The Daily Signal - Kevin McCarthy to Resign, House May Hold Hunter Biden in Contempt, Trump’s Plan to Tackle National Debt | Dec. 6

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm Brian Gottstein, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Wednesday, December 6th. Here are today's headlines. Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy announced on Wednesday that he'll resign from Congress at the end of December. The California Republican, who was ousted from the speakership in October, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he was resigning to serve his country in other ways. Quote, it often seems the more that Washington does the worst America gets. McCarthy wrote, I started my career as a small business owner, and I look forward to helping entrepreneurs and risk takers reach their full potential. The challenges we face are more likely to be solved by innovation than legislation. McCarthy was elected to Congress in 2007 and voted in

Starting point is 00:01:00 as Speaker of the House in 2023 after a long, contentious 15 rounds of voting. And in October, he became the first speaker to be ousted during his term. With McCarthy's departure and the recent expulsion of Representative George Santos of New York, Republicans will have a narrower two-seat majority in the House of Representatives. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan are threatening to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress, according to a report from Fox News. This comes after Biden's lawyer said that his client wouldn't testify. unless it was in a public setting. Comer, a Kentucky Republican, subpoenaed the president's son to

Starting point is 00:01:44 appear before a closed-door committee meeting on December 13th. Biden's lawyer said in a letter to Comer that Hunter Biden was, quote, making this choice because the committee has demonstrated time and again it uses closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts, and misinformed the American public. A hearing would ensure transparency and truth in these proceedings. The committee has asked Hunter to testify as part of its investigation into whether President Joe Biden abused his office while he was vice president to engage in illicit foreign business deals. Comer and Jordan responded to Biden's lawyer saying that Hunter wouldn't receive special treatment and would be expected to show up whether it was a public or private hearing. They stated that there could be a more public hearing in addition to the private one. According to the New York Post, Biden's lawyer responded that his client wasn't seeking special treatment

Starting point is 00:02:41 and that he sought the public hearing for the sake of transparency. President Joe Biden has denied any wrongdoing and said the allegation that he met with his son's business associates was a bunch of lies. Former President Donald Trump revealed his strategy to pay down the national debt without touching entitlement programs. and he also discussed the global consequences of President Joe Biden's exit from Afghanistan and other issues Tuesday night in a live town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity. The Daily Signal Fred Lucas covered the Trump town hall from Davenport, Iowa, less than a month before the Iowa caucuses on January 15th. One of the questions Hannity asked was whether Trump would become a dictator,

Starting point is 00:03:28 as many media stories have suggested. Trump responded by saying that the Biden administration and Democrats in general have acted in a dictator way toward him. He said jokingly that he would only be a dictator on day one when he closes the border and loosens regulations on oil drilling. It's so important. We are going to do things. We're going to close the border. Day one, the border gets closed. And day one and a half, we drill. You know, we drill baby drill. Grill, drill, drill, drill, drill, drill, drill, drill, drill. Trump said that by increasing oil drilling, he'd help alleviate the national debt without touching Social Security or other entitlement programs. He also spoke about the Afghanistan withdrawal, saying that the chaos of the exit is what triggered the Russian war in Ukraine. Right now, we're not a great country. We're a country in decline. We are a declining country. We're left out all over the world. People that respected us three years ago, and they respected us. You wouldn't have Ukraine and Russia.

Starting point is 00:04:31 You wouldn't have had the attack on Israel. You wouldn't have had that withdrawal. You would have withdrawn, but we would have withdrawn from Afghanistan with tremendous strength and power. And that's the way I had it set up. Two conservative media outlets are suing the State Department over its role in censoring Americans. According to the Washington Examiner, the new Civil Liberties Alliance filed a lawsuit on Tuesday on behalf of the Daily Wire and the Federalist in federal district court in Texas. The lawsuit cites the work of the State Department's Global Engagement Center, which, through

Starting point is 00:05:08 the Global Disinformation Index, rated various news websites for levels of, quote, misinformation. According to another Washington Examiner report by Gabe Kaminsky, this was part of an effort to blacklist and defund conservative media. The Daily Wire and the Federalists both have said that they brought this lawsuit to prevent the government from trampling on free speech rights. The examiner reported that Congress is considering a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that would prevent the Defense Department from using organizations to label news websites as misinformation or attempt to censor Americans through proxies. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal's Top News. If you haven't gotten a chance, be sure to check out our morning show right here in this podcast feed, where we interview lawmakers, experts, and leading consultants. conservative voices. Join us tomorrow morning for the Daily Signal interview edition. Tyler O'Neill will be

Starting point is 00:06:09 sitting down with the head of Moms for Liberty, Tiffany Justice. Also, make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcast and help us to reach more listeners by leaving a five-star rating in review. We read all of your feedback. Thanks again for listening. Have a great night and we'll be back with you tomorrow morning. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheris. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop.

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The Daily Signal - Kevin McCarthy to Resign, House May Hold Hunter Biden in Contempt, Trump’s Plan to Tackle National Debt | Dec. 6

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