehand and the votes are routine.
However, the Republicans had a narrow margin and were fairly divided (“moderates” vs freedom caucus). Rep. Mike McCarthy was nominated and voted on, but did not win the speakership on the first attempt. It took days of negotiations within his party and a historic/record setting 15(!) different ballots before he was finally confirmed.
Unfortunately (foreshadowing), for McCarthy, the Freedom Caucus was pushing for measures that would:
Allow a single member to initiate a "no confidence" vote to remove the Speaker (← This is the one that matters)
Require 72 hours for bills to be reviewed before voting
Create an investigative committee on the federal government's coronavirus response
During a tumultuous period in the House where McCarthy was cutting deals with Democrats (due to low vote margins) and because of #1 above, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fl 1st) filed a motion to vacate against McCarthy. Following a largely unprecedented House floor debate between members of the majority party, McCarthy was voted out as speaker on October 3, 2023.
The measure passed 216 Y to 210 N:
[UPDATE] The House passes an omnibus bill 286-134 to avoid a shutdown at midnight. Note: The Senate would still need to vote and pass this by midnight (and the President would have to sign it). Highlights on bill:
$1.2 trillion
1,012 pages
It would provide appropriations for agencies covered under the Defense, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education, Legislative Branch and State-Foreign Operations bills, or about 70 percent of annual discretionary funding.
101 R’s against, 22 D’s against
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA 4th) gives a short presser to chat on why he’s a “no” to the omnibus bill. A notable line that is getting some media attention relates to him talking about how the democrats are going to run on this bill because it provides 22k border agents and 41.5k detention beds (1m0s in the linked video):
…And what is the left, the Democrats, what are they going to run on when they pass this bill?
22,000 border agents, 41,500 detention beds. 22,000 border agents, not on the border, not standing on the border with uniformed service members because they're back processing people illegally into the country…
CLIP:
[UPDATE2] The Senate passed the bill. Federal government is now fully funded until September 30, the end of the fiscal year.
2.) The merger between Trump Media & Technology Group (who owns Truth Social) and DWAC was approved by DWAC shareholders.
Info and backstory:
Digital World Acquisition Corp. = DWAC.
DWAC went public via an IPO in September 2021 with the aim of merging with an as-yet unnamed private company within 2 years.
In October 2021, Trump announced he was creating Trump Media & Technology Group and would merge it with DWAC to take the media company public.
The proposed $1.3 billion [at the time] merger deal was still pending regulatory approval as of mid-2022 when Trump Media launched its Truth Social platform.
Shareholders in Digital World Acquisition Corp. voted Friday (22nd) to approve a merger with Donald Trump’s social media company.
Shares in the newly combined company, Trump Media, could begin to be publicly traded next week under the stock symbol DJT, Trump’s initials.
Trump would have nearly 80 million shares in the merged company.
At DWAC’s opening share price Friday, that would be worth around $3 billion or more, although it is not clear what the merged company’s opening share price will be.
The potential windfall for Trump, while massive, could not be immediately realized, at least not under the deal’s current terms. Trump will be barred from selling shares in the merged company for at least six months, and there is no guarantee Trump Media shares will maintain the trading price level that DWAC did before the merger.
It is possible that the board of directors could vote to allow Trump to sell shares earlier than that. And that board could be stocked with people close to Trump, including his son Donald Trump Jr., former wrestling company executive Linda McMahon and Trump’s former trade representative Robert Lighthizer, according to a list of planned nominees.
If the board signed off on lifting the share lockup period, that could quickly free up a large source of cash for Trump,
[TS] I don’t understand where this valuation is coming from. What are the metrics at play here? Can someone link to an explanation as to why the value here is so high? As a point of comparison: Reddit (another social media site) is the THIRD(!) most popular website in the US:
They just went public ($RDDT) on Thu (Mar 21st) with a valuation around ~$7B ($7.31B on Fri). Truth Social on the same ranking site gets 19M views and is ranked 1,153:
The biggest institutional investor in the SPAC that’s merging with Truth Social is Susquehanna International Group LLP, which was co-founded by GOP megadonor Jeffrey Yass.
[CONTEXT]
Jeffrey Yass is a republican mega donor [the top donor in the 2024 US election cycle - donating more than $46M to Republican causes in the 2024 election cycle] and is a major investor in ByteDance (7% or $15B). Yass is speculated to be be the person behind a sudden change of heart that saw Donald Trump oppose banning the Chinese-owned video app despite having tried to do it himself while in office. Trump on Truth Social after the reversal and before the House overwhelmingly passed (onMar 13th) to regulate TikTok:
3.)NYT: Shortly before the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Trump told Mike Pence that certifying Biden’s 2020 election victory would be “a political career killer,” according to an aide.
4.) Not really news to this channel, but because it made the rounds:
There have been a lot of headlines and weirdness around Princess Kate and her recent phot that got a lot of press. Well, Fri (22nd) she released a video: She has been diagnosed with cancer. Her silence has been in the interest of explaining this to her children appropriately while recovering from surgery and beginning chemotherapy.
5.)NBCNEWS: Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI 8th) will resign early, leaving House majority hanging by a thread:
His resignation could cause more headaches for House Republicans. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who also is not seeking re-election, is resigning from Congress on Friday, cutting the GOP’s minuscule majority to 218-213. When Gallagher leaves, the majority would further shrink to 217-213, meaning Republicans could only afford a single defection on any vote if Democrats vote together.
Gallagher’s decision to leave April 19 also means that there will not be a special election to fill his seat. Under Wisconsin state law, vacancies after the second Tuesday in April are filled in the general election, so Gallagher’s replacement will be decided in November and his seat will remain empty until January.
—has told people that he is planning to take a job at Palantir, I'm told by two sources. The Wisconsin GOP anti-China hawk announced today that he is leaving Congress next month. May not be 100% done, but that's what he has told people he is doing next.
[CONTEXT] Gallagher is the Chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
[TS] I guess we’ll see…
[UPDATE3] Gallagher’s move to remain in office until the 19th prevents him from being replaced until after the Nov election. If the speaker of the House expels him before the 9th, his seat can be replaced.
[TS] Expect this to gain some steam within R’s/ freedom caucus. They will have some hurdles to clear. #1) The speaker does not have the authority to unilaterally expel a member of their own party or any other party from Congress. #2) Expulsion requires two-thirds majority vote (not just majority). Unclear if dems would vote to vacate.
[UPDATE4] Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA 14th) agrees.
Yes he should be expelled if he refuses to leave immediately in order to allow his district to hold a special election to elect a representative so that their district can have a voice for the remainder of the 118th Congress!
Biden’s approval ratings declined steeply alongside falling consumer sentiment, but as people’s perceptions of the economy have improved, his ratings have remained low.
[TS] Interesting article. Seems to point to hyper-partisanship that hasn’t quite taken hold in other democracies.
7.) ISIS terrorist attack on a Moscow Concert Hall Friday (Mar 22nd).
-133 people killed
-At least another 145 others were reported injured.
A U.S. official confirmed to NPR that the U.S. believes an Islamic State affiliate group known as Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, was responsible for the attack. The group, based in eastern Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the attack on its Telegram channel late Friday.
BBC:
The US issued an unusual warning [Mar 7th] to its citizens in Russia. It was "monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts”. The message said US citizens should avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours. Despite the delay, the similarity in the nature of the target suggests a link might be possible. But there was no indication of who those extremists might be. The White House has quickly said there is no indication that Ukraine or any Ukrainians were involved in the attack, with a spokesperson saying they wanted to "disabuse" reporters of any connection.
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