The Daily Signal - McConnell Steps Down, Biden and Trump Win Michigan Primaries, Fires Rage in Texas | Feb. 28

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm Brian Gottstein, and this is the Daily Signal top news for Wednesday, February 28th. Here are today's headlines. Senator Mitch McConnell will step down from his minority leader position in November, according to a report by the Daily Signal's Mary Margaret O'Lehann. The minority leader is the senior most position in the Senate for the party out of power. The 82-year-old senator will have been the longest-serving Senate leader in U.S. history. McConnell spoke in the Senate about his retirement. This is from the Hill.

Starting point is 00:00:47 I stand before you today, Mr. President, and my colleagues to say this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. However, I'll complete my job. My colleagues are given me until we select a new leader in November, and they take the helm. next January. I'll finish the job the people of Kentucky hired me to do as well. I'll be it from a different seat, and I'm actually looking forward to that. According to the Associated Press, while he's stepping down from his leadership position,

Starting point is 00:01:33 McConnell says he plans to serve out his Senate term, which ends January 2027. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump won their respective Democratic. and Republican presidential primaries in Michigan on Tuesday. Biden won his uncontested race with over 80% of the vote, but over 10% of Democrat voters voted uncommitted. According to the Hill, Democrat Representative Rashida Taleb, a member of the far-left squad, urged Michigan voters to vote uncommitted

Starting point is 00:02:09 to voice their protest over the administration's support of Israel in its war against Hamas. On the Republican side, Trump defeated former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, getting over 65% of the vote. Trump won Michigan by a larger margin than he received in the Republican primary in South Carolina. South Carolina is Haley's home state, and she was expected to do better there. President Joe Biden's son Hunter testified at a closed-door deposition on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Hunter Biden was brought in before. the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees to testify about his foreign business dealings

Starting point is 00:02:52 and their relation to his father. According to NBC News, Biden said in a prepared opening statement, I'm here today to provide the committee with one uncontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry. I did not involve my father in my business. He said that he didn't involve his father in his business when he was a practicing lawyer in his domestic or international investments as a member of several different boards or as an artist. Biden said that the hearings were the product of MAGA-motivated conspiracies and said that the committees don't have anything that could implicate his father in wrongdoing. Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said that the committee has evidence that

Starting point is 00:03:38 President Joe Biden was the brand used to enrich the Biden family. According to NBC News, Comer said that President Biden knew of, participated in, and benefited from the schemes. That he attended dinners, spoke on speakerphone, showed up to meetings, and had coffee with his son's foreign business associates. Comer said that his committee documented how Joe Biden met with nearly all of his sons' foreign business associates as they were collectively funneling millions of dollars to the Bidens. Democrats in the hearings dismissed the investigation. Democrat represent Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said that the whole investigation has been a waste of legislative time and the American people's resources.

Starting point is 00:04:28 Governor Greg Abbott declared a 60-day emergency on Tuesday after a series of wildfires has devastated parts of the Texas Panhandle. Abbott said in his declaration that the state is ready to provide support to its local partners and deploy all resources needed to protect Texans and. their property. The fires together are the second largest in Texas's history. They've expanded to nearly 800 square miles, according to the Associated Press, and they remain uncontained. According to reports, the cause of the fires has yet to be determined, but the hot, dry, and windy conditions have made them worse. So far, no deaths have been attributed to the blaze, but there have been mass evacuations and a great deal of property damage. Catholic churches in the United States have been attacked at least 400 times over the past four years,

Starting point is 00:05:23 according to data compiled by the Catholic Advocacy Organization, Catholic Vote. This is according to a report by the Daily Signals, Mary Margaret O'Lehann. Catholic Vote said that hundreds of attacks across the nation began in connection with the widespread civil unrest in May 2020 after George Floyd's death. Examples have included church burnings, beheading, beheadings of statues of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, swastikas painted on gravestones, satanic and blasphemous statements graffeted on walls, windows smashed, masses disrupted, and even the murder of a Catholic priest. The leak of the draft Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade led to another spike in attacks. Since the leak, there have been

Starting point is 00:06:07 236 attacks on Catholic churches. Catholic vote has only found evidence of arrest and about 25% of the cases it tracked and estimates that the attacks have caused around $25 million in physical damages to the churches. Many of these attacks seem to be abortion-related and include graffiti such as, if abortions aren't safe, then neither are you, indicating that the attackers could potentially be charged with violating the freedom of access to clinic entrances or face act, a federal law that protects churches, pro-life pregnancy centers, and even abortion clinics that the Department of Justice has used to charge dozens of pro-lifers preying outside of abortion clinics over the past few years. However, President Joe Biden's

Starting point is 00:06:54 Department of Justice has not charged any vandals with face act violations in connection to the attacks on churches. The 400th attack the Catholic vote recorded involved transgender activists who used deception to hold a, quote, sacrilegious funeral at St. Patrick's Cathedral. in New York City for an atheist transgender identifying prostitute, Cecilia Gentile. A federal court ruled on Tuesday that Congress lacked the constitutionally required quorum to pass the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. According to a report by the Federalist, this means in part that the Biden administration can't enforce new mandates it imposed on Texas by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which was part of the spending bill. The Pregnant

Starting point is 00:07:45 Workers' Fairness Act required employers to make, quote, reasonable accommodations to employees who are pregnant or have related medical conditions. A Texas lawsuit claimed that Congress didn't have the number of members physically present to reach quorum the day the bill passed. According to the Constitution, a majority of the legislative body must be present to reach quorum and vote. The House, which was controlled by Democrats at the time, allowed members to vote by proxy on the bill in December 2022. On that day, only 201 members were physically present, which is obviously not a majority of the 435 member body. Federal Judge James Hendricks concluded that by including members in the quorum count who were actually absent, the Appropriations Act

Starting point is 00:08:33 was passed in violation of the Constitution. The decision left $1.7 trillion in appropriations untouched, though most of that money has already been spent. 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, do sure to check out our morning show right here in this podcast feed, where we interview lawmakers, experts, and leading conservative voices. Make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:09:03 And help us to reach more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review. We read all of your feedback. Thanks again for listening. Have a great night, and we'll be back with you all tomorrow morning. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop.

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The Daily Signal - McConnell Steps Down, Biden and Trump Win Michigan Primaries, Fires Rage in Texas | Feb. 28

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