January 3, 2025
Happy New Year, everyone. It looks like 2025 is going to be just as “interesting” as 2024 was…
Sideswiping Surprises, Johnson Stays Speaker
As I’ve mentioned previously, before the new session of Congress can do literally anything else, they need to elect a Speaker of the House. This was cause for some significant drama a year ago when Kevin McCarthy became the first time a speaker failed to win support on the first round of voting (it eventually took 15 rounds for him); a similar situation was repeated a few months later when McCarthy was ousted and Mike Johnson (R-LA) finally took his place. And for today, an initial roll-call vote looked to be going the same way, as three Republican members of the House voted for someone other than Johnson. With 434 members in attendance (former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has yet to be replaced), Johnson needed a solid majority of 218 votes to be elected, and with all 215 Democrats voting for their leader, Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), any more than a single GOP defection was enough to prevent his election.
Right after the roll call vote procedure had ended, but before the vote was officially gaveled out, Johnson took aside two of the three holdouts. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who was the third, had vowed not to vote for Johnson, and was not involved in the conversation. The other two, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) and Rep. Keith Self (R-TX), ultimately changed their votes to support Johnson, who consequently avoided the embarrassment of yet another failed first round of voting. That being said, expect today’s rough start to be a harbinger of a rocky road ahead for the 119th Congress.
New Year’s Day Attacks Defy Initial Attempts at Politicalization
Two separate, but oddly-linked events occurring on New Year’s Day have baffled investigators and politicians trying to pin motivations on the now-deceased perpetrators.
First, a man plowed a truck into a crowd of people on New Orleans’ famous Bourbon Street on New Year’s Day, killing 14 and injuring around 30 others. The attacker was then killed in a firefight with police at the scene. The man flew an Islamic State flag from his truck, and house before the attack, had posted videos on his Facebook proclaiming support for the terrorist organization. Not long after news broke, President-elect Donald Trump took to his social media site to blame “migrant terrorists”, while House Speaker Mike Johnson made a comment yesterday morning on Fox News about “terrorism and the wide-open border”. This was despite the fact that the man was a U.S. Army veteran from Texas.
Another Army veteran, on holiday leave from assignment in Germany, was involved in another truck-related incident in Las Vegas. In this situation, the perpetrator bought two firearms, rented a Tesla Cybertruck in Denver, filled it up with fireworks and fuel tanks, and drove it 1,000 miles away to outside the front door of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, at which point the man shot himself in the head, and the truck exploded. This event resulted in no other injuries, other than the perpetrator, a father of an 8-month-old child. Initial attempts to paint this as a form of anti-Trump protest have been rebuffed by colleagues and family of the man, who have stated that he “had a lot of respect for Mr. Trump — he just loved the guy.”
Both subjects had served at one time or another served at Fort Bragg (now known as Fort Liberty) in North Carolina, although seemingly not at the time. Both had also served tours of duty in Afghanistan in 2009, although there are no indications that they crossed paths at that time, either. And a final odd note of similarity: both men used the same company to rent their trucks, Turo. Investigators continue to dig into motivations for both men.
Biden Stops Steel Sale
Citing national security concerns, President Joe Biden this morning announced that he was blocking the nearly $15 billion proposed sale of Pittsburg-based U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel of Japan. This backs up his earlier vow from during his aborted re-election campaign to prevent the acquisition, which was cheered on by the United Steelworkers union. Trump has also opposed the acquisition, vowing to not only block the deal himself, but to use tariffs to try to boost U.S. Steel’s fortunes.
Both U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel criticized the decision in a joint statement, calling it a “violation of due process”, and suggesting that they would sue to let the sale continue. Federal law does indeed give the president the power to prevent such a transaction, although the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), failed to reach a consensus on potential national security risks. The failure of the deal could damage relations between the U.S. and Japan, with just weeks left before Biden leaves office.
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