The Daily Signal - Trump in Court, Congress Extends Spending Fight 45 Days, Pro-Abortion Activist Set to Take Feinstein’s Senate Seat | Oct. 2

Starting point is 00:00:02 I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Monday, October 2nd. Here are today's headlines. Government employees were checking the news over the weekend to see if they would be coming into work today or if a government shutdown would keep them at home. While the government does remain open for now after Congress passed a continuing resolution on Saturday to fund the government for about 45 days, the road to pass that continuing resolution was a bumpy one. The final hurdle was pretty unexpected. New York Democrat Representative Jamal Bowman pulled a fire alarm in a Capitol office building Saturday, just as the House was preparing to vote on the spending bill.

Starting point is 00:00:56 Now, Bowman is under investigation for his actions, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says Bowman's actions should not go without punishment. Bowman claims that pulling the alarm was an accident. Ultimately, the continuing resolution to fund the government was voted on and passed through Congress. The bill keeps government agencies funded at the current level until November 17th. The bill passed 335-91 in the House and 88 to 9 in the Senate. President Joe Biden signed the bill on Saturday night. So it's a short-term fix. Congress now has about seven weeks to finish passing the 12 appropriations bills to fund the government for the new fiscal year.

Starting point is 00:01:39 Will the bills actually pass? I spoke with the Heritage Foundation's director of the Grover M. Herman Center for their federal budget, Richard Stern, and ask him that very question. The four that have gotten done are the ones that there was the most agreement on. All of them have had a lot of fights. They've been a little bit of a dumpster fire in terms of the politics on it. But they've gotten done. And actually, a lot of those four bills, they've had provisions at different points of time. People looked and said, you know what, this is not going to happen.

Starting point is 00:02:08 There's no chance it's going to get done. And you know what? They've gotten it done. So what I would say is, you know, the House leadership is, I think, very carefully going from the lowest-taining fruit to the highest-daining fruit. So we're a third off of the way up the tree. We'll see where the rest of it goes. But I'm still encouraged that there's room for negotiation and putting these bills together. Of course, not everyone was in favor of passing the continuing resolution. There were 90 Republicans who voted against the short-term government funding bill.

Starting point is 00:02:34 And the spending fight could be made a bit more complicated in the House. Speaker Kevin McCarthy is ousted from his position as Speaker. Florida Republican Representative Matt Gates says he broke his agreement with Republicans by bringing the continuing resolution to the floor for a vote. And Gates plans to introduce a movement to vacate McCarthy as Speaker of the House. It's not yet clear how much support Gates has among Republicans to remove McCarthy, but he wouldn't need much. It would just take about five Republicans and all Democrats to vote against McCarty.

Starting point is 00:03:09 and he would be removed. Now, it is possible that some Democrats would choose to back McCarthy. If McCarthy is ousted, Richard Stern says that the debate over government spending and funding would likely be delayed further. I don't know that it actually affects the negotiations that much, other than it delays them. And in fact, if that happens, we might be more likely to get the Christmas fight as opposed to a meaningful Thanksgiving fight. But fundamentally, right, the spending negotiations are about where everyone is in Congress, Congress. And I think that's pretty well known and you have a lot of different fractious camps across the left and the right. So, you know, in an odd sense, I don't know that those negotiations

Starting point is 00:03:47 tee off that much on who's actually in leadership. I think it has to relate to kind of the lay of the ground that's already there. As for McCarthy, he doesn't seem too worried. He told reporters on Saturday, if somebody wants to remove me because I want to be the adult in the room, go ahead and try. In other news today, we have an update. on former president Donald Trump's legal troubles. The former president was in court in New York for a civil case today. The case was brought against Trump by New York Attorney General Letitia James. James has accused Trump of deceiving banks, insurers, and others by misrepresenting his wealth

Starting point is 00:04:27 and financial statements. That's according to the Associated Press. The allegations Trump faces include claims that the former president lied about the size of his Trump Tower apartment in Manhattan, reportedly claiming it was almost three times its actual size and worth $327 million. Trump spoke to the press before the hearings started this morning and called the case a witch hunt per ABC News. So very simply put, it's a witch hunt. It's a disgrace. We have a corrupt attorney general in this state. You see how she does? This trial was railroaded and fast track. This trial could have been brought years ago, but they waited until I was right

Starting point is 00:05:12 in the middle of my campaign. Donald Trump's two adult sons, Don Jr. and Eric are also named the lawsuit. If Trump is found guilty of fraud, the Trump family real estate firm could be prevented from doing business in New York. This would mean that Trump would be required to sell his New York real estate portfolio, including Trump Tower. Now, this trial could last until December, So stay tuned. We learned Friday that California Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein had passed away, and we learned this morning that California Governor Gavin Newsom plans to appoint LaFanza Butler to fill that vacant seat. Butler is a pro-abortion activist and currently serves as president of the pro-abortion organization, Emily's List.

Starting point is 00:05:58 Emily's List says on its website that they work to elect Democratic pro-choice women up and down the ballot and across the country with a goal of fighting for our rights and our communities. Butler is expected to be sworn into the Senate on Wednesday, and Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to swear her in. A special election will be held next November for the Senate seat. Of course, Butler could choose to run for the position in hopes of finishing out Feinstein's Senate term. But we also know that representatives Barbara Lee, Representative Adam Schiff, and Representative Katie Porter have already announced that they will run for Senate in California.

Starting point is 00:06:40 Well, Washington, D.C. is always fascinated by polling, but especially when elections are around the corner. And polling shows that Americans don't have a favorable view of the economy right now, and that could be a problem for Democrats and specifically for the Biden administration. The Biden re-election campaign has branded the economy under the president's name, And Axios is reporting that this could have been a major mistake since the public remains very pessimistic about the state of America's economy. A new NBC poll found that just 28 and every 100 Americans say they are very or somewhat satisfied with the state of the economy. That's the lowest level of economic satisfaction in nearly a decade of NBC's polling on this issue, according

Starting point is 00:07:32 to Axios. Overall, Biden's economic approval rating is 37% and 59% of those polled say they disapprove of Biden's performance. Even though inflation has come down since last year and unemployment has improved, Americans' view of Bidenomics remains poor. Right now, Americans view Republicans as more favorable on the economy, according to NBC's polling, Republicans hold a 21-point average over Democrats on the economy. That's the largest lead that the GOP has had in about three decades. The economy remains a major issue for voters as we look towards the 2024 presidential election. Finally, a little bit of international news today, but that also relates closely to events here in Washington, D.C. In some troubling news related to Iran, we have learned that a Biden

Starting point is 00:08:29 administration official reportedly helped to fund support and direct an Iranian intelligence operation. Robert Malley is the former Iran envoy but has been suspended by the Biden administration. The tablet is reporting that Mali was involved in an Iranian intelligence operation that was designed to influence the United States and allied governments. A group of stolen emails from the Iranian government reveal that a group of Iranian-American American academics were recruited by the Iranian regime and met together in foreign countries to receive instructions from top regime officials and pledge their personal loyalty to the regime. That's according to the tablet.

Starting point is 00:09:14 The emails also show that these operatives used their Iranian heritage and Western academic positions to influence U.S. policy towards Iran, first as outside experts and then from high-level U.S. government positions. Both inside and outside of government, the efforts of members of this circle were repeatedly supported in advance by Mali. Mali served as the U.S. government's chief interlocker with Iran under both Obama and the Biden administrations. The tablet's report comes at the same time that we have learned that Iran has capability

Starting point is 00:09:51 to produce a nuclear bomb in less than two weeks if they wanted to. Iran could produce enough fissile material to make a bomb in just 14 days, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But the U.S. Defense Department reports that it has assessed that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program at this time. But on Friday, the U.S. did accuse Iran of noncompliance with obligations made under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Iran has not submitted a complete chemical weapons production facility.

Starting point is 00:10:26 declaration, which is a requirement under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Check out today's show notes for a link to the tablet's piece to dive a little bit deeper into this story. But with that, that's going to do it for today's episode of the Daily Signal's top news. If you have not had a chance, make sure you check out our morning show. It's right here in the same podcast feed where every weekday we bring you interviews with lawmakers, experts, and leading conservative voices. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to be sitting down with a voice that you heard just earlier on this

Starting point is 00:10:55 podcast, Richard Stern, as we dive a little bit deeper into what exactly is happening in America related to spending, how Congress is moving forward, and what we can expect in the next 45 days, and whether we will or won't see a government shutdown. Also, make sure to take a moment to subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you like to listen to podcast and take a minute to leave us a five-star rating and review. Thanks again for being with us today. Have a wonderful evening. We'll see you right back here 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.

Starting point is 00:11:37 Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheris. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visitdailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - Trump in Court, Congress Extends Spending Fight 45 Days, Pro-Abortion Activist Set to Take Feinstein’s Senate Seat | Oct. 2

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